Iceblade

Where I live (Sweden) our grid has been essentially fossil-free since the early 90’s, thus we haven’t had the same need. Particularly since our electricity prices (excluding grid fees) already dip into the negatives in the summer, and solar is useless in the winter (<3hrs of light and snow cover).

Unfortunately though, recent politically motivated shutterings of nuclear plants during the 2010s combined with higher volatility in continental Europe has led to the volatility of our own electricity market skyrocketing, and more decentralized electricity production has led to huge increases in grid fees (state monopoly).

During a recent winter we had prices (when accounting for taxes and fees) in excess of 1$/kWh. This, in a country where almost all heating is electric, is disastrous. For context, we live in a small villa with a geothermal pump, and despite keeping indoor temps as low as 12°C at times we ended up with 1000s of USD equivalent in power bills for the winters 22/23 and 23/24.

Quite sad really.

From the calculations I’ve seen in recent scientific reports, that doesn’t seem to be the case, barring major economic changes on a global level.

Even the cheapest grid scale storage solutions are an order of magnitude more expensive than constructing more electrical generation capacity.

Particularly closed cycle fossil gas thermal plants have a massive advantage in markets where variable renewable electricity generation (wind, solar…) achieve high degrees of market penetration due to the volatility they cause in the grid.

Hydro, transmission and nuclear are currently the most accessible non-fossil options to counteract the disadvantages of solar & wind.

Grid scale storage will be built en masse the moment it becomes economical, or when governments decide to use tax payer money to do it or subsidize it.

Even then - the purpose is not derived from the end result, meaning that the title is still a shit take.

The title is a shit take. We have a word for when what something is doing isn’t aligned with it’s purpose, broken. If something is broken it needs fixing.

Definitely interesting for countries closer to the equator where seasonal effects on on PV energy production aren’t particularly impactful.

Civil disobedience is not inherently criminal in the western world (that would be horrible) - criminal acts are. In this case, the civil disobedience involves crime, and the organization explicitly plans illegal action, fitting the bill of what that law prohibits.

If them being convicted based on those laws are a problem -change them. That’s often part of the purpose of civil disobedience, highlighting problematic laws, swaying public opinion and getting lawmakers to change them.

That’s always the case with laws (they can and will have unintended consequences). My personal opinion is that laws should expire unless explicitly renewed.

Anyway, if the law as it is written is a problem, it should be changed - not selectively applied. I really have a problem with the american legal system where law is primarily made in court and not in parliament.

Uh, yeah?

Civil disobedience can be illegal, and engaging in it can land you in jail. Many famous activists did end up in jail at one point or another for doing illegal things. It’s a risk you have to accept if you want to engage in those protests, and if a little bit of jail-time is sufficient to deter folks from the movement, then they probably aren’t particularly invested in the cause.

Nice, now we just need to increase non-fossil fuelled energy production another 900% in order fo get rid of fossil fuels!