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Comment Re:It's a loan (Score 1) 92

That's is you think the load will really be repaid. Past history does not cause me to be optimistic about this, though I haven't looked into the details or how the contract will be enforced. What happens if the company (which?) declares bankruptcy? What if it spins the asset/obligation off into a separate company that declares bankruptcy? It's happened before.

Comment Re:The Expense Is In The Shutdown And Cleanup (Score 1) 91

I'm not sure about the last couple of decades, but prior to that geothermal was usually really a research project. Yeah, it was expensive, but boondoggle is the wrong framing.

There's basically two kinds of geothermal, open vent and closed loop. Open vent geothermal is a boondoggle because it's toxic and unreliable. Making it more reliable involves injecting more water to make more steam, which makes it more toxic. Closed loop geothermal is low output and high cost. It would make more sense to build solar or wind.

My guess, though, is give it another 20 years before major investment.

The fundamental physics are unlikely to change in 20 years.

Comment Re:solar panels.... (Score 1) 92

Also the batteries (or other storage). Solar isn't a good source for a large constant load without a LOT of storage. (It *might* still be a better choice, though. But I'd want a mix of solar and wind, and LOTS of storage.)
Too bad geothermal hasn't been well enough developed, but I don't believe it has been.

Comment Re:The Expense Is In The Shutdown And Cleanup (Score 1) 92

I'm not sure about the last couple of decades, but prior to that geothermal was usually really a research project. Yeah, it was expensive, but boondoggle is the wrong framing.

OTOH, some of the recent proposals look serious. I'm not in a position to judge them, but maybe they're good. However they are still limited in the sites where they can operate. I'm not sure the ones that involve fracking are both safe and reasonable. And the closed circulation one that I've seen described is really still experimental. Once they get the bugs worked out of it, it may be a really good system, usable in a lot of places. My guess, though, is give it another 20 years before major investment.

Comment Re:The Expense Is In The Shutdown And Cleanup (Score 1) 91

sure, build a 100MW battery pack, and hope no water ever drips on them (remember the hydrogen explosion in the battery room in The Abyss

I mean, I don't. Do you mean Das Boot perhaps?

More seriously, BESS does depend on using non-shit batteries. They used garbage NCM EV batteries from LG in the Moss Landing BESS plant and that went real shit. But LFPs are reasonably safe and there's a pretty simple recipe for making a safe BESS from them, using shipping containers with airspace between them.

Even worse... solar and wind in tornado alley... will they survive an EF3 or bigger tornado?

This is why you don't build just one plant, you spread them around. That in turn is why renewables depend on grid improvements. Those improvements pay other dividends, though, like a more reliable grid.

Comment Re: Burning French historical buildings? (Score 1) 91

Atheists never killed millions .... except that they did.

So?

Hence my "no true Scotsman".

Hence your distraction and prevarication.

unfortunately for you, Atheist nation states are the absolute worse at killing their own citizens for participating in religion.

It's not a problem for me because I don't believe in magic sky daddies. But also, you don't have a solid estimate for the total number of people killed in wars, so you cannot develop a useful percentage.

Comment Re: Bullshit (Score 1) 128

I'll agree up to the point but all land is stolen.

No, some land is conquered by extermination. But when you accept surrender and then don't keep the terms of the surrender it makes you a thief. You are, right now, defending theft. Scum.

Speaking of the natives, let's not pretend they were all one big happy family.

Straw man. Got a real argument, kid?

I stop reading at obvious logical fallacies. You can try again if you want.

Comment Is it? (Score 1) 5

Still, this is a massive milestone for OpenBSD

Is it, though? The question is whether they are going to implement WOW support or not. There is a little discussion on the linked article about how it either is or isn't possible. If they are stopping here then it's not that exciting for most people who want to run Windows programs, because there's a surprisingly high percentage of 32 bit binaries out there.

Comment Re:The Expense Is In The Shutdown And Cleanup (Score 1) 91

Outside of geothermal,

Which is usually a boondoggle

there's no good alternative for this kind of use case that doesn't need to rely on massive battery storage

I'm okay with massive battery storage, and I'm OK with making AI DC customers pay for it if the grid can't survive them without it.

Comment Re:Nobody actually reads LinkedIn posts (Score 1) 32

It made absolute zero difference to my job (until the boss told me a client looked me up and was upset lol).

It was probably the other O'Neil, with one L. He has no sense of humour at all.

And it defintiely didnt stop all the bots messageing me offering me shitty jobs.

I could understand bots and mailing lists. The thing I never understood with LinkedIn was how many real people (usually recruitment agents) had apparently spent the time to read my profile and send me a personalised message, yet still thought I'd be interested in a job paying half the market rate for someone with my skills and experience.

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