Comment

Comment by dahfizz

How do you power the grid with 90% solar when the sun only shines 40% of the day during the winter?

Renewable optimists consistently under-estimate the storage problem by orders of magnitude. We don't have enough batteries on Earth to hold one single day's worth of electricity. And for us to actually rely on solar, we would need to store multiple months of electricity to survive the winter.

Solar is cheap because you're comparing a generation source that works on occasion with a generation source that works 24/7.

I'm not anti-solar at all. But I am realistic about what we can and can't do with it. The thing that will make a solar grid practical _today_ is focusing on variable loads. When the sun is shining, we should be cranking the AC of every home and office, smelting aluminum, filling dams, etc.

parent dahfizz 3 years ago

Discussion

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton