742
submitted 2 years ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
  • Texas power prices soared 20,000% Wednesday evening amid another brutal heat wave.

  • Spot electricity prices topped $5,000 per megawatt-hour, up more than 200 times from Wednesday morning.

  • The state's grid operator issued its second-highest energy emergency, then later said conditions returned to normal.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Solar thermal isn’t really what we mean when we say solar power. The vast majority, even at utility scale, is PV panels just like the ones on your roof. Historically, solar thermal was too expensive and PV panels are still far cheaper.

That said, for areas like CA that may soon approach maximum solar penetration it may deserve a second look because of its more consistent energy output. It will mainly be competing with batteries, pumped hydro, and new generations of geothermal technology. All of these are new and fairly unproven at scale so we’ll have to learn as we go which is the best option for the later stages of decarbonizing the electrical grid.

[-] SoylentBlake@lemm.ee 8 points 2 years ago

Geothermals been proven since the 60s. It's a sealed system, there's no pollution (even if the pipe popped, it's just water), stations can be planted next to preschools and daycares and no one would be the wiser.

If your state has mountains, geothermals prob the answer. If your state doesn't have mountains (Kansas, Florida, Delaware), being from Washington, I don't know how you guys can live there. Not being able to orientate by the horizon fucking weirds me out. Especially in fucking Florida. I was driving thru the Ocala "forest" and it's all Spanish moss and saw palmettos everywhere. You can't see more than 10ft into the forest, and that's when I noticed you can't see the sky thru it either. It's just barely slivers of rays making it to the floor. I've never felt so claustrophobic in my life. *shudder fuck florida

[-] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I didn’t mean geothermal was entirely new but traditionally it has been limited to very specific geologic conditions which have largely already been developed. Newer technology (ironically pioneered by oil and gas drilling) has recently made many more sites possibly economical. But as with the other things I listed, these new types of geothermal plants are still somewhat unproven and expensive. I know they’re being investigated but so far very few have been built.

[-] SoylentBlake@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago

I wonder if they could drill down and capture the heat from the hotspot under Missouri.

Alaska, The Rockies, Yellowstone, the Sierras and the Cascades are all no brainers.

And Hawai'i for obvious reasons.

[-] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 years ago

I’m not familiar with the geology of Missouri but it mostly depends on how deep you need to go. The deeper the more expensive it will be to build.

[-] Buelldozer@lemmy.today 1 points 2 years ago

Yellowstone

No. We're absolutely NOT poking a hole into the world ending super caldera.

[-] SoylentBlake@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Don't need too, you just need to boil water (or ammonia, or propane, etc) to spin turbines and Yellowstone does that on the surface

this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
742 points (98.1% liked)

News

35714 readers
677 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.


Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.


7. No duplicate posts.


If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.


All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS