There are like 100 types of fuel cells that don't work with hydrogene.

Your ideas about the awfullness of storing hydrogen is like 20 years outdated ...

The rest of your post makes even less sense "They have to be replaced more often (because hydrogen is very hard on materials)." Are you mixing up high pressure or super cold hydrogen with modern storages?

MBPs are difficult to open and close for a layman.
But you easy can upgrade the HD/SSD, exchange the optical disk for another HD or SSD and change the ram (often twice as big as in the official spec).
Ofc, you either need help to open and close it or someone who does the conversion for you.

Daytime need of California? So the rest can be exported?

The article became quickly very fluffy so I did not continue reading it. I was more talking about the general misconception that solar makes no sense without storage when in fact it makes a lot of sense.

Well, you just supported my claim.

More than 5% pumped storage are not needed.

The fact that your "grid works" (mostly) actually shows that.

However you are in the nice situation that you have a lot of water power anyway.

Which report do you mean again? That wikipedia article just lists the pumped storage plants :D

And the article is wrong anyway, perhaps it only lists pumped storage above a certain size? Germany alone has like 25 pumped storage plants (only 2 listed in that article) and we are also in the 20GW and something like 400GWh range.

In theory ... in practice not. The fix costs in comparison to fuel are so low, they are hardly relevant.

The point is a typical (modern) ICE has an efficiency of 20%.
Regarding thermodynamic and the Carnot Theorem, a "heat engine" running in similar temperature conditions has an efficiency of 40%.
So an ICE is only at 50% of its theoretical maximum.
On the other hand electric engines are above 99% efficiency ... in comparison to an ICE that is a factor of 5.
OTOH we could go back to "steam engines". With our modern technology we could build small scale steam engines close to the theoretical maximum of efficiency and would be twice as good as ICEs.

A few years ago a british team wanted to build a new racing car based around a steam engine, unfortunately it was not as fast as hoped: http://www.extremetech.com/ext...

You would make an artificial hill for that :D

I doubt a "local" storage for pumped storage makes sense, as you in fact really need a lot of space and a lot of water, and a second basin "down hill".

The point is: you don't really need a special area if you are ready to trade hight for area.

No, I'm actually not comparing that.

He did :D

I only say he believes that his extra energy spent is simply justified with the size of the flat. Which it likely is not, likely it is badly insulated, has no shades for the sun facing windows is not only cooled with electricity but also heated ... just pick it.

I guess if he would hire a german specialist he could half or even cut his electricity bill to a third. But already told us: he wont do that as his electricity is dirt cheap ... and then he likes to compare his 11cent/kWh price with the 25c/kWh price in Germany and draws even more silly conclusions.

Energy price, mainly influenced by taxes is the reason people invest into "technology" or equipment that lowers their bill. And hence lowers the CO2 foot print.

Ofc that FlyHelicopter would be better of if he would calculate his bill per square foot, perhaps even cutting out AC ... then he could compare his spendings much better with europeans, or others. The main factor usually is not the size of the house but the people in the household. I live in a 2 person house hold. Ofc I use less power than a 4 person house hold. On top of that we safe a lot, but that is more by habit/lifestyle then by explicit attempts to safe power. E.g. I for my part don't shower every morning, nor does my room mate/ex girl friend (which would only change the gas bill anyway and not the electricity bill). We don't have a cloth dryer (and would not need one anyway) We have no AC, and we manage to keep the flat cool by "intelligent" opening and closing the windows in summer ... and yes outside it is often about 40 degrees C, nevertheless I have inside below 25C even in summer.

ver that doesn't increase the total amount of wealth, just the counters we use to represent it.

But the stuff you spent the money for does.

Solar and wind cannot provide base load,
Actually thy can, or more precisely they do.
Base load plants get powered down when wind and solar surges, because you still need the relatively fast demand following mid range and peak plants.

As soon as Germany is with wind power on perhaps 40% level Germany will outphase all old base load plants. Actually we are already in the process doing so.

I have no idea why this idiotic mantra is constantly repeated on /. "X is not base load" ...

So in terms of what we have, there are really three sources of power that can provide, in reality, base load for a billion people today in the world. Coal, natural gas, and nuclear.

Which of those three would you prefer to have, if they are your only choices?
They are not he only choices, for base load I use the cheapest energy I have, regardless if dispatch able or not :D as I said above, it is a misconception especially repeated here on /. that wind and solar are "not base load".

I don't really know why americans assume people in Italy, France or north Africa have fewer PCs, fewer TVs etc. Or have other heating or cooling constraints. The point is many use "natural" cooling and have no need for AC and heating is done by gas, I really wonder if you typoed or do you want to imply you heat such a big house with electricity? That would be idiotic.

The rest of your question makes no sense. If you want to live in a 422square yard flat and complain or justify its AC or other electricity costs: that is your damn problem. Ofc a similar big house in Italy would very likely still be cheaper to heat and cool, despite more or less same climate conditions.

Lifestyle ... is that the new anti term? Or is wasting energy "lifestyle" like drinking wine is? Sorry ... americans ... at least those who are not to poor, have no significant different lifestyle than an european. Perhaps they fly more in their own country, and drive more often longer distances with a car. The rest is just the same, there is nothing different that justifies a bigger energy footprint.

Base load plant usually run at 90%

Gas turbines are not necessarily "smaller", they usually are quite powerful as well.

What you mean is "balancing power" not "peak demand load", that term does not exist.

The main load is delivered by "mid range" load following plants, not by base load nor by "peak" plants.

So yes, they need time to ramp up.

Rofl, it is HEATING, we are talking about creating electricity. Or did I misread somehow?

And even in such heating situations it is unlikely you are above 75% ... hard to measure anyway.

If you had 95% you would heat X minutes until you have the temperature you want and then "switch the heating of" ... basically impossible to measure efficiency in a meaningful way if you lack the insulation.

Well, the names of "language families" don't necessarily indicate that the languages are related in the sense that one is a variation of the other or that they had the same "origin".

Regarding Finnish, Hungarian and Korean, they hardly have a common origin, but are put into the same language family because of similar structure.

Like we put all oo languages into "object oriented" and all imperative languages into "imperative".

However more modern research, AFTER the language family "Finno-Ugric" was defined indicates indeed that both have their origin around the Ural region. Nevertheless there is hardly any language similarity between finish and hungarian.

As a more or less novice in linguistics I would even assume that the baltic languages (Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia) are close to finish, but it seems that is not the case (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_states) But well the wiki article says Estonian is an Uralic language (what ever that again means in relation to Finno-Ugric languages).

was mainly fought between Germans.
What ever the reason was for the many wars in Europa, the different languages weren't.
The battlefield was germany. The troop leaders and nations behind it weren't.