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Some key insights from the article:

Basically, what they did was to look at how much batteries would be needed in a given area to provide constant power supply at least 97% of the time, and the calculate the costs of that solar+battery setup compared to coal and nuclear.

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[-] Womble@lemmy.world -1 points 1 month ago

97% is great (though that is just for vegas) but it is still a long way from enough. Its a truism of availability that each 9 of uptime is more difficult to get to than the last, i.e. 99.9% is significantly more difficult/expensive than 99%

Then get it from the sources that already exist.

The problem here is that you cant simultaneously say "Solar is so much better than everything else we should just build it" and "we'll just use other sources to cover the gaps". Either you calculate the costs needed to get solar up to very high availability or you advocate for mixed generation.

None of which is to say that solar shouldnt be deployed at scale, it should. We should be aware of its limitations howver and not fall prey to hype.

this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
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