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Comment by kulahan | Hacker News Reader

So the winter, by definition, will always generate less? or we're just like... covering up a bunch for half the year or something? I don't get your point.

My larger point is that solar is only ever going to be a piece of the puzzle at best. In space it might be quite nice, but otherwise it's kinda goofy to invest too much in.

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> My larger point is that solar is only ever going to be a piece of the puzzle at best.

Doesn’t that apply to any power source?

Correct

With the way prices are trending, soon solar power is going to be the cheapest power source even in the winter. No one is going to complain that electricity is too cheap during the summer.

Only if we give up on nuclear and enhanced geothermal and continue subsidizing it massively so we can force it to be cheapest

Nonsense. It's going to be the cheapest no matter what.

You’d have to explain why we give up on technology, because otherwise this will never be true

Look at the trend lines. Solar and batteries are getting cheaper on an exponential curve; nuclear and fossil fuels aren't. Those trends won't continue forever, but they're pretty much locked in for the next few years because the engineering work is already done and often contracts are already in place.

Short-term we're waiting for mass production and distribution of the new designs (relatively easy to predict), not R&D which is less predictable.

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