zbrozek

41 ms·

511.
Florida started penalizing bureaucratic delay. Housing permits spiked(washingtonpost.com)
43 points by zbrozek 4y ago|10 comments
512.
by zbrozek 4y ago
On any given day this month I've had an 87% chance of having uninterrupted power. 27 hours of total downtime, despite paying some of the highest rates.
513.
by zbrozek 4y ago
I don't think most Europeans pay more for electricity than most Californians. California's largest utility, PG&E, would top this list: https://www.electricrate.com/data-center/electricity-prices-...
514.
by zbrozek 4y ago
We had capacity blackouts in 2020. https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/08/18/...
515.
by zbrozek 4y ago
Aluminum has higher specific conductivity than copper by mass. So if you think you need 1 MT of copper conductivity, you can do the job with 0.5 MT of aluminum. Aluminum is also quite abundant. Rate limits will be political rather than prod
516.
by zbrozek 4y ago
They're always going to build the highest margin product for which there is demand. You're not going to get cheap housing until there is abundance. It's simple supply and demand.
517.
by zbrozek 4y ago
That's pretty much what I'm doing, and for that reason. I don't have a great explanation for why it isn't happening faster, but I predict a substantial exodus from the California grid. Especially so in places with gas ba
518.
by zbrozek 4y ago
I'm currently keeping half of a quite large (and horribly leaky) house perfectly pleasant with a midsized solar array, a portable air conditioner, and a fan. Zero grid draw.
519.
by zbrozek 4y ago
US average kWh is 14.77 cents while PG&E TOU-C starts at 37.460 and goes up to 48.902. So it's worse than you list. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph... https://www.p
520.
by zbrozek 4y ago
I blame the CPUC for basically everything regarding the crappiness of being a grid customer in California. PG&E is exactly the result you'd expect to get in our regulatory environment. Our regulators rubber stamp every tariff plan
521.
by zbrozek 4y ago
In most of California (served by PG&E) it's really expensive during the day, blisteringly expensive in the evening, and really expensive at night.
522.
by zbrozek 4y ago
While your house wiring is typically copper, transmission and distribution wiring isn't. That's very-often aluminum. And as you point out, we make a huge amount of the stuff.
523.
by zbrozek 4y ago
I didn't claim those microgrids wouldn't interconnect to the larger grid. ;) Low reliability and high per-unit-energy costs are driving me to be self-sufficient but to maintain my grid connection to reduce likelihood of correlated
524.
by zbrozek 4y ago
I'm no longer convinced of the transportability of electrical power. At least here in America, NIMBY politics makes it nigh impossible to build new transmission. And here in California our regulators have created an environment where w
525.
by zbrozek 4y ago
Outer Wilds! I just played it on the basis of a recommendation in an earlier HN thread and loved it.
526.
by zbrozek 4y ago
When I moved in to my house the only available option was AT&T DSL at 18/1 mbps. Comcast quoted $210k to run cable despite everyone else on my street already having a connection. It took me a year, but I organized with a bunch of m
527.
by zbrozek 4y ago
At my house, thanks to Los Altos Hills Community Fiber. It's in the US. https://www.speedtest.net/result/c/b6f39b75-d71a-4d89-b0f5-9...
528.
by zbrozek 4y ago
I'm also not seeing any immediate connection to better electronics. Maybe the resulting phenomena will be exploited to make better instruments that can be used in labs with cryo capability. Maybe the effects will be replicated in other
529.
by zbrozek 4y ago
I have no interest in letting Tesla, or anybody else, capture that value. Nor do I have any interest in propping up a failing grid at my own expense. I've been DIYing-at comically low cost-my way towards an off-grid electrified home. A
530.
by zbrozek 4y ago
Though aren't these extremely thin films, such that the amount of material used is very small?
531.
by zbrozek 4y ago
That sounds pretty great. I can't imagine my utility, PG&E, doing the same. Their TOU rates start at about the same as their tiered rates and go up from there. Even under maximal load shifting that plan costs me more than the simpl
532.
by zbrozek 4y ago
Reform is not as simple as 'more' or 'less' regulation. A web of rules and processes can be quite permissive yet so complicated as to cause gridlock. Or they can mess up markets, create perverse incentives, or drive up (
533.
by zbrozek 4y ago
Pretty wishful thinking indeed. It's already losing population (down two years running), probably due to a bunch of factors. My guess it's being driven by the obscene cost of living (housing, taxation, energy) and the declining qu
534.
by zbrozek 4y ago
Or it's an incentive to use cheaper energy. In my area gas is cheaper than electricity, but policy tries to push folks to use electricity. It would make more sense to drive down the cost of electricity so that it is the economic choice
535.
by zbrozek 4y ago
I had one catastrophic failure and several minor ones. Now I have a tankless water heater.
536.
by zbrozek 4y ago
These are also a convenient press and work ok as a tolerance adjustment hammer. I have three in various sizes.
537.
by zbrozek 4y ago
r^2, right? It'd be ~r^3 if vacuum represented significant path loss to light at the kinds of ranges we're talking about.
538.
by zbrozek 4y ago
I'm getting to the point, at 34 years old, that I think I should sell out and move to a low cost of living place that doesn't penalize me and retire. What happens to an economy if lots of other prime earning years people did the s
539.
by zbrozek 4y ago
You might be in California? The general rate cases for the next year-and-change are posted. The CPUC rubber stamps them, so we already know that there are upcoming rate hikes of around 16% within the next year. https://www.pge.co
540.
by zbrozek 4y ago
Shouldn't there be provision to verify gas-tightness and recharge the equipment with less-harmful refrigerants?

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