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Comment by PicassoCTs | Hacker News Reader

Which is great- desperate propaganda is one of the stages of grief for a dying market. Solar is already under-pricing them, they can no longer fight it with regulation manipulation alone. Shareholders are already exiting them in droves, waiting for the final blow - the invention of some large scale storage. Either that or supra-conducting pipelines, shifting energy globally to were its needed in location and time.

Blunt lies to the former middle-class, who by nostalgia associate that technology with there own lost status, wont save them, they may only prolong the inevitable.

Let Don Quixote ride one last charge against the giants..

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One could reasonably argue that since wind and solar power wouldn't save their bacon in an extreme weather situation it could also be perceived as a mal-investment, HHOS. If investing in "green" energy can divert capital and attention from systems reliability and resiliency, ERCOT's got some splainin' to do...especially since the author (Mackey) asserts that wind and solar were not expected to produce in the winter, whereas Texas supposedly has about 30 GW of wind power capacity[1].

The article seems to be relying mostly on indignant protestations. In reality solar and wind must be coupled with storage in order to act as reliable baseload generation.

So although solar and wind (and hydro) can reduce combustion generation, it can't be relied on to offset these particular risks of excessive demand (from people freezing, y'know?) which resulted in costly exposure. As evidenced by the reduced capacity.

[1] There exist more balanced analysis that cite data, e.g https://www.americanexperiment.org/2021/02/wind-energy-fails...

>Texas supposedly has about 30 GW of wind power capacity >In reality solar and wind must be coupled with storage in order to act as reliable baseload generation.

The problem is there is no grid scale storage, and neither ERCOT nor any other organization I know of can will solar nor wind into production.

Completely agree with your assessment.

ERCOT leadership failed.

TX power grid failed.

People died.

Don Quixote I can feel sympathy for. The fossil fuel industry not as much

Have sympathy for yourself.

Please note organic fuels: -provide parts for your computer, smart phone, router -power your home, and office so you can use above -keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter -transport you on the ground and in the air from A to B -power the agricultural sector so you don't have to grow all your own food

Unlike you, there are a billion people+ on Earth who do not have access to cheap, and reliable energy.

This is peak developed world virtue signaling.

Those aren't fuels - those are chemicals found in crude oil. You don't burn crude oil in power plants. Burning less coal or natural gas doesn't decrease access to plastics and other organic chemicals.

That there are starving people in africa is not a valid argument for Americans to over eat, likewise the lack of cheap reliable alternatives to fossil fuels in the third world is not a reason for the developed world to also keep burning fossil fuels.

>Those aren't fuels - those are chemicals found in crude oil.

Methane is an organic fuel. Coal is an organic fuel.

>You don't burn crude oil in power plants.

Diesel is how small island nations in the Carribean or Hawaii get their reliable electricity. Diesel is a heavier form of crude. In case you don't believe me here is a primer: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/diesel-fuel/.

>That there are starving people in africa is not a valid argument for Americans to over eat, likewise the lack of cheap reliable alternatives to fossil fuels in the third world is not a reason for the developed world to also keep burning fossil fuels.

>lack of cheap reliable alternatives to fossil fuels in the third world is not a reason for the developed world to also keep burning fossil fuels.

What exactly are you saying? You are depriving the poorest billion people of electricity because of your virtue signaling?? This is inhumane.

"Over eat" - who are you to judge what form of electricity use is moral?

This is insanity on multiple levels.

> Shareholders are already exiting them in droves...

Source?

The global energy demand is rising constantly.

https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2020

This makes re-investment necessary. These rates are actually shrinking for fossils, meaning shareholders don't expect much return on investment from them. They are expensive to get, volatile to trade and as e-cars show, fast to replace when push comes to shove. So everyone is looking for the door- aka the big battery. The moment the light never goes out in some battery lab, it will be a full blown fire-sale.

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