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Even on cloudy days you can generate power. Unless it is very thick clouds I generate enough for my base loads even in complete overcast skies because I have an "excess" of PV panels.

because I have an "excess" of PV panels.

Which aligns with as much as one can afford. If one calculated an exact amount they would not be able to get the results you are getting.


> "excess" of PV panels ... aligns with as much as one can afford.

does it? Panels are not the most expensive part of the system any more. Overcapacity of panels isn't the bottleneck any more. Battery capacity or roof space might be instead.


In case you didn't realize he is looking to store ALL of the summer generation into a battery and generate zero power in winter.. so rely entirely off of a battery during winter.. which is absolutely no feasible for a normal person and nobody would ever do.

I once did a related calculation on "How much of my garden do I need to dedicate to coppiced willow to heat my house for a week per year?"

I concluded that we're all going to need much bigger gardens.


And the price of the egg?

The egg itself is extremely cheap. The only expensive part is the subscription to disable remote control rights from Enron's traders.

Nobody seems to think twice about storing gasoline, heating oil, diesel, and/or propane around their place.

None of those release hydrogen flouride when they burn (among other things).

For some reason in the USA there is only a single state that has approved that (Utah).

It conflicts with some of the NEC (national electric code) requirements. That all needs to get sorted out.

The NEC is also in conflict with homeowners performing simple electrical work, such as replacing switches and outlets.

It is. But in this case the conflict is more fundamental - the NEC has no provision for a circuit that has multiple electrical supplies.

If you have a circuit rated for 15 amps, and plug in 12 amps of solar, then the breaker won't trip until the circuit load exceeds 27 amps, which seems bad.

Hmm, if you have an appliance (like a clothes dryer) with a dedicated circuit, it seems like you could solve this by connecting there. If you have the balcony solar device plug into the wall and the appliance plug into the balcony solar device, then you can easily put an additional circuit breaker where it's needed.

Not all homeowners are built for even these simple tasks. I watched someone try to replace a receptacle live, all while wondering why it was arcing and tripping the breaker repeatedly.

My solution would be using trade schools to run a homeowner electrician's program, teaching folks basic safety, measurement, and mechanics of what they would need do the work safely.

A program like this shouldn't take more than a weekend to cover all the issues including a Hands-On lab. A second weekend could be added for ground mounted solar setups.

I'd be willing to pay a couple hundred bucks get such a ticket.


Uhhh...how long exactly did you "watch" this?

Lol I can't recall, but I think eventually they gave up trying to restore power until it was finished. Perhaps they found a flashlight.

Did something change? Iirc you can do that sort of job yourself.

You forgot to mention anybody who has a yard that gets full sun can mount panels there as well. As far as fires you can say same thing about all the fires that currently occur because of propane, gas, and heating oil. Those have become some engrained in society for so long that you don't even think of that as a "fire hazard therefore you shouldn't even have it".

The fire thing is funny with cars. If an EV burns, it’s important news. An ICE car burning is unremarkable.

> You forgot to mention anybody who has a yard that gets full sun can mount panels there as well.

The overlap with people who have their own solar-compatible roof is probably large.


I'm fully off grid today with no issues, even had power company remove power poles. I do heat with wood however. AC in the summer is no issue since that is when I get the most sun anyways.

Imagining you combining these by burning the power poles..

And yet we still have no place to put that "clean" energy when it is depleted.

You can bury the casks in my (literal) backyard if you'd like (please put the grass back). It's an overhyped issue much less impactful than the pollution we've had waiting for an idealized answer to arrive.

> than the pollution we've had waiting for an idealized answer to arrive.

As I'm fond of saying, environmentalists didn't kill nuclear. I'm not denying they had motive. But they lacked means. They can't stop anything else they've set their minds to: fossil fuels, automobiles, deforestation, industrial livestock farming. Even whaling is alive ffs.

No, there was another party with both motive (competition) and means (lots of cash and political influence) to do the deed: the fossil fuel industry. And nuclear didn't help itself with accidents (and ensuing costly clean ups, one of which helped take down the Soviet Union), and budget overruns even when things went smoothly. Both found a convenient fall guy: the green movement.

Tl;dr nuclear hasn't grown because of money. It cost too much, and the competition had the cash to slander its reputation.


I'd rather it be stored neatly in canisters underground than floating up into the atmosphere.

It can be left in canisters on site. It could be dumped in the ocean. It really doesn't matter.

> It could be dumped in the ocean

FFS no. This is the reason environmentalists don't trust the nuclear industry.


This is a "no" purely for optics; it would be perfectly safe.

Citation needed.

There's approximately 1.4 * 10^21 kg of water in the ocean. There's about 2.3 * 10^6 kg of waste per year. 10^-15 is a really small number.

(Hell, seawater is already ~3.3 * 10^-9 uranium.)


Why is heavy metal concentration such a problem in fish right now?

It isn't. And unlike heavy metals, nuclear waste becomes safer over time.


God I hate this argument. Casks. The answer is casks. The short term solution turns out to be a fantastic long term solution. If that isnt good enough, demand it be reprocessed with thorium or something.

There. No more silly anti nuke gotcha. You can give up on that one permanently.


Nuclear proliferation.

I am steelmanning this, and assuming you are making a hilarious joke at the expense of anti nuke activists. Instead of defending the storage issue, this is just a pivot to another unrelated and already well resolved issue. Thats exactly what the silly anti nuke folk get up to. Well played, solid joke, 10/10.

Highly likely the next major Xcode update will break it.


The title is wrong, this is about using a completely different scale system.


I read the article and with the title in mind, it made no sense. So I defaulted to the title.


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