US hits 180 GW of solar power

Re:US hits 180 GW of solar power by TheRealPomax on Sunday June 09, 2024 @02:58PM (#40626640)

Except we're not going to triple it. It needs to be an order of magnitude large to deal with the EV push, as well as bullshit like whatever-the-next-GPU-mining crazy is, as well as industry discovering that with cheaper electricity, manufacturing that got offshored because doing it domestically was too expensive suddenly starts coming back as a viable domestic industry. Like aluminum smelting.

And an order of magnitude is conservative given the effect of "finally having pentiful and affordable power" has on the industrial landscape. The target isn't "what we're using right now". That's how you build failing infrastructure before you even got started. The target is "heaven forbid we succeed, and everyone jumps on the band wagon, how much power are we going to need".

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Re:US hits 180 GW of solar power by Dylan16807 on Wednesday June 12, 2024 @06:29AM (#40656507)

> the effect of "finally having pentiful and affordable power" has on the industrial landscape

The nice thing about induced demand from something getting cheap, is that it only happens if that thing gets cheap.

If we can't install enough solar to crater prices, then that extra demand simply won't happen. There won't be a massive spike in coal/gas use that makes the solar a waste of time.

> It needs to be an order of magnitude large to deal with the EV push

Please do the math. Switching every single US car to electric would be less than 150GW average, somewhere around a 25% increase in electrical demand. And even 50% electric is a lot of years away.

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