points by TheCoelacanth 3 days ago | 0 comments
There's still sun during the winter; you just need more solar panels for the same amount of energy. Also, there tends to be more wind during the winter, so wind power makes a good complement to solar.
[–] kulahan 3 days ago
[–] lostlogin 3 days ago
> My larger point is that solar is only ever going to be a piece of the puzzle at best.
Doesn’t that apply to any power source?
[–] kulahan 2 days ago
Correct
[–] TheCoelacanth 3 days ago
With the way prices are trending, soon solar power is going to be the cheapest power source even in the winter. No one is going to complain that electricity is too cheap during the summer.
[–] kulahan 2 days ago
Only if we give up on nuclear and enhanced geothermal and continue subsidizing it massively so we can force it to be cheapest
[–] TheCoelacanth 2 days ago
Nonsense. It's going to be the cheapest no matter what.
[–] kulahan 1 day ago
You’d have to explain why we give up on technology, because otherwise this will never be true
[–] TheCoelacanth 12 hours ago
Look at the trend lines. Solar and batteries are getting cheaper on an exponential curve; nuclear and fossil fuels aren't. Those trends won't continue forever, but they're pretty much locked in for the next few years because the engineering work is already done and often contracts are already in place.
Short-term we're waiting for mass production and distribution of the new designs (relatively easy to predict), not R&D which is less predictable.
[–] Maxion 3 days ago
In lower latitudes, yes. Where I live December has an average of 4 hours of sunlight (yes, the entire month).
My larger point is that solar is only ever going to be a piece of the puzzle at best. In space it might be quite nice, but otherwise it's kinda goofy to invest too much in.