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> Wonder what the future holds. I hope it holds a great shift towards decentralization of energy production. Not complete decentralization, but a blend of mass

> Wonder what the future holds. I hope it holds a great shift towards decentralization of energy production. Not complete decentralization, but a blend of massive power plants like today, and lots and lots of homes with solar panels on roof tops and the like. I also hope fusion research is accelerated. Fusion in the sky, plus fusion down on Earth, that would cover a lot of bases. Portable fusion reactors would also truly open up the solar system - ride the fusion torch to your destination, power your habitat with fusion reactors.

vl 9y ago
EVs at home charge at night, solar panels produce energy during the day.
- schiffern 9y ago
  Counterpoint: EVs plugged in at work charge during the day. Scaling up charging infrastructure at work probably pays for its own deployment in reduced energy storage costs. If the underlying economics are there, it's "just" about getting the incentives right. An always-connected EV fleet can dispatch charging from a central load-leveling server, passing a percentage of the utility revenue along to incentivize the EV owner. Such a car would always Do The Right Thing(TM) with respect to TOU/tiered metering, real-time (or forecast) renewable generation, local distribution grid loading, and the availability of any extra baseload generation at night. Personally I would want the option to always immediately charge the car to X miles of range (to drive to the local hospital), and to always charge to Y miles by Z:00 every day (for commuting). Subject to those constraints, the service provider is free to shift around the charging schedule to suit conditions on the local electric grid. The more leeway the service provider has to shift charging around, the more the EV owner earns. Obviously Tesla is pursuing this, but I hope they have competition.
  - Florin_Andrei 9y ago
    > EVs plugged in at work charge during the day. Good idea, but the infrastructure would have to be tied to the building, not to the companies operating in it. A lot of companies change offices all the time, and then there are all those small companies that can't afford to build this sort of thing. So it would have to be part of regular infrastructure just like running water or comm/data lines.

vl 9y ago

EVs at home charge at night, solar panels produce energy during the day.

schiffern 9y ago
Counterpoint: EVs plugged in at work charge during the day. Scaling up charging infrastructure at work probably pays for its own deployment in reduced energy storage costs. If the underlying economics are there, it's "just" about getting the incentives right. An always-connected EV fleet can dispatch charging from a central load-leveling server, passing a percentage of the utility revenue along to incentivize the EV owner. Such a car would always Do The Right Thing(TM) with respect to TOU/tiered metering, real-time (or forecast) renewable generation, local distribution grid loading, and the availability of any extra baseload generation at night. Personally I would want the option to always immediately charge the car to X miles of range (to drive to the local hospital), and to always charge to Y miles by Z:00 every day (for commuting). Subject to those constraints, the service provider is free to shift around the charging schedule to suit conditions on the local electric grid. The more leeway the service provider has to shift charging around, the more the EV owner earns. Obviously Tesla is pursuing this, but I hope they have competition.
- Florin_Andrei 9y ago
  > EVs plugged in at work charge during the day. Good idea, but the infrastructure would have to be tied to the building, not to the companies operating in it. A lot of companies change offices all the time, and then there are all those small companies that can't afford to build this sort of thing. So it would have to be part of regular infrastructure just like running water or comm/data lines.