• Hylactor@sopuli.xyz
    2721·
    13 days ago

    Well, in the northern hemisphere, we’ll start getting progressively more daylight in 6 days.

  • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
    1845·
    13 days ago

    Daytime energy is soon going to be free in much of the world. The advances in green tech, especially solar and batteries, are real. Much faster progress than even the optimists were predicting a decade ago. The revolution is reaching a tipping point where it becomes self-sustaining and requires no state subsidies. I am not a tech utopian, and this alone will not save us. But there’s no denying it’s good news. It’s all happening far too late but it does look like humans are going to kick their fossil habit after all.

    Inconvenient footnote: thank China.

    • perviouslyiner@lemmy.world
      431·
      13 days ago

      It’s gotten so good that China might be restricting output to keep the prices high…

      (their onshore wind, and pumped hydro storage, are also great success stories, as is the EV industry there)

      • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
        341·
        13 days ago

        Indeed. China is such a paradox. An absolute anathema in terms of culture and politics. It’s almost impossible for us Westerners to grasp how a people could accept that level of authoritarianism, how they could value their personal freedom so little. And yet, and yet. Without China we would be royally screwed. They are pulling the weight of the green transition basically alone. So personally I’ve decided to hold off on China-bashing for now.

        • AmidFuror@fedia.io
          18·
          13 days ago

          It’s almost impossible for us Westerners to grasp how a people could accept that level of authoritarianism, how they could value their personal freedom so little.

          This assumes that they have an alternative to authoritarianism that they could enact if they wanted. For some reason, the authorities don’t allow that. And the authorities also don’t like when people talk about it, so it’s difficult to discuss and convince others that authoritarianism is bad.

          • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
            6·
            13 days ago

            Yes sure but China has never been anything remotely like a Western democracy. It would be difficult to keep the lid on a billion people if they really wanted to live differently. Political culture runs deep.

            • AmidFuror@fedia.io
              12·
              13 days ago

              If they want to defer to authority, they can just keep voting in the ruling party. Democracy doesn’t mean no choices.

              • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
                61·
                13 days ago

                Voting? Democratic elections are literally not a thing in China, at least not higher than the level of the village. There are no political parties other than the Communist Party. But for Western democracies I do agree. We have no excuses.

                • AmidFuror@fedia.io
                  4·
                  13 days ago

                  My later comment was misunderstood. If being ruled by strong Communist leaders is the “political culture” of China, then fine. Give them a choice every few years and they will keep selecting that.

                  But we all know that the “revolution” needs to maintained by not giving the people the choice. If given a choice, the people might be “fooled” by Western influence and select someone other than the Communists. So the Communists pick all the candidates and then let the people choose only between them.

                  The fact is that the “political culture” that supposedly backs authoritarianism would not survive free and open elections. The political culture being unwaveringly Communist is a sham and a lie.

              • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
                31·
                13 days ago

                Voting is absolutely meaningless in Xi’s China. But I gotta give it to them for their solar panel work. Too bad it’s all about to jump in price due to the idiotic tariffs.

        • cm0002@lemmy.world
          82·
          13 days ago

          Westerners to grasp how a people could accept that level of authoritarianism,

          So personally I’ve decided to hold off on China-bashing for now.

          You just did, according to .ml users, because ACkShuLly cHiNa iSnT aN AuThoRitArIaN CounTRy

        • her_name_is_cherry@lemm.eeEnglish
          71·
          13 days ago

          Tiananmen Square was not that long ago. There are lots of living people who would have seen their fellow students get crushed by tanks and rinsed down a drain.

          That will keep a generation and their children quiet. Their children have also now seen how risings are punished via Hong Kong.

          I don’t think it’s even possible to imagine what you would do having seen your government enact that kind of violence on your peers. So I certainly don’t judge.

          • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
            31·
            13 days ago

            In a way it’s even scarier than that. Most younger Chinese do not even know those things happened. I can confirm this incredible fact from personal experience. At this point “Tiananmen Square 1989” has more meaning to the average educated Westerner than it does over there. It has been scrubbed from history.

    • crystalmerchant@lemmy.world
      15·
      13 days ago

      Optimistic of you to assume pricing is cost-plus not willingness-to-pay. US utilities (and their foreign counterparts) will only too gladly keep charging you

    • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.social
      15·
      13 days ago

      Yes, but, we depend on fossil fuels for far more than just energy. We still get most of our plastics from them, and most of our fertilizer, without which we can’t feed most of the developed countries. And while renewables are great for stationary use, we still don’t have anything with the energy density of fossil fuels for cars, shipping, air travel, and cargo. And, whether anyone thinks it’s a good use or not, war is entirely, inefficiently, and intensely run on oil.

      There are a lot of other issues entirely unrelated to power grid energy production we have to solve first, the most challenging being our own aggressive human nature. We’re a long way from kicking the oil habit.

    • Zonetrooper@lemmy.world
      7·
      13 days ago

      Is there a good place to ask about independent (non-grid-connected) solar for an otherwise grid-connected structure? I’d love to set something like this up, but can’t find any systems which don’t require wiring into the gird.

      • spacesatan@leminal.spaceEnglish
        2·
        13 days ago

        Why would you pass up on the free money of selling the power? You’re probably looking for a hybrid system if you just want to keep the lights on during a service outage. Or I guess you can just build an off grid system and wire it to a generator transfer switch if you want to power your house circuits but only during an outage.

        Most half decent solar installers can help either way.

        • Zonetrooper@lemmy.world
          1·
          11 days ago

          Mostly because I am not in a place, financially or home-wise, to install a full grid-connected system. I’m just looking for something that I can use to charge enough battery to run a lamp, fan, charge devices, or other such similar light loads on a daily basis. It won’t bring my power bill to zero, but it will chip away at it.

          • spacesatan@leminal.spaceEnglish
            2·
            11 days ago

            Oh so not really even your home circuits then. Just get something like a jackery, ecoflow, or bluetti. I’ve had a bluetti and ecoflow and recommend an ecoflow product. If you really really wanted to you could power an in wall circuit with one but it would be pretty jank.

      • Brodysseus@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        12 days ago

        I’ve set up an off grid solar system out of necessity. Used to be an electrician so I know a good bit (but not everything by any means). What are your questions I can maybe point you in the right direction.

        Based on your initial question, it depends on local zoning. You can likely legally grid tie a set up and have a battery backup. I think if you want to be legal I’d go that route.

        If you want I think you could set up a completely separate system in a more sneaky fashion that is completely isolated from the grid / your existing house circuitry. But when grid tying (including into your house circuitry) you have to be pretty safe because that power can go upstream and feed the grid or the house when workers think the power is off, which is obviously very dangerous and could get you in a lot of trouble if it went wrong.

        • Zonetrooper@lemmy.world
          1·
          10 days ago

          Engineer here, so I’m aware of the fundamentals of “how not to kill yourself with electricity”. Anything tying into the grid I’m definitely calling a professional for.

          But no, I’m not in a financial or property situation to install a grid-connected system, so I was imagining a “balcony solar” kit that’d just charge a small battery bank I could run some lights, a fan, or some similar low-load devices off of. I don’t know if such a thing exists (or if it’s a smart idea), but I’d like to look into it and find out.

          • Brodysseus@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            2·
            10 days ago

            Yeah for sure. You could get an all in one inverter battery bank, but I prefer piecemeal systems because of repairability/replacing parts/upgrading parts.

            Basically you’d get a battery, when I was shopping around I found eg4 or gyll batteries to be the cheapest. Small Texas company. That could have changed. Some ppl make their own or use them from a car, but soldering plus making a management system seemed like more than I wanted to deal with.

            You need a way to charge the battery (panels etc) and also a way to get the power into the battery safely and efficiently (charge controller).

            And then you need a way to get energy out of the battery to your apploances. You can get DC appliances that match your battery voltage or get an inverter.

            For all of those parts you need to run some simple calculations for efficiency and compatibility and use case (how big of a system etc), as well as some fuses and possibly lightning arrestors and grounding.

            Totally doable and a good bit of fun

    • kreskin@lemmy.world
      51·
      13 days ago

      Capitalism only encourages innovation when its profitable. Its a bit of a flaw.

    • Bosht@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      12 days ago

      People can talk shit on China from a geopolitical stance and I’ll agree with them, but yeah, they picked up the slack where other countries were lacking when it came to green progression. Technically our (US) own fault too. Greed ruling over progression really fucked us.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
      3·
      13 days ago

      This IS good news!

      I hope I live to see a modular, upgradable, repairable laptop with a ridiculously ludicrous battery life. (Without it being powered by some sort of highly volatile fusion core or something Lol)

      • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
        4·
        13 days ago

        Sure, but energy efficiency is always improving, distribution and storage are always improving. And the full electrification of transport (which is what you seem to be alluding to) is not going to happen overnight.

  • VonReposti@feddit.dk
    1677·
    13 days ago

    Thailand is set to legalise same sex marriage and Norway is set to ban ICE cars, both in 2025.

    There’s probably a lot of these small wins happening around the world. Let’s keep an eye out for them so we don’t lose all our hope for a better future.

      • VonReposti@feddit.dk
        22·
        13 days ago

        I’m not up to speed with it as I’m not Norwegian myself but I think that’s correct. They’re aiming to be ICE free in 2035.

      • Theo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        82·
        13 days ago

        It makes sense, why does anyone need them? We will run out of fossil fuels in the next 25-50 years. They are also less cost efficient.

          • Theo@lemmy.worldEnglish
            7·
            13 days ago

            But eventually EVs will go down in price or should like a lot of other things as they become more popular. They shouldn’t ban sale of used ICEs though. That wouldn’t be fair. And it would make ICEs worthless. I can’t afford an EV yet but no hope to one day. If a country band ICEs the logical thing would be for EVs to go down to be affordable.

          • dingus@lemmy.worldEnglish
            5·
            13 days ago

            Or we don’t have a good way to conveniently charge them. This makes up a significant portion of users who would buy an EV. Dunno why everyone peddling EVs always conveniently ignores this.

            Look, I think EVs are a fantastic idea, but if you can’t figure out the charging infrastructure, then it doesn’t make sense for many of us.

            • Log in | Sign up@lemmy.world
              1·
              12 days ago

              I had absolutely no idea just how many electric chargers there are in my country until I got an EV and started using the zapmap app.

              But that’s just for long journeys. Most of the time I just plug in every few days when I get home and it changes in the cheap hours overnight when I only pay 9p per kwh.

              I used to spend about five times as much on petrol as I do now on electricity. And the car is just so much more fun to drive. So much zoom.

              • dingus@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                12 days ago

                Most of the time I just plug in every few days when I get home

                That’s literally exactly what I’m talking about. There are a very large, statistically significant number of individuals who do not live in detached, single family homes and cannot put in a charging station at home.

                It doesn’t really make sense for those of us without to go sit at a public paid charging station for a couple hours each week when it only takes a few minutes to pump up on gas.

                I think it would be different if these charging stations were in places where people spend a decent chunk of time each week, like the grocery store. But they most often are not.

                • Log in | Sign up@lemmy.world
                  2·
                  12 days ago

                  There are quite a lot in supermarket, fast food restaurants etc in my country, but they’re a lot more expensive than home charging. Your point is a good one, and we need more on street chargers where people park overnight.

        • AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works
          17·
          13 days ago

          They’ve been saying that for the past 25-50 years, there’s more fossil fuels to be had, they’re just increasingly more difficult to reach (until the permafrost melts…)

          It’s good we’re shifting to renewables, but we could continue our bullshit for the foreseeable future.

          • Theo@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            13 days ago

            It’s more about cost efficiency. We probably won’t see the end of fossil fuels in our lifetime. The reserves are finding more and more scarce though. Plus people have told me they use solar power at home and charge their EV.

        • tiredofsametab@fedia.io
          5·
          13 days ago

          why does anyone need them?

          In some, especially rural, areas, the charger infrastructure probably isn’t there and public transit isn’t viable in all cases. I’m thinking of industries like farming, forestry, etc. That said, that’s probably a fairly tiny portion of overall ICE usage for normal vehicles (I’m assuming construction equipment, tractors, etc. aren’t included in this).

          I think it might also be financially difficult in some cases where people really do need a car (thinking rural life again, here), but are living on a very tight budget. That could also potentially be handled with subsidies and such, but I don’t know how that would practically work.

          • argarath@lemmy.world
            2·
            13 days ago

            Edit: I just noticed I replied to the wrong comment, sorry 😅

            You’re thinking America, Norway is small enough you can go without charging for a good while and it has lots of small cities, you can have enough charge to go to some city to “refuel” without issue. Yeah it’ll not be fast, but you won’t need several full charges to go from one end of the country to another

            • argarath@lemmy.world
              2·
              13 days ago

              2300 km from one tip to the other, shining a range of 500km (done models go over 600 some others just above 400, so seems reasonable middle ground) that would be just over 4 charges, but this drive is already going to take over 29 hours. One of these charges will be overnight, not causing issues for your travel and you can charge while you eat lunch, so it would take away 2 other charging sessions. That would leave with a single charge session unaccounted for. Honestly it seems pretty good

  • acchariya@lemmy.world
    94·
    13 days ago

    Battery prices are collapsing and we are at an inflection point where electric vehicles will soon be more economical to purchase, drive and maintain for a much greater number of people. This is as inevitable as the phaseout of coal.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
        4·
        12 days ago

        Oh it tipped a few years ago. It’s just still being implemented. There may be less startup to ramping up fossil fuel plants still, but solar is cheaper to build and operate

    • Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world
      11·
      13 days ago

      Yeah, I was shopping for lithium on phosphatase leisure batteries maybe two years ago and was looking at spending over £1000 per battery. Now those batteries are not much over £100 and prices still seem to be falling.

        • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
          10·
          12 days ago

          LiFePo (Lithium Iron Phosphate) is heavier than traditional Lithium Ion batteries for the same amount of energy storage, but doesn’t degrade when discharged to zero the way traditional Lithium Ion does.

        • Revan343@lemmy.ca
          4·
          12 days ago

          That looks like autocorrect or text-to-speech mangled ‘lithium iron phosphate’

        • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
          21·
          12 days ago

          Well, you know…sometimes you just need a vibrator that can go a continuous month between recharges…

    • vonbaronhans@midwest.social
      7·
      12 days ago

      Sodium ion batteries are also supposedly gearing up to be a solid li-ion alternative in the next 2-3 years. Not as energy dense yet but they’re closing the gap.

      Fingers crossed that pans out.

      • Bosht@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        12 days ago

        I heard this as well and am sweating the anticipation. They make another breakthrough on density and it’ll blow li-io out of the water, at least for on-site storage. Would be crazy to see backup diesel generators replaced by batteries.

    • nednobbins@lemm.ee
      7·
      12 days ago

      I’d broaden that to a whole host of “green” and “alternative energy” sectors.

      All the panic about Chinese “overproduction” of EVs and similar technologies is just China going whole hog on those industries. It’s not an “overproduction” in the traditional sense, where a company produces more than the market will bear and has to sell excess inventory at a loss. China just produces all of this stuff cheaply and at a huge scale.

      About 20 years ago the general perception was that EVs were a joke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2HX5wsQVEA Now we have cost effective solar and wind, efficient battery storage, good and cheap EVs and drones, modern heat pumps etc.

      I don’t even think all the tariffs will matter in the long run. China is currently adopting all that stuff at a breakneck pace. Their production capacity won’t just go away once they’ve saturated the domestic market and the growing number of countries that have trade agreements with China). At that point, Chinese manufacturers will have no choice but to start actually selling below cost, just so they can clear inventory.

      And this has a snowball effect too. Energy is often the limiting factor in production. An abundance of cheap energy makes it cheaper to produce more cheap energy production.

      • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
        2·
        12 days ago

        There’s too much money in renewables for rich people. The tariffs may or may not happen, but the renewable switch is a runaway train, and almost entirely in the country.

        On the electricity futures market, wind producers regularly sell their power for negative prices (paying transmission companies to take their power) because it’s so cheap for them to make, with such negligible overhead; since the government subsidies are based on the mWh they produce, they can sell it at a loss and still make money. But even if those subsidies go away, renewables can still easily undercut every other producer on the grid.

        That’s just one example. The same tipping point is approaching fast all over just about every industry. Obama and Biden got the renewable energy industry over the hump of research and infrastructure outlay, so now Tr*mp gets to take the credit for their work while it all falls into place; and because the rich people are benefiting from it financially, they’re going to protect the industry.

        • USNWoodwork@lemmy.world
          3·
          12 days ago

          The tariffs may or may not happen

          The 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs already happened in September. Joe Biden announced them in May and they kicked off already. I don’t expect Trump to change anything with that.

          • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
            1·
            12 days ago

            Definitely true, though Elon paid enough money to Trump that he’s probably going to make sure there’s a cutout in any tariffs for Tesla’s batteries (which are largely made by CATL in China). Besides, cheap power means that even with tariffs raising the prices of batteries, BEVs are still going to be worth driving.

    • thawed_caveman@lemmy.world
      31·
      12 days ago

      Yeah, but that will be true for the electric cars made in the coming years, not the ones made in the past few years. People were right to be put off by the prices.

      And even then, will these new cheap batteries be durable? I worry a lot about all these EVs becoming unusable in 10 years because the batteries are ruined, just like my 10 year old laptop

      • acchariya@lemmy.world
        2·
        12 days ago

        People who didn’t lease will lose their shirts but the price of new cars is the primary driver for the price of used cars. New, cheap, and more useable EVs will make used ones cheap.

        As to the reliability, it remains to be seen. Considering the size of a vehicle I think an aftermarket will pop up for refurbishing and replacing batteries like it has for the earliest modern EVs in the us, the leaf.

  • Oka@sopuli.xyz
    653·
    11 days ago

    I might be getting a new job which is better in every way. Only a couple people know about it.

    Edit: I didn’t get the job. I am not taking it well.

      • Oka@sopuli.xyz
        13·
        12 days ago

        Reception, with some managerial responsibilities. There’s room to move up.

        I have a Bachelor’s in Game Programming. The world doesn’t need another game programmer right now, but my experience managing projects came in handy.

        I currently work in grocery, min wage, as a janitor/stocker.

        • argarath@lemmy.world
          2·
          12 days ago

          Nice!!! Not only is this a nice job it also gives you contacts, something that can be really really powerful when looking for a new job as some people can just make a new position for you, literally how my dad went from a reception worker to his accounting job when he graduated!! I wish you a great job and that things work out amazingly for you!!!

    • Bosht@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      12 days ago

      Holy shit awesome man! Even if it doesn’t pan out don’t lose hope! I got rejected on 3 different positions and thought I was just not the cut. 7 years later after landing the 4th and I’m a completely different person. NEVER give up! You and your future are worth it. I promise.

  • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
    411·
    12 days ago

    Thanks to COVID and speeding mRNA research we are at the cusp of curing many auto-immune diseases. I’m 47 with a kid with diabetes and another with celiac. I’m confident both will be cured in my lifetime

  • Caveman@lemmy.world
    26·
    13 days ago

    People now about solar but I think most people don’t know that the 21st century will become dominated by solar really fast. The growth will be exponential and in the coming decade we’ll really see it happening at a ridiculous pace.

    It’ll also be really cheap and complemented by cheap storage. It always sounds like it’s 50 years away but in reality electrification is coming in so fast and cheap where the developing world will leap frog fossil fuels.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
      7·
      12 days ago

      If you’re a homeowner you can almost certainly buy solar in a manner where the monthly financing will be similar to what you save in monthly electric bills. So it’s a wash.

      This year.

      The difference is that electric bills will go up, while the financing terms stay the same.

      • USNWoodwork@lemmy.world
        4·
        12 days ago

        Looked into this a few years ago and you could have said the same then. The problem was the deal with the financing had all these weird caveats when you looked into the details like you didn’t own the panels, and any cost would transfer with the sale of the house, it was like a forever rental with no upgrades ever.

        When we get to the point that you can get solar added, and own everything, and can pay for it without financing with a positive ROI in 3 years, that’s the tipping point.

      • Caveman@lemmy.world
        1·
        12 days ago

        I’m projecting inflation adjusted prices of energy to go down in the coming years as well as financing costs. The energy market is stabilising with the Ukraine war and central bank rates are also going down right now. Outlook is pretty good economically right but Covid and Ukraine really threw a wrench into the works and fucked up 4 years so far

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
      3·
      12 days ago

      Yeah i wouldn’t be surprised if the next 4 years saw natural gas and coal plants being torn down because they can’t be subsidized cheaper than solar.

  • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
    13·
    12 days ago

    All those early access games I bought will get updates in 2025.

    I’m now on a Early Access conveyor belt. Every few months, something I’ve been waiting for gets a new update. I got like 10 games that I rotate between, with new ones being added and old ones getting dropped off.

    And they’re all big with their community support.

    Im very excited.

    • Bosht@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      12 days ago

      You may not be getting many upvotes but I feel you man. I had one come along for me recently and it was pure bliss. Was so great I bought a copy at full retail for my kid just to make sure I was additionally supporting them (and they wanted it but that’s a bonus lol)