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SPI 2019 Day Zero Interview with Raghu Belur of Enphase Energy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glSXghzDZcs&feature=youtu.be...


An NPR article on the topic: "Unfurling The Waste Problem Caused By Wind Energy"

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/10/759376113/unfurling-the-waste...

"...Ninety percent of a turbine's parts can be recycled or sold, according to Van Vleet, but the blades, made of a tough but pliable mix of resin and fiberglass — similar to what spaceship parts are made from — are a different story.

'The blades are kind of a dud because they have no value,' he said.

Decommissioned blades are also notoriously difficult and expensive to transport. They can be anywhere from 100 to 300 feet long and need to be cut up onsite before getting trucked away on specialized equipment — which costs money — to the landfill. ..."


In that case using them for playground and similar projects sounds like a brilliant solution.


"Unfurling The Waste Problem Caused By Wind Energy"

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/10/759376113/unfurling-the-waste...


FWIW, and this does involves battery, but it is an off grid power solution.

https://zolaelectric.com/


Bingo.

"Yo dawg, I heard you're thinking of a new way to make money...so I wrote a book about thinking of a new way to make money so you can think about a new way to make money while I make money from you thinking about my new way to think about making money."


I would strongly suggest perusing through the resources of Stephen Few over at Perceptual Edge.

Library: http://www.perceptualedge.com/library.php

You could do a lot worse than becoming familiar with Few's "Information Dashboard Design" book, and the Perceptual Edge blog contains a wealth of material, some of which ended up in his subsequent books.

Older posts on his blog also include reviews of different author's books, often having to do with cognition or analysis related topics which are also informative. Seems he has retired from his consultant business and now blogs at: http://www.stephen-few.com

Here's one of his whitepapers you may find helpful: https://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/Whitepapers/Formatti...


How come when I posted this same link on Hacker News, HN flagged my post? Guess the same hive mind that runs Google runs the show at HN.


We could be at the point where solar adoption takes off exponentially.

On a big picture view:

Tony Seba: Clean Disruption - Energy & Transportation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b3ttqYDwF0

On a more micro level view:

Solar power solutions coming to places with no grid:

https://medium.com/zolaelectric/infinity-smart-grid-deliveri...


It has taken off exponentially. That’s what the growth curve you’re looking at is called. :)


No, it has not taken off exponentially yet in the way the Tony Seba video demonstrates with a picture of 5th Ave in NYC in the year 1900 where there are lots of horses used for transportation, and only one car, compared with a picture of the same street in 1913, where the street is full of cars, and there is only one horse to be found.


Scroll down the page I linked to the graph "Exponential Growth of Solar PV". A straight line on a log graph is exponential by definition.


There's the formal definition of "exponential", and then there is "exponential" in the sense of completely disruptive and transformative as in the example Tony Seba gives. I am referring to the latter.


Tony Seba has an interesting perspective on "Clean Disruption of Energy & Transportation", with one of the main takeaways being as options like solar become more viable, their takeoff could be exponential rather than moving up gradually in a straight line.

https://tonyseba.com/portfolio-item/clean-disruption-of-ener...

Also, more immediately interesting is how first world reliance on the grid could be changing. "Distributed Energy Poised for 'Explosive Growth' on the US Grid"

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/distributed-ene...

In third world countries, there could be a complete bypassing of the traditional grid; e.g., consider Zola Electric.

http://zolaelectric.com/blog/zola-electric-announces-infinit...


P.S. One of the companies in the solar space I follow closely is Enphase Energy.

https://enphase.com/en-us

There is a cool little demo a solar installer from Australia made to show Enphase's upcoming off-grid microinverter in action.

https://www.reddit.com/r/solar/comments/b3sgec/demo_clip_of_...

Also, an interesting talk from Sunnova Solar CEO dealing with future of the grid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2915&v=6Dx0U2y-Y...


Windmills do have controversy surrounding them, and whatever the case may be, I would neither want to live by a coal plant nor a wind turbine.

Adverse health effects of industrial wind turbines

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3653647/

Does living near wind turbines negatively impact human health?

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-turbines-negatively-impact-hum...

Can Wind Turbines Make You Sick

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/can-wind-turbines-make...

Vermont Sets New Noise Rules for Wind Turbines

https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/vermont-sets-ne...


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