#balancer producions

[viaphni]

this scene.... i am literally losing my mind

[neoatlantiscodex]

Solar

Let's take a best-case scenario for solar power, near the equator. This maximizes the amount of power we can get from solar, but we still have one crucial problem. Inconsistent producion. It peaks at noon, and drops to 0 at sundown. The actual production graphs is probably a bell curve for the day time. So, with this, we need a method of storing the power. We do not have a good solution, at all. We don't have enough Lithium and Cobalt, in the world, (by current estimates), to replace our cars, nevermind everything else. Doing this for a large grid is suicidal. BUT, doing for a small grid makes sense. Solar power has the crucial advantage of being grid-independent. This means that a small grid, say an individual house, or a small community, could easily produce it's own power. This also has the advantage of creating a stable power supply in regions that have intermittent service. Say, if you are living in California. Or in an out-of-the-way reservation.

People assume that solar power is more sustainable, because it doesn't use fuel. This is a pretty reasonable assumption to make. The problem is that it has not proven to be true. Even in places like California, household solar power and storage systems are only competition with grid power rates with government subsidies and mandatory grid buybacks. Most of the houses have it's own solar and power storage. It's also equiped with a smart switch to decide when it's connected to a grid. So, the battery charges over the day until it's full, which is usually around or just after midday, and then the smart switch hooks it up to to the outside grid, and they get buyback. So, California only just get solar power throughout the day, but only through part of the day, completely variable based upon independent household usage. Just try to imagine balancing this over the day without any reasonable storage. As it is, California has not managed to get it to work. If they can't, then who can?

If we move away from the equator, we have another problem, Winter. Winter daytime production can be a fraction of what summer daytime can produce. Not even just because of reduced hours, but reduced sunlight during those hours.

Another, less well known problem with solar, is slower generation. It takes a lot more material and power making solar pannels than they produce, at least compared with every other form of power generation. Except maybe wind. This means that while we could scale up our solar production to meet our needs, we cannot do it on a reasonble time scale. It's impossible to replace our power generation with solar without going through something else.

There is another serious, crippling issue with solar power. Not so much with the solar power itself, (other than being vulnerable to environmental damage), we are clearing space for it. This is mind bogglingly stupid. We could instead be putting them on flat roofs, if you leave a space this could even shade the roof, dramatically reducing the heat exposure of the building while increasing the efficiency of solar pannels. We could also put them on the side of those incredibly ugly modernist skyscrapers. A huge amount of the glass on skycrapers isn't even useful. It's just there to make it look ugly and uniform. We can even put them over farm fields. This is called agrivoltaics. It turns out that most plants evolved to grow in partial shade. Too much sunshine, and they risk burning, and to avoid it they go through a LOT more water. By adding partial shade you dramatically reduce water usage and increase yield. Depending on the plant, of course. If we really wanted to be special, we could put agrivoltaics on the rooftop of our medium density mixed usage neighbourhoods. Green roofs dramatically improve the insulation.

Note: I'll deal with grid storage and solar thermal in a later post.

[stephlovessustainablestyle-blog]

Hello Fellow Bloggers!

I’m new to blogging and in honesty it terrifies me because I am the least tech savvy person! ...But here goes!

My aim is to share my passion for the environment, for charity, for saving money and for STYLE. I’ll be showing you my charity shop finds and bargains which help towards a good cause but also help keep your bank balance stable! Let’s not forget either, that by recycling clothes and advocating recycled style we are combatting fast fashion, the mass producion of clothing and mass consumerism, all of which contribute to the destruction an ever diminishing environment.

I know all of this sounds a bit ‘preachy,’ and often I’ll succumb to a Primark haul or I’ll pine after an expensive handbag...but let’s see how this journey goes!

Thanks for reading! 

Steph x

[viaphni]

i am completely flabbergasted about the teaser that just got put out for the next lotb episode

LIKE NO WAY

THE LAYERS TO THIS.......

no way death and collapse convince the balancers to stick their weapons into the pedestals 😭😭

that has a lot of interesting implications though?? like the weapons being keys..... thats genuinely very odd

this is probably gonna summon blue guy out of the void or smth

like they're literally going to die

because i dont know how on EARTH they got them to stick in Dest's sword

[viaphni]

i have like 5 million screenshots and clips from the server launch