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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • Just for another angle on the problem: baseload generation (nuclear) is most efficient at its highest possible output, but it has to maintain that output 24/7. It can’t ramp up and down fast enough to match the demand curve, and it can’t be ramped up above the minimum overnight demand.

    To increase its efficiency, utilities push large scale consumers like steel mills and aluminum smelters to overnight shifts. This artificially increases the overnight demand, allowing the baseload generators to ramp up their relatively efficient production. This reduces the need for less-efficient peaker plants during the day.

    That overnight demand can’t be met with solar, and wind generation tends to fall overnight as well.

    What nuclear can do is help level out seasonal variation, between the short days of winter and long days of summer. If you want to contemplate a truly pie-in-the-sky scenario, there are provisions for tying large ships, (like aircraft carriers and hospital ships) to shore power, and backfeeding the local grid to support disaster relief efforts.

    Imagine a fleet of nuclear generation ships, sailing to northern-hemisphere ports from November to April, and to southern-hemisphere ports from May to October.

    Pumped storage is also essential, but extraordinarily limited. We can probably run essential overnight loads on pumped storage, but it does not make sense to keep an overnight load on pumped-storage that can be shifted to solar/wind directly.

    We need to take a look at demand shaping rather than supply shaping. We need to shift load to times we can produce, rather than shift production to times of demand.




  • Rivalarrival@lemmy.todaytoTechnology@lemmy.worldWhat the hell Proton!
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    30 days ago

    They need to advertise a legitimate use for their service.

    If they don’t have a threat from public wifi or other security concerns to remedy, then the only purpose for their service is to bypass region limits and block infringement notices. They would be considered complicit in such infringement.

    That their service also hinders efforts to stop pirates needs to be an “unintended” and “unavoidable” side effect.



  • We have incentivized night time consumption. Base load generation (nuclear, coal) can’t ramp up and down fast enough to match the daily demand curve. They can’t produce more than the minimum overnight demand, but they have keep producing that around the clock. To minimize the need for “peaker” plants during the day, they want the overnight demand to be as high as possible.

    So they put steel mills, aluminum smelters, and other heavy industry on overnight shifts by offering them extraordinarily cheap power.

    That incentivized overnight load needs to be shifted to daytime, so it can be met with solar and wind. Moving forward, we need to minimize overnight demand.


  • Because it is not cost effective. Simple as that.

    The problem is that we don’t have enough demand shaping to shift night time loads to day time, and we don’t have enough storage to shift production to overnight. The result is that daytime generation is regularly going into negative rates (you have to pay to put power on the grid, which melts the returns on your investment into solar.

    As far as problems go, it’s a good one to have, as it will eventually result in lower prices for daytime generation.



  • If you already know what is wrong and just need a doctor’s note (and maybe antibiotics), go to the clinic. While their staff are significantly more skilled knowledgeable than the general public, their policies limit them to only simple diagnostics and treatments. Your medical knowledge is certainly less than that of the Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants that staff these clinics, but likely exceeds the scope of practice they are limited to by their employer. If you don’t know what the problem is, the clinic is going to refer you to your PCP or urgent care anyway, so you should only visit the clinic to appease HR or get access to basic prescription medications.

    If something is bothering you, but you can tolerate it for a couple weeks, schedule an appointment with primary care.

    If you don’t know what’s wrong, or you need something more than a note and a prescription, and you can transport yourself, go to urgent care.

    The only time you should go to the ER voluntarily is if urgent care sends you there. Any other trip to the ER should be because someone dragged you there without giving you a choice.




  • We probably shouldn’t let people repair their own brake pads

    What kind of auth-dystopian nonsense is that?

    Repair an insulin pump the wrong way and it will absolutely kill you

    You’re just as dead if you can’t get that insulin pump repaired or replaced because the manufacturer won’t or can’t support it. When they go bankrupt because other customers have sued them into non-existence, you still own the device they manufactured, and you still need it repaired.

    Further, you presume the manufacturer can provide the best repairs. It is entirely possible and plausible that a competing engineer or programmer can improve upon the device, rendering it safer or providing superior operation. Car Mechanics can install a better braking system than the cheap, generic calipers and pads provided by the factory. Repair technicians can replace generic parts of medical devices allowing superior operation.