Solar is cheap *when active*, and the good news this is one of the cases where i... | Hacker News

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		grej on July 23, 2023 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Why don't we get our drinking water by taking salt... Solar is cheap when active, and the good news this is one of the cases where intermittency doesn't really matter. We should really explore more use of intermittent power for cases like this where the limited reliability of wind and solar is less significant.

nwiswell on July 23, 2023 | [–]

It's still significant if it means that your desalination plant is only active 50% of the time, since it means you need twice the capacity.

grej on July 23, 2023 | | [–]

True. This condition only holds in situations where the energy costs dominate the physical plant costs

lopis on July 24, 2023 | [–]

Fortunately, water usage is correlated with sun intensity.

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