A similar cultural statement to this X post, just with a higher price tag … https://x.com/energy/status/1950904421669318868?s=46&t=bC_eC...
Readit Newsflgb commented on $3.1B annual cost estimated for fossil fuel plants DOE won't allow to retire utilitydive.com/news/doe-... · Posted by u/toomuchtodo
flgb commented on Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral economist.com/finance-and... · Posted by u/blackhawkC17
> Instead the entire paradigm of centralized generation may need to be called into question and we should instead be focusing on a hybrid centralized baseline + local generation and storage
I don't think that moving the generation around is really an "instead", because the problem at hand is that distribution is expensive and someone has to pay for it if you want a grid. And most of that cost is the local stuff.
So how do you get everyone connected that wants to be, without it costing them a ton of money? You might have to make the grid cost into a mandatory tax.
Whether the electric company is private or state-owned is mostly a separate issue.
It’s not 100% “instead”, but equally it’s not 0%. A grid with more distributed generation (and storage and load flexibility) can be smaller and cheaper.
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flgb commented on What if Germany had invested in nuclear power? tandfonline.com/doi/full/... · Posted by u/pdubouilh
The framing in the article is that Germany made a purely technical decarbonization policy choice between renewable energy and nuclear power and chose incorrectly, but this is too reductive.
Germany has a long history of public opposition to nuclear power, going back over 50 years, and this is related to environmental concerns, safety concerns, and the association with nuclear weapons.
Both the USA and the Soviets had nuclear weapons deployed on German soil with the potential to be directed at the German people and this cultural and historical context is important to understand the current policy landscape.
The origin of the popular Green party in Germany is deeply connected to the peace movement and anti-nuclear activism that pre-dates concerns about climate change.
It’s fine to disagree with the policy decisions the German people made, but it’s good to understand the reasons why they made them.
flgb commented on Visiting the most expensive nuclear station samdumitriu.com/p/visitin... · Posted by u/dukeyukey
> To produce as much electricity with solar as Hinkley Point C would use a plot of land almost fifty times bigger than Hyde Park.
Hyde Park is about 1.4 km2, so that would be 70 km2, which even in a dense country like the UK is not that much. It seems like a no-brainer to go for solar instead.
Even China, who nuclear advocates point to as “getting it right” look like they realize this now .. https://johnmenadue.com/chinas-quiet-energy-revolution-the-s...
flgb commented on So Much Produce Comes in Plastic. Is There a Better Way? nytimes.com/2024/04/02/di... · Posted by u/mistersquid
The ban on plastic grocery bags has always felt silly to me when you can still walk out of the store with a 24 pack of bottled water, or candy where every individual piece is wrapped in plastic. And there's probably examples like that in every aisle.
So how would you start phasing out plastic?
Dog whistling.
The phrase "green energy transition" is mentioned only in the headline, and is completely irrelavent to the point being made in article, which is that unregulated mining in poor developing countries is bad.
flgb commented on Apple Has Sold Approximately 200k Vision Pro Headsets macrumors.com/2024/01/29/... · Posted by u/mfiguiere
45% before R&D costs, which have to be amortized somehow.
Somehow? Wild guess, but maybe they will be selling the product of that R&D for more than 10 days.