6/11/2026 at 4:28:34 PM
This is more from a lot of coal power plants being converted to gas over the past 20 years than solar overtaking the outputs of those power plants. Coal output shrinking, solar output rising, the lines have crossed.Coal is unpopular in all but a few areas where coal mining is still a part of the local econonmy. I used to work near a coal plant and every day I'd go out to my car and it would have little black particles all over it. Nobody likes that, no matter what the President says.
by SoftTalker
6/11/2026 at 4:37:08 PM
Total electricity produced by coal + gas is down over the last 20 years. Total electricity production is up, the difference is from wind and solar.This administration swapped to actively suppressing Wind and Solar via tariffs etc, and yet the trends continued because the underlying economic reality heavily favors battery backed solar.
by Retric
6/11/2026 at 5:38:28 PM
I think that's part of what's notable about this. The administration hasn't been able to reverse the trend despite putting a massive thumb on the scale against projects like offshore wind and tariffs on solar panel imports.There's probably a delay in the effects though since projects started before they took office are probably starting to thin out and finish up. We'd have to look into the permitting of new projects or wait for to see how big the decline in new capacity turns out to be in a couple years.
by rtkwe
6/11/2026 at 5:48:41 PM
A lot of comes from state initiatives too. Texas being conservative also happens to be very pro solar. I’m in the business and we have some great projects there. The US military is also pushing solar at their facilities. Then you have many private-state partnerships like tolls investing a lot in solar. The outlook in general is pretty positive in the US, a lot more than what people would think.by tedggh
6/11/2026 at 9:53:23 PM
Anyone who still even views this as a conservative/liberal issue, is someone who is in the pocket of the fossil fuel lobby. Solar is simply a very cheap and realiable way to generate electricity. Much cheaper than gas and coal nowadays. Pure economic incentive is going to continue to drive its adoption.by wavemode
6/12/2026 at 1:32:35 AM
As someone from another continent, I giggle when I see doomsday-prepping anti-govmint fiercely-independent cowboys hating EVs and loving gas.Gas has a 6-month shelf-life, and is attached to a whole geopolitically volatile military-industrial complex. Meanwhile an EV + solar can be actually self-sufficient and last for a decade or two. A realistic Mad Max would have been EV battles over solar panels.
by pornel
6/12/2026 at 6:42:21 AM
this’ the other Max from China, where they be scavenging leftover panels. The Mad Max we know surely happens somewhere else, and perhaps near Texas given all the participating parties…by larodi
6/11/2026 at 6:12:06 PM
I also recall a New York times article from many moons ago suggesting that a lot of Texas oil wealth got repurposed into a large-scale wind energy infrastructure, but my info might be out of date.by glenstein
6/11/2026 at 6:13:21 PM
True though one of the major things they have been able to do because it's mostly in the federal purview is killing offshore wind.by rtkwe
6/11/2026 at 11:31:52 PM
It's sort a "broken clock right twice a day" thing, but I agree with not doing offshore wind in the US. The divergence immediately follows in that I wish they would just push onshore wind.It's sort of a circular issue, it's madly expensive because we haven't built a lot and aren't super good at it, and we don't get much of it built because we aren't great at it and it always is ludicrously expensive.
The US has a uniquely underdeveloped maritime sector, we don't build a lot of the massive turbines you use offshore. You drive through central and west texas, it feels like there might be more wind turbines than people. We've kind of already made the decision based on what works.
by gimmeThaBeet
6/12/2026 at 1:38:31 PM
Ocean winds are strong and predictable in ways that are really beneficial to the wind farms so the extra costs are balanced out by the fact that there's always a strong usable wind to harness too.Also the "we're bad at this because we don't do the so we can't do this" is throwing away a great project and solution because of a temporary problem. Once we start doing it in significant numbers we'll rapidly get better at doing it too.
by rtkwe
6/12/2026 at 6:35:13 PM
There is very nice Global Wind Atlas:https://globalwindatlas.info/en/
Like for many kind of technology the are both advantages and disadvantages to offshore wind farms.
"Advantages:
Offshore wind speeds tend to be faster than on land.1 Small increases in wind speed yield large increases in energy production: a turbine in a 15-mph wind can generate twice as much energy as a turbine in a 12-mph wind. Faster wind speeds offshore mean much more energy can be generated.
Offshore wind speeds tend to be steadier than on land.1 A steadier supply of wind means a more reliable source of energy.
Many coastal areas have very high energy needs. Half of the United States’ population lives in coastal areas,1 with concentrations in major coastal cities. Building offshore wind farms in these areas can help to meet those energy needs from nearby sources.
Offshore wind farms have many of the same advantages as land-based wind farms – they provide renewable energy; they do not consume water; they provide a domestic energy source; they create jobs; and they do not emit environmental pollutants or greenhouse gases.2
Offshore wind farms can be expensive and difficult to build and maintain. In particular:
It is very hard to build robust and secure wind farms in water deeper than around 200 feet (~60 m), or over half a football field’s length. Although coastal waters off the east coast of the U.S. are relatively shallow, almost all of the potential wind energy resources off the west coast are in waters exceeding this depth.3 Floating wind turbines are beginning to overcome this challenge.
Wave action, and even very high winds, particularly during heavy storms or hurricanes, can damage wind turbines.1
The production and installation of power cables under the Effects of offshore wind farms on marine animals and birds are not fully understood.4
Offshore wind farms built within view of the coastline (up to 26 miles offshore, depending on viewing conditions5) may be unpopular among local residents, and may affect tourism and property values.3
https://profession.americangeosciences.org/society/intersect...
by leonidasrup
6/12/2026 at 12:27:56 AM
I think the idea of offshore wind is nice. There is a lot of ocean out there and by putting the "ugly" (I don't mind them.) turbines out of sight we get the best of both worlds.But the realities of the idea - the engineering - is problematic.
The ocean is a harsh environment and maintaining something deliberately put out of the way in a harsher environment is far more expensive.
by _carbyau_
6/12/2026 at 7:40:28 AM
There are a lot of ocean, but limited shores. I guess that's the only economical place to build it, but of course it blocks scenery. If people truly built it in open ocean, less people will complain.by mcmoor
6/12/2026 at 6:38:13 PM
"It is very hard to build robust and secure wind farms in water deeper than around 200 feet (~60 m)"https://profession.americangeosciences.org/society/intersect...
by leonidasrup
6/12/2026 at 9:41:29 PM
That’s ~true for now but keep the date someone said it in mind. It’s really easy to keep thinking technical limitations still true when they are wildly out of date.by Retric
6/13/2026 at 8:57:28 AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_wind_turbineThe biggest is Hywind Tampen, Max. water depth 300 m
NOK 8 billion ($730 million; $8.3m/MW)
by leonidasrup
6/12/2026 at 11:00:25 AM
This is hilarious to me. In my country people prefer to have wind turbines 20 kilometres off the coast line instead of near their house...Offshore wind is the perfect NIMBY solution.
by TitaRusell
6/11/2026 at 10:17:00 PM
Tariffs on solar panel imports should stimulate domestic solar panel production, but only when they are high enough and applied long enough to justify investments into new solar panel manufacturing facilities.by leonidasrup
6/12/2026 at 6:36:09 PM
Is oil production equipment similarly tariffed? No part of that supply chain comes from China? Otherwise, why solar panels specifically?by triceratops
6/12/2026 at 6:47:32 PM
"The research results show that China controls the supply of primary materials, manufacturing, installed capacity, and recycling capacity. China alone produces at least 80 % of the main components of PVs."https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277273782...
by leonidasrup
6/12/2026 at 7:12:21 PM
I'm asking about the supply chain for drilling, refining, and processing oil, my friend. Is that supply chain completely domestic? Nothing from China in there?by triceratops
6/12/2026 at 6:40:20 PM
Top oil field equipment suppliers and manufacturers in the world are from: France, Switzerland, US, UK, Norwayhttps://www.blackridgeresearch.com/blog/list-top-global-oilf...
by leonidasrup
6/12/2026 at 7:13:01 PM
And what about the suppliers of those manufacturers?by triceratops
6/13/2026 at 9:06:14 AM
You would need to do full supply chain analysis. Probably only one doing full supply chain analysis is Pentagon. They had experts for this kind of work."How The CIA Secretly Bought Soviet Titanium To Build The SR-71 Blackbird"
https://simpleflying.com/how-cia-secretly-bought-soviet-tita...
by leonidasrup
6/12/2026 at 1:32:38 PM
You can do it with targeted tariffs with assurances they'll last but these broad tariffs make it harder to get the base materials you need to build the panels out of in the first place plus they're so crazy they're almost guaranteed to be wiped out in a few years if not sooner so as a manufacturer they don't have the confidence that the cost equalization of the tariffs will be around long enough to not bankrupt them.Another way to do it would be guaranteed buys for electrifying military etc and grants for projects using US made cells instead of foreign ones that could also effectively subsidize local production.
It's like a lot of things done by this administration they do it such hamfisted and obvious ways that they don't accomplish their nominal goals. See a lot of the court cases where they've been blocked in implementation because they said the quiet part out loud. eg: it's usually REALLY hard to prove malicious prosecution but they keep saying out loud "we're prosecuting this person in retaliation for their protected activities".
by rtkwe
6/12/2026 at 6:26:08 PM
It's important to tariff the basic materials Polysilicon, wafers, if you want to spread solar production around the world, not only in a single country.https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/solar-pv-manu...
by leonidasrup
6/12/2026 at 10:02:39 AM
[dead]by tancop
6/11/2026 at 9:04:08 PM
Like you can't avoid gravity, you can't avoid economic reality. Not in the long term anyway.by SoftTalker
6/11/2026 at 8:20:13 PM
It's especially notable because there isn't just the thumb against offshore wind, solar panel tariffs, and even EVs. Chinese EVs can't be imported because of tariffs and many conservative states a pretending that EV drivers "don't pay their fair share because they don't buy gas" - except most gas taxes haven't been adjusted in multiple decades and don't even begin to pay for the cost of maintaining roads. Fuel taxes are a tiny portion of any state revenue.There has always been a massive thumb on the scale in the form of tax breaks, direct subsidies (billions a year alone on this), land leasing, etc for fossil fuels and their use. Favorable public policy. And what the IMF calls implicit subsidies - the cost of impact on the climate/environment and people's health.
When a refinery is pumping out pollution and everyone in the area is getting sicker than people in similar areas - that costs us as insurance ratepayers and taxpayers.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/5-hidden-ways-the-g...
https://www.imf.org/en/topics/climate-change/energy-subsidie...
...to name a few. A simple google search will turn up dozens more.
And yet what is the first critique of solar and wind by right wingers? "It's only cheaper because of all my tax dollars going to subsidizing them."
Federal, state, and local subsidies for green energy and EVs are a drop in the bucket.
by KennyBlanken
6/11/2026 at 11:01:51 PM
Unfortunately this is one of the few cases where both sides are close to the same -- they both chose to heavily tariff foreign EVs. Something to remember when Democrats talk about climate change.by dpkirchner
6/12/2026 at 6:56:31 AM
"closer to the same" except one side has consistently promoted the building and sale of EVs in America.If you were feeling generous you could credit then with the entire existence of modern EVs given their support of the nascent industry for decades in California.
But sure, let's focus on the mote in Democrat eyes and ignore the insanity across the aisle. That's what got us into this situation, so why stop now.
by ZeroGravitas
6/12/2026 at 12:40:14 AM
It's the same in the UK. The CfD "subsidy" mechanism for solar power results in the solar farms paying us money almost every day - including today - but you will still see right wing politicians vow to eliminate this "subsidy".by tialaramex
6/11/2026 at 6:48:13 PM
The numbers for 2014-2024: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/table.php?t=epa_03_01...I doubted what you wrote, but everything you said is correct (for the last 10 years, at least). Over the time period, natural gas increased 740 TWh/year (to 1870) and coal decreased 940 TWh/year (to 650). Electricity production is up ~7%, but that's quite low compared to the growth of everything else.
> This administration swapped to actively suppressing Wind and Solar via tariffs etc
Biden's administration put on solar tariffs, but of course I'll grant the current administration is fucking up everything else possible.
by coryrc
6/11/2026 at 7:06:02 PM
Plenty of blame to go around, my understanding of the timeline is:Trumps first administration put in solar Tariffs with China (25%), Biden administration increased them with China (50%), 2nd Trump administration increased those and applied solar Tariffs to other countries. Though honestly I’ve largely stopped paying attention at this point.
Solar adoption increased through all of that.
by Retric
6/12/2026 at 3:35:10 AM
I think the issue is that the tarriffs just don’t really matter anymore because the panels are so cheap that they’re dwarfed by the “balance of system” costs — installation, racking, inverters, cabling, etc.by cameldrv
6/12/2026 at 4:26:02 PM
It matters because of opening up cheaper ways to install them. For example, in some Scandinavian country they're cheaper than fence panels, so they just use them for fences, and the power they generate is a nice bonus.by coryrc
6/12/2026 at 7:18:57 AM
As a foreigner it just seems.so braindead that the administrations would tarrif solar panels. The US doesnt have a great manufacturing capacity for solar panels compared to established manufacturers. The high cost of new production ensures slow uptake.From a place that embraced solar rebates, and has subsequently benefited from having in place solar battery rebates, we have a thriving industry of solar installers, electricians, and an ever increasing amount of local grid energy security in the event that storms or accidents cause supply disruptions. About 5% of households will likely not see an energy bill for the next 20 years. Another 40% have solar that covers daytime energy requirements.
The requirement for baseline coal.and gas has been decreasing - though will not completely abate.
I live in a state that produces abundant coal for power and steel. We have decreased our carbon emissions to 35% below 2005 levels.
by anakaine
6/11/2026 at 9:30:34 PM
A new coal-fired power plant hasn't come online in the US since 2013, IIRC.by pfdietz
6/11/2026 at 9:14:12 PM
Biden also put out a bunch of incentives in the IRA to encourage domestic solar panel production.by 3eb7988a1663
6/12/2026 at 4:23:42 PM
Dumb waste of money, paying an order of magnitude more.by coryrc
6/12/2026 at 5:14:41 PM
Either you want to secure the full energy chain or you do not. There are many comments in this thread about how the solar panels come from China. If that bothers you, there needs to be some financial reason for a domestic factory to open.by 3eb7988a1663
6/12/2026 at 6:37:42 PM
> Either you want to secure the full energy chain or you do not.Is every part of the fossil fuel production chain "secure"? All oil production and processing equipment, chemicals and so forth are produced domestically?
by triceratops
6/11/2026 at 9:12:26 PM
The invisible hand of the market will always winby jasondigitized
6/11/2026 at 6:00:29 PM
It’s also from focused efforts to close coal plants, and rapid, massive deployment of solar in the last 20 years, and new technology emerging (better batteries and dispatch technologies) to make solar into a 24/7 resource.For whatever reason, there’s a strong motivation for people to dismiss the gigantic global effort to transition the energy system away from fossil fuels, and claim that all that effort isn’t really doing anything. Thankfully, this is not true — determined people can change things for the better.
by mbgerring
6/11/2026 at 8:22:09 PM
> It’s also from focused efforts to close coal plants,For many years coal has been more expensive than solar and wind. That's why utilities are decommissioning the plants.
by KennyBlanken
6/11/2026 at 9:47:48 PM
It’s true, and the strategy of climate activists in the early 2000s and 2010s was to do everything they could to make coal and other fossil fuels as expensive as possible: by reducing access to capital, increasing the cost of legal and regulatory hurdles, sometime delaying projects through physical blockades, etc etc.by mbgerring
6/11/2026 at 10:02:13 PM
It would be nice if we could get industries to pay for the pollution they cause, but I'll take what I can get.by amanaplanacanal
6/12/2026 at 6:11:11 AM
Which was the best possible strategy they could have taken.by 9dev
6/11/2026 at 10:38:54 PM
Some utilities didn't have direct market pressures to close coal because they were regulated and the regulator allowed them to recover costs plus a profit on top.by ZeroGravitas
6/11/2026 at 6:35:28 PM
> For whatever reason, there’s a strong motivation for people to dismiss the gigantic global effort to transition the energy system away from fossil fuels, and claim that all that effort isn’t really doing anything.Because renewable energy is Communism, or something.
But seriously: $$$$. The Fossil Fuel industry, before it finally dies, will make big Tobacco look downright merciful. The owners of these companies and their media co-conspirators should be tried in the Hague for what they have done to our planet just to keep making fucking money.
by ToucanLoucan
6/11/2026 at 6:53:15 PM
> The Fossil Fuel industry, before it finally dies, will make big Tobacco look downright merciful.This should not be surprising when one realizes that this industry is the biggest industry that humanity ever created (in terms of monetary value). Nothing ever is or was bigger than energy from fossil fuels. Predictably, those who profit from this, behave like selfish [...] and fight tooth and nail to keep their profits.
by jwr
6/11/2026 at 9:31:32 PM
Energy is 10% of global GDP, about $10 T a year.I remember this when anyone complains large scale use of solar and wind would be expensive. So is large scale use of any energy source.
by pfdietz
6/11/2026 at 7:08:48 PM
Putting the planet aside for a moment, the unnecessary death and illness they've inflicted on the human race will be staggering.by ZeroGravitas
6/11/2026 at 8:55:37 PM
I would disagree, I think that plentiful affordable energy has been a huge benefit to the human race. Transportation, refrigeration, manufacturing, simply having electricity in the home, most everything we take for granted in terms of our current standard of living traces back to abundant and cheap energy.But there is no reason to hang on to the old, dirty technology if there are now better alternatives. And if the economics work, the market will follow, as it seems to be doing. You can't fake lower costs.
Nuclear should have replaced coal decades ago but the economics didn't actually work, even though the environmental benefit would have been real.
by SoftTalker
6/11/2026 at 8:39:17 PM
Oh for fucking sure. I consider humans as much a part of the planet as anything else, but also very valid to call it out specifically.Mass death of species too numerous to name, the biosphere itself, property damage from rising ocean levels, the soon to fail air currents, all the damage and death from extreme weather events, all of it. All of it could've been fucking prevented and it wasn't, because profits.
I wish I believed in hell for people like this.
by ToucanLoucan
6/11/2026 at 7:32:56 PM
No, this is actually solar's output increasing.Natural gas's share of electricity generation has been falling for five years straight:
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/gas-share-in-global...
by epistasis
6/11/2026 at 9:08:32 PM
That's a link to a global chart. The OP is talking about the US. It's not surprising that countries that have to import natural gas are moving away from it and countries with plentiful local suppliew are doubling down on it.by bryanlarsen
6/11/2026 at 11:30:12 PM
I'm not seeing that in US data either. Here's data from a top web hit:https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...
The 10-year change 2015 to 2025 is:
- Gas: +472 TWh, +35%
- Renewables: +525 TWh, +97%
Saying that this is more gas than coal is certainly not the case borne out by the numbers, even in the US, the one place where gas is as cheap as dirt due to it being a by-product of fracking.
by epistasis
6/11/2026 at 4:30:30 PM
The world is, roughly, deploying 1TW/solar PV a year at current rates. It took a while to get here, it won’t take as long to get to 100%.https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capaci...
by toomuchtodo
6/11/2026 at 4:34:34 PM
Storage is the issue. You still need to supply base load (well, all load) at night.by SoftTalker
6/11/2026 at 4:56:22 PM
LFPs are cheap and safe, with very good cycle counts.Sodium seems to be actually hitting real commercial production volumes (ex - GM just announced a sodium ramp up days ago, CATL has been producing them for a while). I expect we'll see sodium mature a good bit over the next decade (right now - it's just not quite as good as LFP, but it has a lot of promise in temperature extremes and cheap input materials)
So sure - storage is an issue. But it's not THE issue anymore. It costs surprisingly little to get enough LFP storage to cover an entire house at modest usage for days at a time (ex - under 10k for 42.9KWh of storage, UL approved https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-wallmount-all-weather-lithium...)
So yes - storage remains something to consider. But I think pretending that storage is a constraint that should stop PV rollout is... cough... bullshit cough...
Let industry that needs it pull from existing generation at night, convert residential to solar as fast as possible. Subsidize residential battery rollout the same way we do for insulation and other efficiency improving home improvements (which to be clear - we were doing prior to the current admin).
China isn't fucking around on the solar front, and the continued excuses in US from entrenched interests tangled up in the oil industry are criminal.
by horsawlarway
6/11/2026 at 6:29:55 PM
I suspect sodium is better than lithium today. The win is that sodium is much more forgiving of high temperatures so they can be run without cooling fans/pumps. Lithium battery installations are actually loud owing to all of their cooling infrastructure.No cooling means the sodium batteries are easier/cheaper to maintain (no mechanical failures). Maybe not as energy dense, but you could still come out ahead long term when accounting for Capex+Opex.
by 3eb7988a1663
6/11/2026 at 7:23:48 PM
Seems likely. But I can't buy sodium ion today like I can LFP.The chemistry definitely seems to be better than LFP long term, but higher manufacturing costs and low scale means it's just not as available.
CATL is predicting that they'll hit price parity for sodium against LFP this year, commercial scaling still needs to happen, though.
Meanwhile, manufacturers can pick up prismatic LFP from all sorts of places, at great prices (ex - https://www.18650batterystore.com/collections/lifepo4-prisma...)
by horsawlarway
6/11/2026 at 9:15:27 PM
You can by sodium ion batteries today. They're more expensive, but work better in the cold.https://www.bluettipower.com/products/sodium-ion-battery-pio...
by bryanlarsen
6/11/2026 at 11:23:45 PM
You can't really get them in the sort of energy density you need for an ESS at any comparable price to LFP right now, so they only really make sense in really limited spots.Ex - the closest I can find is something like: https://batteryfinds.com/product/3-1v-210ah-sodium-ionna-ion...
but just compare against LFP: https://www.18650batterystore.com/products/eve-mb31-grade-a-...
So...
LFP: 4.0KWh @ $275.00 Sodium: 2.6KWh @ $568.00
Right now, it's older generations of the chemistry, and you end up paying twice as much for half the power. So yeah... unless you really need the temperature extremes, it makes a lot more sense to stick with LFP.
But CATL at least is claiming they have cells in the pipeline for this year that get NA+ down to comparable $/KWh as LFP, and then yes - I'd much prefer to use the newer chemistry.
If sodium follows the same trend as LFP did, they'll get much cheaper at scale, and performance will go up markedly over the next 15 years. I won't be at all surprised to see them end up completely dominating the space in the long run, but we're not yet at the spot where they're better than LFP (at its most mature).
by horsawlarway
6/12/2026 at 12:20:45 AM
Peak Energy already has 3MWh units deployed (first deployment in July 2025) and more sales on the books. Yes, they are laughably low volume vs the established lithium BESS, but it is happening and you can at least get in the queue. They are hoping to open a US plant in 2027.by 3eb7988a1663
6/11/2026 at 5:45:54 PM
I think it's your last point that's actually the strongest.There's always gaps between theoretical and practical, but to see China investing so hard in the future while the US digs in it's heels is infuriating.
by michaelbuckbee
6/11/2026 at 6:02:03 PM
China exported 68GW of solar PV in March 2026, double the prior month and 14GW more than total solar PV capacity installed in Spain.Chinese solar exports double in a month to hit record high amid energy crisis - https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/chinese-solar-export... - April 23rd, 2026
https://ember-energy.org/data/chinas-solar-pv-export-explore...
https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e...
by toomuchtodo
6/11/2026 at 6:04:53 PM
>...while the US digs in it's heels is infuriating.And we shouldn't imply that this policy represents any sort of national consensus -- it's pure corruption plain and simple.
by mrtesthah
6/11/2026 at 6:34:11 PM
It's also sabotage of all domestic manufacturing.The price of energy sets a floor on the price of all manufactured goods. By kneecapping the cheapest sources of energy, the regime kneecaps all domestic manufacturers.
China's aggressive buildout of cost effective energy production isn't because they're 'woke,' it's because it makes them more competitive. Every product they export at low prices is in part due to the their extremely cheap energy.
It's like the regime looked at the UK's collapsing manufacturing industry due to their high energy costs and said "I want that for us!"
by mullingitover
6/11/2026 at 9:39:41 PM
Its also just strategically sensible. China is well aware it has very long supply lines for oil, and the less of it they need the better.by XorNot
6/11/2026 at 6:28:54 PM
Corruption that concentrates on one party whether that party is in or out of power, too.by quantified
6/11/2026 at 6:04:17 PM
I read some interesting things about crazy sounding technologies like vanadium flow and iron batteries. I think we're at most 10 years away from storage being not fully solved, but becoming an enabler more than a bottleneck.by oblio
6/11/2026 at 9:42:43 PM
Vanadium flow batteries are more expensive and less durable then LFP and the price won't come down because Vanadium is an expensive metal to get.They were interesting but the whole concept just has problems and has for over a decade at this point despite commercialisation efforts.
Same story with iron: it's out there, but the scale on LFP and likely Sodium is going to shoot right past it.
by XorNot
6/12/2026 at 2:10:05 PM
What data make you think storage isn't fully solved now?by Schiendelman
6/11/2026 at 7:15:04 PM
No, storage (and transmission) are, in fact, THE issue. They always were. Solar is cheap and easy to install. Balancing a net zero grid without storage and with the pitiful transmission we have now is simply not possible. See: california.The entire CAISO is a power laundering scheme to allow california to have publicly have huge amounts of solar power that overproduces enormously (including strongly negative power prices for a good chink of day) and still import dirty base load power quietly.
If storage was simple to solve, it would be solved. Chemical storage simply doesn't exist at the required scale and we don't like to build the one thing that we could, right this second - pumped storage.
We are already massively overbuilding solar. We would be well serv d to stop building panels and start building pump storage and transmission lines to distribute the stuff we've already got, but nobody makes a political career announcing a new transmission line.
by idiotsecant
6/11/2026 at 9:11:44 PM
California? The state that hasn't had a blackout since 2020, the state with the lowest wholesale electricity cost, by far?https://cleantechnica.com/2026/05/30/california-lowest-whole...
by bryanlarsen
6/12/2026 at 8:03:26 PM
California doesn't have rolling blackouts because they created an entire energy market expressly devoted to feeding carbon intensive power into california to cover the many, many, many required MWh that californian solar can't address. This isn't a matter of opinion, you can look at the CAISO power flow statistics online.by idiotsecant
6/12/2026 at 10:17:39 PM
Yes, California is a good model for a modern grid. Lots of natural gas capacity, very little natural gas usage.> many, many, many required MWh
Many MW, few MWh.
by bryanlarsen
6/12/2026 at 9:51:23 PM
Your comments are in direct contradiction with easily accessible facts on California’s generation mix.by toomuchtodo
6/13/2026 at 5:51:06 AM
As of this moment less than 20% of California's load is satisfied by renewables, per the CAISO website. What facts, exactly, are you trying to point out?by idiotsecant
6/13/2026 at 9:02:04 PM
I just looked, and it said 86.4%. And when you look closer it's actually > 100%. Batteries are at -4.5MW (aka they're charging), and non-renewables are contributing only a couple of MW.by bryanlarsen
6/11/2026 at 7:18:55 PM
It is solved. Citations below.When the sun sets, batteries rise: 24/7 solar in California - https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2026/02/17/when-the-sun-sets-bat... - February 17th, 2026
Natural gas use for electricity in California falls as solar generation rises - https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=66704 - November 24th, 2025
California's solar and battery combo packs a transformational punch - https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/californias-sola... - October 3rd, 2025
California solar curtailment down 12% on back of batteries - https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/07/22/california-solar-curt... - July 22nd, 2025 ("For the first five months of 2025, CAISO data showed solar electricity curtailment declined by 12% as a share of generation, falling from 13% to 11.5%, even as solar output grew 18% year over year. During this period, however, curtailment still rose 4.1% in absolute terms, with March showing a 28% increase, matching the prior year’s peak.")
Batteries Taking Charge of the California Grid - https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-batteries-apr-2024/ - May 6th, 2024
Batteries are scaling up faster than ever in the US, enabling record solar growth to continue and reducing fossil fuel use. - https://ember-energy.org/chapter/the-rise-of-batteries-plus-...
> In 2024, California and Nevada led the nation in solar power, becoming the first states to surpass 30% annual solar share, with California hitting 32% and Nevada 31% – the highest shares of any state. But the transition is uneven – while some states are surging ahead, others are just beginning to see significant growth.
> Batteries are essential for the rise of solar, allowing solar to meet growing demand and displacing gas and coal generation. Across the US, the growth of batteries is accelerating alongside solar, with 1 MW of storage being added for every 3 MW of solar added in 2024.
California Energy Storage System Survey - https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...
by toomuchtodo
6/11/2026 at 5:48:14 PM
Contrary to popular belief, solar panels don't generate zero power on cloudy days.They typically generate 10-25% of their maximum output on the cloudiest of days. Most cloudy days are not maximally cloudy.
We don't need solar panels everywhere to get even close to ~100% renewables (with nuclear, wind, new geothermal, and hydro). The areas where you put them are distributed enough that it would be exceptionally rare to ever encounter a meaningful need to ration.
So, storage is an issue, but not as big of an issue as most people think, and we do not generate anywhere near enough solar energy for it to be a reasonable concern yet...
There's also more solutions than just conventional batteries. There's pumped hydro, etc...
by onlyrealcuzzo
6/11/2026 at 6:02:22 PM
> They typically generate 10-25% of their maximum output on the cloudiest of days. Most cloudy days are not maximally cloudy.If you're at higher latitudes, this is notably less of a drop-off than you see between high/low season.
My friends with residential solar see <10% overall output in January vs July. (~60% drop from fewer sunshine hours, ~80% drop from decreased solar irradiance.)
by Marsymars
6/11/2026 at 7:10:39 PM
This gets complex quickly, because temperature matters too: cells are more efficient when they are cold. These effects interact and the results are sometimes surprising.Many pure-numbers theoretical comparisons also make the assumption that you can consume all the power that the cells generate, which is not always the case. In an off-grid installation with a battery, for example, you might not be able to consume everything, depending on the month of the year. Practical example: my installation gets some of peak usage numbers in March/April, because that's when it's still cold and I use the power for heating. The cells are cold, I need the power, and there is some sunshine, all this combines. It's not obvious.
by jwr
6/11/2026 at 11:49:41 PM
Yeah, I mean these aren't entirely theoretical, like observationally, people I know locally are getting <10% January vs July generation - I'm working backwards to get the relative proportion of the drops due to solar hours vs irradiance.They all have a relatively generous (I think - I'm not especially familiar with policies anywhere else) grid policy where they sell back any over-production in the summer. (They switch between summer/winter rates, so in the summer they buy/sell at ~35c/kWh and in the winter they buy/sell at ~8c/kWh. These rates are only effective as long as you don't have a net-surplus of generation in the year, so it doesn't make sense economically to oversize the system for more winter generation, as then you'll be generating more in the summer than you can use or sell back.)
by Marsymars
6/11/2026 at 7:56:53 PM
Curtailment and dump loads are pretty straightforward, though, so using all the power isn't as critical as people might imagine either.It's better to overbuild the dc-to-ac ratio moderately and just accept that on a summer noon you'll be dumping or curtailing, and still get useful percentages in the winter. I'm in the fortunate position of having an essentially infinite dump load (water pumping and heating) that would effectively turn most of my solar into real usage, but even most people can preheat a hot water tank and things like that. With electric cars it's even better.
by jaggederest
6/11/2026 at 9:35:33 PM
One of Standard Thermal's use cases is excess DC power from existing solar farms that would otherwise be curtailed because of inverter/interconnect limits.by pfdietz
6/12/2026 at 2:48:38 AM
There's also the angle of the sun to consider, it changes quite a bit in higher latitudes between summer and winter so if you want maximum efficiency you need to tilt the cells accordingly. But I don't think most residential solar does that.by int_19h
6/12/2026 at 6:05:32 PM
The way the math works for grid-connected residential here, if you're not adjusting the angle, between seasons, you'd be best off leaving it at the optimal winter angle all year, which would minimize the difference between peak/trough generation.by Marsymars
6/11/2026 at 5:58:44 PM
But they do generate zero power at night.by flumes_whims_
6/11/2026 at 6:08:08 PM
And people use less energy at night. Yes, they do need heating/cooling and a few other things at night, but the peak is during the day and in the evening.This argument is almost closed at this point, with PV + batteries being quite price competitive. We're no longer in 2018.
by oblio
6/11/2026 at 6:30:58 PM
Solution? Send large mirrors into space so it never stops shining.by fragmede
6/11/2026 at 7:06:28 PM
That surely won't interfere with the ecosystem at all! /sby magicalhippo
6/11/2026 at 4:41:55 PM
The main load is during the day when the sun shines anyway, and then the seasonally changing periods before and after, basically ramping when people are getting up, then dropping off while people are going to bed. On the west side of a continent, the power for the ramp can come from the east because the sun shines earlier there; on the west the sun shines later and the east can get power. At night, there are still nuclear and other plants, and it is very foreseeable that installations of ground battery technology will have been in place well before twentieth century plants are retired.by hyperhello
6/11/2026 at 4:48:52 PM
High load in the day during sunlight is mostly true for summer heat, but in the winter you have cold evenings which requires base load or storage, combined with solar angle/efficiency being worse in the winter.by pdq
6/11/2026 at 8:42:16 PM
> in the winter you have cold evenings which requires base load or storageIf the energy is for heating then there is always the option of storing the energy as heat. Which is much simpler than storing electricity.
by nicoburns
6/11/2026 at 7:54:47 PM
Actually, the US uses more power during the day in the summer - there is a dropoff in the night for both summer and winter. Night time use is somewhat similar. [1]Cooling takes more energy than warming, so the summer daytime use is higher. Summer = warm evenings. I'm from Indiana - it was almost always cooler at 10am than 7pm, even in the winter. It takes time to heat up or cool down. I'll also mention that nights and weekends use less power because business and industry tend to shut down during these times.
Which would somewhat logically mean that despite the efficiency being worse during winter, it isn't as much of a strain because power demands are less.
by Broken_Hippo
6/12/2026 at 11:11:26 AM
Cooling doesn't really take more energy than warming, because cooling is warming if you have a heat pump. Are you not just observing here the usage of fossil fuels for heating, which is extremely common?by fooblaster
6/12/2026 at 11:59:56 AM
How common are heat pumps in the states now - and is this something your average worker can afford? I looked into it some time before I moved - and before they were as popular - and installation costs were prohibitive. Moved to Norway over a decade ago. Heat pumps are popular but most homes don't have them here, especially in the cities. I can't imagine that rentals are upgrading, considering its rare to even update insulation in the cheapest rentals.Are heat pumps common for factories and offices, which account for a lot of energy usage during the week?
Anywhere they aren't common, cooling generally is going to require more traditional methods and the energy cost is greater than just heating. If it were the other way around, poor folks would use a window air conditioner to heat. Cooling pretty much always creates warming - which is the reason it is vented outside.
The energy use I linked to doesn't actually consider where the energy comes from - just the use itself. These methods aren't going to use more or less energy depending on where the energy comes from. Heat pumps would make less usage due to efficiency.
by Broken_Hippo
6/12/2026 at 2:13:16 PM
Heat pumps are in most new construction in major cities now - Seattle's required them for years, other cities do too. They aren't significantly more expensive than any other method now, especially with a lot of local utility rebates.by Schiendelman
6/11/2026 at 6:57:22 PM
Yeah, it's imperfect.Does that mean that it is untenable?
by ssl-3
6/11/2026 at 4:39:21 PM
Not quite, current nighttime load is largely a function of cheaper nighttime rates. People don’t set their EV’s to charge from 11-5AM because that’s the only time their cars are plugged in. If rates crater at noon on Sunday, there’s many an EV happy to suck up power then.So yes batteries are going to continue to grow rapidly, but it’s a smaller role than it might seem.
by Retric
6/11/2026 at 7:31:33 PM
Great, so now not only is power production nondeterministic, your cars tank also is. It was too expensive and the algorithm decided to wait charging, so no spontaneous road trip for you, sorry.by Paradigma11
6/11/2026 at 7:58:25 PM
As an electric car owner, this is absolutely the biggest non-problem ever. If you're planning a long journey, you push one button at some point over the preceeding week and it charges to full regardless of price.by jaggederest
6/11/2026 at 9:35:33 PM
There’s nothing non deterministic about cheaper daytime rates as you scale solar production. Net result, lower average electricity prices but a slow rise in nighttime rates across decades.Similarly people respond to price changes, that’s the foundation for how capitalism functions. You don’t need to care, but many people will choose to save money when possible.
by Retric
6/11/2026 at 7:43:46 PM
I mean, assuming you don't zero your charge out when returning home, you could just take a few minutes to use a rapid charger part way through the journey...by notahacker
6/11/2026 at 5:25:18 PM
The whole point about modern gas/coal plants is that it's relatively cheap to shut them down and start them up again. They are backup power, not for providing inflexible base load. Batteries + renewables are taking a lot of market share and flexible backup power is much more important than baseload (inflexible power like nuclear)by jillesvangurp
6/11/2026 at 6:06:23 PM
Gas is faster to respond, coal, not so much.From the Goog:
Starting up a coal-fired power station depends heavily on the plant's current temperature, taking anywhere from 2 to 48 hours to reach full operational capacity. Because of massive metal boilers and turbines, the heating process must be slow to prevent severe thermal fatigue and equipment damage. [1, 2] The startup time is broken down by the plant's previous state:
• Hot Start (less than 8 hours offline): 2 to 4 hours. The boiler and equipment are still warm, allowing for a relatively quick resumption of steam production.
• Warm Start (8 to 120 hours offline): 4 to 8 hours.
• Cold Start (More than 120 hours offline): 12 to 48 hours. The plant must be heated from room temperature, which involves initially burning expensive natural gas or diesel just to safely warm the furnace and metal pipes before coal can be introduced. [1, 3, 5]
[1] https://www.quora.com/Why-its-not-that-easy-to-start-operati...
[2] https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-it-take-for-a-thermal-po...
[3] https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-11/documents/ma...
[4] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-minimum-time-required-by-s...
[5] https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/inflexible-fossil-fuels/
by pstuart
6/11/2026 at 7:04:59 PM
We can keep some of that coal-fired stuff around and use it periodically.It's OK. Winter happens every year.
When the market needs that power, then the market will have to pay for it.
by ssl-3
6/12/2026 at 4:44:59 PM
With coal, we should use what we have when needed, but absolutely should not invest a penny more in its development.Instead, that money should go into geothermal which can provide clean baseload power and provide a path for the oil industry to pivot their work to. Everybody wins, except for the coal mine owners and their workers.
The workers should be trained to likewise pivot to geothermal and other renewables. The mine owners can get fucked.
by pstuart
6/11/2026 at 4:44:28 PM
These days I think "at night" is mostly covered or at least could be mostly covered both by wind and batteries.The "base load" question may still be appropriate for deep winter, high (or low) latitudes, etc, but renewables are getting there pretty fast.
by cduzz
6/11/2026 at 7:11:23 PM
The fossil fuel lobbies want us to believe it is a way bigger problem than it is.The people who echo that sentiment without educating themselves are giving them a helping hand.
by pydry
6/11/2026 at 4:37:08 PM
True, but battery advancements are ongoing at a rapid pace. Sodium-ion is now viable and will be a mainstay in grid storage. Ignoring ideology, this path is plain cheaper than anything else.by pstuart
6/11/2026 at 4:37:22 PM
Grid batteries are being deployed everywhere every day and the cost including storage is now lower than fossil fuels.by idontwantthis
6/11/2026 at 6:13:44 PM
It's not, grid-scale batteries are being deployed all over the world, and newer batteries keep getting better and cheaper. Storage hasn't been the issue for years.by brendoelfrendo
6/11/2026 at 6:21:12 PM
To be fair, it depends if you were looking at "price/unit" or "sum of factory output".The former, even a few years ago, I agree. The latter, people were arguing about a year or two ago. (Though your point remains as the trend was clear).
by ben_w
6/12/2026 at 2:09:21 PM
It turns out battery prices have dropped so much that this isn't difficult anymore either.by Schiendelman
6/11/2026 at 10:36:07 PM
> have little black particles all over it. Nobody likes that, no matter what the President says.Should you live near one of those big noisy "freeway" things you may note the little black particles over everything in the surroundings but nobody likes to tear down the interstate.
by tolciho
6/12/2026 at 2:45:32 AM
I have two things to say to that.First, I live 150 yards from a major freeway - I-90 in WA, it's three lanes in each direction here. There are no tiny black particles over everything in surroundings, and my outdoors AQI (from my own sensor) is normally in single digits and basically only ever gets above 50 if it's wildfire smoke or the neighbors are burning something.
But second, if we developed a reliable and cheap way to, say, teleport people over long distances, why not tear it down?
by int_19h
6/12/2026 at 3:46:14 PM
Note the use of 'may'; the details of the car-hell vary. Perhaps the I-90 pollution instead spills into the lake and then bioaccumultes into larger organisms, Bon Appétit! My anecdote was a bit southwesterly of the I-5 bridge where there was, besides the horrific noise pollution, definitely a greyish black soot to clean off everything. A fine result of rolling a natural one and automatically failing the skill check for "copy the autobahn", probably.As to why some beings need to be whisked hither and yon with such haste, and thus spend quite a bit of time (and energy) trying to be somewhere, anywhere else, well, are they hungry ghosts? Or maybe they min/maxed for wizard and ended up with only three points in wisdom?
by tolciho
6/12/2026 at 2:08:32 PM
How are you measuring your AQI, and what particle size? Tire particles aren't PM2.5 AFAIK and are very hazardous to your health.by Schiendelman
6/11/2026 at 11:25:28 PM
> nobody likes to tear down the interstateLots of urban areas in the US have been resisting, tearing down, and/or relocating major roads since the freeway revolts of the 1970s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_revolts_in_the_United_...
by kibwen
6/12/2026 at 5:41:30 AM
I think the freeways are going from larger particles to smaller ones as DEF gets rid of the bigger diesel particles.smaller stuff is more dangerous and goes deeper into your body:
- PM10: inhalable dust entering the nose and mouth.
- PM4: respirable fraction that can reach the gas-exchange region.
- PM2.5: fine particles that penetrate deep into the lungs.
- PM1: ultrafine particles with potential to translocate beyond the lungs.
by m463
6/11/2026 at 8:58:31 PM
Solar has also overtaken fossil gas.https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy/renewables...
by ViewTrick1002
6/11/2026 at 8:07:35 PM
Some of these plants are being retrofitted for dual firing. They can burn coal & natural gas at the same time. I wonder how that factors into these statistics.by bob1029