Flight changed everything when it comes to warfare. But as far as individuals are concerned, the average human on the planet will take a handful of flights in their lifetime, at best, and nearly all flights that are taken are for recreation which is ultimately fungible with other forms of recreation that don't involve taking flights, and of the flights that aren't for recreation most could be replaced by things like video calls, and the vast and overwhelming majority of the goods that make up the lifeblood of the global economy are still shipped by ship, not shipped by air.
Which is to say, the commercial aviation industry could permanently collapse tomorrow and it would have only a marginal impact on most people's lives, who would just replace planes with train, car, or boat travel. The lesson here is that even if normal people experience some tangential beneficial effects from LLMs, their most enduring legacy will likely be to entrench authority and cement the existing power structures.
It's silly to say that the ability to fly has not changed society. Or that it won't continue to change society, if we manage to become space-faring before ruining our home planet.
The phrase, "The average human on the planet will take a handful of flights in their lifetime" is doing a lot of work. What are those flights to? How meaningful/important were the experiences? What cultural knowledge was exchanged? What about crucial components that enable industries we depend on? For example, a nuclear plant might constantly be ordering parts that are flown in overnight.
In general you're really minimizing the importance of aviation without really providing anything to back up your claims.
² By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work. ³ Then the on-call tech, Lucifer, the Son of Dawn, was awoken at midnight because God did not renew the heavens' and the earths' HTTPS certificate. ⁴ Thusly Lucifer drafted his resignation in a great fury.
I just got home from a stressful day in retail (oh who am I kidding; every day is stress in retail) and this gave me a chuckle I really needed. Thank you.
If you think wind turbines are a significant cause of bird deaths it shows that you have no clue what you're talking about. Please don't bother commenting on this topic again.
Not as many as cats I certainly know that, it obiovusly was an hyperbole used to underline that all we need is just a nuclear power plant to replace all that wind turbines
Our study, covering 45 species across 91 countries, reveals that human-induced factors—predominantly electrocution, illegal killing, and poisoning—constitute the major threats to bird mortality, highlighting a critical issue in global biodiversity conservation.
and from last year, US specific, endangered species:
A comparative assessment with data from the 2010 Red List reveals an increase in the proportion of threatened species recorded as being impacted by certain threats. Notably, the incidence of hunting and trapping as a documented threat has increased from 34% to 41% of threatened species. Similarly, the proportion of species assessments with fire/fire suppression, climate change, pollution, invasive alien species and energy production have each increased by 3-5 percentage points.
The irony is that I feel like everyone here is just copping off of WolframAlpha, which for the past 15 years has featured the ability to display references of similar magnitude for any query you give. And in fact, typing in "500,000 tons" into WolframAlpha tells you specifically that this is 1.4x the mass of the Empire State Building (and also 0.8x to 1.4x the mass of an Ultra Large Crude Carrier oil supertanker, and also 0.11x the mass converted to energy by the sun in one second).
There's no Rust codebase that takes hours to compile cold unless 1) you're compiling a massive codebase in release mode with LTO enabled, in which case, you've asked for it, 2) you've ported Doom to the type system, or 3) you're compiling on a netbook.
I'm curious if this is tracked or observed somewhere; crater runs are a huge source of information, metrics about the compilation time of crates would be quite interesting.
Rust's overflow behavior isn't platform-dependent. By default, Rust panics on overflow when compiled in debug mode and wraps on overflow when compiled in release mode, and either behavior can be selected in either mode by a compiler flag. In neither case does Rust consider it UB for arithmetic operations to wrap.
I like to say that there are two primary factors when we talk about how "fast" a language is:
1. What costs does the language actively inject into a program?
2. What optimizations does the language facilitate?
Most of the time, it's sufficient to just think about the first point. C and Rust are faster than Python and Javascript because the dynamic nature of the latter two requires implementations to inject runtime checks all over the place to enable that dynamism. Rust and C simply inject essentially zero active runtime checks, so membership in this club is easy to verify.
The second one is where we get bogged down, because drawing clean conclusions is complicated by the (possibly theoretical) existence of optimizing compilers that can leverage the optimizability inherent to the language, as well as the inherent fragility of such optimizations in practice. This is where we find ourselves saying things like "well Rust could have an advantage over C, since it frequently has more precise and comprehensive aliasing information to pass to the optimizer", though measuring this benefit is nontrivial and it's unclear how well LLVM is thoroughly utilizing this information at present. At the same time, the enormous observed gulf between Rust in release mode (where it's as fast as C) and Rust in debug mode (when it's as slow as Ruby) shows how important this consideration is; Rust would not have achieved C speeds if it did not carefully pick abstractions that were amenable to optimization.
It's also interesting to think about this in terms of the "zero cost abstractions"/"zero overhead abstractions" idea, which Stroustrup wrote as "What you don't use, you don't pay for. What you do use, you couldn't hand code any better". The first sentence is about 1, and the second one is about what you're able to do with 2.
I think there's a third question, but I don't know quite how to phrase it. Maybe "how real-world fast is the language?" or "how fast is the language in the hands of someone who isn't obsessively thinking about speed?"
That is, most of the time, most of the users aren't thinking about how to squeeze the last tenth of a percent of speed out of it. They aren't thinking about speed at all. They're thinking about writing code that works at all, and that hopefully doesn't crash too often. How fast is the language for them? Does it nudge them toward faster code, or slower? Are the default, idiomatic ways of writing things the fast way, or the slow way?
Is Javascript significantly slower? It is extremely common in the real world and so a lot of effort has gone into optimizing it - v8 is very good. Yes C and Rust enable more optimizations: they will be slightly faster, but javascript has had a lot of effort put into making it run fast.
Yes. V8 (and other Javascript JIT engines) are very good, with a lot of effort put into them by talented engineers. But there's a floor on performance imposed by the language's own semantics. Of course, if your program is I/O bound rather than CPU bound (especially at network-scale latencies), this may never be noticeable. But a Javascript program will use significantly more CPU, significantly more memory, and both CPU and memory usage will be significantly more variable and less predictable than a program written in C or Rust.
It's complicated, though mostly that complication doesn't change the overall conclusion.
Much of the language's semantics can be boiled away before JIT compilation, because that flexibility isn't in use at that time, which can be proven by a quick check before entering the hot code. (Or in the extreme, the JIT code doesn't check it at all, and the runtime invalidates that code lazily when an operation is performed that violates those preconditions.) Which thwarts people who do simple-minded comparisons of "what language is fastest at `for (i = 0; i < 10000000; i++) x += 7`?", because the runtime is entirely dominated by the hot loop, and the machine code for the hot loop is identical across all languages tested.
Still: you have to spend time JIT compiling. You have to do some dynamic checks in all but the innermost hot code. You have to materialize data in memory, even if just as a fallback, and you have to garbage collect periodically.
So I agree with your conclusion, except for perhaps un-nuanced use of the term "performance floor" -- there's really no elevated JS floor, at least not a global one; simple JS can generate the same or nearly the same machine code as equivalent C/C++/Rust, will use no more memory, and will never GC. But that floor only applies to a small subset of code (which can be the bulk of the runtime!), and the higher floor does kick in for everything else. So generally speaking, JS can only "be as fast" as non-managed languages for simple programs.
(I'll ignore the situations where the JIT can depend on stricter constraints at runtime than AOT-compiled languages, because I've never seen a real-world situation where it helps enough to counterbalance everything else.)
Yes, for most real-world examples JavaScript is significantly slower; JIT isn’t free and can be very sensitive to small code changes, you also have to consider the garbage collector.
Speed is also not the only metric, Rust and C enable much better control over memory usage. In general, it is easier to write a memory-efficient program in Rust or C than it is in JS.
Despite what completely uninformed people may think, the field "computer science" is not about software development. It's a branch of mathematics. If you want an education in software development, those are offered by trade schools.
What I want is for universities to offer a degree in Software Engineering. That's a different field from Computer Science.
You say that belongs in a trade school? I might agree, if you think trade schools and not universities should teach electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and chemical engineering.
But if chemical engineering belongs at a university, so does software engineering.
Saying this as a software engineer that has a degree in electrical engineering - software "engineering" is definitely not the same as other engineering disciplines and definitely belongs in a trade school.
Right, because the guy sitting next to me and is designing a PCB for next copy of rPI is so much more for an engineer than the other guy designing a distributed computing algorithm? It shows that you only dealt with the trivial things in SE. There are very complex areas in both disciplines and as much as I can find trivial things in SE I can do the same for EE. Let's just not pretend it's a science fiction when it's not.
My university had Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering and Computer Science degrees (in additional to all the other standard ones.)
I didn't say it taught you software development (though it does, non-primarily), I said it was '"the" software degree'. I.e. the degree you get if you want to get into software in general - which, in reality, is what people believe is true, and reality/pragmatism is all that matters, even if you feel so superior to those people as to resort to insults.
To be clear, I did not go into CS. But I do live in this world
China is the world's largest electricity producer and installs a lot of generating capacity of all types. For example, China has 29 nuclear reactors with 31 GW of capacity currently under construction:
Which leads to a shrinking nuclear share in their grid. It peaked at 4.6% in 2021, now down to 4.3%.
Compared to their renewable buildout the nuclear scheme is a token gesture to keep a nuclear industry alive if it would somehow end up delivering cheap electricity. And of course to enable their military ambitions.
The nuclear share dropping is a very clear signal about a lack of investment. Shows that nuclear energy is no longer cost competitive, even in a "low regulation" environment.
It shows that strategic investment matters and people are looking at more than a single cost metric. Nuclear is behind today, but that doesn't hold a promise it will remain true into the future unless you stop investing now.
One armed bandit says explore as well as exploit. This delta you cited indicates the pendulum currently is more exploit than explore, but its not a static equation.
chinese nuclear is extremely cost competitive at 2.5bn/unit. They have other reasons, one being the ban on inland expansion fearing of messing up with 2 major rivers that feed the country. Current chinese units are basically borrowed and improved western designs, cap is basically vogtle's ap1000, hualong is a frankenstein of several western designs.
TBH this part seems key, even PRC couldn't operate full western designs reliant on western industrial capacity economically, part of it was simple incompetence of western supply chains (business closures / regulatory drama / sanctions). Nuclear seems viable once you strip out a lot of the politics that makes them uneconomical, hence PRC had to indigenize the designs since once western supply chains enter picture, the schedule goes out the window.
Two years ago we were installing 1/10th of Chinese solar today?
Where are we at today? Can we catch up under this administration?
Where do we compare on a nuclear basis? I know my state installed nuclear reactors recently, but I'm not aware of any other build outs.
In a war game scenario, China is probably more concerned about losing access to oil and natural gas than we are. Not that we shouldn't be building this stuff quickly either.
Renewables and battery storage energy are unstoppable. Why take nuclear risk when you can get more than enough from solar, wind, and geothermal coupled with battery storage?
China is a country with over a billion people, Meta is a private company with under 100k employees, it doesn't really make sense to compare the power output of their investments.
There are multiple measures, as generating technologies are complex. "Nameplate capacity" (given above) is one, "capacity factor", which is (roughly) the time-averaged output is another, and for solar averages about 20%, though that can vary greatly by facility and location.
Nuclear has one of the highest capacity factors (90% or greater), whilst natural gas turbines amongst the lowest (<10% per the link below). This relates not only to the reliability of the technologies, but how they are employed. Nuclear power plants cannot be easily ramped up or down in output, and are best operated at continuous ("base load") output, whilst gas-turbine "peaking stations" can be spun up on a few minutes' notice to provide as-needed power. Wind and solar are dependent on available generating capability, though this tends to be fairly predictable over large areas and longer time periods. Storage capability and/or dispatchable load make managing these sources more viable, however.
It is how individual power generation projects and measured though. If you install a GW of solar generation, it means you installed solar panels capable of generating 1 GW peak. If you install a 1 GW of coal generation, then same thing. If you install 1 GW peaker gas plants etc.
The coal plant will have a capacity factor of 80% though. Solar will be 10 to 20%. And the gas plant could be very low due to usage intent.
Battery projects are the same (since they're reported as generators). Whatever nameplate capacity...for about 4 hours only.
It's close enough to how it's measured. China's terawatt of solar power capacity isn't producing 9000 terawatt hours in a year. Their total electricity use is 9000 terawatt hours.
In absolute terms, China installs about as much nuclear as the US does solar. So I can only assume you agree with the statement "the US is bringing on an insane amount of solar energy"? Because, once again in absolute terms, the US's solar buildout is trounced by China's. The US is losing the energy race, and nuclear isn't going to save it. The US will run out of fissile material before China runs out of sunlight.
China is building a tiny amount of nuclear in comparison to their wind, solar, storage, and HVDC builds. Only something like 50-100GW over thw coming decades. The quantity being built only makes sense as a strategic hedge, not as a primary strategy.
Renewables crash the money making potential of nuclear power. Why should someone buy ~18-24 cents/kWh new built nuclear power excluding backup, transmission costs, taxes, final waste deposit etc. when cheap renewables deliver?
China is barely building nuclear power, in terms of their grid size. It peaked at 4.6% in 2021, now down to 4.3%.
Compared to their renewable buildout the nuclear scheme is a token gesture to keep a nuclear industry alive if it would somehow end up delivering cheap electricity.
Again they aren't the same product. Everyone always thinks power is only about $/kwh especially in hackernews. That is a strong proponent of the product but most definitely not all of it. Solar just does not work for large scale industrial uses cases (99.99% uptime). Even with massive energy storage to try and cover the edges. Its a great combo but not comparable.
I had exact the same discussion here 5 and 10 years ago (it will be ready next year!), I'm willing to bet that storage isn't going to cut it in the next 10 years.
There's at least two of orders of magnitude missing with the current storage gen and unless a new tech revolution happens, that's not going to work.
The supposedly massive storage which is built in your link doesn't even cover half a day of winter load.
Anything below 200GWh is a proof of concept at best.
I remember those discussions. 5-10 years ago people were summing all electric cars, including ICE cars starting batteries, to prove the scale was irrelevant.
Now the goalpost is shifted to "not even a single winter day without any other input of electricity". Which is a high 90s percent decarbonized grid. Not fully decarbonized, but almost.
In California storage is now timeshifting 50 GWh daily. An expansion that has come in the last few years.
Battery prices are down to $50/kWh when not using extremely expensive western batteries. Which means in the near future 50-200 kWh systems attached to houses. Excluding the BEV providing demand response to also help shape grid demand.
I think you should update your priors to 2026 data. We're in the point of the S-curve where batteries goes from nowhere to everywhere in the blink of an eye.
Just like solar was almost insignificant in 2020 adding a mere 140 GW over the year while in the first 6 months of 2025 we added 380 GW of solar.
Storage is time-shifting a lot of energy but it can't do long periods of time in large volumes - still a significant problem. What you are referring to is small incremental changes (like peak shaving or demand response programs in single hour increments). And it isn't only a co-ordination problem (which many companies are solving) its a physical/physics problem.
I am all for energy storage and solar - I've worked extensively in both. Their continued growth is a huge asset for humanity. That said they aren't a panacea and doesn't cover the full spectrum of energy needs even with continued cost reductions - they have constraints due to the physical reality of the world and how power is produced.
California has huge power cuts and has the benefit of having a very mild winter on top of that (can we even call a 10 degrees celcius minimum as winter? Personally I wouldn't).I wouldn't use them as a successful example of anything.
> In California storage is now timeshifting 50 GWh daily. An expansion that has come in the last few years.
I don't think you realize the scale of the problem, France alone consume 90GWh per day in winter, yes one day. And that isn't going to be any better with all petrol consumption switching to electric.
50 GWh shifting is just a proof of concept at best.
And yeah sure, see you in 2027, for sure it will be the year of storage this time.
The storage and grid upgrades have essentially removed all power outages in California? Again you operate on old information.
On the other hand California do have an absolutely massive air conditioning load in the summer.
> And that isn't going to be any better with all petrol consumption switching to electric.
Electrifying transportation is expected to add 15-25% extra load. A load that is extremely flexible in when it runs and thus perfectly match renewable intermittency.
In 2025 alone China added 168 GWh of storage.
I think you don’t realize how much even 50 GWh of storage causes the entire Californian grid to transform.
> On the other hand California do have an absolutely massive air conditioning load in the summer.
Well good for them but the vast majority of the western world has the opposite load, reduced load in summer where the panels operate full capacity and massive consumption when they produce close to nothing.
> In 2025 alone China added 168 GWh of storage.
Great, and they use over 1400 GWh per day.
In 2025 alone, it means they added an astonishing 3h of electricity storage (I'm rounding it up for you as a bonus)
> In 2025 alone, it means they added an astonishing 3h of electricity storage (I'm rounding it up for you as a bonus)
That’s really good isn’t it?
It would be unusual for solar to produce zero during the day, and the night is presumably going to be around 12 hours (in terms of solar generation). Energy usage is presumably less at night too.
The storage is already meaningful, with 3 of the 12 hours of zero generation covered (assuming usage is flat over a 24 hour period, which it isn’t), and if they keep adding at that pace it’ll be very significant.
Yes, the missing piece here is most of the demand is in winter but most of the solar production in summer.
Daily load shift is a solved problem since the 70s with dams anyways, it's not the issue with solar. The issue is season load shift which is still science fiction as we speak.
Most of the time yes, but most of the time isn't a good answer when we talk about a grid. See the nuclear issue in France which had an even worse wind generation issue compounding the problem.
Not to mention the variability which is 10x worse than solar.
That is the expected variability? On-shore wind has capacity factors between 25-40% depending on location and size of wind turbine. That it reduces to 11% is expected.
Given that this happened once it is also quickly pushed higher by storage.
How would add nuclear power to this grid mix? Yes, that is over 100% of demand being generated by rooftop solar.
Which storage can solve. The problem is that "base load" as we know it is dead. It was only ever an economic construct, never a physical one.
Distributed renewables are unraveling the grid monopoly, meaning you can't just foist enormous nuclear subsidies on the tax payers anymore. They will vote with their wallets.
Storage can not solve firming in most of the world, maybe South Aus being exception, maybe. It can be solved by gas peakers or gas peakers combined with bess if you go fossils way, or hydro if you have it or nuclear. In Germany it'll be gas+bess but mostly gas, according to their Fraunhofer ISE org. In UK it'll be mostly gas too. In DK it'll be imports from hydro rich nordics.
It's interesting you mentioned nuclear subsidies when Germany poured on it's EEG renewables scheme alone more than double the cost of entire french nuclear fleet, both adjusted in today money
Who cares if there's a tiny portion of gas turbines left (optimized for low CAPEX) when we've solved high 90s% of the problem?
Its like complaining about the 3% fossil gas usage in France today when we still need to decarbonize shipping, agriculture, aviation, construction etc.
It is trivial to run gas turbines on carbon neutral fuel when the time comes if we determine they are still needed.
> It's interesting you mentioned nuclear subsidies when Germany poured on it's EEG renewables scheme alone more than double the cost of entire french nuclear fleet, both adjusted in today money
This is a backwards looking metric, we need to look forward based on the costs today. Are we paying 2011 solar prices or 2026 solar prices when building renewables in 2026? We pay 2026 prices.
Look at the proposed French EPR2 program. 11 cents/kWh 40 year CFD and interest free loans with the first reactor coming online in 2038.
Just an absolutely insanely large handout from tax money to force new built nuclear power into existence.
While the competition in renewables and storage are built on massive scale without subsides.
It's not tiny portion - it's a fully parallel grid. Germany as example needs to have 80GW+ of gas per Fraunhofer.
French epr2 nuclear will have smaller subsidies than german biomass. The handout of tax money for epr will be the equivalent of about 1.5-2y of german eeg now or even less in the future since it's projected to grow due to ren self cannibalization.
It's not that trivial to run gas firming on carbon neutral fuel aka biogas. First you don't have enough fuel, second- their opex will get so high due to low CF that you'll need a separate market for that and owners will be sure to ask a lot of $ for this firming to get profit and compensate no demand periods.
And we are talking only about direct subsidies. Germany will start subsidizing transmission this year tpo because their household prices are highest in EU, about 6bn/y. Most of this transmission is due to distributed ren expansion and need to avoid curtailment
That is a question for the 2030s to answer. Maybe demand response, storage and similar is enough? Either way, locking in trillions in nuclear handouts when the entire energy system will be reshaped before they are even online is by far the most stupid thing we can do today.
> French epr2 nuclear will have smaller subsidies than german biomass. The handout of tax money for epr will be the equivalent of about 1.5-2y of german eeg now or even less in the future since it's projected to grow due to ren self cannibalization.
Now you're trying to compare with the worst, because you know how outrageous the comaprison becomes when comparing with solar, wind and storage.
You do know that the EEG payments have been quickly reducing due to not needing subsidies anymore? And €20B in subsidies per reactor, which you did try to hide in "1.5-2y of eeg" is just a horrific waste of money.
> It's not that trivial to run gas firming on carbon neutral fuel aka biogas. First you don't have enough fuel, second- their opex will get so high due to low CF that you'll need a separate market for that and owners will be sure to ask a lot of $ for this firming to get profit and compensate no demand periods.
Or hydrogen, or hydrogen derivatives. Just pick whatever the maritime industry and aviation settles on as they decarbonize.
Yes. That is called "capacity markets". They already exist all around the world. Generally very cheap to run.
> And we are talking only about direct subsidies. Germany will start subsidizing transmission this year tpo because their household prices are highest in EU, about 6bn/y. Most of this transmission is due to distributed ren expansion and need to avoid curtailment
You do know that an electrified society requires 2 - 3x the grid size right? No matter the path we take we will need to massively expand the grid.
The only reason for curtailment is because Germany haven't divided the country into more markets because they expect to resolve the transmission bottlenecks in a few years.
France wants to spend less than 20bn/unit, afaik more like 12bn/unit and half of all the sum will be 0% govt loans, about 35bn (hence 1.5-2y of EEG), rest covered by edf.
EEG in Germany is projected to rise per EWI because it's paid more frequently
Hydrogen is insanely expensive. To think it'll be more economical than nuclear is strange. Germany isn't building transmission just for electrification, but mostly due to distributed generation and the need to avoid curtailment, like sudlink.
And I want the cost of renewables and storage to drop by 80%. That doesn't make it correct.
If you actually look at the EEG data over the years it is vastly down from peaking in ~2020-21.
Today yes. But that is what aviation and the maritime industry is looking and. In in the case of the maritime industry mostly derivatives, likely ammonia due to voluemetric constriants.
So like I said. Just pick whatever they settle on in the 2030s. No need to rush out trillions in handouts from tax money for new built nuclear power today because hydrogen is not cheap.
The absolut worst thing we can do today is lock in trillions in handouts to new built nuclear power just as the energy grid is fundamentally being transformed.
That's like betting on the steam locomotive when the age of diesel had already arrived. Would that be reasonable?
nuclear provides for about 4-5ct/kwh if built cheap, everything included, looking at swiss data. Chinese units are built for 2.5bn/unit, so probably even cheaper than that.
But yes, china is far from what france or sweden did with nuclear per capita
The problem is that western new built nuclear power costs 18-24 cents/kWh when running at 100% 24/7 without backup, transmission fees, taxes etc. based on Vogtle, HPC, FV3, Polish Ap1000s, EPR2s etc.
We can create imaginary renewable scenarios as well.
For example: "Assuming renewables and storage costs get an 80% price reduction (like you just gave nuclear power) then YY will happen".
Fla3 min profitability limit is 9ct and expected limit is about 12-14ct. And mind you 9ct scenario assumes 90%cf, while most US plants are 92-98%cf.
And that's for a totally f-up project... EPR2 isn't built yet so we don't know how it'll go per kwh, if EDF doesn't delay it for 20y it'll be in 6-10ct range, similar to Barakah built by Korea
Most of the cost in ren nowadays is transmission cost and firming cost, both don't have a big margin to shave, unlike nuclear
> Fla3 min profitability limit is 9ct and expected limit is about 12-14ct.
When assuming extremely subsidised interest rates. You can do the same for the competition to get an apples to apples comparison, but I know you don't want to do that.
> And that's for a totally f-up project... EPR2 isn't built yet so we don't know how it'll go per kwh, if EDF doesn't delay it for 20y it'll be in 6-10ct range, similar to Barakah built by Korea
The EPR2 subsidy proposal, yet to be accepted by the european commission, is 11 cents/kWh and interest free loans. Sum freely. Stop making stuff up.
> Most of the cost in ren nowadays is transmission cost and firming cost, both don't have a big margin to shave, unlike nuclear
How will you force anyone to buy that horrifyingly expensive new built nuclear electricity?
No, fla3 interest rates weren't that subsidized. It would require EC approval like the EPR2 project.
I didn't make stuff up. Profitability limit would be 6-10ct, the cfds would be above that
You don't need to force anyone to buy nuclear. People will pay for electricity. In some cases price will be more influenced by the source like nuclear if it's expensive. In other cases it'll be influenced by transmission, grid forming inverters and firming costs
SA is one of the leaders in ren deployment. Just like CA. Just like Germany. All are dwarfed by france for cheap household prices. That's because even if lcoe for ren is cheap, full system cost grows
> No, fla3 interest rates weren't that subsidized.
You have a study you've linked several times in the past arguing how cheap FV3 is based on insanely subsidized interest rates and a payoff time stretching almost into 2100 if an equivalent project was started today.
> It would require EC approval like the EPR2 project.
Much has changed since 2006.
> People will pay for electricity. In some cases price will be more influenced by the source like nuclear if it's expensive. In other cases it'll be influenced by transmission, grid forming inverters and firming costs
What do you do when the grid demand for firm power is zero? Shut down the nuclear plant?
> All are dwarfed by france for cheap household prices.
About the entire difference comes from extra fees and taxes. The wholesale day ahead prices are about equal.
That is also running on the French paid off nuclear fleet nearing EOL. How will you get the current wholesale prices with the EDF2 fleet costing 11 cents/kWh and interest free loans?
The costs doesn't dissappear simply because you hide them in the tax budget.
> That's because even if lcoe for ren is cheap, full system cost grows
You have to look at it coming from the raw incentives. You can complain all you want about "full system cost", but that only applies in an monopolized system where the consumers don't have any choice.
Consumers have choices and can pick and choose what of the monopolized system they want by implementing their own distributed renewable generation and storage.
Which is to say, the commercial aviation industry could permanently collapse tomorrow and it would have only a marginal impact on most people's lives, who would just replace planes with train, car, or boat travel. The lesson here is that even if normal people experience some tangential beneficial effects from LLMs, their most enduring legacy will likely be to entrench authority and cement the existing power structures.
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