Comment Re:Now who saw that coming? (Score 1) 332
Do you have an idea how much hydrogen does the chemical industry need?
If you make H2 in California, selling it to a fertilizer factory in New Jersey isn't gonna work.
Do you have an idea how much hydrogen does the chemical industry need?
If you make H2 in California, selling it to a fertilizer factory in New Jersey isn't gonna work.
While they're at it they should eliminate professional licensing requirements in any but the most safety critical jobs.
More than 1,200 professions are licensed in at least one state, but only 60 are licensed in all states. Eliminating 95% of the licensing requirements would have little negative consequence.
In California, you need a license from the state to make yogurt.
The excessive licensing requirements are often caused by regulatory capture: Incumbents like the requirements because fewer competitors can afford to enter the business.
Women are very openly choosing men based on earning potential, real estate assets and family wealth
Supply and demand. Millions of gender-selective abortions have messed up the ratio of men to women, so women can be picky.
The birth dearth has exacerbated the problem. Men often prefer a younger woman, while women often prefer an older, financially settled man. As birth rates fall, more people are in the older cohort than in the younger cohort.
or just deciding the entire arrangement is not worth it
That makes the problem even worse. But lots of men are also dropping out.
California restricted non-compete agreements in 1872 and banned them in the 1940s.
The ban is one reason the Silicon Valley phenomenon happened in California. Startups can hire with fewer restrictions, ideas spread faster, and employees are more productive because they can easily move to a better-fitting job.
California does a lot of stupid stuff, but got this right.
It's likely well documented and well written.
It's all in assembly, but the program is small.
There are three RCA-1802 CPUs onboard.
They are 8-bit processors. The instruction set is straightforward. It's not difficult to program.
The RCA-1802 is notable for being the first CMOS CPU and was likely picked for that reason since CMOS uses much less power than NMOS, which was the prevailing technology at the time.
There are rad-hard RCA-1802s, but I don't know if Voyager used those. Rad-hard semiconductors are fabricated with depleted boron, which has a much smaller neutron cross-section.
640 bytes ought to be enough for anyone.
I think the GPP meant Tesla producing sodium batteries for grid or home storage, not for vehicles.
Sodium doesn't make sense for vehicles.
But if we use sodium for static storage, a lot more lithium will be freed up for EVs.
They're or you're doing variable pricing wrong if you're not already charging when the price is negative...
Wholesale prices are negative.
That is not passed down to the consumer level.
When PG&E is trying to shed excess power, they are still charging me the normal high daytime rate. I have no incentive to help them soak up the surplus.
Mid-afternoon charging is only practical if you work from home.
That's millions of people.
Or use charging at your employer
Lots of people do that too.
If you invest in a mining rig, will you want to leave it idle 98% of the time?
Same for an osmotic purifier. They are expensive and need steady baseload power to be cost-effective.
Neither is effective as demand peakers.
Hydrogen generators are cheap and can suck up a lot of power, but you need to store the H2 and find a market for it.
They should just install more batteries.
Batteries are not currently cost-effective.
We need sodium batteries for grid storage.
When I stop hearing about brown outs due to excessive AC use then I'll believe it.
RTFA. The brownouts are in the summer. The excess solar is in the spring.
So what do you do after the sun goes down?
Wind turbines, hydro, stored energy, gas, and nuclear (Diablo Canyon recently received a 5-year license extension).
We could also use that cheap electricity to desalinate water or train AI models.
Desalination plants are expensive. It's silly to build one and then only run it for 50 hours per year when energy prices go negative. You wanna run it 24/7, but then it's baseload and contributes nothing to solving the surplus energy problem.
AI data centers are even more expensive. They need clean, reliable baseload power.
Adding more solar is good. We need more.
TFA talks about prices going negative, but that happened 21 days last Spring and only for one or two hours. 98% of the time, it isn't a problem.
There are many solutions:
1. Storage: Pumped hydro and/or peaker batteries.
2. Long-distance HVDC to sell the surplus to other states.
3. Variable pricing. I currently charge my EV from 2-4 AM, when prices are lowest. I'm happy to switch to mid-afternoon charging if PG&E gives me an incentive.
Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun.