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Comment Re:Just fund Solar (Score 1) 102

Right, faeries and pixies are feeding carbon free electricity to the grid during nights!

Or are you arguing for nuclear? If so I'm not against it.

I guess you can do something with wind turbines and geothermal too. Well, wind is even less reliable than solar. Solar at least shines every day though very poorly in the cloudy winters. But geothermal could work.

Comment Re:Solar is not enough (Score 1) 102

I agree with you about nuclear. I think it is a better option overall. At least it works as well in winter as it does in summer. Nuclear is even better in winter. It works fine even in summer if money are spent on cooling towers instead of heating up nearby rivers. Not sure about fusion. It looks like a pipe dream. But I believe that fission can work well if more research and investment is put into it. And some more standardized regulations across countries. Something which would streamline government approval and eliminate custom modifications.

That being said, solar works OK for homeowners in spring and summer. It does not work in autumn and winter. If you are located near the equator it works OK all the year. Though hurricanes can mess with it.

Comment Re:Solar is not enough (Score 1) 102

London latitude is about 52 deg. My friend's latitude is about 48 deg. It is about the same. If cloud cover averages are about the same as well then your power generation will lacking a lot in winter. His experience is that it is about 10x lower around winter solstice compared to summer solstice.

Notice that winters at his location are typically cloudy and summers are typically with clear skies. That does not sound appealing but it is good. Cloudy winter days mean early morning temperatures typically around 23 deg F. Clear sky winter days mean early morning temperatures as low as -13 deg F. I prefer cloudy winter before sunny winter all the time! But winter clouds are terrible for solar power.

Comment Re:Solar is not enough (Score 1) 102

Solar works at least for spring and summer. My friend disconnects from grid for spring/summer and uses only his solar and battery backup. He connects to grid for autumn/winter.

You are lucky to live in a location where electricity is still cheap during nights. In my location, the electricity is cheap only during lunch time and very early afternoon. It is very expensive during evening and stays quite expensive until morning.

Comment Re:Just fund Solar (Score 1) 102

Well, my 10x claim is very simple. A friend of mine has solar for his house. Enough solar that he completely disconnects from the grid for spring and summer. He reconnect to the grid for autumn and winter. His solar is built from non-movable panels and a battery backup for a few days. He lives at 48 deg latitude. He told me that the production around winter solstice is about 10 times smaller than around summer solstice.
I do not really need any studies. I have an approximate number directly from the source which lives without grid about half of every year ... and connects to the grid for the other half.

Comment Re:Ummmm... it gets cold (Score 1) 102

Turning off the hardware during winter is not an option. What kind of return-on-investment would it be if they do not operate during winter. They many billions on the hardware. Winter electricity price increase is peanuts compared to that. Either the homeowners will run of money or data centers will. We shell see :)

Comment Re:Just fund Solar (Score 1) 102

Grand-grand-parent forgot about big additional energy storage.
Solar without storage means no electricity after about 6 PM. Depending on the location one needs solar generating about 10x the required power in summer to have just enough power in winter. That 10x is for latitude around 45 deg without storage capacity for half a year. Good luck with solar only!

Comment Re: Which is it? (Score 1) 128

I just wanted to let you know that you have successfully driven me off of /., after some 25 years.

Not just you, obviously, the site has been in steep decline for a long time, but you were such a huge asshole that you managed to be the last straw. So, congrats for that. I won't be back.

Comment Good (Score 1) 93

Microsoft at least recognizes that memory safety features of Rust are a good thing and it is worth using (despite existence of unsafe keyword). If it would be according some slashdot users we would be still using assembler because real programmers do not make (stupid) mistakes.

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