" Do they generate enough to satisfy year-round demand? Of course not. Neither do coal plants, and neither do nuclear plants, and neither do natural gas plants (by themselves)"
Yes they can. Together or in a mix. Natural gas plants can without any doubt since be used easily for both peaking loads and in base loads.

Location does have an impact but you can look at peak usage data.
For example in Florida peak usage in summer is from noon to 9PM so yes a good bit of the usage is at night.
In the winter it is 6am to 10am in the morning and 6pm to 10pm at night.

Most power is used in the evening and the morning because that is when people are doing things like cook, laundry and are frankly home.
Your argument about anecdotal evidence is correct but the real usage data does show that peak power usage is in the evenings and not during the day or overnight. BTW Florida is an example of a location where peak load is greatly influenced by ac bills in the summer.

"Guess when the maximum power drain from air conditioning will be? Exactly during mid day when the solar cells are at maximum efficiency. "
Actually no.
Peak temperatures are after solar noon and do not really cool off until well into the evening.
So in Florida in the summer the peak energy use is from 1 to 8 PM
Solar noon in the summer is at 11 am because of daylight savings time. So if peak production is 3 hours of solar noon in the summer in FL then your off peak production at 2pm so your production curve starts to drop only on hour into a 7 hour peak demand. If the afternoon peak demand is a standard curve which it probably pretty close to the truth then peak use should be around 4:30 which is around 5:30 none DST which is well past peak solar output.

Because I said something that they do not like to hear and have response but to call me a troll.
Solar will always have a problem with the production vs demand curves and no smart grids will not fix it only storage will.
Wind is actually a better bet but still needs backing plants using natural gas.

The simple truth is that we are already using and have been using for a long time the only cheap, reliable, and renewable power source, hydroelectric.
But yes slashdot does seem to be less and less full of really knowledgeable people and more and more true believers. Of course I could be wrong but back in the day when people got into wars over vi vs emacs or Linux vs FreeBSD, NetBSD, or OpenBSD it didn't really matter as much as energy policy and they were based on opinion which was ok but energy policy should be based on facts.

So show me a system that can produce 10 Gw 24/7 365 days a year using Wind and Solar and give me a price to build it and I will say it can be done.

And the fullest will be to supplement other power sources.

"Solar is being improved on all the time, and it's getting to the point where solar can compete with the grid at consumer price levels."
The problem is that is only true for a few hours around solar noon.
Peak use is in the early morning and evening when solar produces very little power.
Wind is much better but people always seem to ignore they production vs consumption cycle problem with solar.

I see your point the problem imho is the assumption that solar and wind can be made cheap and reliable. The one cheap, reliable, renewable energy source has been working well for centuries which is hydro.
Wind and solar have a future but they will be supplements to other energy systems and not the main source.
Well unless we have super leaps battery/storage and possibly room temperature superconductors.

"What did it mean that one of the world's most ambitious and capable innovation companies couldn't invent a cheap renewable energy tech?"
Simple, solar and wind are not the way to go to make cheap, reliable, clean energy today.
It is an answer that a lot of people will not like but that is the simple truth.

Actually it might be the case in the EU driving Google to not be the default engine on Firefox.
Before Google was the default on Chrome and Firefox while Bing was the default on IE.
Now Google is the default on Chrome, Yahoo on Firefox, and Bing on IE. It weakens the idea that Google has "locked" people in.
I believe that Bing is the default for IOS now while Google is the default for Android on Mobile.
So by reducing the number of places Google is the default it makes it less likely to be seen as an anti-trust issue.

"The first is that if something goes wrong on takeoff you risk what is effectively a 'dirty bomb' going off somewhere in the Earth's atmosphere which is not good. "
No you are wrong. RTGs are built to survive any type of booster failure. The RTG on Apollo 13 survived a very high speed reentry. They are constructed of layers of graphite, ceramics, and often refractory metals. The only danger an RTG offers from a booster failure is if it lands on you.
"The second, which does not apply in this case, is that if you make it into space safely you had better make sure that the craft does not return for Earth for a few billion years otherwise, again, it is like a dirty bomb going off in the atmosphere. "
No you are wrong again.
The half life is not all that long on the isotopes used in RTGs and even if one did completely burn up on reentry it would cause less ecological harm than the average European music festival.
Also material that is used is only a few kgs and frankly you can stand right next it unshielded and it would not harm you. Frankly you could put it in your pocket and not be harmed since it an alpha emitter and not gamma emitter like Cobalt 60.
Someone has done a good job of indoctrinating in the proper use of fear words like "dirty" bomb.
Here is a helpful bit of logic about dirty bombs. No military has ever put dirty bombs in to inventory. The reason is that they are really not effective weapons. They just do not do enough damage to be worth the trouble. Also you would never use something like Pu for a dirty bomb because it just is not deadly enough.

Ahh no it could have easily survive and yes RTGs have been used by other probes that used gravity earth boost...
And do you know how much damage would have been done if it had burned up on reentry?
None at all.

????
Space probes do not use reactors of fission tech they use radio thermal generators. A few reactors have been flown in space but for that few decades they have only used RTGs for science missions.

"FYI demand in summer in many states is highest with mid-day air conditioning, same time as solar peaks."
No it is not. Peak will be late afternoon and evening when everyone gets home and starts cooking, cranking down the ac, and so on.
Solar noon is not the hottest part of the day. That tends to be around 2 pm but the drop off is pretty flat until an hour after sunset.

"If solar power reduces carbon output from coal, good. Personally, if I could afford solar panels, I'd be interested in what uses it could provide during power outages combined with a battery backup for certain breakers/circuits (fridge, lights, and maybe one for TV watching)."
That is the problem.
So what if it cheaper than coal? Natural Gas is cheaper than coal and solar and natural gas plants are what are being built./

"if I could afford solar panels, I'd be interested in what uses it could provide during power outages combined with a battery backup for certain breakers/circuits (fridge, lights, and maybe one for TV watching).""
Well it would be useless for lights since you do not have any power at night unless you invest in a massive battery bank so you are better off opening the blinds.
Solar really has limited value for grid use but the solar crowd really cooks the books when touting it. Peak power is at solar noon which IS not when peak use is. Peak use is late afternoon early evening when solar falls to just about zero. Trying to figure out the right amount of solar for the mix is tough since baseload has the lowest cost and carbon for KW vs peaking plants so you want enough solar that you can not run peaking when solar can take the load but you want enough baseload that you do not use more fuel running the peaking plant than you need to. Since baseload plants are so efficent it may be better to waste some power at one time to avoid running peaking plants.
And then you have winter and things like clouds and snow which cause issue for solar.
Wind is better since wind can blow 24 hours a days so you can use wind for baseload with ng peaking plants to take the load when winds are too low or high.
Solar is great for remote areas and could be really good if we get really good cheap batteries but we are a long way from batteries that can backup the grid.
BTW way the solar fans cook the books is they will give you the power production as max at solar noon vs average for 24 hours, month, or year.

That depends.
Are you looking for affairs or are you looking for bad reporting, exaggeration. or a lack of honesty? It could be.
Digging into someones personal life is one thing digging into their professional life is another.

What I find most interesting about Uber and Lyft is the thing that people like about them is the same thing that they hate about them. They are not hampered by regulations...
Maybe some hampering would be a good thing but then they just become another taxi service.