On Wednesday evening, spot electricity prices topped $5,000 per megawatt-hour, up more than 200 times from Wednesday morning.

  • Texas power prices soared 20,000% Wednesday evening amid another brutal heat wave.

  • Spot electricity prices topped $5,000 per megawatt-hour, up more than 200 times from Wednesday morning.

  • The state’s grid operator issued its second-highest energy emergency, then later said conditions returned to normal.

  • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
    91·
    1 year ago

    Solar thermal isn’t really what we mean when we say solar power. The vast majority, even at utility scale, is PV panels just like the ones on your roof. Historically, solar thermal was too expensive and PV panels are still far cheaper.

    That said, for areas like CA that may soon approach maximum solar penetration it may deserve a second look because of its more consistent energy output. It will mainly be competing with batteries, pumped hydro, and new generations of geothermal technology. All of these are new and fairly unproven at scale so we’ll have to learn as we go which is the best option for the later stages of decarbonizing the electrical grid.

    • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
      8·
      1 year ago

      Geothermals been proven since the 60s. It’s a sealed system, there’s no pollution (even if the pipe popped, it’s just water), stations can be planted next to preschools and daycares and no one would be the wiser.

      If your state has mountains, geothermals prob the answer. If your state doesn’t have mountains (Kansas, Florida, Delaware), being from Washington, I don’t know how you guys can live there. Not being able to orientate by the horizon fucking weirds me out. Especially in fucking Florida. I was driving thru the Ocala “forest” and it’s all Spanish moss and saw palmettos everywhere. You can’t see more than 10ft into the forest, and that’s when I noticed you can’t see the sky thru it either. It’s just barely slivers of rays making it to the floor. I’ve never felt so claustrophobic in my life. *shudder fuck florida

      • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
        4·
        1 year ago

        I didn’t mean geothermal was entirely new but traditionally it has been limited to very specific geologic conditions which have largely already been developed. Newer technology (ironically pioneered by oil and gas drilling) has recently made many more sites possibly economical. But as with the other things I listed, these new types of geothermal plants are still somewhat unproven and expensive. I know they’re being investigated but so far very few have been built.

        • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
          2·
          1 year ago

          I wonder if they could drill down and capture the heat from the hotspot under Missouri.

          Alaska, The Rockies, Yellowstone, the Sierras and the Cascades are all no brainers.

          And Hawai’i for obvious reasons.

            • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
              1·
              1 year ago

              Don’t need too, you just need to boil water (or ammonia, or propane, etc) to spin turbines and Yellowstone does that on the surface

          • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
            1·
            1 year ago

            I’m not familiar with the geology of Missouri but it mostly depends on how deep you need to go. The deeper the more expensive it will be to build.