Anyway, don't know where I was going with this but those are my two cents.
Anyway, don't know where I was going with this but those are my two cents.
the heavy investment that goes into those plants incentives operators to drive (and staff) them 24/7, but there are hidden social costs (negative externalities) of having so many people out of diurnal rhythm. maybe massive solar power buildout, with sharply cheaper daytime electricity, would relieve people from working “graveyard shifts” – and maybe that’d be a good thing
That said, the companies aren't going to just stop, they'll just charge higher prices. To stop producing in the third shift, they'll need to:
- add more daytime production lines, which means buying more floor space, possibly in a different location with new logistics to work out
- new capex for the new lines
- higher overhead because your newly expanded production lines are idle 30% of the time
- higher overhead from daily startup and shutdown times
This is all for companies where it is feasible to do so. Some plants measure startup and shutdown in hours, if not days. Doing a full cycle every day would mean redesigning their entire operation, if it is even possible to do so at all.Even places like hospitals don't exactly get to choose to just turn off all the life support and lights at night.
I thought the opposite was proven. E.g. When Germany produced a lot of variable output electricity they varied aluminum smelting rates accordingly. That was highly effective and not generally expected.
There's tons of low hanging fruit like that but if you listen to carbon or nuclear lobby propaganda theyre insistent that the only thing that can solve the problem is more lithium than exists in the entire world.