Hacker News: the_why_of_y

New comment by the_why_of_y in "Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants"

the_why_of_y — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 08:31:27 +0000

> The EU price varies by renewables production.

This may be technically true at the moment, but the underlying reason for the high prices is fossil fuels: when renewable generation is low, natural gas peaker plants are generating, and these have the highest cost of any generation source, and by the merit order rules under which commodity markets such as electricity operate, the highest source price sets the price of the commodity.

The obvious and affordable mitigation for high prices is to build out massive battery storage capacities so that natural gas plants are needed far less often.

New comment by the_why_of_y in "Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants"

the_why_of_y — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 08:25:12 +0000

China added 315 GW of solar and 120 GW of wind capacity in the year 2025.

There is a lot of hydro generation deployed (1455 GW) but only 30 GW capacity added worldwide in 2025, and 200 GW added worldwide during last 10 years.

Total geothermal capacity is 15 GW worldwide in 2025.

https://www.irena.org/Publications/2026/Mar/Renewable-capaci...

New comment by the_why_of_y in "US diesel hits record $6 a gallon on Iran supply shock"

the_why_of_y — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 13:26:01 +0000

Both of your statements are technically true (the cancelled pipeline was called South Stream).

Also true is that another pipeline called Balkan Stream connects to Turk Stream to transport the Russian gas into Bulgaria, Serbia, and Hungary, and went into operation in 2021.

https://n1info.rs/english/news/balkan-stream-gas-pipeline-op...

New comment by the_why_of_y in "US diesel hits record $6 a gallon on Iran supply shock"

the_why_of_y — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 11:32:08 +0000

Orange Man was elected in 2015.

Europeans decided to construct Nord Stream 2 to completion (finished 2021, but never certified for operation).

Nord Stream 1 was shut down by Russia in 2022.

Turk Stream pipeline (from Russia to Bulgaria) finished construction/began operation in 2020.

New comment by the_why_of_y in "Carbon-aware electricity pricing, measured daily on 38 grids"

the_why_of_y — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 11:09:38 +0000

Spending 19 billion € over 18 years to build 1.65GW Flamanville 3 is not quite obvious to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Flamanvi...

Edit: compare this with China: they added 315 GW of Solar capacity in a single year (2025; see page 34 of the PDF).

https://www.irena.org/Publications/2026/Mar/Renewable-capaci...

(You can't compare nameplate capacity directly, but it can be safely assumed that 2 orders of magnitude more is ... actually more)

New comment by the_why_of_y in "International investment and local rules push prices up faster than supply"

the_why_of_y — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 12:02:10 +0000

Congress did improve the situation with the Corporate Transparency Act in 2020, but then Trump became president again and simply announced that the law will no longer be enforced, and now what is left of the Republican party wants to repeal it altogether.

https://newrepublic.com/article/211855/republicans-making-wo...

New comment by the_why_of_y in "Tracing a powerful GNSS interference source over Europe"

the_why_of_y — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 11:00:37 +0000

Russian Armed Forces have practically demonstrated a range of at least 1200 km, see this news report that was linked from Wikipedia.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-us...

There's more interesting stuff on Wikipedia; this gives the impression that both Russia and USA wanted to exit the treaty because China wasn't bound by it or any similar treaty and thus has been stockpiling exactly these kind of missiles for a long time now, so the treaty puts both Russia and USA at a disadvantage. Then follows some theatrics where Russia and USA point finger at each other while never talking about their true motivation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_For...

New comment by the_why_of_y in "Tracing a powerful GNSS interference source over Europe"

the_why_of_y — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 20:16:59 +0000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novator_9M729

New comment by the_why_of_y in "Poland is now among the 20 largest economies"

the_why_of_y — Sat, 09 May 2026 12:47:42 +0000

What happened in Spain is that they joined the Euro currency, and this caused a massive boom from 2001-2007 where GDP more than doubled in only 6 years. This was mostly fueled by capital transfers from other Eurozone countries, seeking higher returns than in their home country.

Of course this rate of growth proved unsustainable: in 2008 the (Spanish) real estate bubble burst and this caused bank bail outs, massive unemployment (rates around 25%), and put an end to GDP growth for many years, exacerbated by the fact that Spain did no longer have its own currency to devalue in order to regain international competitiveness.

At the time the bubble burst, government debt in Spain was at a bit more than 40% GDP, with a budget surplus, far lower than for example the "responsible" Germany at more than 60%.

Now what does any of that have to do with "socialists"? If anything, it's a cautionary tale about badly designed currency zones and financial markets misallocating capital.

New comment by the_why_of_y in "Russia Poisons Wikipedia"

the_why_of_y — Sun, 03 May 2026 10:21:50 +0000

Did that article also mention how Nuland gave cookies to the riot police on Maidan square?

https://archivist.substack.com/p/in-kyiv-nuland-handed-cooki...

New comment by the_why_of_y in "Russia Poisons Wikipedia"

the_why_of_y — Sun, 03 May 2026 09:23:04 +0000

> What public state speculation about Russian interference in anything ever was substantiated?

Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election

https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl

New comment by the_why_of_y in "SystemD is of out of control. The Best Minimal, Modern, Linux alternative"

the_why_of_y — Sat, 02 May 2026 07:59:47 +0000

That's not even factually correct, systemd doesn't verify anybody's age, it just provides a DBus API to store any date the user enters, in case the OS provides some UI on top of it.

https://blog.bofh.it/debian/id_473

New comment by the_why_of_y in "America's Geothermal Breakthrough"

the_why_of_y — Sat, 02 May 2026 07:36:31 +0000

Because it saves the have-nots 300 dollars a year, it's a transfer from the poor? Thank you for explaining, that was not obvious to me.

New comment by the_why_of_y in "America's Geothermal Breakthrough"

the_why_of_y — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 21:26:43 +0000

Moving the goalposts.

New comment by the_why_of_y in "America's Geothermal Breakthrough"

the_why_of_y — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 09:13:22 +0000

Australian households will be able to access free electricity for three hours every day, in an effort to encourage energy use when excess solar power is being fed into the grid.

The federal government scheme will require retailers to offer free electricity to households for at least three hours in the middle of the day, when there is often more electricity generated than is being used, leading to very cheap or even negative wholesale prices.

Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said the scheme would share around the benefits of solar panels, including to those without panels or who rented their homes.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-03/energy-retailers-offe...

New comment by the_why_of_y in "IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first"

the_why_of_y — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 21:25:15 +0000

The majority of the subsidies are implicit, in the form of negative externalities that are not priced in.

But I really should locate a more recent version of this report...

https://www.imf.org/en/publications/wp/issues/2025/12/20/und...

In 2024 they found $725bn in explicit subsides, plus $6.7tn in implicit subsidies.

New comment by the_why_of_y in "IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first"

the_why_of_y — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 21:18:09 +0000

Subsidies for fossil fuels in 2020 were $5 trillion according to IMF Working Paper:

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Sti...

New comment by the_why_of_y in "France's government is ditching Windows for Linux, says US tech a strategic risk"

the_why_of_y — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 09:30:04 +0000

There are now "loyalty tests" for those who apply to positions at the FBI, to be hired you have to state that the "patriots" on Jan. 6 2021 were the rioters attempting a coup, not the Capitol Police defending the constitutional transfer of government power.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/08/...

But technically you are correct, of course. Trump never demanded that VP Mike Pence be hanged, the rioters he sent to Congress did.

New comment by the_why_of_y in "EFF is leaving X"

the_why_of_y — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 22:13:22 +0000

My bad, I posted below the wrong parent, now I can't delete it.

New comment by the_why_of_y in "EFF is leaving X"

the_why_of_y — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 21:49:38 +0000

https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/07/hello-youve-been-referre...