this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
135 points (99.3% liked)
Technology
57997 readers
5458 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There's an interesting economic crisis point coming alongside plummeting solar and battery costs. At some point soon, the cost of installing battery backed solar on private properties will be cheaper than the cost of the wiring for the grid. At that point, even if the electricity feeding the grid cost zero dollars to produce, the grid itself will cost more than generating your own power. So, from a purely financial perspective, anyone who has the space to install solar should install solar.
This leads to an interesting feedback loop. We can't shut down the grid, because there are people in apartments and things that need it -- not enough surface area on an apartment roof to generate enough solar. So they will still have to pay for the grid. With fewer and fewer grid connected buildings, however, the cost of maintaining the grid disproportionately goes to those without land. This dramatically alters the value of land in favour of those that own it. It feeds sprawl, and exacerbates the gap between the rich and the poor.
Industrial users will bear much of the grid cost -- most factories cannot power themselves with solar, particularly those in high energy industries. But, it's possible that the high energy factories just buy farmland so they can set up mostly autonomous facilities outside the cities. Not solar, but this is a good example: ammonia plant building its own wind farm in the middle of nowhere https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/evrec-marine-group-wind-hydrogen-ammonia-botwood-grand-falls-central-1.6754995
Long short: expect there to be social disruption due to low solar and battery prices. Deurbanization is a likely byproduct.
You might find this company interesting. Green hydrogen making fertilizer
https://www.atlasagro.ag/
No immediate tech info on their front-page. I'm assuming it is a solar/wind powered nitrogen fixation plant?
Ah, this is great!
I've a pipe dream that someone will use a similar pipeline to produce ethylene gas one day. Plastic from atmospheric carbon dioxide and water? Sign me up.