But all commodities are like this. It is actually pretty easy to send some electrons great distances, or heck at least it's a well understood, solved problem. It's just that those interconnections haven't been built yet.

Heck, oil is probably the "default" example of what a commodity is, but we're now all acutely aware of what happens when moving that oil from one place to another becomes exceedingly difficult.

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pyrale 11 hours ago | parent [-]

> or heck at least it's a well understood, solved problem.

It is not. As a case in my point, Spain had a blackout last year (and I completely believe they are competent professionals - the task is just hard).

> It's just that those interconnections haven't been built yet.

They haven't been built because the grid isn't just a technical problem. It's also a socioeconomic problem, and adding new interconnections would require finding who needs to pay for it ; and currently, that question has no answer.

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4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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bryanlarsen 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Hard is relative. Sure, it's hard, but it's a lot simpler problem than something like being able to consume tropical fruit in a temperate country in the middle of winter.

The difference of course is that the invisible hand of the market gets that fruit into grocery stores. For various relatively good reasons, power is driven by very visible hands.

	▲	pyrale 9 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Sure, it's hard, but it's a lot simpler problem than something like being able to consume tropical fruit in a temperate country in the middle of winter. "Brain surgery? Well, that's not exactly rocket science..."
	▲	gusgus01 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		There are quite a few visible hands driving the fruit industry. Trade agreements, tariffs, water rights, disease/blight controls, and of course weather events/patterns are regularly in the news and discussed as it pertains to the cost and availability of various fruits (and veg). Off the top of my head, we've recently had shortages of fresh strawberries because of weather in California, a shortage of peas because of weather too, and various changes in Trump's tariffs were done to try and alleviate the rising cost of certain fruit and veg.