frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

Open in hackernews

French Power Price Plunges Below Zero as Solar Floods the Grid

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-09/french-power-price-plunges-below-zero-as-solar-floods-the-grid
6•toomuchtodo•7h ago

Comments

toomuchtodo•7h ago
https://archive.today/uGTO6
apothegm•7h ago
Well, that’s one way to make bitcoin mining profitable!
jqpabc123•7h ago
Drill baby drill is dumb baby dumb.
a_shovel•7h ago
In coming years, as solar farms expand to meet demand during winter, there will be periods during the summer where there is a massive oversupply of electricity at midday for days or even weeks at a time. Solar farms will disconnect because there's nowhere for their electricity to go. So, increasing output for a new demand during that time is as easy as reconnecting, and unlike fossil fuel power plants there are no marginal costs.

What if the zero marginal cost were passed on? What would happen if energy was free for even a couple of weeks a year? Bitcoin mining is thinking too small. This will affect entire economies. Seawater desalination is expensive largely because of energy costs; what if those costs went to zero? What other obscure ultra-energy-intensive industrial processes will suddenly become viable because of mass solar? Those processes aren't done with solar now because of the opportunity cost: it would be more profitable to skip on the equipment and just sell power on the grid. What if that opportunity cost were gone?

Energy storage will become a lot more viable when the input is free. Not even necessarily grid-scale storage: I bet house-scale energy storage will become a significant market if the price difference between day and night gets large enough.

Mass solar means (or, it should mean) that energy will occasionally become free, and this is one of the things I'm most excited for the future over.

Arnt•7h ago
A few months ago I read that there are applications to connect more battery capacity to the German grid than the country's peak usage.

If all of that is approved, Germany could run 100% on battery powered (at least for a few minutes). I can see why... If battery operators can buy power at below-zero prices now and then, profit should not be a problem.

toomuchtodo•5h ago
Indeed, battery storage needs to catch up to Europe's low carbon energy deployment rate (nuclear + hydro + wind + solar).

Folio Society Publish Use of Weapons

https://www.foliosociety.com/row/use-of-weapons.html
1•saltysalt•1m ago•0 comments

Worlds first AMD GPU driven over USB 3

https://twitter.com/__tinygrad__/status/1920960070055080107
1•bfoks•8m ago•1 comments

Groom of the Stool – The worst job in history?

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Groom-of-the-Stool/
1•austinallegro•8m ago•0 comments

Public Relations Spending by Police (2023)

https://equalityalec.substack.com/p/public-relations-spending-by-police
1•nativeit•9m ago•0 comments

Public Relations Spending By Police [broken link]

https://open.substack.com/pub/equalityalec/p/public-relations-spending-by-police[2023]
1•nativeit•10m ago•2 comments

The six strongest materials on Earth are harder than diamonds

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/strongest-material/
1•PaulHoule•12m ago•0 comments

Apocalypse Now

https://betterwithout.ai/apocalypse-now
1•xigency•17m ago•0 comments

NY lawmakers add disclaimer to AI chatbots: They aren't human

https://gothamist.com/news/ny-lawmakers-add-disclaimer-to-ai-chatbots-they-arent-human
1•geox•20m ago•0 comments

Network Account Management

https://docs.bsky.app/blog/account-management
2•Kye•21m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Cloud Coding Agents in VSCode

https://www.augmentcode.com/blog/introducing-remote-agent?hn
1•knes•21m ago•0 comments

Frequency of Papal Names

https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2025/05/09/frequency-of-papal-names/
1•gscott•22m ago•0 comments

Infinite TTY pixel art editor written in Rust

https://github.com/ivanbelenky/pixelrs
2•ivanbelenky•22m ago•0 comments

Air Force pilots get innovative gear to 'go' while in the air

https://www.stripes.com/branches/air_force/2025-05-07/air-force-female-pilots-bladder-relief-17716387.html
2•Bender•25m ago•0 comments

Cinnamon could interact with some prescription medication according to new study

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/08/health/cinnamon-interactions-medications-wellness
3•Bender•26m ago•0 comments

The data survey disconnect and the dollar

https://kennethrogoff.substack.com/p/the-data-survey-disconnect-and-the
1•danboarder•30m ago•0 comments

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka Arrested at ICE Detention Center in NJ

https://pix11.com/news/local-news/newark-mayor-ras-baraka-taken-into-custody-by-ice-in-new-jersey/
9•tastyface•37m ago•0 comments

How many gadgets have YOU owned on the eWaste Graveyard? [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrNFJOX7PBs
1•lg_rocket•44m ago•0 comments

Career Progression: How to Use 30, 60, and 90 Days Approach

https://diamantinoalmeida.com/career-progression-how-to-use-30-60-and-90-days-approach/
1•MitiaHiers•46m ago•0 comments

Overcoming Self-Doubt: A Practical Guide to Building Lasting Confidence

https://diamantinoalmeida.com/overcoming-self-doubt-a-practical-guide-to-building-lasting-confidence/
1•MitiaHiers•46m ago•0 comments

The Acid King

https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/acid-lsd-king-william-leonard-pickard-prison-pete-wilkinson-184390/
3•udit99•47m ago•0 comments

Japanese PhD Student Has Visa Revoked in the US Due to Alleged Criminal History

https://www.tokyoweekender.com/japan-life/news-and-opinion/japanese-phd-student-faces-us-deportation-over-minor-infractions/
3•miles•47m ago•0 comments

Israel's NSO Group ordered to pay nearly $170M to WhatsApp for hacking accounts

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/nso-group-pegasus-whatsapp-hack-170-million-damages-00332155
2•TMWNN•48m ago•2 comments

Revisiting Lower Bounds for Two-Step Consensus

https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.03627
1•otrack•53m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Bardmore – AI Speech Analysis and Feedback

https://bardmore.com/
1•ChristopherLaw_•53m ago•0 comments

How Being Watched Changes How You Think

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-being-watched-changes-how-you-think/
1•SkyMarshal•54m ago•0 comments

Why everybody's drinking milk again

https://thehustle.co/originals/why-everybodys-drinking-milk-again
2•paulpauper•58m ago•0 comments

Perplexity Hacked Its Growth – Everything You Can Adopt from It

1•rishikeshranjan•58m ago•0 comments

Pope Leo XIV–why does this matter to the worlds of art and heritage?

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/05/08/robert-francis-prevost-has-been-elected-pope-leo-xivwhy-does-this-matter-to-the-worlds-of-art-and-heritage
1•paulpauper•59m ago•0 comments

The post-screen future does not exist

https://www.chrbutler.com/shut-up-siri-post-screen-future
4•delaugust•59m ago•0 comments

NSF Unidata Pause in Most Operations

https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/blogs/news/entry/nsf-unidata-pause-in-most
2•trauco•1h ago•0 comments