2d ago

Sometimes we create our own problems.

254 comments

You can read the Technology Review article here discussing why this is problematic beyond a JPEG-artifacted screenshot of a snappy quip from a furry porn Twitter account that may or may not have read the article beyond the caption. We need solar power plants to reach net zero emissions, but even despite their decreasing costs and subsidies offered for them, developers are increasingly declining to build them because solar is so oversaturated at peak hours that it becomes worthless or less than worthless. The amount of energy pumped into the grid and the amount being used need to match to keep the grid at a stable ~60 Hz (or equivalent where you live, e.g. 50 Hz for the PAL region), so at some point you need to literally pay people money to take the electricity you're producing to keep the grid stable or to somehow dump the energy before it makes its way onto the grid.
One of the major ways this problem is being offset is via storage so that the electricity can be distributed at a profit during off-peak production hours. Even if the government were to nationalize energy production and build their own solar farms (god, please), they would still run up against this same problem where it becomes unviable to keep building farms without the storage to accommodate them. At that point it becomes a problem not of profit but of "how much fossil fuel generation can we reduce per unit of currency spent?" and "are these farms redundant to each other?".
This is framed through a capitalist lens, but in reality, it's a pressing issue for solar production even if capitalism is removed from the picture entirely. At some point, solar production has to be in large part decoupled from solar distribution, or solar distribution becomes far too saturated in the middle of the day making putting resources toward its production nearly unviable.
- In other words… Maybe 29 word Twitter captions aren’t a great way to discuss issues?
  
  Nah, I see nothing wrong with an information diet composed of random people with no background sharing their pet conspiracy with 5 million people on TikTok that they learned from three minutes with ChatGPT, furry porn accounts clapping back on Twitter to an out-of-context 29-word quote from an MIT Technology Review article (reshared so many dozens of times that the quality has noticeably degraded), or a picture generated in a Russian disinformation farm showing a muscular Donald Trump rescuing crying orphans from drowning in Hurricane Helene while corrupt FEMA agents loot their houses.
  God fucking help us.
  
  But on the plus side,
  
  On the plus side I guess: accessing good, robust information has literally never been easier as long as you're media-literate enough not to fall into the landfill of trash information that you're walking over.
  During its start in the 2000s and early 2010s, Wikipedia was like a shadow of what it is today. As an example, take a look at the article for the element oxygen in 2006 (ignore the broken templates) and the article today. Its editors were just as smart, well-meaning, and hard-working, but guidelines and a deeply entrenched culture hadn't emerged around making sure things are as verifiable, reliable, independent, unbiased, inclusive, and comprehensive and as possible. It's kind of insane how much you can find there now as a starting point for further research. Wikipedia also forced the web-ification of Britannica, meaning even if you deeply distrust Wikipedia for some reason, you no longer need to pay hundreds to have an encyclopedia in your home.
  Additionally, I imagine there are serious, experienced editors who are using LLMs to great effect as essentially a search engine on steroids to find obscure information, thereby speeding up their work (and they have the media literacy from years or decades of editing Wikipedia to wield this responsibly). Those who use it irresponsibly seem to be very quickly found out, although because I can't prove a negative, I can't say how much slop has slipped through the cracks.
  Extremely niche hobbies and specialties have e.g. YouTube channels, subreddits/communities, etc. dedicated just to them providing a fantastic wealth of knowledge. Right now, I can go watch Gutsick Gibbon on YouTube to catch up on various findings in primatology from a PhD candidate on the verge of becoming a doctor. I can watch Gamers Nexus for highly comprehensive breakdowns of tech products. Realistically, I can self-teach in ways I never could have 20 years ago as long as I'm responsible.
  Piracy has arguably never been easier to gain access to paywalled research papers, books, etc. There's a movement in academia to make research open-access.
  Software is moving more and more toward open-source. This gives entrenched, capitalist power structures increasingly limited control over people and opens up this knowledge to everybody.
  That all being said, things are really dire because so many people really lack the basic media literacy skills to utilize these tools and avoid the ocean of shit around them.
  
  It’s a bit scary because many of those things (Wikipedia, academic piracy) are being threatened and villainized, others (Reddit niches, maybe eventually YouTube) are hemorrhaging useful info, and utilitarian LLMs are simultaneously being vilified and enshittified by opposing political sides.
  Like, with the Qwen3 release, I just realized my internet barometer for “is it any good?” and technical info is totally gone… Reddit and other niches have withered away, Twitter/Linkdin are pure engagement farms, and I can’t hardly discuss it anywhere else populated without getting banned as an alleged AI Bro (whom, for the record, I hate with a burning passion). I seriously considered joining WeChat just to see some sane discussion.
  This is true for other fandoms and niches I’m in.
  I hate to sound apocalyptic, but it feels like my information sphere is imploding. The real marker will be when the US government starts taking action against Wikipedia.
  
  America: …Nah, this is fine. In fact, let’s elect the platforms’ owner-influencers. scrolls happily
  
  In other words... Maybe paragraphs of word salad aren't a great way to debunk an obvious truth?
  
  I found the post to be succinct and coherent.
  Some problems need 2 or 3 paragraphs to even begin to convey them. They could’ve said “the problem isn’t just capitalism,” and that would have been met with vitriol, as it doesn’t convey that the actual article is more nuanced than “anti solar,”that meeting variable power demand with solar supply is a challenge, that at some point one does indeed saturate regional demand for solar to the point that building more plants isn’t productive (which frequent negative prices are an indication of), and so on.
  And if that’s too long and complex, well… I dunno what to tell you.
- I do like how this Twitter account, in the rush to blame capitalism, overlooked the fact that the sun rises and sets every day.
- I've known about the issue with a lack of ways to store the energy produced for about 5 years now, does it seem like we're making any steps in it recently? Also how does it work in a "green" fashion to produce all of the batteries necessary for that sorts of energy storage, I feel like that's going to be one of the next discussions about how "pure" this method is.
  
  The size of the storage problem is not well understood by most. The world production of batteries is insufficient to power germany with 100% renewables.
  A possible solution is changing consumption patterns (in jargon known as demand-response). This runs into 2 issues: (1) people need to change their behaviour, with they wont. (2) You handicap your economy, to the benefits of countries that do not care about emissions. With a good chance that the net result is more emissions.

254 comments