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196 points triceratops | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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chrisco255 ◴[] No.45109886[source]
U.S. already migrated massive amounts of its energy sector from coal to natural gas over the last couple of decades, which reduced emissions from that replaced capacity by 60% years ago. If and when solar truly makes economic sense to justify the switching costs, it will happen, period. A lot of it is. Solar is growing healthily in the U.S.

Problems with solar remain, however. It's neither practical nor safe to build 100% solar grid. You must overbuild capacity on solar, because weather happens. No energy is generated at night. Therefore you have to factory battery install cost as well. Finally there are black swan weather events that DO happen in nature that NO ONE can prevent:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

Whereupon solar would be rendered useless precisely when humanity would need power the most.

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1. ◴[] No.45110212[source]