Bitcoin Miners Shut Off Rigs as Texas Power Grid Nears Brink (bloomberg.com) 153
Nearly all industrial scale Bitcoin miners in Texas have shut off their machines as the companies brace for a heat wave that is expected to push the state's power grid near its breaking point. From a report: Miners such as Riot Blockchain, Argo Blockchain and Core Scientific, who operate millions of energy-intensive computers to secure the Bitcoin blockchain network and earn rewards in the token, flocked to the Lone Star State thanks to its low energy costs and liberal regulations on crypto mining. The state has become one of the largest crypto-mining hubs by computing power in the world.
"There are over 1,000 megawatts worth of Bitcoin mining load that responded to ERCOTs conservation request by turning off their machines to conserve energy for the grid." Lee Bratcher, president of Texas Blockchain Association told Bloomberg in an email response. "This represents nearly all industrial scale Bitcoin mining load in Texas and allows for over 1% of total grid capacity to be pushed back onto the grid for retail and commercial use." Miners may see a drop in profitability as the heat wave keeps their machines off by sending energy prices soaring and further stressing the state's power grid. The miners are already struggling to repay debt and raise additional capital with Bitcoin prices in sharp decline.
"There are over 1,000 megawatts worth of Bitcoin mining load that responded to ERCOTs conservation request by turning off their machines to conserve energy for the grid." Lee Bratcher, president of Texas Blockchain Association told Bloomberg in an email response. "This represents nearly all industrial scale Bitcoin mining load in Texas and allows for over 1% of total grid capacity to be pushed back onto the grid for retail and commercial use." Miners may see a drop in profitability as the heat wave keeps their machines off by sending energy prices soaring and further stressing the state's power grid. The miners are already struggling to repay debt and raise additional capital with Bitcoin prices in sharp decline.
Additional info (Score:5, Informative)
ABC News adds:
The call for Texans to voluntarily conserve their electric use comes as scorching temperatures overtake the state and electricity demands have surged. As of Monday, the heat index for Austin is predicted to be 111 degrees, with predictions for 109 degrees in Houston and 105 degrees in Dallas.
ERCOT appealed for conservation from 2 to 8 p.m. Monday,
The Monday appeal comes due to record high electric demand and low wind, ERCOT said in the statement, as wind generation is shown to be at less than 10% of its capacity.
ERCOT suggests residents and business owners turn up their thermostats one to two degrees and postpone running major appliances or pool pumps to conserve during peak hours.
It's only 115F outside here in AZ! (Score:3, Interesting)
This heatwave is nothing. It's only 115F outside as I type this, here in sunny Arizona.
Back in 1990, we got up to a high of 122F and the airplanes couldn't even take off because the air could no longer create enough lift. Now THAT was a hot heatwave.
Re:It's only 115F outside here in AZ! (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember a day like that, arriving in Phoenix for a business trip in the evening. I missed the high temperature, but the low for the night was 93F, IIRC. A colleague of mine was there a little earlier than I and got stuck waiting for it to "cool" down before they could take off.
I got to spend the next morning walking 150,000 sq ft of roof surveying equipment. The roof was rolled asphalt painted with a reflective aluminized coating, making it seem like there was one sun above and one sun below. I literally thought I might die. And I had gotten up on the roof first thing to beat the heat, finishing before noon and well before the afternoon high. I was younger then, I don't think I would do that now.
Re: It's only 115F outside here in AZ! (Score:2)
Re: It's only 115F outside here in AZ! (Score:2)
122
Yikes! Downtown LA reached 120+F twice in the past decade. I could only imagine what the vallies and desert must've been like.
120F disables airplanes? O_o
Re: It's only 115F outside here in AZ! (Score:2)
Take off speed for a aircraft is based on air density and weight.
Minimum runway length is based on take off speed, weight, engine performance and safety margins
Engine performance is based on air density and temperature.
It's quite possible hot days in high elevation airports can ground planes. I don't believe there is a specific temperature limit though
Engine performance, not lack of lift (Score:4, Informative)
It isn't primarily lack of lift that prevents take-off in high temperatures, it's engine performance with hotter ambient air. The lower density of the hot air means you can't burn as much fuel and get less power output. In higher temperatures at high altitude, you get reduced engine power output and lack of lift from the rarefied air at high altitude, the so-called "hot and high [wikipedia.org]" condition.
Re:Additional info (Score:4, Informative)
ABC News adds:
The call for Texans to voluntarily conserve their electric use comes as scorching temperatures overtake the state and electricity demands have surged. As of Monday, the heat index for Austin is predicted to be 111 degrees, with predictions for 109 degrees in Houston and 105 degrees in Dallas.
ERCOT appealed for conservation from 2 to 8 p.m. Monday,
The Monday appeal comes due to record high electric demand and low wind, ERCOT said in the statement, as wind generation is shown to be at less than 10% of its capacity.
ERCOT suggests residents and business owners turn up their thermostats one to two degrees and postpone running major appliances or pool pumps to conserve during peak hours.
The wind capacity is sort of misleading, wind is always at its lowest this time of day. It is lower than other days at this same time, so 10% at noon is low compared to say 30% at noon. Wind peaks overnight.
Re: (Score:2)
Coming up when the an excuse doesn't make it misleading.
The nation's largest wind farms are in fact not providing significant power. That
Ugh, hit submit on accident (Score:2, Troll)
Ugh, I accidentally hit submit.
Sure you're right, it NORMAL for there to be no wind power when it's mostly needed. That fact that wind normally isn't all that great doesn't make it misleading to point out it's really sucked this month.
We've had no storms and no rain for about a month, just still, hot air. Which means no wind power and no hydro.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Ugh, hit submit on accident (Score:2)
Re:Additional info (Score:5, Insightful)
The ERCOT dashboard (https://www.ercot.com/) is actually decent insofar as it shows the basic info, and isn't super cluttered.
And shows that the solar generation is going up as wind is going down. I presume some generalized relationship there, but I dunno. Nice to see that about 15% of TX electrical is coming from solar + wind (using their figures from today). Seems like TX would be in a good position to say double their installed wind, maybe triple their installed solar. And again double their nuclear (now at ~10%) . Boom, making huge strides towards carbon neutral, and importantly getting to some price stability.
I would think average Texans if anyone are pretty tired of boom.bust cycles around petroleum. Especially having their chain yanked by the likes of Russia, Iran, Suadi Arabia, Venezuela, and so on.
Re: (Score:3)
And shows that the solar generation is going up as wind is going down. I presume some generalized relationship there, but I dunno.
Of course as the temperature increases, the conversion efficiency of solar panels decreases.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's a real factor, but let's put some numbers behind it :
To pick a worse case scenario, suppose we've got a solar panel temperature coefficient [solar.com] on the high end, of -0.5%/C. And we've got the highest temperatures seen by them -- 65 Celsius, 149 degrees Fahrenheit.
That works out to an efficiency loss of 20% -- significant, but it's not like it makes the solar panel useless. And remember, this is a worst-case scenario.
Picking a case where the solar panel has a temperature coefficient of -0.3%/C and 130 degr
Re: (Score:2)
They would need to install wind power offshore. The weather patterns on land - or if you want to dare to say it: the general climate, is not in favour of land based wind power.
Perhaps with more modern installations that reach higher, and perhaps with cherry picked locations, you could improve that a bit. E.g. a side of a hill that faces the general wind direction, the wind going uphill usually speeds up considerable.
Re: (Score:3)
> Nice to see that about 15% of TX electrical is coming from solar + wind (using their figures from today).
On AVERAGE wind is 20%. Some times it's zero, sometimes it's 25. That's the thing about wind - it's nice to have when it feels like coming around. Definitely a good thing to have, just don't ever depend on it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Additional info (Score:2)
Solar can be somewhat complementary to wind, but the issue comes at twilight. Your AC unit continues to have to struggle even as the sun starts to set, due to residual heat. And people all tend to follow a fixed routine: they come home in the evening, turn on lights, run appliances, play a computer game, turn the AC down to sleep, etc.
So there's a big load spike, and it hits around the time solar irradiance starts dropping off. And wind doesn't always pick up in time to help in conditions like this because
Re: Additional info (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
You want price stability? Maybe is Texas would stop being so... Texas and actually connect to the North American power grid, which is designed to balance loads across the country for exactly this reason instead of going it alone and thus being affected by every local weather phenomenon.
Re: Additional info (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Texas has two nuclear power plants [nrc.gov], with two units each: Comanche Peak and the South Texas Project, 40 miles SW of Fort Worth and 90 miles SW of Houston respectively.
Re: Additional info (Score:2)
How about some solar panels?
Re: (Score:2)
The call for Texans to voluntarily conserve their electric use .
This is Texas we're talking about, right? Since when did Texans ever conserve anything? Most of them will probably increase their use just to show how Texan they are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: Additional info (Score:2)
Public announcement: We've stopped mining bitcoin (Score:5, Funny)
Privately: We'll be back at it as soon as we figure out how not to get caught.
Note (Score:4, Insightful)
If Bitcoin was rallying at 60K rather than struggling at 20K, the miners would happily leave the state to fry or go to the poor house paying the jacked up rates.
Hot and sunny (Score:2)
Why A Mix Of Power Sources Is Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Go over to the ERCOT webiste. I'll wait for you.
www.ercot.com
Now take a look at the dashboard graphs that they have. They have quite a few of those, but they are easy to read if your eyesight is good.
Notice how solar power generation ramped up from "0" at night to pretty much peak output once the Sun was up in the morning sky.
Notice how wind farm generation has been slowly ramping up all day as winds increase. ERCOT predicted that wind generation would be weak on 11-July-2022.
In other news, the coal-fired plants and "tea kettle" nuke plants are still online. And for "political reasons", Texas still does not believe in industrial-scale power interconnects with other grids.
Take a look at ERCOT's "Unplanned Outage Report" for 11-July-2022. Quite a mix of power is either offline or in limited production for an assortment of reasons: "lack of fuel", "repairs", "other", and "unknown".
My point is simple, as stated in the 'Comment Subject'...a mix of power is needed. A "wind & solar only" power generation mix will not produce on a winter day (not everyone lives in Arizona or California) when solar panels are covered in snow and the wind isn't blowing; been there and done that. And battery storage on the scale that Texas would need? You must find great pleasure in the act of increasing Elon Musk's financial wealth by astronomical amounts.
Think about it this way. When the wind isn't blowing, what sources will replace it? When the Sun isn't shining, what sources will replace it? When that coal-fired or nuke plant is offline for whatever, what sources will replace it?
On really hot Summer days, and Texas is running above average this year for days at or above 100 degrees, the Texas power grid gets pushed to it's limits. Maybe that's a sign of "supply & demand" truly working since building a new plant for industrial scale power generation does not happen overnight. Other than solar & wind projects (and both have benefited from various "tax incentives" over the years), not 1 truly "baseline power generation source" has been built in Texas for a decade or more, yet the state population is increasing as more & more people & companies move to it.
Oh, and that influx of newbies stresses the already limited water resources of Texas of which no new reservoirs have been built in at least 20 years. Many localities enforce some form of water restrictions year round in Texas. Is electricity next?
Re:Why A Mix Of Power Sources Is Needed (Score:5, Informative)
Another source they could add would be participation in the national electrical grid, where they could purchase power when their grid is insufficient.
Re: (Score:2)
Another source they could add would be participation in the national electrical grid, where they could purchase power when their grid is insufficient.
Everybody sing along now...
If you're happy with FERC raise your hand! If you're happy with FERC raise your hand!
Power grid interconnects on "Texas scale" would immediately introduce FERC to the power grid problems of Texas. Two bunches of regulatory clowns is too much when the one bunch of Texan regulatory clowns is more than enough for anyone.
But seriously...
On a political level, Texas has never been happy with FERC and FERC's forms of "Federal Government interference in state affairs". There are some real
Re: (Score:3)
The dirty secret is Texas would rather buy power from Mexico than connect to the national grid. https://www.ecmag.com/section/... [ecmag.com]
Re: (Score:2)
It kind of makes sense, since Mexico and Texas are neighbors. Texas Republicans might talk nasty about keeping Mexican immigrants out, but that's just to get votes from to stay in office. When it comes to electricity supplies, they know that people get very grumpy about the electricity going out, and that grumpiness turns into lost votes. That causes flashes of pragmatism when push comes to shove.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
New reservoirs won't do squat without rain : https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu... [unl.edu]
Re: (Score:2)
My point is simple, as stated in the 'Comment Subject'...a mix of power is needed. A "wind & solar only" power generation mix will not produce on a winter day (not everyone lives in Arizona or California) when solar panels are covered in snow and the wind isn't blowing; been there and done that. And battery storage on the scale that Texas would need? You must find great pleasure in the act of increasing Elon Musk's financial wealth by astronomical amounts.
Think about it this way. When the wind isn't blowing, what sources will replace it? When the Sun isn't shining, what sources will replace it? When that coal-fired or nuke plant is offline for whatever, what sources will replace it?
You're tilting at windmills bud. 50:50 is a mix, 10:90 is a mix, 90:10 is a mix, 99:1 is a mix
Texas is only at what, 10-15% wind and solar? You're saying the grid can't be only wind and solar, but can it be 90%? 50%? You're going to need a bit more data. Kind of pointless arguing for a mix when 100% wind/solar is a straw man and we're only at 10% as it is.
Re: (Score:2)
not 1 truly "baseline power generation source" has been built in Texas for a decade or more
Because Texas does not need one. They need peaking power, which is pretty clear from your rant before that line.
My assumption is, as you use "base line" and not "base load", you do not know what you are talking about.
BTC miners shouldn't be allowed to use energy (Score:5, Insightful)
at all. They are making power more expensive and using up power to turn it into heat while increasing CO2 emissions. All this to produce something that has no value. Kick BTC mining to the curb.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They are raising the price of solar panels for legitimate uses, and raising the price of silicon for everyone else.
Stand alone, die alone ... (Score:5, Insightful)
When other states lack capacity, they simply get additional power from other states via the national electrical grid. TX / ERCOT declines to participate in that so I have trouble feeling bad for them when their stand-alone grid fails them.
Re: (Score:3)
You mean, so we Texans could avoid rolling blackouts like in California, where they are connected to the national grid?
Re: (Score:2)
If Texas is such a bad place to live, why are so many Californians moving to Texas?
https://kinder.rice.edu/urbane... [rice.edu]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That doesn't exactly make a great case for how bad Texas is...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Let them secede. We won't miss their electoral college votes.
Re: (Score:2)
Is there a GoFundMe for Texit I can contribute to?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Priorities (Score:2)
Texas is focused on monstering white Christian "values" from the 1950s on all Texans and beyond, instead of doing anything to fix their power grid which has already failed during a recent winter costing lives.
Not that I care. Let them wallow in bullshit and blazing heat and freezing houses. The rest of the world will move on.
Ha ha ha! :D (Score:2)
And... It's gone! (Score:2)
Mine the dip!
So Texas can't handle the heat (Score:2)
Re:Damages (Score:5, Insightful)
So, turning off the miners when asked is a bad thing and inflicts damage upon the power grid?
Wouldn't that actually be a good thing - use the power when available and pay for it, shut down when required to reduce the load?
Re:Damages (Score:5, Insightful)
Me? Strong dislike for BTC miners. However- this was behaving as a good citizen. So good on them.
Re: Damages (Score:2)
Re: Damages (Score:4, Informative)
Given that prices in Texas spike when these things happen, it is probably also just common sense.
Yeah - there was not "being a good citizen" but more "don't want to pay $10k per kwh"
Re: (Score:2)
The price wasn't at $10k per kwh.
The profit-maximizing approach would be to push it right up to the breakeven for profitability.
They are consenting to pull back their demand before that point so that the demand leading up to $10k per kwh can be used to cool homes, instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My overall point was that the number is irrelevant except as a variable in the function that determines profitability, itself a boolean that evaluated to true at the time.
Re: (Score:2)
So yes, they took a drop in productivity to save everyone (including themselves) more pain later on.
Re: (Score:2)
Many customers in Texas pay a variable rate based on demand for power. It *IS* good that they are suspending the mining but make no mistake, if BTC was at 60K rather than struggling at 20K, there would be no shutdown. This is simply a cost/benefit analysis that favors shutting down.
Re:Damages (Score:5, Insightful)
The price isn't relevant- what's relevant is that they're profitable right now.
They're choosing to forgo profit until the aggregate demand drives the price up to non-profitability, which is leaving money on the table.
Even if BTC was at $60K right now, there'd still be a point where the Texas grid was driven to non-profitability for them.
There are a couple of obvious reason to do this, both very debatable.
1) Optics.
2) Morals.
It can be argued that 1 matters, and that it does not.
It can be argued that they have 2, and that they do not.
In the end, only they know, but the fact that they did leave money on the table to alleviate the pain everyone else will feel does matter.
Re: (Score:2)
At 20K they were barely profitable. Many were already considering shutting down until BTC recovered a bit (if it does).
Re: (Score:2)
My organization operates about a dozen datacenters. We're still getting new mining installations every single day.
Less profitable is still profitable. BTC at 20k is still about 4x profit to cost, and as long as your physical hosting costs work out, it still makes sense to mine.
Re: (Score:2)
I have a question about that. If demand rises and the prices go up, doesn't that make Bitcoin more profitable to mine and not less?
Also, there's a big assumption in there, as if the history of Bitcoin is one of cyclical rises and falls and all you have to do is wait and the price will rise. I'm not sure that's a safe assumption.
Re: (Score:2)
I have a question about that. If demand rises and the prices go up, doesn't that make Bitcoin more profitable to mine and not less?
If demand rises, and prices go up, profitability goes down- but it's still profitable.
It's profitable up until it's not, and every inch you don't push it is money not made.
Also, there's a big assumption in there, as if the history of Bitcoin is one of cyclical rises and falls and all you have to do is wait and the price will rise. I'm not sure that's a safe assumption.
No, the assumption is steady state.
Mining profitability is measured at current prices.
Bitcoin bros are known for their finely-tuned concern for optics and for their morality.
I agree that they're known for neither of those things, which makes it debatable which has happened.
Re: (Score:2)
Cost benefit analysis is probably along the lines of not pissing off Texas, because it might decide to regulate. And once Texas decices something needs a regulation, then they know it's super serious and crypto minin gis in trouble everywhere in the universe. Except maybe Kazakhstan. So temporarily pretend not to be bloodsucking leeches.
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect the reality is a mix.
2 of the major players that have shut down are American organizations, with one of them even located in Texas. The third major player is in London.
Heat waves and power loss cause deaths. These organizations all have diversified capacity, and can afford to shut down a profitable center for a while for both purposes: Not being seen as a blood-sucking parasite, and not having deaths on your conscience.
Re: (Score:2)
Some people are going to search as hard as they can to find a justification for their dislike.
Me? Strong dislike for BTC miners. However- this was behaving as a good citizen. So good on them.
BTC miners earn every bit of ire they get and some. Needlessly wasteful in resources, causing shortages and driving up prices.
But I digress, the problem here isn't BTC miners, it's the Texas power grid being unable to cope with demand. This is at least the 3rd successive year when Texans have been asked to conserve power as the mercury climbs. More people are using air conditioners and there isn't any redundancy built in nor are they able to scale up. I'm certain this has gone on longer than 3 years, tha
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Damages (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
However, a comparison can't really be made, as FB (don't know about Twitter) has invested billions in low-carbon footprint datacenters to provide their service.
They're still fucking evil, but they've taken highly expensive steps to limit their environmental impact.
Re:Damages (Score:5, Insightful)
But let's assume for a moment that Bitcoin miners continue to want to maintain those optics. We're still burning a huge amount of fossil fuels to supply it at electricity for something that's predominantly used for Ponzi schemes, money laundering and ransomware. There really isn't any upside to cryptocurrency. The rampant centralization around the major exchanges and big mining operations means it's no longer a decentralized finance system and it's slow and ponderous so it's not even of any practical use. It has no positive benefits to society or anyone else who isn't one of the people who have managed to trick other people into putting real fiat currency into the system. And there's every indication that if and when the amount of fiat currency entering the system slows or stops the whole thing is going to collapse. As the saying goes web 3 is going great.
So we have a ton of additional pollution and a ton of potential financial problems and a handful of people getting rich off it and a handful of nerds who think it's vaguely cyberpunk. If we can get over the fact that it's all vaguely cyberpunk and that seems kind of cool and think rationally about it then it's clear cryptocurrency needs to go away before it does any more damage.
Like one guy said about crypto, imagine if you could idle your car 24/7 to solve Sudoku puzzles to buy heroin. That's cryptocurrency. Only instead of buying heroin we're doing something even worse now, securities trading
Re: (Score:3)
They would cheerfully turn off the power to every orphanage and hospital in the state to keep their operations running.
As you said, this is how every business operates, so the miners are not worse than other businesses.
There really isn't any upside to cryptocurrency.
There is. One example would be fleeing a war zone. Taking bitcoin would be much easier than a suitcase with cash and a bank or ATM may not be operational. It would be more difficult to exchange bitcoin for fiat once you get to your destination, but that problem can be solved calmly, when bombs are not falling around you.
imagine if you could idle your car 24/7 to solve Sudoku puzzles to buy heroin.
Is
Re: (Score:2)
99.8% of that heat is wasted, unless you spend tons of money conserving and storing that heat, and your housing heating bills are high enough anyway to make it worth it, and it's not in the summer, and... Well, all the bullshit that crypto bros claim about "the intrinsic value is in the heat generated" doesn't really hold up in the real world.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
His GPUs must be a lot smaller than mine. For me, one GPU fills my hand quite adequately.
Fleeing a war zone with crypto is a terrible idea (Score:2)
Also is YouTube o
Re: (Score:2)
Meanwhile as far as using crypto while you're in the active process of fleeing no one is going to take it. Anyone who's going to help traffic you is going to want cold hard cash or is likely to be doing it pro bono.
I agree, at the same time, I'd rather have some money in cash and some in crypto instead of a suitcase full of cash. Someone could decide to take that suitcase from me, while they may not even know I have crypto and only see the cash I have.
Re: (Score:3)
It's flat out wrong.
That's not to say they're good guys, but they're not the ultimate libertarian parasite, either.
Every group of people, from 1 to infinity-1, has a line they're willing to walk up to in the name of making money.
I suspect you are right, and this is probably just about optics, which is sound business, but at the same time, it's not a stretch to equate every dollar raised due to their demand
Small and mid-sized businesses can (Score:2)
The key point is that no one individual is doing anything that would be considered all that evil. What you're doing is you're taking something that's positively Gastly and evil and spreading the blame across thousands of individuals until it feels lik
Re: (Score:2)
I argued that implying there is no bar is simply false.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't even think Google really tried. They just stalled for time, so it wouldn't be quite as obvious when they broke bad.
Re: (Score:2)
Their business model itself was a red flag.
Do No Evil was just good marketing when you were looking at them as a startup vs. the other established players in the space.
Re: Damages (Score:2)
Re: Damages (Score:2)
Re: Damages (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't that actually be a good thing - use the power when available and pay for it, shut down when required to reduce the load?
I got a better idea. Rather than simply wasting power because it exists, have peaker plants shutdown and not spew CO2 into the air just so some fuckwits can calculate Wall Street fantasies.
The idea that because energy exists we must use it is precisely why America, Canada, and Australia top countries in emissions per capita. The "It's cheap so fuck it I'll use it whether I need it or not" approach.
Re: (Score:2)
they will want real funds and not crypto
Re: (Score:2)
One of the reasons Texas is screwed is because it, and the U.S. and the World built all those carbon producing power plants and built economies on carbon. Now the chickens, who are singularly endowed with abilities to avoid those avian death machines, have come home to roost. So enlightened people such as yourself complain we haven't built enough carbon spewing monsters that have fucked Texas. If only they'd been building windmills and solar power systems, then they'd be the rootinest, tootinest cowboys Nor
Like 6.5X as much as California? (Score:3)
> If only they'd been building windmills and solar power systems
Texas has six and a half times as much wind and solar as California. Something like half the wind and solar in the country is in Texas.
Wind power isn't producing today.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Sardinement.
Re: (Score:3)
No.
No.
No.
No.
Re: (Score:2)
Quite well. It will build more wind and solar, then take advantage of the massive load-smoothing capability parked in people's driveways to supply power when intermittent wind/solar isn't producing.
Re: (Score:2)
Quite well. It will build more wind and solar, then take advantage of the massive load-smoothing capability parked in people's driveways to supply power when intermittent wind/solar isn't producing.
Perhaps you can sell people on the idea they can keep their AC running if they offer up range on their car in sacrifice. More likely the idea will get you unelected.