iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 3h

*Ragnarok, dammit. Obviously.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 6h

I see what you did there with "hel".

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 9h

Netflix's Raganarok, a stylish, weird little thing that was saying something about climate change until the last episode, which suggested somehow that they never meant to say anything coherent about climate change. I do feel sorry for the actors.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Yeah, and the article says that the minerals are not consumed in the process.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I am doing a laundry wash *every day*. Okay, the baby's nappy wash is every two days, but how the hell are the other 3 of us filling a washing machine every second day? Child 1 doesn't even like changing her clothes! Before washing machines I would have collapsed.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I mean the SMCP is highly reputable, and from the article the team has a great pedigree. But it all sounds a bit like something a crystal healer would tell you.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Also "The proposed mechanism: minerals absorb broader wavelengths of sunlight and convert them into energy that alters water’s physical properties, including hydrogen-bond structure, making water easier to split during photosynthesis"... is that really a thing that can happen?

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Reposted by Jenny Chase

LeRaffl @leraffl.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

In Switzerland, heavy trucks are now more electric than passenger cars. Over the last 12 months: 28.0% of new heavy trucks were BEV 26.5% of new cars A year ago trucks were at 19%, so that's a huge jump. And buses are even further ahead at 48%.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I think John knows this and is making a joke.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I think I was too busy chewing my fingernails and saying "ugh this is too plausible, people are very lazy and will absolutely hand over power to machines which are this type of stupid" to really lean in to the comedy... good book though.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

My email inbox is, y'know, just an inbox it isn't going to end civilisation. I am excellent at answering email. But some types of email are increasing in volume until the only way to deal with them is LLM translation of documents, and.... there is a slippery slope here.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

But we will hand over more and more boring jobs and control to the computer (I confess, these days I just type "fahrenheit to celsius" into Google instead of remembering how to convert) and... ultimately we may shortcut ourselves to extinction.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

There are good uses for AI in the energy sector. Not every decision on battery dispatch needs to have a human behind it, and an ordinary algorithm may not be flexible enough. This is very complicated and also boring!

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I think the most likely AI apocalypse looks a lot more like @aptshadow.bsky.social 's novel Service Model than Terminator. And that's terrifying. (Initiating event for this thought: opening my inbox after a day off).

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

As a wise author said, people want to eat it so they can feel rich.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yeah, it fell two percentage points, right?

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I sorta see that sometimes (eg by buying €500 of washable nappies and using them, I save €€€ over my child's pre-potty-training years. Or by buying toothpaste on Buy 1 Get 1 Half Price, since I am gonna buy the toothpaste anyway).

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

This is a pet peeve but I hate (eg) "9x cheaper" as a phrase. You mean a ninth of the cost? I think? Seems to me that cost is a thing that can be multiplied but cheapness isn't.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

god I hope so. It's a good point that the referendum system makes one vote for actual *policies*, not just on vibes, which works and hopefully will continue to work against the far right.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

...or the use cases where EVs replace ICEs first are those where they get driven a lot, eg taxis and for longer commutes. These are also where the higher capex amortises fastest. Very few people truly just drive for fun nowadays.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Australia has about 1.5GW of data center IT capacity live. www.bnef.com/insights/39707

bnef.com

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I also notice that Caiso and Ercot (the power grid areas for California and Texas) seem to have had good reliability years so far, despite extreme temperature conditions. Almost like solar and batteries help with that.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The problem is that populism never really spreads the message of "look, power prices are not that bad and could be a LOT worse" (partly because some of the power prices don't pass on to consumers, but also because consumers generally don't care when things get cheaper).

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

One thing we should probably start talking about, though, is that batteries + renewables are genuinely starting to reduce power prices relative to the no-battery counterfactual.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

This is unfortunately wiping out the economics of merchant batteries long before it improves solar economics, though solar curtailment seems to have held flat at 8%.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"Intraday wholesale price volatility also fell significantly, flattening the duck curve. Across the NEM, average intraday arbitrage was A$103 per megawatt-hour in 2Q 2026, a 79% y-on-y decline driven by milder winter, lower evening demand and increased battery discharge during evening price peaks."

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Reading about Australia power markets: "Average power prices fell between 40% and 65% across the National Electricity Market (NEM) year on year in 2Q 2026, driven by higher renewable output and increased battery discharge during evening peak demand periods." Paywall, www.bnef.com/insights/40165

bnef.com

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Reposted by Jenny Chase

Robbie Andrew @robbieandrew.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The US EIA is currently forecasting US fossil-fuel emissions to drop by 1.7% in 2026. robbieandrew.github.io/USA/

Graph showing: Changing EIA forecasts for US CO2 emissions in 2026 (Source: https://robbieandrew.github.io/USA/)

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This is what we call a "niche product", the niche being buyers who don't know anything. Even if flexible encapsulants were as good as glass at first, if you are flexing them often they're going to stop working. There's a reason proper panels use glass!

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Negligible heavy metals in the main type of solar panel. You might seal it because of the chips of glass.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

It's never cheap capital! It is, at best, capital with a sub-market required rate of return and enormous costs to aggregate and manage.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Yes, there is. Solar panels are primarily made of glass, because glass is the best encapsulant for stability over a long lifetime. Flexible encapsulants, especially if regularly flexed, tend to be pretty rubbish.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Honestly I think it's weird. You don't need to own a power plant, or a factory, and most "community solar" schemes are heavily subsidised because they don't force long-term contracts. Why not just let the professionals run power plants?

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I'm a bit worried about solar panels falling on people's heads, or people deciding they don't work after doing something horrendous to them, or people opposing solar farms on the basis that you can just have this sort of install!

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I feel both that: - the real solarpunk future is randomly attached panels stuck on everywhere, and cracked ones being used as kitchen tables, and jerryrigged batteries with exposed wires - this is not optimal solar installation for many reasons

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Some of these are somewhat cute but yeah, maybe not the most low-maintenance high-output designs!

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Actually surprisingly little solar in the UK to date (about 7% of generation last year).

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

...they'd be very heavy, and solar panels do not really appreciate being moved regularly by hand with possible attendant banging. Honestly there is a reason to put solar panels on a field or at least on a large, stationary, seldom-disturbed structure like a roof.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Balcony solar installations that make you go "hmm", an occasional series.

A cropped photo of some south-facing solar panels mounted on a balcony, which would be in full sunlight if the awning of the balcony was not hanging right over nearly all of them. Taken close to midday near the poster's home in Switzerland.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Yeah, it's also got a tiny population and lots of hydro (and some wind), and power demand seems to have been declining before data center pickup in 2020. Which is why it offers tax breaks for industry willing to locate there and pay property taxes.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

This isn't wrong (I say with a one-year-old). So much of baby wrangling is having something easily available to absorb pee or wipe up shit. Sigh.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The energy storage t1 methodology is here. assets.bnef.com/public/tieri...

assets.bnef.com

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Wat on injera. It's higher-effort than most on this list but I wish I could eat it once a week.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Tbf the meetup sounds like it was for discussing the "what next" not the "why are we here". (If one joined a meetup for action against climate change and demanded that random attendees explain why climate change was such a big deal anyway, one's participation would also be poorly received).

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I sort of agree but it also gives me moments of thinking "shit, we really have grown up during the best time in human history, what if the next 100 years is basically just a reversion towards the long-term average".

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

The main reason I haven't done half the work and writing I wanted to do over the past year. He's pretty cute though.

Photo of a large blonde white baby sitting in a bathtub under a tree.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Very low, unfortunately, that's why diesel gensets or open cycle gas power plants are the traditional backup options.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

The only thing is, his scenario relies on Australia building a *lot* of wind. Which I unfortunately think is unlikely, especially as it is building a shit ton of solar.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Just realized @davidosmond.bsky.social is on here, do follow him for amazing and intuitive charts of Australia's ability to meet electricity demand with a scaled-up renewables and storage fleet.

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