3 ms·

Seattle is below Paris in latitude. Plenty of sunlight. That is definitely not the problem in terms of energy production. You have a point about the longevity

• hinkley 7y ago
  > Plenty of sunlight Have you been to Seattle? They don’t have Alaska levels of Seasonal Affective Disorder, but it’s pretty bad. Mountains on both sides shave a little time off sunrise and sunset, and partially cloudy is every day. People basically ignore astronomical events because they won’t be able to see them anyway, although we did luck out on the last solar and lunar eclipses. They have a special term for “overcast with a few moments of sun”: they’re called, “sun breaks”. Sun breaks. A break from clouds that lasts moments. Just a break, then back to work. The only time the sun comes out reliably in the winter is when the wind shifts to the north and an arctic blast comes through. If it looks sunny outside, put on your heavy coat.
• alasdair_ 7y ago
  >Seattle is below Paris in latitude. Plenty of sunlight. That is definitely not the problem in terms of energy production. Tesla has a pretty detailed solar power estimator that uses historical daily sunlight levels at a fine-grained level. When I used it, the time to pay off my costs was close to 25 years, and that involved a lot of assumptions about future energy prices.