4 ms·

Huge fan of solar here. But I don't think the argumentation in this article is very convincing. 5-15% in a year? That's maybe a huge price drop for the industry

by erikb 10y ago

Huge fan of solar here. But I don't think the argumentation in this article is very convincing. 5-15% in a year? That's maybe a huge price drop for the industry, but for the average user it's barely worth mentioning. Maybe I'm just impatient. I want to see that stuff everywhere. Solar roads, solar train walls, solar sun umbrellas, maybe solar sun cream to charge your phone with your fingers, who knows. And honestly I can't even say why. Water, biogas, wind. We already have quite a range of responsible energy sources. But none of them are as exciting as solar power to me. Nearly like a Mars colony. Not much logical reasoning behind it, but still quite exciting.

beachstartup 10y ago
> but for the average user it's barely worth mentioning. a reduction of 5-15% in a year is huge. are you familiar with how compounding works? that means the price will fall by almost half in about 5 years, and will be a tiny fraction of what it costs today, in a decade. what's expensive today will be economically viable or even cheap in just 2 or 3 years. look at the graph! it's right there with easy to read colors and shapes.
sandworm101 10y ago
>> Water, ... Look into the new science on that one. It can make carbon sense when you flood a desert to feed a hydro dam, but if you flood a forest then the carbon math isn't so great. Microhydro seems an answer, but there too you have to calculate how much forest is being deprived of water, and what that means for carbon uptake. It's probably still better than coal, but it isn't perfect.
- schiffern 10y ago
  Generally with small-scale microhydro (low single digit acres) you get good biomass production because you've created more edge. Edges between biomes (estuaries, forest-field transitions, etc) are the most productive and diverse places in nature because you get overlapping species and the associated beneficial interactions. Many small dams produce a lot of forest-water edge cumulatively, unlike a few huge dams.

by erikb 10y ago

beachstartup 10y ago

> but for the average user it's barely worth mentioning. a reduction of 5-15% in a year is huge. are you familiar with how compounding works? that means the price will fall by almost half in about 5 years, and will be a tiny fraction of what it costs today, in a decade. what's expensive today will be economically viable or even cheap in just 2 or 3 years. look at the graph! it's right there with easy to read colors and shapes.

sandworm101 10y ago

>> Water, ... Look into the new science on that one. It can make carbon sense when you flood a desert to feed a hydro dam, but if you flood a forest then the carbon math isn't so great. Microhydro seems an answer, but there too you have to calculate how much forest is being deprived of water, and what that means for carbon uptake. It's probably still better than coal, but it isn't perfect.

schiffern 10y ago
Generally with small-scale microhydro (low single digit acres) you get good biomass production because you've created more edge. Edges between biomes (estuaries, forest-field transitions, etc) are the most productive and diverse places in nature because you get overlapping species and the associated beneficial interactions. Many small dams produce a lot of forest-water edge cumulatively, unlike a few huge dams.