> With a total capacity of 600MWh, Thurrock Storage is capable of powering up to 680,000 homes, and can help to balance supply and demand by soaking up surplus clean electricity and discharging it instantaneously when the grid needs it.

Unless they updated the original post, that all sounds correct to me. It's a 2-hour battery, rather common in the industry.

EDIT: Ah, you mean the https://stateraenergy.co.uk/news/thurrock-energisation is wrong, with the fantastically outrageous statement of "delivering its full output of up to 600MWh within seconds."

(I assume you're talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_Canal )

Also, anything taking the old locks out of operation for a few weeks/months is basically a no-go. That's just too costly.

As a side note, do keep in mind that water is already "saved" a little by going up in a convoy. With the three lock chambers, you get to reuse the same water three times. Not exactly true of course because convoys start and end, but you get the idea.

And see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38256185 for why the water saving basins are not as great as you would think (at least for the new locks). For the old locks, adding them would probably just add too much too the leveling time. And the construction would take those locks out of operation for at least a couple months, and they just cannot afford that.

In the Netherlands there are locks with pumps for directly leveling, reducing/preventing salt intrusion, or "evening out" the loss of water with a separate pumping station (look up Krammersluizen and Kreekraksluizen). But we're talking a meter or 2 water level difference, not a whopping 26 meters. And those locks are generally not as big, and even then we tend to get rid of those systems where we can (Krammersluizen) as it's just too expensive to operate and maintain.

This was (and is) not as much an issue with the old locks, as passage of ships there is ridiculously fast with the use of mules. With the new locks, it's mostly tug boats, and substantially bigger/slower ships obviously.

[0] Mostly on the Agua Clara side. The Cocoli side is generally fine, as the salt wedge doesn't reach the lake. Drinking/irrigation water intakes there probably have to be (or have been) moved though.

That is not entirely true though; it costs money to redeem LUSD for ETH. Earlier today it was 2%, so not particularly cheap. That would put the floor at 0.98 at least momentarily.

Well, you do have to pay to take out a loan. Closing a loan is free, and redeeming LUSD for ETH (if it's not your loan) costs _at least_ 0.5%. And being liquidated costs you money (10%?) as well I guess.

> What happens if many people do that and never repay the loan?

Nothing? What do you think is supposed to happen?

> you are suddenly dealing with real like risk that cannot be ignored.

The only risk I know of is a cascade. If a trove drops below 110% because the ETH price drops, and someone liquidates the trove and gets the ETH at a 10% discount, and then _sells_ the ETH, the price drops even more causing other troves to be liquidated, etc.

No, that's what _you_ think the reason is or should be. I'm asking what the reason (or answer) is that the _SEC_ gives in the application process.

> The SEC is saying that these schemes are securities, and you categorically cannot operate unregistered security schemes. The SEC is saying that these things must be registered, and until/unless they are registered they must stop.

My question was about the registration. If you _want_ to register, and the SEC replies with "", what are you supposed to do? Or if you ask if you should register, and get met with silence. I don't disagree with your assessment of "The SEC is saying that these schemes are securities", but instead of answering the question upfront they seem to prefer to punish/fine after the fact. Worst of all, they ban Kraken from ever offering any staking services in the future, even _if_ there is/will be a legal way to do it.

I _understand_ Gary's SEC's stance of keeping everything deliberately vague that way, because it gives him a lot of power to punish and discriminate on a one-off basis. I agree with Peirce (and CFTC's Pham) that's it's a bad and very lazy way to "regulate" (air quotes) though.

> do you think they wont start forcing the needle?

The article is about _fining_ people, i.e. negative monetary incentives. Your reply outlined a bunch of positive monetary incentives. There's probably enough research out there which of the two works better (negative or positive), so I won't get into that. I will say that I think it's quite a stretch to say that either is a step-up to "forcing a needle in you", and that I find it a bit disingenuous to imply that this slippery-slope argument only applies to negative monetary incentives.

I was under the impression that you'd just get fined if you don't get your shot. It's not like they are going to take you prisoner and stick a needle in you.

"Akshually" that was Coinbase [0]. Although maybe not, because they did a direct listing so not strictly an IPO. Matt Levine talks about both these points in his Feb 25th 2021 Money Stuff newsletter.

[0] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1679788/000162828021... "Address not applicable"

I feel this is somewhat similar to the story with trees. See e.g. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-04-21/money-... and https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/11/negotiat... .

As far as _why_ that works instead of sending someone into anaphylactic shock... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The immune system is weird and complex, and I guess that's why they want a medical specialist around in case you're one of the unlucky ones. (Only the first time with sublingual tablets as far as I know)

He says multisig has been very successful for organizations like the Ethereum Foundation, but suggests that it's possible to better for individuals. You are free to choose something that reduces to N-of-M, if you want to trust financial institutions, family/friends, and/or (mostly) yourself.

If I'm understanding what he writes correctly, it's somewhat similar to a "1 OR 4-of-7" multisig concept. Fairly sure this is supported by the Bitcoin protocol, although I don't think any wallets support it. There might be additional options you can implement on Ethereum that might be harder (read: require protocol upgrades) on Bitcoin. Time delays, maximum spend amounts (with exceptions), etc.

Also, I'm not sure why you're calling it the "Electrum cosigner" model. I thought multisig was a feature of the Bitcoin protocol, and not of the Electrum client?

> Because as a user I am now sitting in front of 24 websites which look equally "meh" in terms of trustworthiness (fancy design and huge claims), each of them trying to get me to hand out money to their software (that's what a wallet is about!), and almost all of them seemingly being for-profit companies which avoid listing their address.

Yes, I guess that's definitely a disadvantage of the ecosystem growing so much. It's great that that happened, but it also means that the EF does not control everything anymore. They cannot advertise just one solution with so many out there, lest they rub someone the wrong way. But they also can't say nothing either. And then it just becomes very confusing with this information overload for beginners (though I think "list of 24 websites" is a bit of an exaggeration; it's not _that_ bad imo [0])

I don't think this is entirely new in the world of software though. Generally you then get to things like looking for advice on forums or word-of-mouth, and then there's a guy like me saying "if you're a beginner only wanting to make transactions on Ethereum, get a Ledger Nano X hardware wallet and use their Ledger Live application". And "if you then want to move on interacting with dApps, use Metamask and connect it to your Nano X".

> A single 1 well-known website of a non-profit would "work better" for me as a user in terms of trusting my choice to keep my money safe. (If I had any, not buying ETH in this situation :)

Well, you would definitely know cryptocurrency is a bit different than a website securing your funds. Someone needs to hold onto the private keys. If you're looking for something similar to a bank, then get something similar to a bank (Coinbase?). But this difference (custodial services, private keys, hardware wallet) definitely adds to the barrier one needs to overcome to get started. I would also argue that "1 well-known website" (or 1 major client implementation that then becomes the defacto standard) does not quite fit into the whole "decentralization" aspect of cryptocurrencies, but not everyone cares as much about that.

> Do you notice that you're actually arguing in favor of my point? :)

You could look at it that way I guess ;) Progress is a function of money, and the EF has more to attend to than just software/wallet development. They could certainly blow through all their ("our") money in a year building a super fancy wallet. Or, as has happened, spend a little to jump start the ecosystem, and then comes along not one but multiple better wallets _for free_! None of "your" money was spent on developing these. Seems like a good deal to me, as now "your" money can be spent jump starting other awesome things that no one is paying much attention to yet.

[0] https://ethereum.org/en/wallets/

I personally prefer the role of the EF as a facilitator more than monolithic employer. And they can (and do) do facilitate in more ways than just handing out grants. It's just they experience has shown that helping out this way for wallet development (or even more generically software development) works better.

To add, they did start out providing the software as you say. After a certain point though, their efforts were outpaced by community effort or business opportunities arising in the Ethereum ecosystem. At this point it took a while for them to figure out what new role to take on with their ("our") funds, eventually settling on what they're doing now.