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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 10th, 2023

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  • Mostly private and home school in my area. The district is still showing a 10% loss in enrollment despite being the #1 relocation destination in the US in 2023 (according to Uhaul, so take from that what you will). We’re gaining population, and still public school enrollment is going down.

    Private and charter schools are all completely full. There are so many homeschoolers that businesses that do extra-curriculars (music lessons, dance programs, sports, etc) are all offering morning and mid-day sessions to keep up with demand. The local little league is talking about having two teams limited to homeschoolers so they can practice mid-day and free up the fields during after school hours.

    Meanwhile the public schools struggle to keep their teacher slots, which are allocated based on enrollment.








  • Hence people falling back to “I don’t care” as a defense mechanism. The world is too big, and there’s too much awful happening, to emotionally invest in all of it. Not and stay sane. It’s so much easier to narrow focus to your own life and pursuits, and let everything else be what it is.

    And so we get these useless platitudes, because “I don’t care about that” can be both true and socially unacceptable at the same time.






  • Absolutely. Coal has remained consistent as demand for power has risen steadily. Renewables are growing, but remain a tiny slice of the whole generation picture.

    Natural gas has become a cheap and reliable replacement for coal over the last 10-15 years as it’s become less expensive to transport. Many coal plants have been converted, even. So as demand has risen, it’s natural gas, not renewables, that is filling the gap.


  • It works very well, not disputing that.

    But, like geothermal power generation (which is also very good), it’s extremely dependent on location. Most populated areas don’t have the altitude differential (steep hills) and/or water supply to implement pumped hydro storage.

    Where it can be used, it should be (and largely is - fossil fuel generation does better with some storage as well, since demand is not consistent), but it’s hardly something that can be deployed alongside solar and wind generators everywhere.


  • Storage. Coal, natural gas, and nuclear generate power regardless of weather, day and night.

    Solar generates plenty of electricity (with enough panels installed), but it slows down significantly under cloudy skies and stops entirely at night.

    Wind generates plenty as well…unless the wind stops blowing.

    The grid needs power all the time, not just when it’s sunny and windy. For renewables to actually compete, the excess power they generate during sunny and windy times needs to be stored for use when it’s dark and still.

    As much as we applaud lithium batteries, our energy storage technologies are abysmally inefficient. We’re nowhere near being able to store and discharge grid-scale power the way we’d need to for full adoption of renewables. The very best we can do today (and I wish I were kidding) is pump water up a hill, then use hydroelectric generators as it flows back down. Our energy storage tech is literally in the Stone Age.


  • It never stopped. Hasn’t even really slowed down.

    People need electricity. Renewables are great, but they don’t provide for the full generation need. Coal and natural gas power generation will continue unabated until a better (read: lower price for similar reliability) solution takes their place.

    In my opinion, fossil fuel generation won’t take a real hit until the grid-scale energy storage problem is solved.