this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
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Microblog Memes

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

You can read the Technology Review article here discussing why this is problematic beyond a JPEG-artifacted screenshot of a snappy quip from a furry porn Twitter account that may or may not have read the article beyond the caption. We need solar power plants to reach net zero emissions, but even despite their decreasing costs and subsidies offered for them, developers are increasingly declining to build them because solar is so oversaturated at peak hours that it becomes worthless or less than worthless. The amount of energy pumped into the grid and the amount being used need to match to keep the grid at a stable ~60 Hz (or equivalent where you live, e.g. 50 Hz for the PAL region), so at some point you need to literally pay people money to take the electricity you're producing to keep the grid stable or to somehow dump the energy before it makes its way onto the grid.

One of the major ways this problem is being offset is via storage so that the electricity can be distributed at a profit during off-peak production hours. Even if the government were to nationalize energy production and build their own solar farms (god, please), they would still run up against this same problem where it becomes unviable to keep building farms without the storage to accommodate them. At that point it becomes a problem not of profit but of "how much fossil fuel generation can we reduce per unit of currency spent?" and "are these farms redundant to each other?".

This is framed through a capitalist lens, but in reality, it's a pressing issue for solar production even if capitalism is removed from the picture entirely. At some point, solar production has to be in large part decoupled from solar distribution, or solar distribution becomes far too saturated in the middle of the day making putting resources toward its production nearly unviable.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 day ago (3 children)

In other words… Maybe 29 word Twitter captions aren’t a great way to discuss issues?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Nah, I see nothing wrong with an information diet composed of random people with no background sharing their pet conspiracy with 5 million people on TikTok that they learned from three minutes with ChatGPT, furry porn accounts clapping back on Twitter to an out-of-context 29-word quote from an MIT Technology Review article (reshared so many dozens of times that the quality has noticeably degraded), or a picture generated in a Russian disinformation farm showing a muscular Donald Trump rescuing crying orphans from drowning in Hurricane Helene while corrupt FEMA agents loot their houses.

God fucking help us.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 21 hours ago

Hear me out: a giant water balloon. Roughly the size of the sun.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 day ago (9 children)

Why not do something with all that power? In the past there were some projects where they pumped water upstream when there was too much power on the grid. Then on low energy times, the water was released making energy again. Or make hydrogen (I think it was hydrogen). Or do AI stuff

I also seen energie waste machines that basically use a lot of power to do nothing. Only the get rid of all that extra energy so the power grid won't go down/burn.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

Why not do something with all that power?

This is a relatively new problem, so it will take awhile for the market to respond to make industries optimized to take advantage of this.

I saw an article a few months ago (couldn't find it quickly just now) about a small manufacturing company (metals maybe?) that set up shop specifically to run during the excess power events. So its starting to happen, but its not going to be a perfect fit. It means spending lots up front for infra, but only being able to use it a few hours a day cost effectively.

In the past there were some projects where they pumped water upstream when there was too much power on the grid. Then on low energy times, the water was released making energy again.

This is already done with pump hydro. But this needs existing hydroelectric infrastructure to take advantage of. Even then there are usually holding ponds upstream and they themselves have limited capacity.

Or make hydrogen (I think it was hydrogen).

This is being done too at small scales right now. There's difficulties with it. Hydrogen really sucks to try store and transport. The H2 molecule is so small it leaks out through valves and gaskets that are fine for containing nearly all other gases and liquids. So this means the gear needed is hugely more expensive up front. What a few are doing is using the hydrogen to quickly make Ammonia (NH3), which is much easier to store and contain. However, the efforts doing this are still fairly small.

Or do AI stuff

AI aside, this is one place I haven't seen develop yet. That being: cheaper compute costs during excess power events.

I suspect its the same problem for the manufacturing. It means spending money on expensive compute infrastructure but only able to use it during the excess power events. As in, the compute in place is already running flat out at full capacity all the time. There's no spare hardware to use the excess power. If you had spare hardware, you'd add it to your fleet and run it 24/7 making more money.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Just install a bunch of spotlights that point back at the Sun so when power prices go negative you can return all that excess energy! Come on MIT, I thought you were supposed to be smart.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Isn't it easier just to cover solar panels with reflective material, so they stop producing energy?

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago

"Well you see there is generations and generations of ghouls that have made their entire livelihood off the established and continued monopolization of vital resources such as water and power and for some reason the rest of us haven't gotten together and solved that clear and obvious threat to everyone and everything collectively, I know I don't get it either."

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago

This is what the Cabal is doing !!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Great comments in here that understand the actual issues, instead of, ya' know, the usual.

Something I haven't seen in the thread: Can someone address the costs of keeping the infrastructure maintained? Free power sounds great, but it can never be free. Entire industries must be paid to manufacture pylons, wire, transformers, substations, all that. Then there are the well paid employees who are our boots on the ground. (Heroes to me!)

How is solar disrupting the infra costs?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Here in Belgium, the component related to power generation is only about one fifth of the residential power bill.

Most are (1) connection costs (what you describe), (2) taxes, (3) subsidies for solar and wind to replace gas power generation, and (4) since 2 years, subsidies for gas power generation for when there's too little solar and wind.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago

It’s called a connection fee that is levied whether or not you used any energy that month. Those fees will likely go up to make up for decreased energy distribution revenue.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As a solar punk, I have solar panels, some batteries, and all my stuff runs off USB or 12v. I don't pay utilities

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago (5 children)
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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago (8 children)

I get the sentiment but... When sun isn't shining the negative prices cause problem for baseline power producers who need to turn off their power plants to avoid the zero to negative power prices.

This causes the power prices to become volatile, since the investments for the power plants that run during the night need to be covered during the night only.

Eventually though the higher price volatility will encourage investments into either demand side adjustability or energy storage systems. This will play out in energy only markets.

The other alternative is to implement a capacity market, which will divide the cost of the baseline production across different production hours by paying producers more for guaranteed production capacity.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If anyone is curious as to why we don't run the world off solar, from what I understand the big issue is power grid frequency. Unlike a turbine, solar has no intertia. If you take away light the power drop is instant. With turbines, they keep spinning due to their weight. This is especially important since if a large load is suddenly energized, the turbine might slow down but still won't stop immediately. Maybe in the future giant electric powered flywheels or pumpgen systems can take up the slack. Nuclear would likely also help since those are essentially giant steam turbine generators. Good video with some more info here.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7G4ipM2qjfw&t=589

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Hear me out: pump the excess solar power from the sunny side of Earth via maser into space at a geostationary microwave mirror array that reflects and focuses power back at a ground station on the dark side of Earth.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

This feels like it is begging for further context.

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