My guess is that in a climate like Germany’s, solar isn’t consistent enough to provide the steady baseline power that coal plants can.
One of the complexities of power infrastructure is that demand must be met instantaneously and exactly. Coal and solar typically occupy different roles in a grid’s power sources. Coal plants are slow to start, but very consistent, so they provide baseline power. Solar is virtually instantaneous, but inconsistent, so it’s better suited to handle the daily fluctuations.
So, in a place like Germany, even in abundance, solar can’t realistically replace coal until we have a good way of storing power to act as a buffer. Of course, nuclear is a fantastic replacement for coal, but we all know how Germany’s politicians feel about it…
Ok hear me out. I’ve lived in the US and in Europe, and while Celsius makes sense for all sorts of things (cooking, car engines, PC temps…), I think Fahrenheit actually makes a surprising amount of sense for climate, indoor and outdoor.
While Celsius 0-100 is linked to the states of water, Fahrenheit is loosely a 0-100 on “how is this for a human to experience”. 0°F is sorta the limit of “dang that’s really cold” and 100°F is “dang that’s really hot.” And that’s the whole reason we look at the weather report.
0-100°F also has more individual degrees than -18-38°C, and when a couple degrees can make a big difference for indoor comfort (or the heating bill), I appreciate more granularity.
Yep. Making a new thing is how you get promoted. Maintaining or improving an old thing is nearly useless, even at companies with competent managers.
This is the same reason why a lot of companies have awful security practices. From the managers’ perspectives, they’re burning valuable engineer time on something that doesn’t produce any tangible benefits besides reducing the possibility of a lawsuit. And that lawsuit is probably cheaper to just pay up, rather than pay for all that engineer effort.
Hee hee (lemmy.world)
Germany has too many solar panels, and it's pushed energy prices into negative territory (markets.businessinsider.com)
High levels of weedkiller (glyphosate/e.g. Roundup) found in more than half of sperm samples, study finds (www.theguardian.com)
The levels (of glyphosate that the) French researchers found in sperm were four times higher than in the men’s blood...
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