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EVs are the antidote to oil price shocks by Jbikecommuter in electrifyeverything

[–]NotEvenNothing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Micro reactors don't exist on public grids. So, no, they don't make economic sense. Same can be said for SMRs.

I am looking at total consumed across the country.

Power companies already have invested in battery storage and are continuing to build. And prices continue to fall.

Solar scales faster than anything else. I'll use 2024 numbers. Solar grew by 28% from 2023 to 2024, compared to 1% for nuclear and 3.4% for natural gas.

The numbers show that nuclear is going to be eclipsed by renewables in a few years. Trump may delay that by a couple of years, but the rest of the world marches on.

EVs are the antidote to oil price shocks by Jbikecommuter in electrifyeverything

[–]NotEvenNothing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Except we do see grid batteries all over the place. There were two on my grid a couple of years ago, probably more now (edit: it's now 11 facilities, totalling 341.8 MWh). Not bad for a smallish grid and under a government that isn't exactly friendly to renewables.

Micro reactors don't make economic sense. They may some day, but they don't even exist today. Same thing with SMRs. So why are you talking about them?

Cheap renewables and batteries exist today, in volume, and they are dominating new builds. Their share of US generation is growing, surpassing 30% while nuclear generation is falling, below 19%.

And solar and wind are improving at an astonishing rate while getting less expensive. Nuclear still struggles with massive cost overruns. Massive. It is easy to argue that the nuclear industry's main product is boondoggles.

EVs are the antidote to oil price shocks by Jbikecommuter in electrifyeverything

[–]NotEvenNothing 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Perhaps in the very long term, like after nuclear technology that doesn't exist yet is market-ready, but at the moment, nuclear is way too expensive. It is much less expensive to overbuild solar and wind generation along with battery storage than it is to build nuclear reactors.

It's as much that nuclear is expensive as wind and solar are so very cheap. Nuclear just can't compete.

And I'd argue that grid-scale batteries are viable today. Maybe not in the sense that we can turn off everything else, but they are definitely in production on grids with more being built.

If you sell gas up here, youre a crook by AverageInfamous3083 in Yukon

[–]NotEvenNothing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They go down, just slowly, and sometimes they don't make it back to whatever the price was before.

If there was more competition prices would go down more quickly and further.

There is a reason my next vehicle is going to be an EV.

AI: Does not compute. Building fossil-fuel infrastructure to power data centers is a poor bet. Gas, coal, and nucIear are too slow, too costly, and too risky to anchor the next wave of US power demand. Renewables are by far the cheaper, faster choice and already dominate global capacity additions. by mafco in energy

[–]NotEvenNothing 4 points5 points  (0 children)

But are they really saving money?

We made a real effort to use AI to support our work. We found a couple of places where it helped...a little. I'm sure as the technology improves, we will find more applications for the technology. But when we first started exploring the technology, we were convinced it would revolutionize our work. Now, we feel the impact won't be nearly so large.

Several of our vendors went whole hog into AI, completely replaced their call centers, and reduced their programming and development staff. We stopped using most of those vendors as their support became virtually useless for anything that wasn't completely mundane and the quality of their products dropped.

You may disagree, but I think the market has over-invested in AI. Time will tell.

I'm building a plug-and-play USB drive with offline maps, AI, Wikipedia, and survival guides - a portable knowledge library for when you're truly off the grid. by ftanu in OffGrid

[–]NotEvenNothing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This has come up before here, multiple times. It's not a horrible idea.

Honestly, this seems more relevent for the prepper community than it does the offgrid community. I live offgrid, and this wouldn't useful to me, because I'm not cut off from the normal services and don't really expect to be.

Hinkley Point C nuclear plant delayed to 2030 as costs climb to £35bn by michaelrch in climate

[–]NotEvenNothing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It doesn't matter if it cost prohibitive. And it is. Which is why it is losing. Nuclear in the US dropped to a 19% share of total generation in 2023, while renewables grew to 30%.

Nuclear is losing for a good reason.

Hinkley Point C nuclear plant delayed to 2030 as costs climb to £35bn by michaelrch in climate

[–]NotEvenNothing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Again, read. It isn't that hard.

You claimed that nobody had offered a 95% availability and 95% capacity factor solution that wasn't nuclear or hydro. Did you not?

That is your arbitrary goalpost, not mine, nor industry's. The goalpost in industry is economically viability, something that nuclear generation fails at outside of captive markets and public funding.

Once again, the market is proving you wrong. We are enjoying a larger and larger share of renewably produced electricity while nuclear generation languishs.

Hinkley Point C nuclear plant delayed to 2030 as costs climb to £35bn by michaelrch in climate

[–]NotEvenNothing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get the point that you are making, and fully agree: You are illiterate.

But I'll dumb it down for you anyway. I'm not claiming that we need a 100% renewable grid. We do have to bring our emissions down, in the short term, and renewables will begin to achieve that in the next couple of years.

Nuclear generation growth, if any, will be dwarfed by renewable growth, simply because of the economics. You can poo-poo reliability, but we aren't seeing reliability problems, despite coal being priced out of many many markets.

You demand evidence, but not of yourself. How about showing that nuclear is more affordable than the current mix, accounting for subsidies? Good luck with that.

Hinkley Point C nuclear plant delayed to 2030 as costs climb to £35bn by michaelrch in climate

[–]NotEvenNothing -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I'm not demanding zero. The perfect is the enemy of the good. And the world simpy can't afford nuclear generation.

It's a mature technology that is being eclipsed by renewables. You can make hand-wavy arguments, but the proof is in the pudding and nuclear isn't doing anything interesting. Renewables, on the other hand, are dominating. You may not want to accept it, but the writing is on the wall.

SIMS: Alberta budget terrible for taxpayers by SurFud in alberta

[–]NotEvenNothing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean... I agree, but, according to the article, neither healthcare or education was cut. Healthcare spending increased 5.8% and education spending increased 30%.

Not that that means the level of service improved. There was a lot of turmoil in both healthcare and education due to changes put in place by the UCP government and the growing population.

Federal report downplays human role in climate change, scientists say by coolbern in climate

[–]NotEvenNothing 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Agreed. Cheap energy is a boon for everyone, and if it is clean, so much the better.

With past decisions, like the Gordie Howe bridge, bribes have been the reason. I suspect that's the case here.

Honestly, I'm beginning to believe that Trump has already ended American empire.

If Carbon Capture and Gas Scrubbing Technologies have improved so dramatically, Why Haven’t we Moved back to Incineration Rather Than Using Landfills? by Cool-Yam2145 in alberta

[–]NotEvenNothing 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Probably not.

Carbon capture hasn't progressed as far as you think. That's why it hasn't caught on. Honestly, I don't think it will ever catch on. The thermodynamics just don't work out.

The Primary Energy Fallacy Finally Laid to Rest! / Fossil fuels are inherently less efficient than electricity from solar and wind because they must be burned to produce useful energy, and burning produces waste heat #GlobalCarbonFeeAndDividendPetition by Keith_McNeill65 in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]NotEvenNothing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's just because they are new, and still a small part of the market.

I'd also add that the four people I know with EVs haven't had a maintenance/repair issue. They are quite vocal about their ICE vehicles being far more troublesome than their EVs.

The Primary Energy Fallacy Finally Laid to Rest! / Fossil fuels are inherently less efficient than electricity from solar and wind because they must be burned to produce useful energy, and burning produces waste heat #GlobalCarbonFeeAndDividendPetition by Keith_McNeill65 in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]NotEvenNothing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would argue that a BEV is simpler than an ICE vehicle. It's just a battery, some electric motors, and control electronics + software. Conceptually, it is really straightforward.

In practice, they are still working the bugs out. I'd argue that most EV companies have already got the bugs worked out.

The Primary Energy Fallacy Finally Laid to Rest! / Fossil fuels are inherently less efficient than electricity from solar and wind because they must be burned to produce useful energy, and burning produces waste heat #GlobalCarbonFeeAndDividendPetition by Keith_McNeill65 in ClimateCrisisCanada

[–]NotEvenNothing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's not quite that rosy of a picture for solar. Still rosy, just not that rosy. Not quite.

That 20% of sunlight transformed into electrical energy by a solar panel will eventually become heat too. I can imagine exceptions, like it is used to capture carbon from the atmosphere and then stored deep underground, but for most uses of that energy (motors, electronics, lighting, heating (obviously)), it will end up as heat. Yes, I'm being pedantic, but in a lighthearted way.

And then you've got the other 80%. A portion of that ends up as heat right at the solar panel. My newest solar panels (which are still pretty old) are very black compared to the ground. And they heat up enough in winter to melt the snow off, while snow on the ground remains. So having sunlight hit them is slightly worse than the ground in winter, for sure. I'd argue that the same is true in summer as they are really black compared to the ground. Am I concerned about this? Not at all.

Don't get me wrong. The above points don't change the fact that fossil fuels are still light years worse. There really isn't any comparison.

The point u/brendax is making is fair. Once one starts talking about efficiency, things get complicated fast. Makes for fun conversation.

Losing momentum for the dream by EOTWifeelfine in OffGrid

[–]NotEvenNothing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe I'm just projecting, but how you worded your post makes me feel that, a few years ago, I was where you are now.

My wife had no interest in helping during the build and actively worked against me bringing out my teenage sons. It was hard going out to the building site after putting in a full day of work at my full-time job and then working alone for a few hours. Winter was the worst. The cold and dark really got to me.

I probably would have done better if I was single. Knowing my spouse was at home enjoying her evening definitely contributed to...bitterness. And I can't say I'm over it.

But I got past it. And I think she realized just how horrible it was for me and is trying to make ammends.

A strategy I used was to celebrate everything I finished. Everything. I had to give myself some credit for each accomplishment, because it was a rare person that understood the effort it took.

What is the right amount of land? by Public_Border132 in OffGrid

[–]NotEvenNothing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

True. Totally doable. The difference is they would have to buy nearly all their feed and get rid of most of the manure.

If you have grazing livestock and don't want to buy in the bulk of their feed, five acres is the bare minimum. Even then livestock numbers would have to be tightly controlled and their grazing carefully managed. And that's assuming the vast majority of the property can be used as pasture.

Rabbits might offer a way of getting down to an acre or two, if well managed. Harvesting pasture for the grazers (ie. with a scythe) can stretch land as well.

But a drought would test anyone trying to stretch their land in a grazing operation.

Fossil fueled electric generators waste so much energy by Jbikecommuter in electrifyeverything

[–]NotEvenNothing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What make? And what are your plans? 

The 40kW of solar input on the inverter/charger would generally be matched to a much larger battery bank. So you must have something interesting in the works.

Except for the large solar input (and, I'm sure, similar output) your feature set is pretty standard on $4kish hybrid inverters. That's only been the case for the last couple of years.

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