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It's important to remember that electricity isn't an energy source, it's an energy medium. This seems trivial, but seems to be a blind spot for people who, for

It's important to remember that electricity isn't an energy source, it's an energy medium. This seems trivial, but seems to be a blind spot for people who, for instance, try to set up comparison between electricity and fossil fuels. The comparison doesn't make sense when one is an energy source and the other merely a medium. Generating electricity is a bit of a misnomer, because it's more about repackaging energy than creating it. Again, this is trivial but easy to lose sight of. The important question is: what's the energy source?

dheera 5y ago
Install solar on everyone's roofs. Subsidize it with money from property taxes. Make it mandatory for owners of rented buildings, and mandatory for businesses. That alone will easily meet all our projected energy requirements for quite a while.
- nemosaltat 5y ago
  As of Jan 1, 2020 California has come very close to these requirements. Most new construction residences (with a few exceptions) must have enough solar generation equipment to meet 100% of the buildings electrical needs.
- eldaisfish 5y ago
  lol no it won't. This is a horrible oversimplification. Solar panels can only offset some energy requirements for a limited time in certain climates. Even if you were to install batteries in every home, the cost is monumental, battery supply is limited and you lose the economy of scale.
  - dheera 5y ago
    If they had controlled COVID early enough the economic losses could have quite possibly allowed for everyone to have solar already.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    It’s the future actually. https://www.tesla.com/en_au/support/energy/savpp-faqs https://www.tesla.com/en_au/support/energy/savpp-faqs (South Australia Virtual Power Plant FAQs) https://www.utilitydive.com/news/teslas-australian-virtual-power-plant-propped-up-grid-during-coal-outage/568812/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/teslas-australian-virtual-p... (Tesla's Australian virtual power plant propped up grid during coal outage) > Once complete, the VPP will include 50,000 houses fitted with 5 kW rooftop solar systems and 13.5 kWh Tesla batteries. Together, they will be capable of delivering up to 250 MW of solar power and 650 MWh of energy storage. > So far, less than 1,000 homes have been completed. Still, the aggregated storage was able to make a difference. With regards to Australian rooftop solar potential, it’s estimated at almost 179GW, roughly a bit more than 3.5x total current Australian generation capacity.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      What’s the ratio on a GWhr/year basis? 3.5x the peak power seems like it could easily be less on a total energy basis. Looking here, it seems like 1 GWp in Australia can yield around 1500GWh/year. A conventional plant running just 20 hours per day yields 7300 Wh/Wp/yr. https://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/how-much-energy-will-my-solar-cells-produce/ https://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/how-much-energy-will-my-...
  - jsight 5y ago
    I don't think the person you are replying to had a good plan, but solar definitely could offset the energy consumed by cars. The average car will only consume ~12KWh per day. Even a small 3-4KW system can do that. Yes, its an oversimplification, but in a world where the problem is all the electric cars, you also have rolling battery buffers available whenever you want them. We already use hot water heaters and air conditioners in a similar way. Peak shaving with people's home charging setups wouldn't be hard to add.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      In normal times, my electric car is almost never at home when the sun is shining on my solar panels.
      - dheera 5y ago
        So you feed the power to the grid and the grid charges your car at work.
  - m463 5y ago
    I think the problem is that much energy policy originates from california, which has a relatively mild climate. Additionally in california, peak energy demand seems to be when the sun is very strong in the summer, so solar power matches very well with air conditioning load. The rest of the united states has weather, so situations like the-dead-of-winter + no-sunshine might be a better fit for fossil fuels.
- gregshap 5y ago
  Will it? Certainly in my part of the country most structures cannot go off-grid on solar alone, even with significant storage. Hard to make it up on volume.
- only_as_i_fall 5y ago
  Then we have a huge surplus of energy during the day and a huge deficit at night. What then?
  - dheera 5y ago
    Send it back into the grid. Charge cars. Feed industries that need daytime power. Pay the owners back for it, or give them free night-time electricity in returns. Heat up some high heat capacity goo, or hell even water, and use that to heat your apartment during cold nights in desert weather. If you still have surplus after all that, mine bitcoin and use it to fund battery research, environmental initiatives, fund education, fund healthcare. Surpluses are never a problem.
    - robbrown451 5y ago
      "If you still have surplus after all that, mine bitcoin and use it to fund" Or maybe use it to power factories that make hundred dollar bills? Sorry, but Bitcoin does not create a net increase in value for all the energy dumped into it. As you described it, it is simply an elaborate way to waste resources.
      - dheera 5y ago
        Don't mine Bitcoin then, run GPU farms and rent them out to AI researchers. Point is, surplus isn't really an issue.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      Free night-time electricity from where? You need to generate it from somewhere or store it. It just doesn't magically appear... Solar in large scale will be fun. Essentially at peak production it will have zero price or potentially negative price... And then during night you need to generate it from somewhere and pay premium... I wonder would it be actually cheaper soon not to have solar and just get it for free during day and then pay same during dark times...
      - 5y ago
- djrogers 5y ago
  > Make it mandatory for owners of rented buildings, and mandatory for businesses. So my grandmother, who gets a large part of her retirement income from a couple of $5-600/mo rental homes she owns will have to shell out 10-20k each to keep doing that? On what planet does that make sense?
  - dheera 5y ago
    Subsidize it 100% for her and low income rental owners then. For the high income armchair landlords, impose a solar tax and fund solar installations for everyone else. I want to think about how to make stuff possible, not excuses about why we can't do it. This kind of excuse-making attitude is why the US is falling behind in climate efforts.
    - Scoundreller 5y ago
      Shouldn't need to subsidize it. The idea is that your $x PV install will generate enough income to make it a worthwhile investment.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        If that’s the case, the mandate is equally unnecessary.
        imtringued 5y ago
        It obviously is. People will install solar panels in bad locations (for solar) because of the mandate.
        sokoloff 5y ago
        Is that outcome a good thing in some way that I’m not seeing? Because to me, that just seems wasteful. (For society I mean; it’s obvious how it’s a good thing for makers and installers of PV systems.)
    - 5y ago

dheera 5y ago

Install solar on everyone's roofs. Subsidize it with money from property taxes. Make it mandatory for owners of rented buildings, and mandatory for businesses. That alone will easily meet all our projected energy requirements for quite a while.

nemosaltat 5y ago
As of Jan 1, 2020 California has come very close to these requirements. Most new construction residences (with a few exceptions) must have enough solar generation equipment to meet 100% of the buildings electrical needs.
eldaisfish 5y ago
lol no it won't. This is a horrible oversimplification. Solar panels can only offset some energy requirements for a limited time in certain climates. Even if you were to install batteries in every home, the cost is monumental, battery supply is limited and you lose the economy of scale.
- dheera 5y ago
  If they had controlled COVID early enough the economic losses could have quite possibly allowed for everyone to have solar already.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  It’s the future actually. https://www.tesla.com/en_au/support/energy/savpp-faqs https://www.tesla.com/en_au/support/energy/savpp-faqs (South Australia Virtual Power Plant FAQs) https://www.utilitydive.com/news/teslas-australian-virtual-power-plant-propped-up-grid-during-coal-outage/568812/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/teslas-australian-virtual-p... (Tesla's Australian virtual power plant propped up grid during coal outage) > Once complete, the VPP will include 50,000 houses fitted with 5 kW rooftop solar systems and 13.5 kWh Tesla batteries. Together, they will be capable of delivering up to 250 MW of solar power and 650 MWh of energy storage. > So far, less than 1,000 homes have been completed. Still, the aggregated storage was able to make a difference. With regards to Australian rooftop solar potential, it’s estimated at almost 179GW, roughly a bit more than 3.5x total current Australian generation capacity.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    What’s the ratio on a GWhr/year basis? 3.5x the peak power seems like it could easily be less on a total energy basis. Looking here, it seems like 1 GWp in Australia can yield around 1500GWh/year. A conventional plant running just 20 hours per day yields 7300 Wh/Wp/yr. https://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/how-much-energy-will-my-solar-cells-produce/ https://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/how-much-energy-will-my-...
- jsight 5y ago
  I don't think the person you are replying to had a good plan, but solar definitely could offset the energy consumed by cars. The average car will only consume ~12KWh per day. Even a small 3-4KW system can do that. Yes, its an oversimplification, but in a world where the problem is all the electric cars, you also have rolling battery buffers available whenever you want them. We already use hot water heaters and air conditioners in a similar way. Peak shaving with people's home charging setups wouldn't be hard to add.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    In normal times, my electric car is almost never at home when the sun is shining on my solar panels.
    - dheera 5y ago
      So you feed the power to the grid and the grid charges your car at work.
- m463 5y ago
  I think the problem is that much energy policy originates from california, which has a relatively mild climate. Additionally in california, peak energy demand seems to be when the sun is very strong in the summer, so solar power matches very well with air conditioning load. The rest of the united states has weather, so situations like the-dead-of-winter + no-sunshine might be a better fit for fossil fuels.
gregshap 5y ago
Will it? Certainly in my part of the country most structures cannot go off-grid on solar alone, even with significant storage. Hard to make it up on volume.
only_as_i_fall 5y ago
Then we have a huge surplus of energy during the day and a huge deficit at night. What then?
- dheera 5y ago
  Send it back into the grid. Charge cars. Feed industries that need daytime power. Pay the owners back for it, or give them free night-time electricity in returns. Heat up some high heat capacity goo, or hell even water, and use that to heat your apartment during cold nights in desert weather. If you still have surplus after all that, mine bitcoin and use it to fund battery research, environmental initiatives, fund education, fund healthcare. Surpluses are never a problem.
  - robbrown451 5y ago
    "If you still have surplus after all that, mine bitcoin and use it to fund" Or maybe use it to power factories that make hundred dollar bills? Sorry, but Bitcoin does not create a net increase in value for all the energy dumped into it. As you described it, it is simply an elaborate way to waste resources.
    - dheera 5y ago
      Don't mine Bitcoin then, run GPU farms and rent them out to AI researchers. Point is, surplus isn't really an issue.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    Free night-time electricity from where? You need to generate it from somewhere or store it. It just doesn't magically appear... Solar in large scale will be fun. Essentially at peak production it will have zero price or potentially negative price... And then during night you need to generate it from somewhere and pay premium... I wonder would it be actually cheaper soon not to have solar and just get it for free during day and then pay same during dark times...
    - 5y ago
djrogers 5y ago
> Make it mandatory for owners of rented buildings, and mandatory for businesses. So my grandmother, who gets a large part of her retirement income from a couple of $5-600/mo rental homes she owns will have to shell out 10-20k each to keep doing that? On what planet does that make sense?
- dheera 5y ago
  Subsidize it 100% for her and low income rental owners then. For the high income armchair landlords, impose a solar tax and fund solar installations for everyone else. I want to think about how to make stuff possible, not excuses about why we can't do it. This kind of excuse-making attitude is why the US is falling behind in climate efforts.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    Shouldn't need to subsidize it. The idea is that your $x PV install will generate enough income to make it a worthwhile investment.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      If that’s the case, the mandate is equally unnecessary.
      - imtringued 5y ago
        It obviously is. People will install solar panels in bad locations (for solar) because of the mandate.
        sokoloff 5y ago
        Is that outcome a good thing in some way that I’m not seeing? Because to me, that just seems wasteful. (For society I mean; it’s obvious how it’s a good thing for makers and installers of PV systems.)
  - 5y ago