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I would rather have seen downvoters approach the merits of this claim in comments first. We do not need HN to turn into devolving to ad populum for every conten

I would rather have seen downvoters approach the merits of this claim in comments first. We do not need HN to turn into devolving to ad populum for every contentious topic.

beders 5y ago
I was willing to take the downvote hits. This narrative of "we need a baseload" or "the sun doesn't always shine" is just not countered often enough. WWS would be sufficient for the majority of countries around the world including the US and all it takes is the political will to implement this. Not technology.
- EricE 5y ago
  WWS doesn’t work without your diverse and distributed sources being interconnected. Which they conveniently hand wave off since that was a subject for another paper. If they had confidence in their ideas, they would at least summarize the findings of that paper that justify their implying the grid as not being an issue in the practicality of their plan. For example: even if the grid is 100% reliable (which - spoiler - it’s not), what are the sizing implications due to transmission loss? How do you get power across continents to have true geographic diversity? This paper presents all upside with no downside? Ha! Again, nice theory in a perfect world. We do not live in a perfect world.
  - beders 5y ago
    This is an article, not a paper.
    - EricE 5y ago
      Not sure how that distinction makes a difference. So it’s an article that makes an incomplete and thus poor argument and not a paper that makes an incomplete and thus poor argument. Those are still equally bad.
      - EricE 5y ago
        lol at the irony of the downvote without a response :)
EricE 5y ago
OK - here’s a key question - where do they talk about base load and predictable generation? Indeed, they hand wave it off with “The present study does not examine grid stability, since it is evaluated in separate work”. Well since they are countering the unreliable generation arguments with “unreliable generation isn’t a problem if you have enough diverse sources” - if you can’t interconnect those diverse sources then you don’t have much of a solution, do you? Nice theory, zero discussion of how you make the theory practical reality. Edited after cooler head prevailed.

I would rather have seen downvoters approach the merits of this claim in comments first. We do not need HN to turn into devolving to ad populum for every contentious topic.

beders 5y ago

I was willing to take the downvote hits. This narrative of "we need a baseload" or "the sun doesn't always shine" is just not countered often enough. WWS would be sufficient for the majority of countries around the world including the US and all it takes is the political will to implement this. Not technology.

EricE 5y ago
WWS doesn’t work without your diverse and distributed sources being interconnected. Which they conveniently hand wave off since that was a subject for another paper. If they had confidence in their ideas, they would at least summarize the findings of that paper that justify their implying the grid as not being an issue in the practicality of their plan. For example: even if the grid is 100% reliable (which - spoiler - it’s not), what are the sizing implications due to transmission loss? How do you get power across continents to have true geographic diversity? This paper presents all upside with no downside? Ha! Again, nice theory in a perfect world. We do not live in a perfect world.
- beders 5y ago
  This is an article, not a paper.
  - EricE 5y ago
    Not sure how that distinction makes a difference. So it’s an article that makes an incomplete and thus poor argument and not a paper that makes an incomplete and thus poor argument. Those are still equally bad.
    - EricE 5y ago
      lol at the irony of the downvote without a response :)

EricE 5y ago

OK - here’s a key question - where do they talk about base load and predictable generation? Indeed, they hand wave it off with “The present study does not examine grid stability, since it is evaluated in separate work”. Well since they are countering the unreliable generation arguments with “unreliable generation isn’t a problem if you have enough diverse sources” - if you can’t interconnect those diverse sources then you don’t have much of a solution, do you? Nice theory, zero discussion of how you make the theory practical reality. Edited after cooler head prevailed.