Re:Solving climate change by abusing thermodynamic scaling laws
by naasking on Monday September 30, 2024 @11:06AM
(#41698018)
The power grid will always be absolutely essential. I have no idea why you'd think otherwise.
Re:Solving climate change by abusing thermodynamic scaling laws
by hedora on Monday September 30, 2024 @11:49PM
(#41704472)
Our home battery has had ~ 10 minutes of scheduled downtime in three years, and the solar array we put in (which was limited in size by our power company) would be enough for 90+% of days. The grid has had 30+ days of downtime in that time.
If we had it fill the south half of our roof, that’d jump to 99-100%. For the remaining one percent, we could just drive to a fast charger to pick up enough electricity to run the house for 2-3 days in complete darkness.
The power grid keeps burning cities down, and then they pass the cost on to consumers.
Off grid is already more reliable than the grid, and the price of it keeps halving. At the same time, extreme weather events keep increasing the cost of the grid and lowering its reliability.
If the power company would bury their lines, then all of these issues would go away, but that will never happen with our current political system.
Re:Solving climate change by abusing thermodynamic scaling laws
by adrianN on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @06:22AM
(#41706584)
Do these figures include heat and hot water? In my climate these are the big energy consumers.
Re:Solving climate change by abusing thermodynamic scaling laws
by naasking on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @08:32AM
(#41707533)
This argument is undermined by survivorship bias. I also don't believe the power grid keeps "burning cities down", this seems very specific to the area you live and the competency of the local government.
It’s not clear to me how much the power grid will matter in ten years. I can imagine cities using substations to route N solar installations to M bidirectional EV chargers, I guess. For places as or less dense than suburbs, it’s not obvious that it makes sense to bother.