Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

The most sensible solution in the short term is to keep the distribution that we have in place and aggressively invest in large solar plants coupled with very large battery systems to ease the duck curve.

Individual homeowners can do their part with solar + heat pumps to shift that duck curve. Power rates should see way more wild swings: 0c at the trough around 11am-2pm, $.50 at the 5pm peak. That aligns consumers to make sensible investments, either the energy they use or the energy they produce/store.

Smart charging of cars, so that those car batteries can help shift the load? But that requires global coordination that is nonexistent today.

Solar is no doubt the energy solution, there's really nothing better. It's low maintenance and lasts a long time, capital scalable, and can be deployed basically anywhere. Solar is far and away the cheapest thing for about 70% of our energy needs. For the last 30% that is very tough to squeeze out -- that baseline power for 24/7 stuff like aluminum smelters, datacenters -- you basically have: high voltage transmission (only available if you have land to your west), big battery banks (tenable, but only if batteries follow solar's dramatic reduction in cost), or nuclear (but requires a big culture change that I cannot really imagine). Or fossil fuels but those are not good obviously.

Basically any of the other green stuff (hydro, wind, geothermal) can't be built at any price most places.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: