News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:A $900B Oil Treasure Lies Beneath West Texas Desert by hueving on Sunday November 20, 2016 @03:04AM (#12997842)
Oil doesn't have the same use cases as electricity. Until we have electric planes, ships, heavy trucks, farm equipment and freight trains, there is still a big place for oil in transportation.

Also, until we get some good energy storage solutions, we are just going to run into the same problems of too much electricity during the middle of the day and not enough in the evening.

Re:A $900B Oil Treasure Lies Beneath West Texas Desert by foota on Sunday November 20, 2016 @03:58AM (#12997980)
Wind is generally stronger at night. The issue with wind is intermittency.
Re:A $900B Oil Treasure Lies Beneath West Texas Desert by dreamcompiler on Sunday November 20, 2016 @12:27PM (#12999932)
Likewise solar. Solar contains a predictable component with a stochastic component (clouds) overlaid.
Re:A $900B Oil Treasure Lies Beneath West Texas Desert by nickik on Sunday November 20, 2016 @05:20PM (#13001628)
Solar thermal can mostly solve the problem.
Re:A $900B Oil Treasure Lies Beneath West Texas Desert by tr352 on Sunday November 20, 2016 @04:42AM (#12998080)
Wind is usually stronger during daylight.
Re:A $900B Oil Treasure Lies Beneath West Texas Desert by Someone on Sunday November 20, 2016 @06:18AM (#12998286)
I expect that to be dependent on location. Near coasts, for example, the physics driving sea and land breezes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind#Sea_and_land_breezes) will either increase or decrease wind speed depending on local prevailing winds.

It also can depend a lot on height (very important for wind turbines)

Re:A $900B Oil Treasure Lies Beneath West Texas Desert by eru on Sunday November 20, 2016 @12:19PM (#12999878)
With cheap enough electricity you can make artificial hydrocarbons.

The process is not as efficient as batteries (or just burning oil products found in the ground), but you get similar energy densities as the normal hydrocarbons. After all, the chemistry is the same.

I just wish we had functioning carbon tax or carbon emission markets. Then the government could just set the price or volume, and the market could figure out the most cost-efficient energy mix to hit the target.