NIMBYism has ruined the spirit of this country. Fundamentally, we’re doers - and we don’t really “do” anymore. Where’s the enormous Austin subway system? The ”power too cheap to meter” from nuclear power plants??<p>We can afford all of this, easily, but let unrelated landowners stop us. It’s Kafkaesque.
The power grid situation is not much better here in The Netherlands.<p><a href="https://nltimes.nl/2022/08/04/dutch-power-grid-overloaded-places-new-connections-possible" rel="nofollow">https://nltimes.nl/2022/08/04/dutch-power-grid-overloaded-pl...</a>
"One planned wind farm in North Dakota, for example, was asked to pay for multimillion-dollar upgrades to transmission lines hundreds of miles away in Nebraska and Missouri."<p>"In 2018, EDP North America, a renewable energy developer, proposed a 100-megawatt wind farm in southwestern Minnesota, estimating it would have to spend $10 million connecting to the grid. But after the grid operator completed its analysis, EDP learned the upgrades would cost $80 million."<p>Makes me wonder what that Federal 'infrastructure bill' is paying for that is so much more important. The grid has long-needed to be a #1 national priority. And the high-roller electric companies can well afford to pay for a large share of a smarter grid.
As someone who wants solar the legal barriers are the main hang up. I can buy 8 KW of panels for around $2,500. Permitting and licensed install will cost a order in magnitude more than the panels themselves.<p>At this point I'm thinking of just doing a renegade install and taking my house off the power grid
Why do VCs get so excited about "disruption?"<p>Because it opens up lucrative new mass markets and forces consumers to participate.<p>Green energy technologies are good and worthwhile but there are real limits to what they can do right now.<p>What we are seeing is a policy driven forced disruption by entities who hope to profit from it .