• FrowingFostek@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Would that not be 4 hours of not consuming non-renewables? Like not burning so much coal is a good thing no?

    Are we arguing about the measure of progress in the United States? Cuz buddy I’ll take any progress at this point.

    • Mihies@programming.dev
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      1 hour ago

      Are we arguing? I thought we were talking 🤷 . Yes, but that also means that the rest of the time the energy has to come from somewhere. Like a coal power plant or similar. So this photovoltaic power plant is not a complete replacement for old power plant, but more like a partial one while still relying of fossil fuel, especially during winter and cloudy days.

      • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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        21 minutes ago

        We typically use more power during the day (industry, mostly), so the solar helps us reduce carbon based infrastructure need even without batteries. And it’s just a baby step in the progression to renewables. Yes, we have a long way to go.

        • Mihies@programming.dev
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          13 minutes ago

          As all the world has. If we really want to prevent CO2 (and other bad) emissions, we need energy storage and a lot of it. Or nuclear. That said, these are steps (without proper energy storage) in right direction, but only as long as they replace energy from fossil fuel power plants.

      • FrowingFostek@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        Sorry, I might have gotten a little defensive there.

        My point is if it supplements their energy consumption with cleaner energy it’s a good thing.

        Even if its for a couple minutes or a couple hours its a positive improvement.

        • Mihies@programming.dev
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          10 minutes ago

          No worries. It is, if it replaces fossil fuels. But it soon gets tricky if it is supposed to be a stable source of energy. For that we’d need awful lot of energy storage, probably in some form of batteries (sodium perhaps). Today it’s relatively easy to slap solar panels everywhere, but it’s not that easy to provide energy outside of daylight.