In Ukraine, distributed renewables foil Russia's assaults
Thread
Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.
In Ukraine, distributed renewables foil Russia's assaults
Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.
gnull · · focus · HN ↗
The article suggests that renewables are somehow more helpful in a war when your grid is targeted by drones and missiles. It doesn't do a comparison to back it up though.
Decentralized power production vs. centralized does make sense: decentralized doesn't offer a single point of failure taking out which causes a lot of damage.
But can't energy from fossil fuels be generated in a decentralized manner too? Sounds only better than renewables because it doesn't go up and down throughout a day, and doesn't need grid to amortize the jumps.
Renewables sort of need to be out there in the open to harvest energy from the elements. Solar needs sunlight, wind needs to spin its huge blades in open air. A diesel generator, on the other hand, perfectly goes underground, much harder to target.
So the article doesn't really establish that renewables offer a clear advantage over fossils in a war.
Upd: some comments below have convinced me that fossils don't decentralize as easily as renewables.
phatfish · · focus · HN ↗
This is the most concrete evidence (if it wasn't clear to anyone not lobotomised by the fossil fuel industry propaganda already) that renewable energy is a sovereign asset, not an external risk like shipping gas and oil round the world from mostly western-hostile nations.
Ukrainians are fighting for their country and this is the route they take. Any government not doing that same is deliberately weakening their country.
But check the position of supposedly nation-first right wing political parties in the west and they all LOVE making their country energy dependent on Saudi Arabia or the US, or Russia. I wonder why that could be...