politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
That's not how that works. Natural Gas plants turn on at night to supply your electricity usage at night.
No solar panel is working at night.
No you? You're trying to pretend that solar power somehow is supplying energy to your nighttime car charges. Do you even know what the sun is or how solar panels work?
Unless you live near a pumped-hydro station, you aren't getting green energy at night. Your best bet is nuclear, but for some reason a bunch of asshole environmentalists have hampered our nuclear rollout leading to this unpleasant situation where we have to rely upon natural gas more.
/golfclap
I might use NG at night. (I don’t necessarily. My local power is wind, then either NG or Nuclear, which ever is cheaper.)
But my net negative power usage from the grid means that I’m using less energy than I feed in when it isn’t shinning out.
I use 65% of the power I produce, and the excess is fed into the system. That’s annually. So while yes I draw at night, I’m generating enough power during the daytime that it’s more (significantly) more than I use at night. (Moreover, the rates for my usage are less than the rates I get paid for power during the daytime.)
45% of my power generation contributes to that 54% carbon neutral sources in MN.
So, it. Balances out. (And in the near future I’ll get a residential battery for night. Those are freaking expensive, though.)
Grid scale batteries do not exist yet, outside of pumped hydro. And honestly, they might never exist (Sodium Batteries in 2 or 3 years are our best bet at grid-scale energy, but maybe that's not good enough. We dont know because they don't exist yet).
No. If there's no grid energy storage mechanism, then the power is wasted during the day, and the natural gas spins up at night.
Apologies if you're not aware that the grid isn't a magical energy storage device. But... it isn't. The tech for energy storage does not feasibly exist yet on any large scale.
Wind is an option but only in windy areas and windy times
I wouldn't bother. When battery storage tech becomes feasible, the utility companies will buy it for the whole grid. Residential batteries are just for those who are tricking themselves into thinking these things are feasible.
The #1 "battery" is pumped Hydro right now. No joke. Running water up a hill with excess electricity absolutely works as an energy storage mechanism. The best battery techs will be exceptionally large systems (Pumped Hydro. Compressed Air, etc. etc.) that take advantage of these effects.
Even "Wind" energy is actually an energy storage solution due to the massive momentum the wind turbine arms have. So unlike Solar, a lot of Wind plants self-regulate and self-store their energy.
Wind turbines generate the most energy at night, they actually complement solar quite well.
Alas, the most problematic part of the energy curve is the "Duck Curve", of which only natural gas has been identified as a solution so far.
The setting of the sun does not coincide with higher winds. The elevated winds are deep at night when everyone's asleep but the grid is actually 1/2 power usage IIRC compared to daytime usage. Not really the 7pm period where solar grossly diminishes (sun is low enough that solar barely contributes anymore), but the day is hot enough that Air Conditioners run, and everyone is home doing laundry or other energy-costly tasks since they're still awake.