[ExI] Dark Matter

[Eugen Leitl]

On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 12:12:14PM -0700, Kelly Anderson wrote:

> Correct. The problem now being that land near the coast in sunny areas is
> expensive. Spike's solution took advantage of existing infrastructure
> (i-50) that is underutilized and of low value, that happens to be in an

Over here, you would think that running high-speed trains and heavy
rail in general by PV put by the side of the rail is a no-brainer.
One would think wrong. (But, on paper, the DB is running their
trains on renewables. On paper).

> area with a lot of sun. Also an area where people don't generally want to
> live, I might add.
> 
> > That doesn't require radical new technology.  In fact, it's somewhat
> > boring.  But if you could make the numbers work, it would be a viable first
> > step toward this sort of scheme.  Further, this step could quite readily
> > attract large private investment - if and only if the data and projections
> > are believable to said investors.
> >
> Correct. And I don't think you can make the numbers work for Solar today. I

It's weird how renewables and PV work for countries like Denmark and
Germany, today.

> would love to be proven wrong, as I love solar in principle. I still think
> putting up that many solar panels would likely kill as many people as
> Chernobyl... LOL

Chernobyl and Fukushima are not bad because they kill people.
They're bad because they ruin agriculture across large areas,
and simply because the sustainability and financials do not
check out.

Notice neither Chernobyl or Fukushima produce power. And
their cleanup costs would ruin their operators many times
over, if they had to operate in an unsubsidized, commercial
context.