It's called spinning reserve, and it's the reason electricity is often so much cheaper at night. Large thermal power plants can take days to shut down and restart, so they need to keep them running anyway.

The problem can be mitigated through various means; and as problems go this is a pretty good one to have.

Storage is the obvious solution. It doesn't even need to be high quality storage, but to reduce over-generation you just need a place to dump the excess energy. You could just dump this energy as heat but optimally you'd want to recover some of it. You don't even need enough storage to carry you through the night, just absorb the over generation and shave peak. Thermal storage would work fine for that, would be relatively inexpensive and could work with existing thermal power plants. Encouraging domestic battery storage, even a few kWh worth, would also help. Almost any existing hydro could be retrofitted for axillary pumped storage.

Less obvious is to tinker with the solar panels themselves, tuning the orientation so you are optimized for late afternoon capture rather than maximum kWh/day generation. That makes the "dip" in the graph shallower and lowers the slope of the ramp.

Retire old plants that are too inflexible to meet variable demand efficiently. In other words, ditch coal.

Add usage penalties (aka "demand charges") during the ramp-up period. There are already demand charges for peak power, but spreading the demand charge out would incentivize energy efficiency and time of use habits.

Basically, there is nothing here that can't be managed with existing technology, but commercial power producers are scared shitless they'll be out of a whole lot of money. Solar is a direct threat to baseline generation (coal and nuclear) as it pushes the usefulness of peak shaving generation (gas turbine) farther into the night hours and makes baseline generation all but obsolete.
=Smidge=

More importantly, this strains the argument that green technologies threaten economic growth. That means dirtier fossil energy is a lot harder to justify, and renewable energy more appealing.

Could be the beginnings of a positive feedback loop. Here's hoping!
=Smidge=

They get that money from the normal fees they charge for service.

They do not need to charge an additional fee to "stay in business"

They don't even need to increase their base price if they did away with the itemized fee, because their base price alone is more than enough to cover the cost of business and still make a healthy profit.

How hard is this to understand?
=Smidge=

What?

The fees they normally charge are adequate to cover both the extra cost of the USF contributions *and* their operating costs *and* their investments *and still make a tidy profit.

They can clearly decide not to charge customers for it - which, again, they are not *required* to do which makes the GP a liar.

They do not *need* to, either, since they can still make bank even if they didn't. This is obvious because their *profit* is an order of magnitude greater than their USF contributions. That, consequently, makes you a liar as well.
=Smidge=

From their billions of dollars in profits?

The idea that the extra they tack onto the bill is the only thing allowing them to "stay in business" is absolutely laughable.

Of course, had companies actually been proactive in developing the infrastructure, a lot of the costs associated with that program would be negated.
=Smidge=

That's bullshit and you know it.
=Smidge=

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/unde...

The access charge is not mandated by the FCC and the universal service charge is not required to be passed on to you (telcos do it because the FCC can't stop them.)

So... stop lying, basically.
=Smidge=

Conventional HDDs (and other magnetic storage) can suffer from random loss of magnetization. Any permanent magnet will slowly weaken over time, and the nature of magnetic media - especially high density - means neighboring domains can alter a weakened bit more easily.

The solution in both cases: Rewrite the data periodically to keep it "fresh" and include error correction to help mitigate minor losses.
=Smidge=

...because the only thing preventing children from building sky cities, gigantic castles, sea bases and portals to other dimensions is government regulations.
=Smidge=

...are you sure you intended to reply to me?

Other than the choice of words, we seem to be agreeing.
=Smidge=

How fast is traditional manufacturing? Sure, once you get your tooling set up and dedicate an entire warehouse to production and assembly, you can crank out ten thousand widgets a day... but it takes months and lots of money to get to that level of production.

Meanwhile, if a part can be 3D printed, you press a button and the next morning you have it in your hand. Client/customer needs some customization? No problem, a day or so of computer time and press the button...

Probably. Depends on the printing method. It's not completely certain it would be necessary to print on the go to make this work, though.

Full color printers have been available since before most people knew 3D printing was even a thing. Flexible? Could be, with the right materials. Just about anything you can reduce to a fine powder could conceivably be used.

The relatively cheap filament-based machines that are all the rage now are far from the pinnacle of additive manufacturing. 3D printing is 30+ years old at this point. ...All that said, though, I think Amazon's idea is kinda dumb. It's amazing what some people would rather have than money, though.
=Smidge=

How?

And what regulations were relaxed that were holding the telephone industry back, again?

The "regulation" means they can't gouge their customers. Also, there is actual, historical precedent that runs counter to your claim.

ISPs are, in many areas, a monopoly or duopoly at best. There is zero competition, and as a result we get the worst service-for-the-buck on the planet. Why is it that ISPs in other countries, which are regulated, are able to provide better service than currently unregulated US companies?
=Smidge=

Cite these deregulations, please.

It's not coincidence that prices started to fall and service improve shortly after the industry monopoly was dismantled. This has always been the result since the trust-busting in the early 20th century and there is sound reasoning behind why it works: Competing companies will lower prices and improve services in an effort to make them more attractive to potential customers compared to their rivals. Monopolies have no incentive to keep prices low or to really innovate new and better services or products.

You, on the other hand, will have to cite what regulations could possibly have been preventing Ma Bell from providing better service when it was clearly possible to do so all along.
=Smidge=

That's what happened to telephone service in the 1980s. There was something of a golden age where everyone and their dog was offering cutthroat long-distance telephone service. Prices fell and service improved.

Power utilities are another example. Chances are, you are under no obligation to buy electricity specifically from your utility - some areas allow you to buy your electricity from third parties, and your utility just acts as a middleman and collects a connection fee to maintain the wires, which they do anyway.

Natural gas is the same way, though you might need to be a major consumer to get that kind of deal.

Now imagine if the internet follows that path: The company that owns and maintains the last-mile infrastructure need not be the same company that actually provides the connection to the main networks.
=Smidge=

Yes, amazingly if you use numbers that are strongly in favor of gasoline vehicles, gasoline vehicles come out looking pretty good. Go figure.

To use harder real-world-average numbers, adjust the math for 29MPG, 3.5 miles/KWHr and $0.12/KWHr.
=Smidge=