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When things run on electricity, the power grid becomes ready to be de-centralized, the power can come from anywhere. Right now, it comes from coal and fossil fu

When things run on electricity, the power grid becomes ready to be de-centralized, the power can come from anywhere. Right now, it comes from coal and fossil fuels, but things running on electricity make it easier for that to no longer be the case. Imagine an entirely de-centralized power grid: then, if you could install electricity-generating mechanisms into your home, you could run your Tesla (or other electric car) and home without paying for it. THEN, the incentive to make and sell things that can generate, store, and transfer electricity becomes huge - anything that can do that is like buying people electricity.

secstate 13y ago
You miss a major point. I live in rural Maine and there are plenty of folks trying to live "off grid" and generate their own electricity. Here we sit, 2013, those with solar panels on their house have to make sure not to run the dishwasher more than once a solar cycle in winter. Good luck charging your car on that. I'm sure there are ways to generate more power, but you wind up needing LOTS of panels and that increases the chance of failure and need to replace. I know the technology will get better, but like AI, they've been promising improvements in solar panels for decades now and they never seem to appear.
- Nrsolis 13y ago
  Maine isn't representative of the amount of potential solar energy available in other parts of the USA.
  - secstate 13y ago
    That's valid. But I would also argue that solar power has yet to deliver on promises made anywhere in this country. And countries like Germany that doubled down on subsidies for solar are seldom heard from these days (as are wind farms). In fact, most people in may tend to shy away from solar and wind in Maine these days in favor of tidal, which is much more reliable, though harder to keep equipment maintainable.
    - Nrsolis 13y ago
      You not counting the trillions spent on military intervention in the oil-rich Middle East as a subsidy? Germany just decided to decommission all of its nuclear power generation. That power is going to come from somewhere.
- tomasien 13y ago
  Any argument that implies that the only thing that can achieve the proper energy density is fossil fuels is a dead argument. It's like arguing that computational speed will never overtake the human brain without knowing what Moore's Law is.
greenyoda 13y ago
"When things run on electricity, the power grid becomes ready to be de-centralized, the power can come from anywhere." More accurately, it can only come from anywhere that has adequate transmission line capacity to get it to you. Even if you had unlimited solar energy available in California, you couldn't get enough of it to New York to make a difference there. And very few people want to have new high voltage power lines (huge steel towers) built on or near their property, so that limits the ability to add more capacity to the system.

secstate 13y ago

You miss a major point. I live in rural Maine and there are plenty of folks trying to live "off grid" and generate their own electricity. Here we sit, 2013, those with solar panels on their house have to make sure not to run the dishwasher more than once a solar cycle in winter. Good luck charging your car on that. I'm sure there are ways to generate more power, but you wind up needing LOTS of panels and that increases the chance of failure and need to replace. I know the technology will get better, but like AI, they've been promising improvements in solar panels for decades now and they never seem to appear.

Nrsolis 13y ago
Maine isn't representative of the amount of potential solar energy available in other parts of the USA.
- secstate 13y ago
  That's valid. But I would also argue that solar power has yet to deliver on promises made anywhere in this country. And countries like Germany that doubled down on subsidies for solar are seldom heard from these days (as are wind farms). In fact, most people in may tend to shy away from solar and wind in Maine these days in favor of tidal, which is much more reliable, though harder to keep equipment maintainable.
  - Nrsolis 13y ago
    You not counting the trillions spent on military intervention in the oil-rich Middle East as a subsidy? Germany just decided to decommission all of its nuclear power generation. That power is going to come from somewhere.
tomasien 13y ago
Any argument that implies that the only thing that can achieve the proper energy density is fossil fuels is a dead argument. It's like arguing that computational speed will never overtake the human brain without knowing what Moore's Law is.

greenyoda 13y ago

"When things run on electricity, the power grid becomes ready to be de-centralized, the power can come from anywhere." More accurately, it can only come from anywhere that has adequate transmission line capacity to get it to you. Even if you had unlimited solar energy available in California, you couldn't get enough of it to New York to make a difference there. And very few people want to have new high voltage power lines (huge steel towers) built on or near their property, so that limits the ability to add more capacity to the system.