268 points

Well, in the northern hemisphere, we’ll start getting progressively more daylight in 6 days.

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Wait, already? I want dark. Me need dark.

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65 points

Keep your blinds down then, but the rest of us praise the sun!

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8 points

I only praise the man-made sun.

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4 points

Night man, ahhEHHHahhhhh!!!

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2 points
*

If only I could be so grossly incandescent!

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21 points

It’ll still continue to feel dark until early March so don’t worry.

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12 points

Yea this is my first winter in the northern hemisphere, I was warned about the dark being unbearable, but it’s been pretty good so far…

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21 points
*

It’s harder on the upswing for me. Maybe it’s because January and February seem to stretch on after the holidays, but I don’t really get tired of winter until later (luckily).

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12 points

It depends how north are you

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32 points

Thank fuck. I hate the thing where the sunrise is at 10am, and sunset is at 2pm.

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21 points

I can take the cold. I like seasons. I despise the short days.

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3 points

I love it. For about 2 weeks. Then I just want to go to Spain until May.

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18 points

Booooo!

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13 points

Vampires hate this one weird trick

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3 points

What, not being in highschool? That tends to put them off their feed, I hear. 🤢🙃

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6 points

Oh hell yeah

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178 points

Daytime energy is soon going to be free in much of the world. The advances in green tech, especially solar and batteries, are real. Much faster progress than even the optimists were predicting a decade ago. The revolution is reaching a tipping point where it becomes self-sustaining and requires no state subsidies. I am not a tech utopian, and this alone will not save us. But there’s no denying it’s good news. It’s all happening far too late but it does look like humans are going to kick their fossil habit after all.

Inconvenient footnote: thank China.

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42 points

It’s gotten so good that China might be restricting output to keep the prices high…

(their onshore wind, and pumped hydro storage, are also great success stories, as is the EV industry there)

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33 points

Indeed. China is such a paradox. An absolute anathema in terms of culture and politics. It’s almost impossible for us Westerners to grasp how a people could accept that level of authoritarianism, how they could value their personal freedom so little. And yet, and yet. Without China we would be royally screwed. They are pulling the weight of the green transition basically alone. So personally I’ve decided to hold off on China-bashing for now.

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18 points

It’s almost impossible for us Westerners to grasp how a people could accept that level of authoritarianism, how they could value their personal freedom so little.

This assumes that they have an alternative to authoritarianism that they could enact if they wanted. For some reason, the authorities don’t allow that. And the authorities also don’t like when people talk about it, so it’s difficult to discuss and convince others that authoritarianism is bad.

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6 points

Tiananmen Square was not that long ago. There are lots of living people who would have seen their fellow students get crushed by tanks and rinsed down a drain.

That will keep a generation and their children quiet. Their children have also now seen how risings are punished via Hong Kong.

I don’t think it’s even possible to imagine what you would do having seen your government enact that kind of violence on your peers. So I certainly don’t judge.

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6 points

Westerners to grasp how a people could accept that level of authoritarianism,

So personally I’ve decided to hold off on China-bashing for now.

You just did, according to .ml users, because ACkShuLly cHiNa iSnT aN AuThoRitArIaN CounTRy

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15 points

Optimistic of you to assume pricing is cost-plus not willingness-to-pay. US utilities (and their foreign counterparts) will only too gladly keep charging you

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2 points

Agreed. In theory that problem can be dealt with by properly regulated competition.

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1 point

But regulation is the enemy and only serves to harm the poor, poor multinational conglomerates!

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Yes, but, we depend on fossil fuels for far more than just energy. We still get most of our plastics from them, and most of our fertilizer, without which we can’t feed most of the developed countries. And while renewables are great for stationary use, we still don’t have anything with the energy density of fossil fuels for cars, shipping, air travel, and cargo. And, whether anyone thinks it’s a good use or not, war is entirely, inefficiently, and intensely run on oil.

There are a lot of other issues entirely unrelated to power grid energy production we have to solve first, the most challenging being our own aggressive human nature. We’re a long way from kicking the oil habit.

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13 points

The energy density of batteries just keeps increasing, for cars at least it’s now good enough. I agree completely about the rest but this was meant to be a happy thread! I agree with OP that we need to talk about good news too sometimes.

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Fair point about positive things; I just think it’s important to not delude ourselves.

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7 points

Is there a good place to ask about independent (non-grid-connected) solar for an otherwise grid-connected structure? I’d love to set something like this up, but can’t find any systems which don’t require wiring into the gird.

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5 points

I bet the Solarpunk and homesteading / permaculture communities might have some ideas on this!

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4 points

Best ask in a more specialized forum. Personally I rent so I have to take what I’m given.

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2 points
*

Why would you pass up on the free money of selling the power? You’re probably looking for a hybrid system if you just want to keep the lights on during a service outage. Or I guess you can just build an off grid system and wire it to a generator transfer switch if you want to power your house circuits but only during an outage.

Most half decent solar installers can help either way.

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1 point

Mostly because I am not in a place, financially or home-wise, to install a full grid-connected system. I’m just looking for something that I can use to charge enough battery to run a lamp, fan, charge devices, or other such similar light loads on a daily basis. It won’t bring my power bill to zero, but it will chip away at it.

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1 point

I’ve set up an off grid solar system out of necessity. Used to be an electrician so I know a good bit (but not everything by any means). What are your questions I can maybe point you in the right direction.

Based on your initial question, it depends on local zoning. You can likely legally grid tie a set up and have a battery backup. I think if you want to be legal I’d go that route.

If you want I think you could set up a completely separate system in a more sneaky fashion that is completely isolated from the grid / your existing house circuitry. But when grid tying (including into your house circuitry) you have to be pretty safe because that power can go upstream and feed the grid or the house when workers think the power is off, which is obviously very dangerous and could get you in a lot of trouble if it went wrong.

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1 point

Engineer here, so I’m aware of the fundamentals of “how not to kill yourself with electricity”. Anything tying into the grid I’m definitely calling a professional for.

But no, I’m not in a financial or property situation to install a grid-connected system, so I was imagining a “balcony solar” kit that’d just charge a small battery bank I could run some lights, a fan, or some similar low-load devices off of. I don’t know if such a thing exists (or if it’s a smart idea), but I’d like to look into it and find out.

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4 points

Capitalism only encourages innovation when its profitable. Its a bit of a flaw.

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4 points

Best I can do is more bitcoins

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3 points

This IS good news!

I hope I live to see a modular, upgradable, repairable laptop with a ridiculously ludicrous battery life. (Without it being powered by some sort of highly volatile fusion core or something Lol)

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3 points

People can talk shit on China from a geopolitical stance and I’ll agree with them, but yeah, they picked up the slack where other countries were lacking when it came to green progression. Technically our (US) own fault too. Greed ruling over progression really fucked us.

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2 points

Can’t wait to get charged $0.50/kWh by PGE for energy they generate for free, weeee.

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-3 points

You wish, if we keep going towards everything has a battery power demand is only going to go up

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4 points

Sure, but energy efficiency is always improving, distribution and storage are always improving. And the full electrification of transport (which is what you seem to be alluding to) is not going to happen overnight.

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161 points

My birthday. It’s tomorrow.

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25 points

Wow! We have so much in common! I have a birthday too. 😁

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3 points

Happy birthday!

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2 points

Really? I bet it’s probably more than a year away though right?

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10 points

I have plenty of birthdays that are more than a year away.

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20 points

You’ve been spinning around a massive ball of fire at 74 thousand miles per hour for a year 🤘

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12 points

I’m surprised it hasn’t made me motion sick yet. A new record.

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6 points

Theory: alcohol inhibits the otherwise natural blocking of earth spinning induced motion sickness. If you drink enough, you can feel the world spinning and lose balance.

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3 points

Imagine if it all suddenly stopped and we all got still-sickness.

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6 points

Well how about that. It’s also my birthday. Happy birthday, Leni

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4 points

Thanks. Happy birthday to you too!

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4 points

Grats Leni

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2 points

Thanks

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4 points

Happy birthday!

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4 points

Thanks :)

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3 points

Happy Birthday!

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2 points

Thank you

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3 points

Happy Birthday!

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3 points

Thanks <3

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3 points

Happy birthday!

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2 points

Thanks <3

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2 points

That’s wonderful news. Congrats!

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3 points

Thanks

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2 points

I hope it goes great for you!!! 💖

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2 points

Thanks

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1 point

Happy cake (do we do cake on lemmy? Why not pie?) day.

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1 point

Thank you <3

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158 points

Thailand is set to legalise same sex marriage and Norway is set to ban ICE cars, both in 2025.

There’s probably a lot of these small wins happening around the world. Let’s keep an eye out for them so we don’t lose all our hope for a better future.

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29 points

Norway is set to ban ICE cars

Newly registered ICE cars, I assume?

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21 points

I’m not up to speed with it as I’m not Norwegian myself but I think that’s correct. They’re aiming to be ICE free in 2035.

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6 points

It makes sense, why does anyone need them? We will run out of fossil fuels in the next 25-50 years. They are also less cost efficient.

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18 points

We need them because most of us have to buy used ICE cars because of our financial situation.

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17 points

They’ve been saying that for the past 25-50 years, there’s more fossil fuels to be had, they’re just increasingly more difficult to reach (until the permafrost melts…)

It’s good we’re shifting to renewables, but we could continue our bullshit for the foreseeable future.

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5 points

why does anyone need them?

In some, especially rural, areas, the charger infrastructure probably isn’t there and public transit isn’t viable in all cases. I’m thinking of industries like farming, forestry, etc. That said, that’s probably a fairly tiny portion of overall ICE usage for normal vehicles (I’m assuming construction equipment, tractors, etc. aren’t included in this).

I think it might also be financially difficult in some cases where people really do need a car (thinking rural life again, here), but are living on a very tight budget. That could also potentially be handled with subsidies and such, but I don’t know how that would practically work.

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94 points

Battery prices are collapsing and we are at an inflection point where electric vehicles will soon be more economical to purchase, drive and maintain for a much greater number of people. This is as inevitable as the phaseout of coal.

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18 points

Solar panels also seems to be on a tipping point

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4 points

Oh it tipped a few years ago. It’s just still being implemented. There may be less startup to ramping up fossil fuel plants still, but solar is cheaper to build and operate

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1 point

So I guess what kind of tipping point we’re talking about, I meant we’ll soon be drowning in cheap solar panels, it’s just as you said not yet at capacity.

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11 points

Yeah, I was shopping for lithium on phosphatase leisure batteries maybe two years ago and was looking at spending over £1000 per battery. Now those batteries are not much over £100 and prices still seem to be falling.

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2 points

What would one use lithium on phosphatase leisure batteries for? I’m not familiar with those

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10 points

LiFePo (Lithium Iron Phosphate) is heavier than traditional Lithium Ion batteries for the same amount of energy storage, but doesn’t degrade when discharged to zero the way traditional Lithium Ion does.

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4 points

That looks like autocorrect or text-to-speech mangled ‘lithium iron phosphate’

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1 point

Well, you know…sometimes you just need a vibrator that can go a continuous month between recharges…

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7 points

I’d broaden that to a whole host of “green” and “alternative energy” sectors.

All the panic about Chinese “overproduction” of EVs and similar technologies is just China going whole hog on those industries. It’s not an “overproduction” in the traditional sense, where a company produces more than the market will bear and has to sell excess inventory at a loss. China just produces all of this stuff cheaply and at a huge scale.

About 20 years ago the general perception was that EVs were a joke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2HX5wsQVEA Now we have cost effective solar and wind, efficient battery storage, good and cheap EVs and drones, modern heat pumps etc.

I don’t even think all the tariffs will matter in the long run. China is currently adopting all that stuff at a breakneck pace. Their production capacity won’t just go away once they’ve saturated the domestic market and the growing number of countries that have trade agreements with China). At that point, Chinese manufacturers will have no choice but to start actually selling below cost, just so they can clear inventory.

And this has a snowball effect too. Energy is often the limiting factor in production. An abundance of cheap energy makes it cheaper to produce more cheap energy production.

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7 points

Sodium ion batteries are also supposedly gearing up to be a solid li-ion alternative in the next 2-3 years. Not as energy dense yet but they’re closing the gap.

Fingers crossed that pans out.

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3 points

Not only that, but lithium sulfur is coming too.

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1 point

I heard this as well and am sweating the anticipation. They make another breakthrough on density and it’ll blow li-io out of the water, at least for on-site storage. Would be crazy to see backup diesel generators replaced by batteries.

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5 points

Unless you live in the US where tarrifs will keep that from being a reality.

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2 points

There’s too much money in renewables for rich people. The tariffs may or may not happen, but the renewable switch is a runaway train, and almost entirely in the country.

On the electricity futures market, wind producers regularly sell their power for negative prices (paying transmission companies to take their power) because it’s so cheap for them to make, with such negligible overhead; since the government subsidies are based on the mWh they produce, they can sell it at a loss and still make money. But even if those subsidies go away, renewables can still easily undercut every other producer on the grid.

That’s just one example. The same tipping point is approaching fast all over just about every industry. Obama and Biden got the renewable energy industry over the hump of research and infrastructure outlay, so now Tr*mp gets to take the credit for their work while it all falls into place; and because the rich people are benefiting from it financially, they’re going to protect the industry.

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3 points
*

The tariffs may or may not happen

The 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs already happened in September. Joe Biden announced them in May and they kicked off already. I don’t expect Trump to change anything with that.

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1 point

I’m talking about batteries, specifically. And the US is decades behind on batteries.

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2 points

Yeah, but that will be true for the electric cars made in the coming years, not the ones made in the past few years. People were right to be put off by the prices.

And even then, will these new cheap batteries be durable? I worry a lot about all these EVs becoming unusable in 10 years because the batteries are ruined, just like my 10 year old laptop

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2 points

People who didn’t lease will lose their shirts but the price of new cars is the primary driver for the price of used cars. New, cheap, and more useable EVs will make used ones cheap.

As to the reliability, it remains to be seen. Considering the size of a vehicle I think an aftermarket will pop up for refurbishing and replacing batteries like it has for the earliest modern EVs in the us, the leaf.

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