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Would that be a showstopper? Then we would just produce less stuff when energy is expensive, and more when it is cheap. We'd build houses to keep a pleasant tem

Would that be a showstopper? Then we would just produce less stuff when energy is expensive, and more when it is cheap. We'd build houses to keep a pleasant temperature for longer. We'd combine local energy generation with a strong grid to transport energy over longer distances. Stuff will become more expensive, economic activity might be somewhat dampened, but that might be offset by the cheapness of wind and solar, and by the fact that building the new infrastructure will create a lot of growth. And in the end, it will literally save the planet. I'd choose a bit slower economic activity over accelerating climate change any time.

pifm_guy 4y ago
You're assuming energy companies switch to hourly priced billing. But nationwide nearly everyone is on a fixed price per kWh deal, and current electricity meters don't usually even support pricing that chances every few minutes, as would need to happen to incentivize people to only use power when the wind blows. The cost of simply upgrading every electricity meter to a modern one is many years of profits for most energy companies.
- fulafel 4y ago
  This seems pretty pessimistic. Weather forecasts exist and things work quite well already today eg for day ahead hourly pricing model, lots of end user energy contracts are like that.
- captainmuon 4y ago
  Maybe I'm more optimistic because I live in Europe :-P. I'm pretty sure most energy intensive industry is already on flexible pricing. And privately, if you build a new home or change anything about your meter, you're already mandated to install a smart meter. But households' energy use has been slowly going down anyway, due to energy saving appliances and lights, education, and better insulation (the latter doesn't help much with electricity, but with total power consumption). As the sibling post said, the transition will be difficult. But there is absolutely no way the government will allow widespread brownouts or industrial collapse (in the worst case we'll use just enough fossil as necessary). We are talking about reduced profit margins for a couple of years, and having to wait a bit more longer to buy shiny new gadgets. The real challenge is to orchestrate everything so that it is socially fair and the weakest, or those most dependent on cars, etc. don't get hit too hard.
SuperQue 4y ago
In Finland, time of day electric use meters have existed for something like 20 years. Someone I know who lived north of the arctic circle had a home heating system that would heat up an energy storage box (I forget if it was an oil tank or simply stone) at night and then cycle the heat out to the house during the daytime. The big thing I see with a ton of arguments about changing the way we produce and consume energy assume that things will change overnight and the whole system will come crashing down because it's not ready. Perfect is the enemy of good. Things aren't going to happen overnight, there will be a transition period. Electric vehicle transition is a good example of this. * OMG, the grid will crash with all the charging. * OMG, You won't be able to charge it <because reasons>. * OMG, it doesn't solve <random gas car use case here>. The transition to electric vehicles is coming, but slowly. It basically started at 0 in 2010 and a decade later it's still only at 2-5% in the US and something like 5-10% in the EU, China, etc. The ball is just getting rolling. The grid hasn't crashed, charging is getting deployed where there's demand, and not every <random gas car use case here> needs to be solved now, or even in the mid term future.

pifm_guy 4y ago

You're assuming energy companies switch to hourly priced billing. But nationwide nearly everyone is on a fixed price per kWh deal, and current electricity meters don't usually even support pricing that chances every few minutes, as would need to happen to incentivize people to only use power when the wind blows. The cost of simply upgrading every electricity meter to a modern one is many years of profits for most energy companies.

fulafel 4y ago
This seems pretty pessimistic. Weather forecasts exist and things work quite well already today eg for day ahead hourly pricing model, lots of end user energy contracts are like that.
captainmuon 4y ago
Maybe I'm more optimistic because I live in Europe :-P. I'm pretty sure most energy intensive industry is already on flexible pricing. And privately, if you build a new home or change anything about your meter, you're already mandated to install a smart meter. But households' energy use has been slowly going down anyway, due to energy saving appliances and lights, education, and better insulation (the latter doesn't help much with electricity, but with total power consumption). As the sibling post said, the transition will be difficult. But there is absolutely no way the government will allow widespread brownouts or industrial collapse (in the worst case we'll use just enough fossil as necessary). We are talking about reduced profit margins for a couple of years, and having to wait a bit more longer to buy shiny new gadgets. The real challenge is to orchestrate everything so that it is socially fair and the weakest, or those most dependent on cars, etc. don't get hit too hard.

SuperQue 4y ago

In Finland, time of day electric use meters have existed for something like 20 years. Someone I know who lived north of the arctic circle had a home heating system that would heat up an energy storage box (I forget if it was an oil tank or simply stone) at night and then cycle the heat out to the house during the daytime. The big thing I see with a ton of arguments about changing the way we produce and consume energy assume that things will change overnight and the whole system will come crashing down because it's not ready. Perfect is the enemy of good. Things aren't going to happen overnight, there will be a transition period. Electric vehicle transition is a good example of this. * OMG, the grid will crash with all the charging. * OMG, You won't be able to charge it <because reasons>. * OMG, it doesn't solve <random gas car use case here>. The transition to electric vehicles is coming, but slowly. It basically started at 0 in 2010 and a decade later it's still only at 2-5% in the US and something like 5-10% in the EU, China, etc. The ball is just getting rolling. The grid hasn't crashed, charging is getting deployed where there's demand, and not every <random gas car use case here> needs to be solved now, or even in the mid term future.