Researchers: World can reach 100% renewable energy system by/before 2050(helsinkitimes.fi)
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Researchers: World can reach 100% renewable energy system by/before 2050
https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/themes/themes/science-and-technology/22012-researchers-agree-the-world-can-reach-a-100-renewable-energy-system-by-or-before-2050.html
316 comments
We could always have been moving faster, saving more money and more lives, but we really didn't have good science on the last few percent of carbon emissions from the power system.
The deniers updated their messaging too, so you regularly see (and see in these comments today) people saying "Yeah, renewable energy is cheaper and cleaner but ... desperately makes up something to justify their believing lots of obvious lies ... in 2050 when we have lots of cheap, clean renewable energy something vague and bad will happen so we should just slow down and burn more fossil fuels for reasons.
So it's good to recognize that we now have better answers for the delaying tactic questions.
The deniers updated their messaging too, so you regularly see (and see in these comments today) people saying "Yeah, renewable energy is cheaper and cleaner but ... desperately makes up something to justify their believing lots of obvious lies ... in 2050 when we have lots of cheap, clean renewable energy something vague and bad will happen so we should just slow down and burn more fossil fuels for reasons.
So it's good to recognize that we now have better answers for the delaying tactic questions.
They will go like...
storing energy is an unsolvable problem
Yeah sure. But if you have an abundance of electrical power you can literally lift up concrete blocks with a crane and generate electricity by letting them down. You can pump water up and use turbines. If you live in a flat area you can do the same in mine shafts. A German guy developed a way of cutting huge granite cylinders out of solid rock that you can lift up and let down producing high pressure waterflows that can be used to store energy. You can split water into hydrogen and oxygen and run turbines off of it, you can charge batteries. You can warm up sand in insulated containers and use the heat to power turbines. There is so many ways to store energy it is hard to enumerate them.
And if you have much more wind and solar power than you need you don't even need to worry that much about the efficiency of the storage system. Sure, you're gonna select the one that you can finance, maintain and find the space for, but a lot of that stuff could be built literally everywhere.
Storage is no argument any serious engineer would pull out. Serious engineers would say that our electrical grids are not capable to deliver that much energy if we try to replace every form of energy with electrical energy — and they would be right. But this is again not an impossible problem to solve. We know how to transmit electricity pretty well. We just need to build the infrastructure.
storing energy is an unsolvable problem
Yeah sure. But if you have an abundance of electrical power you can literally lift up concrete blocks with a crane and generate electricity by letting them down. You can pump water up and use turbines. If you live in a flat area you can do the same in mine shafts. A German guy developed a way of cutting huge granite cylinders out of solid rock that you can lift up and let down producing high pressure waterflows that can be used to store energy. You can split water into hydrogen and oxygen and run turbines off of it, you can charge batteries. You can warm up sand in insulated containers and use the heat to power turbines. There is so many ways to store energy it is hard to enumerate them.
And if you have much more wind and solar power than you need you don't even need to worry that much about the efficiency of the storage system. Sure, you're gonna select the one that you can finance, maintain and find the space for, but a lot of that stuff could be built literally everywhere.
Storage is no argument any serious engineer would pull out. Serious engineers would say that our electrical grids are not capable to deliver that much energy if we try to replace every form of energy with electrical energy — and they would be right. But this is again not an impossible problem to solve. We know how to transmit electricity pretty well. We just need to build the infrastructure.
There are numerous ways that you can store some amount of power - batteries, various potential energy storage options, hydrogen and other synthetic fuels, even stuff like flywheels. The unsolved problem is storing power on the vast scale actually needed to make an 100% renewable grid possible. In particular I think the numbers on storing energy by lifting and lowering concrete blocks work out really bad and a long way from being useful as a form of energy storage.
Exactly.
You’d probably be better off assuming no new grid connections tbh. You can effective force a distributed energy network. It just wouldn’t work for cities.
I don’t think a lot of people outside of homesteaders or people working in energy understand.
I can spend $25k for the solar I need for my house, but I’ll be spending another $50k for energy storage. And I’m in a more southern region… if you live somewhere in Europe, particularly the north, you’d need $50k solar and $50k storage.
Btw that $50k only covers batteries for 36-48 hrs of usage. Have 10 days of heavily cloud cover, gotta pull out the diesel engine.
I’ve looked at alternatives energy stores and nothing really has capacity we need. There’s ways to cut energy usage, there’s other forms of energy capture, but battery storage is basically it for single homes.
Fly-wheels and what not might work to stabilize grids for 24-36hrs. But I highly doubt on a week of energy, for instance. So you still have the same issues as single homes. You need the ability to start up engines (so to speak).
You’d probably be better off assuming no new grid connections tbh. You can effective force a distributed energy network. It just wouldn’t work for cities.
I don’t think a lot of people outside of homesteaders or people working in energy understand.
I can spend $25k for the solar I need for my house, but I’ll be spending another $50k for energy storage. And I’m in a more southern region… if you live somewhere in Europe, particularly the north, you’d need $50k solar and $50k storage.
Btw that $50k only covers batteries for 36-48 hrs of usage. Have 10 days of heavily cloud cover, gotta pull out the diesel engine.
I’ve looked at alternatives energy stores and nothing really has capacity we need. There’s ways to cut energy usage, there’s other forms of energy capture, but battery storage is basically it for single homes.
Fly-wheels and what not might work to stabilize grids for 24-36hrs. But I highly doubt on a week of energy, for instance. So you still have the same issues as single homes. You need the ability to start up engines (so to speak).
Of course there are alternative energy stores which have the capacity we need. What do you think we are using for energy storage now? Now we have huge piles of coal, natural gas stored in huge caverns, massive tank farms storing petroleum products. So the question is can we convert the electrical energy when wind and solar are at maximum output into gases, liquids, solids. The answer is yes. One obvious gas is hydrogen. And if the liquids and solids include carbon then to be carbon neutral we need to pull as much carbon out of the atmosphere as we will put back in (carbon capture technologies).
So it can be done. The problem is the higher cost than fossil fuels.
So it can be done. The problem is the higher cost than fossil fuels.
The answer is no, actually. Pulling carbon out of the atmosphere is way harder than you think is is. The carbon in the atmosphere is at a very low concentration. The Sabatier process is presently only done with concentrated carbon dioxide that comes from industrial byproducts. Pulling it from the atmosphere is not efficient enough to be viable.
Even producing the hydrogen is a challenge. Almost all hydrogen is produced via steam reformation, which emits carbon dioxide. Producing it through electrolysis remains difficult because electrodes corrode and lead to high maintenance costs.
Even producing the hydrogen is a challenge. Almost all hydrogen is produced via steam reformation, which emits carbon dioxide. Producing it through electrolysis remains difficult because electrodes corrode and lead to high maintenance costs.
If we go the carbon-capture route, it'll almost certainly be via bioengineering, since lifeforms are able to scale themselves up. Something like giant GMO algae farms in the desert.
“Can be done” typically means “can be practically done”
I can fly to the moon, if I had a hundred billion dollars. That doesn’t mean “I” can fly to the moon. These theoretical cases mean nothing.
I can fly to the moon, if I had a hundred billion dollars. That doesn’t mean “I” can fly to the moon. These theoretical cases mean nothing.
Funny that you mention a hundred billion dollars:
> Australia's growing hydrogen sector has an investment pipeline of A$133–A$185 billion ($92-$128 billion), equating to 35% of the country's total non-renewable energy and mineral resource investment, state body Geoscience Australia said July 19.
> Australia's growing hydrogen sector has an investment pipeline of A$133–A$185 billion ($92-$128 billion), equating to 35% of the country's total non-renewable energy and mineral resource investment, state body Geoscience Australia said July 19.
Undecided with Matt Ferrell did a video with a mention of costs for some modern techniques a few days ago [1].
Levelized Cost of Storage (LCOS) per MWh:
- CO₂ battery: $50* - Lithium-ion: $131 - $232 - LAES (Liquid Air Energy Storage): $300 - PHS (Pumped Hydro-Energy Storage): $186
*Estimate by Energy Dome.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSzh8D8Of0k
Levelized Cost of Storage (LCOS) per MWh:
- CO₂ battery: $50* - Lithium-ion: $131 - $232 - LAES (Liquid Air Energy Storage): $300 - PHS (Pumped Hydro-Energy Storage): $186
*Estimate by Energy Dome.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSzh8D8Of0k
First of all, these are almost certainly costs per Kilowatt hour, not megawatt hour.
These costs would skyrocket if the world actually tried to deploy them at grid scale. The entire world only puts out 300 GWh of lithium ion batteries. By comparison, one hour of electricity storage is 2,500 GWh. You'd have to direct all battery Production to storage for 8 years, and pause the production of all EVs and electronics that use batteries. This drove the cost up above $500/KWh in New York for example: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-battery-storage-co...
Similar story with pumped hydroelectricity. You need the right geography to build pumped hydro. Most of it is in remote inaccessible places (Tibet has huge pumped hydroelectricity potential). The only economically viable sites are the ones that are close to transportation infrastructure. Once those are developed, the cost climbs as more and more remote sites need to be developed.
Liquid air was promising, but the pilot plant took $600/KWh just to build. And who knows what the maintenance costs will be and if it'll live up to it's promised lifespan.
These costs would skyrocket if the world actually tried to deploy them at grid scale. The entire world only puts out 300 GWh of lithium ion batteries. By comparison, one hour of electricity storage is 2,500 GWh. You'd have to direct all battery Production to storage for 8 years, and pause the production of all EVs and electronics that use batteries. This drove the cost up above $500/KWh in New York for example: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-battery-storage-co...
Similar story with pumped hydroelectricity. You need the right geography to build pumped hydro. Most of it is in remote inaccessible places (Tibet has huge pumped hydroelectricity potential). The only economically viable sites are the ones that are close to transportation infrastructure. Once those are developed, the cost climbs as more and more remote sites need to be developed.
Liquid air was promising, but the pilot plant took $600/KWh just to build. And who knows what the maintenance costs will be and if it'll live up to it's promised lifespan.
And here I was thinking to have found a promising new YouTube channel. Thanks for the corrections.
The big problem with energy storage technology is figuring out which of the many different options will win the competition.
No. It's fine that different technologies are used in different situations. The big problem is finding technologies which are cheaper than fossil fuels.
Not at all. Fossil fuels have to be phased out, so CO2 charges and tariffs will be increased until they are. What renewables + storage have to be cheaper than is the other non-fossil alternatives.
We didn't wait until low air pollution technologies were cheaper than just dumping soot and SOx into the air, we acted to stop the pollution. Because negative externalities are a shining example of where government action benefits society. CO2 also presents large negative externalities. This is why you see climate deniers try to argue there are no such externalities from CO2 emission, because they understand the logic for regulation becomes inescapable otherwise.
We didn't wait until low air pollution technologies were cheaper than just dumping soot and SOx into the air, we acted to stop the pollution. Because negative externalities are a shining example of where government action benefits society. CO2 also presents large negative externalities. This is why you see climate deniers try to argue there are no such externalities from CO2 emission, because they understand the logic for regulation becomes inescapable otherwise.
No, the problem is that the one that wins the competition is still not viable at grid scale. The competition isn't against other storage systems, the competition is against energy systems that don't require storage. Nuclear was build at around $1-2 billion per GW when it was built at scale during the 1960s and 70s. It's hard for any renewable + storage system to compete against that.
I've explained over and over again to you that you're wrong. Studies such as this one (and others) confirm what I say. I have wonder why, in the face of repeated explanation, you are so resistant to understanding.
Because your "explanations" are incorrect. You just assume storage systems will become multiple orders of magnitude cheaper than they are today, and offer no reason to justify this assumption.
In fact, read what TFA actually says about storage;
> Key pillars of this new energy system are solar and wind energy, energy storage, sector coupling, and electrification of all energy and industry sectors implying power-to-X and hydrogen-to-X solutions, complemented by upcoming carbon dioxide removal.
I chuckled when I read "Power-to-X". It's a pretty funny way of saying "we no idea how to deliver storage at this scale".
In fact, read what TFA actually says about storage;
> Key pillars of this new energy system are solar and wind energy, energy storage, sector coupling, and electrification of all energy and industry sectors implying power-to-X and hydrogen-to-X solutions, complemented by upcoming carbon dioxide removal.
I chuckled when I read "Power-to-X". It's a pretty funny way of saying "we no idea how to deliver storage at this scale".
No, I do not assume storage systems become multiple orders of magnitude cheaper than they are today. Even the storage systems available at today's price points would allow renewables to be leveled at a price that could be afforded. Rather modest reductions in cost would be preferable, of course, and we can expect those to occur.
Power-to-X is using technologies that are mostly off the shelf. The particularly important one that wasn't, low cost electrolyzers, has seen tremendous progress. The Chinese are now selling these for < $300/kW, a fraction of the price assumed in the 2030 assumptions in that modeling site I like to point to.
Power-to-X is using technologies that are mostly off the shelf. The particularly important one that wasn't, low cost electrolyzers, has seen tremendous progress. The Chinese are now selling these for < $300/kW, a fraction of the price assumed in the 2030 assumptions in that modeling site I like to point to.
Except storage systems today don't scale and become more expensive when deployed at anything close to grid scale. Google told me that lithium ion batteries are $130-150 per KWh. But it turns out when you try to buy loads of them they become scarce and the price goes up. New York ended up paying over $500 for it's storage: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-battery-storage-co...
Keep stanning "Power-to-X" solutions. But until you actually have a solution for X that works at grid scale, there's no real solution. Just empty promises.
You edited your post after I replied:
> Power-to-X is using technologies that are mostly off the shelf. The particularly important one that wasn't, low cost electrolyzers, has seen tremendous progress. The Chinese are now selling these for < $300/kW, a fraction of the price assumed in the 2030 assumptions in that modeling site I like to point to.
Except none of those systems scale. If they did, the article would have actually specified the storage system. But then they'd have to stand up to scrutiny over whether that storage system can actually deliver at the promised scale. Because it can't, they use ambiguous language like "power to X".
Keep stanning "Power-to-X" solutions. But until you actually have a solution for X that works at grid scale, there's no real solution. Just empty promises.
You edited your post after I replied:
> Power-to-X is using technologies that are mostly off the shelf. The particularly important one that wasn't, low cost electrolyzers, has seen tremendous progress. The Chinese are now selling these for < $300/kW, a fraction of the price assumed in the 2030 assumptions in that modeling site I like to point to.
Except none of those systems scale. If they did, the article would have actually specified the storage system. But then they'd have to stand up to scrutiny over whether that storage system can actually deliver at the promised scale. Because it can't, they use ambiguous language like "power to X".
You are repeating the same tired bullshit here. When supply is constrained, greatly increased demand can drive up prices. That doesn't mean storage doesn't scale, it just means we haven't built enough factories yet.
I'm sure you can remember many episodes in computing where the price of something (DRAMs, GPUs, whatever) temporarily went up because of supply constraints. It would have been deeply foolish to proclaim this mean price declines were over.
A similar thing happened with PV back around 2009 or so. The long term decline trend appeared to stall, because of poly-Si shortages. Dishonest skeptics claimed PV cost declines were over. What happened then? The prices provided incentive for more manufacturing capacity to be added, and the decline tracked back to the long term downward trend line.
I'm sure you can remember many episodes in computing where the price of something (DRAMs, GPUs, whatever) temporarily went up because of supply constraints. It would have been deeply foolish to proclaim this mean price declines were over.
A similar thing happened with PV back around 2009 or so. The long term decline trend appeared to stall, because of poly-Si shortages. Dishonest skeptics claimed PV cost declines were over. What happened then? The prices provided incentive for more manufacturing capacity to be added, and the decline tracked back to the long term downward trend line.
Not just factories, also the mines that are needed to feed input materials to those factories: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/chart-lithium...
You know what we call it when factories and raw materials can't keep up with the demand and lead to skyrocketing costs? A system that doesn't scale.
DRAM and GPUs aren't bottlenecked by raw materials the way energy storage is. It was a shortage of electrical components, not a shortage of copper. It is a very wrong assumption to think that resource extractions behaves like semiconductor manufacturing.
You know what we call it when factories and raw materials can't keep up with the demand and lead to skyrocketing costs? A system that doesn't scale.
DRAM and GPUs aren't bottlenecked by raw materials the way energy storage is. It was a shortage of electrical components, not a shortage of copper. It is a very wrong assumption to think that resource extractions behaves like semiconductor manufacturing.
> But if you have an abundance of electrical power you can literally lift up concrete blocks with a crane and generate electricity by letting them down.
That doesn't seem like the best idea if you think about it: https://youtu.be/iGGOjD_OtAM
That doesn't seem like the best idea if you think about it: https://youtu.be/iGGOjD_OtAM
Their point isn't that that's the best idea, but that we have lots of things that would actually work, and between them there was never any reason to worry too much about it.
Like you might not know what your going to eat next Friday, you don't know if the cafeteria might sell out of chicken, or if they'll be doing a special on your favourite fish. But that's different from "I will starve next Friday" or "I am allergic to nuts, and there will be nothing but nuts to eat" and it certainly doesn't mean you should put poison in your food today.
It's not physics that the limit, it's economics that suggests green hydrogen will probably be the winner, since as well as storage it has other uses. Similarly for batteries, the dual use tips the balance economically.
Like you might not know what your going to eat next Friday, you don't know if the cafeteria might sell out of chicken, or if they'll be doing a special on your favourite fish. But that's different from "I will starve next Friday" or "I am allergic to nuts, and there will be nothing but nuts to eat" and it certainly doesn't mean you should put poison in your food today.
It's not physics that the limit, it's economics that suggests green hydrogen will probably be the winner, since as well as storage it has other uses. Similarly for batteries, the dual use tips the balance economically.
> Their point isn't that that's the best idea, but that we have lots of things that would actually work, and between them there was never any reason to worry too much about it.
And the above commenter's point is that it doesn't actually work.
The fact that so many support and energy policy that amounts to "whatever, we'll figure out storage eventually" is astounding. If that's the mentality you're going to take, just let fusion solve all our problems.
And the above commenter's point is that it doesn't actually work.
The fact that so many support and energy policy that amounts to "whatever, we'll figure out storage eventually" is astounding. If that's the mentality you're going to take, just let fusion solve all our problems.
Energy storage is still hard, unfortunately. I don't think any gravity storage other than pumped hydro (where nature allows for it) is viable.
The question I've been asking myself in case we were to go for battery energy storage: would we be better off using decentralized system with solar + battery on every home / small community or just make massive installations and keep using existing power grid to move energy to homes?
The question I've been asking myself in case we were to go for battery energy storage: would we be better off using decentralized system with solar + battery on every home / small community or just make massive installations and keep using existing power grid to move energy to homes?
Decentralized doesn't work so well for places that require a high ratio of electrical power to solar radiance - like refineries, factories, medium and high density housing, electric vehical fast chargers, low density housing in places that get cold in winter, and more. So a large fraction of society will need to import some energy from somewhere (either from the grid or a fuel like hydrogen).
Fully decentralised solar + battery might be the best option for rural / semi-rural settings, but even low-density suburbia somewhere sunny could likely benefit from having all those batteries and panels working together via the existing grid.
Fully decentralised solar + battery might be the best option for rural / semi-rural settings, but even low-density suburbia somewhere sunny could likely benefit from having all those batteries and panels working together via the existing grid.
Remember the goal to electrify everything. For the home owner this includes space heating. So if you live in the snowbelt you need to have the battery capacity to handle a two week Polar Vortex with temperatures below zero degrees Fahrenheit with very little sun with your fully decentralized solar system. This will require a very expensive battery system!
> Decentralized doesn't work so well for places that require a high ratio of electrical power to solar radiance
Yeah, another example that comes to mind are flats - the roof is a bit small to cover all residents' energy needs.
As always in life it seems that "it depends" but I think you are right about remote places. It is of course always better to have electrical grid since you shift the maintenance to someone else (as long as the power delivered is reliable and cost effective).
The one issue I can think of is current grid may not be able to handle many small energy producers - they can be cut off when peak power is a problem. In those cases individual prosumers would benefit from having a local battery storage system that fit their needs, even when connected to the grid.
Yeah, another example that comes to mind are flats - the roof is a bit small to cover all residents' energy needs.
As always in life it seems that "it depends" but I think you are right about remote places. It is of course always better to have electrical grid since you shift the maintenance to someone else (as long as the power delivered is reliable and cost effective).
The one issue I can think of is current grid may not be able to handle many small energy producers - they can be cut off when peak power is a problem. In those cases individual prosumers would benefit from having a local battery storage system that fit their needs, even when connected to the grid.
I think it will be a mix of both. Local storage at home is great for some grid independance during blackouts and usually you save some money when you have you own solar roof.
But local storage usually will be more expensive per storage capacity vs. larger storage facilities. This means, a large amount of storage will be there, because it is cheaper. Also the power company can control it better than home systems.
And of course there the electric cars which could partially contribute to the grid storage.
But local storage usually will be more expensive per storage capacity vs. larger storage facilities. This means, a large amount of storage will be there, because it is cheaper. Also the power company can control it better than home systems.
And of course there the electric cars which could partially contribute to the grid storage.
Even if in theory local storage us cheaper, most people won't want to invest in replacing their system every 10 years when it wears out.
I think we will see mostly utility scale storage. Most people will have an electric car that they can plug into, but that will only be done to keep the fridge cold when the utility goes out.
I think we will see mostly utility scale storage. Most people will have an electric car that they can plug into, but that will only be done to keep the fridge cold when the utility goes out.
10 years seems like a short time, what if we make it 30 years - same as solar? You would need to update it roughly once during your lifetime.
The other idea is having small communities that manage their own energy needs. Meaning 1MWh energy bank for 100 homes instead of 1GWh for 100 000 homes.
The other idea is having small communities that manage their own energy needs. Meaning 1MWh energy bank for 100 homes instead of 1GWh for 100 000 homes.
Battery life doesn't always work the way you want it to.
I don't know what the limits of different battery chemistry is, but I suspect it won't work. Though 10 years was just a number I made up, I think it is reasonable for discussion.
I don't know what the limits of different battery chemistry is, but I suspect it won't work. Though 10 years was just a number I made up, I think it is reasonable for discussion.
Yeah, I think you might be right although AFAIK they still hold on to about 80% of their initial charge after that time (10y), which is quite a lot. 30 years was just a random thought that seemed like a sensible minimum to be somewhat low-maintenance solution.
I am just trying to think about different possibilities, they pros, cons and what might be net win in this case. Your remark on people not wanting to service yet another thing is spot on, grid always works for them.
I am just trying to think about different possibilities, they pros, cons and what might be net win in this case. Your remark on people not wanting to service yet another thing is spot on, grid always works for them.
On land you just can’t make it tall enough, you get roughly 2.5kWh of potential energy per km of delta-h per ton of mass. I think if you store energy in a gravity battery out in the ocean where the depths are 10km, you may end up with a system competitive with pumped hydro.
The incremental cost of a ton of mass and a ton of buoyancy are probably gonna be a factor of 2 to 10 less than lithium batteries. For any storage project: if it needs $1B of infrastructure costs for wires, dynamos, robots etc. just to start then you must be talking about building at least 10GWh before it is practical. so probably millions of tons for an oceanic gravity battery
The incremental cost of a ton of mass and a ton of buoyancy are probably gonna be a factor of 2 to 10 less than lithium batteries. For any storage project: if it needs $1B of infrastructure costs for wires, dynamos, robots etc. just to start then you must be talking about building at least 10GWh before it is practical. so probably millions of tons for an oceanic gravity battery
Yeah it’s a terrible idea.
Pumped hydro or compressed air is way better on every front.
Pumped hydro or compressed air is way better on every front.
Isn't the round trip efficiency of compressed air terrible? You lose a lot of energy as heat when you compress air which you then have to resupply when expanding the compressed air to avoid things freezing over.
There is adiabatic compressed air, where the heat of compression is transfered to a thermal store, cooling the compressed air before it's injected into the storage cavern. Then, on discharge, the heat is recovered from the thermal store and used to reheat the air.
This illustrates, btw, that compressed air doesn't actually storage energy! The energy content of a gas is the kinetic energy of its molecules (and some small contribution from the potential energy of molecules at the moments they bounce off each other, but that's typically minor). The kinetic energy of the molecules is a function of temperature, but not of pressure.
What the air is doing is acting as a store of reduced entropy, which can later be exploited to convert that separate heat back to work at high efficiency. However, one could also do this by PTES, Pumped Thermal Energy Storage, where a reversible thermal cycle produces heat and cold, which are stored separately, then brought back together to recover the work. This is like adiabatic CAES, but instead of storing the cooled compressed air, it is expanded through a turbine and the cold of the resulting expanded gas is stored (say in a tank of mild cryogenic hexane).
This illustrates, btw, that compressed air doesn't actually storage energy! The energy content of a gas is the kinetic energy of its molecules (and some small contribution from the potential energy of molecules at the moments they bounce off each other, but that's typically minor). The kinetic energy of the molecules is a function of temperature, but not of pressure.
What the air is doing is acting as a store of reduced entropy, which can later be exploited to convert that separate heat back to work at high efficiency. However, one could also do this by PTES, Pumped Thermal Energy Storage, where a reversible thermal cycle produces heat and cold, which are stored separately, then brought back together to recover the work. This is like adiabatic CAES, but instead of storing the cooled compressed air, it is expanded through a turbine and the cold of the resulting expanded gas is stored (say in a tank of mild cryogenic hexane).
I don't like that video, but yes, I don't think that design is the solution for the future. Using water als gravitational storage is quite well developed and has additional benefits (like storing precious water for droughts).
But that is the nice thing going forward: there are many different ways of storing electricity and many of them will be tried. I am sure there will be a lot of new feasible ways of doing so in the market soon.
But that is the nice thing going forward: there are many different ways of storing electricity and many of them will be tried. I am sure there will be a lot of new feasible ways of doing so in the market soon.
Storage via gravitational potential energy is extraordinarily inefficient.
Let's say you have a medium city, like Columbus, OH. This city purchases about 890 GWh of electricity per year [1] for costumers and street lights. Let's say they need to store 100 GWh. A kg of matter raised 1 meter stores about 10 joules, or watt-seconds. We need to store 100 times 3600 billion of watt-seconds, which is 360 trillion. You can trade mass for height. For example you can raise 36 trillion kg to a height of 1 meter. That's 36 billion tons or gigatons (GT). Or you can raise 3.6 GT to a height of 10 meters, just 36 MT to a 1km hight.
Let's say you want to use blocks of stone. The total US production of blocks of stone in 2021 was 2.3 million tons [2]. You need 15 times as much to only cover Columbus, OH, and only assuming a 100% efficiency in the conversion of the energy from electricity to gravitational potential energy and back.
The only substance that can be useful for this type of storage is water. But even for water, you need the same huge quantities. 36 million tons of water is a lake with a surface area of 1 square kilometer and a depth of 36 meters. If you have some mountains around you, then you can do it. But Columbus, OH is out of luck. It does not have mountains, or even hills around it. Building an artificial hill that's 1000 meters tall, that has a 1 km2 lake at the top with a depth of 36 meters is a monumental undertaking, that was never attempted.
Of course, you can try to play around with the tradeoffs. Maybe you build a lower hill with a larger footprint. But how long is it going to take to offset the emissions from such a huge construction project?
Bottom line: pumped hydro makes sense, if geography allows you. If not, it is uneconomical by many orders of magnitude.
[1] https://www.columbus.gov/greenpower/ [2] https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2022/mcs2022-stone-dime...
Let's say you have a medium city, like Columbus, OH. This city purchases about 890 GWh of electricity per year [1] for costumers and street lights. Let's say they need to store 100 GWh. A kg of matter raised 1 meter stores about 10 joules, or watt-seconds. We need to store 100 times 3600 billion of watt-seconds, which is 360 trillion. You can trade mass for height. For example you can raise 36 trillion kg to a height of 1 meter. That's 36 billion tons or gigatons (GT). Or you can raise 3.6 GT to a height of 10 meters, just 36 MT to a 1km hight.
Let's say you want to use blocks of stone. The total US production of blocks of stone in 2021 was 2.3 million tons [2]. You need 15 times as much to only cover Columbus, OH, and only assuming a 100% efficiency in the conversion of the energy from electricity to gravitational potential energy and back.
The only substance that can be useful for this type of storage is water. But even for water, you need the same huge quantities. 36 million tons of water is a lake with a surface area of 1 square kilometer and a depth of 36 meters. If you have some mountains around you, then you can do it. But Columbus, OH is out of luck. It does not have mountains, or even hills around it. Building an artificial hill that's 1000 meters tall, that has a 1 km2 lake at the top with a depth of 36 meters is a monumental undertaking, that was never attempted.
Of course, you can try to play around with the tradeoffs. Maybe you build a lower hill with a larger footprint. But how long is it going to take to offset the emissions from such a huge construction project?
Bottom line: pumped hydro makes sense, if geography allows you. If not, it is uneconomical by many orders of magnitude.
[1] https://www.columbus.gov/greenpower/ [2] https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2022/mcs2022-stone-dime...
> Storage via gravitational potential energy is extraordinarily inefficient.
I think the point is that what we do right now and what has been considered good practice is extremely inefficient, engineering-wise and economically.
I think the point is that what we do right now and what has been considered good practice is extremely inefficient, engineering-wise and economically.
This city purchases about 890 GWh of electricity per year [1] for costumers and street lights. Let's say they need to store 100 GWh.
Why do they need to store over 1/9th of their yearly energy usage?
Why do they need to store over 1/9th of their yearly energy usage?
If you switch to renewables, you need to store energy.
I’m questioning the amount (which is what the whole argument about this being impractical is based on).
Do you really need to have a store of 11% of the city’s entire yearly energy usage? Like, 5 (almost 6!) entire weeks of energy? That seems ludicrously high to me.
Do you really need to have a store of 11% of the city’s entire yearly energy usage? Like, 5 (almost 6!) entire weeks of energy? That seems ludicrously high to me.
Ok, let's say it's one week. Is that still ludicrously high? The scale of the challenge is the same. Storage via gravitational potential energy is not realistic, except if geography is on your side.
I think an entire week’s worth also seems high.
But, yeah, on the whole you’ve convinced me. This does seem like a ludicrously inefficient form of energy storage.
But, yeah, on the whole you’ve convinced me. This does seem like a ludicrously inefficient form of energy storage.
That was my point, that gravitational storage is surprisingly inefficient.
But since you challenged me on the 11%, I did some research, and now I think that storage may not even be needed (aside from the day-to-night storage via batteries, which is already economical nowadays).
The EIA gives [1] the US electricity generation by month and source for 2020 and 2021. Solar and wind are small nowadays, but if you were to scale to cover the entire annual needs of the US only with solar and wind, you'd get a profile where on some months you get more than you need and on some months you get less. The longest stretch is in the Summer months (presumably because of AC). During those months, for 3 or 4 months in a row you produce less than you consume. You need about 6% or 7% of total annual consumption in storage to make up for the deficit. If we include conversion losses, and an additional buffer, then my original 11% sounds about right (although I just pulled it out of thin air).
However, if your just use natural gas for those 6-7%, then you don't need storage at all. Cutting the fossil fuel generation from the current 60% to 6% means reducing emissions by more than 90% (lost of current generation is from coal, which emits about double the CO2 than the equivalent gas generation).
You can also overbuild solar and wind a bit, let's say by 20%, and the deficit gets reduced from 6-7% to less than 3%. You can then balance the load using the hydropower that we already have.
So, I think the whole storage problem may not be such a big problem after all.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
But since you challenged me on the 11%, I did some research, and now I think that storage may not even be needed (aside from the day-to-night storage via batteries, which is already economical nowadays).
The EIA gives [1] the US electricity generation by month and source for 2020 and 2021. Solar and wind are small nowadays, but if you were to scale to cover the entire annual needs of the US only with solar and wind, you'd get a profile where on some months you get more than you need and on some months you get less. The longest stretch is in the Summer months (presumably because of AC). During those months, for 3 or 4 months in a row you produce less than you consume. You need about 6% or 7% of total annual consumption in storage to make up for the deficit. If we include conversion losses, and an additional buffer, then my original 11% sounds about right (although I just pulled it out of thin air).
However, if your just use natural gas for those 6-7%, then you don't need storage at all. Cutting the fossil fuel generation from the current 60% to 6% means reducing emissions by more than 90% (lost of current generation is from coal, which emits about double the CO2 than the equivalent gas generation).
You can also overbuild solar and wind a bit, let's say by 20%, and the deficit gets reduced from 6-7% to less than 3%. You can then balance the load using the hydropower that we already have.
So, I think the whole storage problem may not be such a big problem after all.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
Lifting heavy things up is cool but expensive. Batteries are way more compact but don't last too long.
It's a hard problem. Hopefully one of those magic battery tech from the past will be ready at some point.
On the contrary, the difficulty of switching to full electricity is very country dependant: some countries rely heavily on gas, some use electricity for everything. I didn't have gas in any of my houses for the last 10+ years.
On the automotive front, you already have the market and the high price of EV to make sure EV adoption will be gradual. I'm sure over time we can adapt to the increased demand with incremental improvements.
It's a hard problem. Hopefully one of those magic battery tech from the past will be ready at some point.
On the contrary, the difficulty of switching to full electricity is very country dependant: some countries rely heavily on gas, some use electricity for everything. I didn't have gas in any of my houses for the last 10+ years.
On the automotive front, you already have the market and the high price of EV to make sure EV adoption will be gradual. I'm sure over time we can adapt to the increased demand with incremental improvements.
Do you know what's up with molten salt batteries? I've heard GE was big on it but then after investing a ton of money they just closed it down.
Is the technology not viable? Seemed to me like a green solution that is working ok and can be used now.
Is the technology not viable? Seemed to me like a green solution that is working ok and can be used now.
This is a useful chart (though it would be nice if efficiency was included).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage#/media/File:A...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage#/media/File:A...
The world uses 60 TWh of electricity daily. About twice that in terms of total energy use. Even just one hour of energy storage is a massive undertaking. Estimates to reach a 100% renewable grid call for 3 weeks of storage: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
No solution we have can deliver even remotely close to that amount of storage. Sure, you can build giant flywheels or pulleys or what have you. But can you build them at the required scale? What is the rate at which you can build them?
> Sure, you're gonna select the one that you can finance, maintain and find the space for
My point is that this is way, way harder than you seem to think.
No solution we have can deliver even remotely close to that amount of storage. Sure, you can build giant flywheels or pulleys or what have you. But can you build them at the required scale? What is the rate at which you can build them?
> Sure, you're gonna select the one that you can finance, maintain and find the space for
My point is that this is way, way harder than you seem to think.
I wonder what the FUD line will become once solar plants start coming with 2 or 3 hours of storage because it optimized the ROI of the inverting and transforming equipment. (This shouldn't take too long, since the battery costs are almost there already.)
Already happening in the US:
https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/us-energy-sto...
> The research house expects 9.4GW of energy storage capacity to come online this year and a further 15.6GW in 2023 ,with nearly 60% to be co-located with other – chiefly solar – power plants.
> Developers added 1.33GW of energy storage capacity in the fourth quarter of 2021, exceeding the previous two years combined, and energised more than 3GW last year.
https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/us-energy-sto...
> The research house expects 9.4GW of energy storage capacity to come online this year and a further 15.6GW in 2023 ,with nearly 60% to be co-located with other – chiefly solar – power plants.
> Developers added 1.33GW of energy storage capacity in the fourth quarter of 2021, exceeding the previous two years combined, and energised more than 3GW last year.
The delaying people are still the same though. As long as they get listened to by politics, we will never transition to sustainable energy before it's too late. In fact, even today might already be too late if you look at the latest data from Antarctica and Siberia. By 2050 we will need nothing short of a miracle.
We've already done a lot to avoid the worst of it and have reasonable confidence we can do more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_P...
You'll notice a lot of the political arguments are around will we hit the 2 degrees target, is the 1.5 degrees target now impossible etc. That's not what we'd be arguing about if 8 degrees was looking more likely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_P...
You'll notice a lot of the political arguments are around will we hit the 2 degrees target, is the 1.5 degrees target now impossible etc. That's not what we'd be arguing about if 8 degrees was looking more likely.
In my eyes, not "having good science on the last few percent of carbon emissions" was never a valid reason. We always had good science on how to get rid of 80-90% of the carbon emissions. So we should have done that quicker, as even if that were the limit for quite a while, it would cut down the problem by 80-90%. That would have given us valuable time to solving the remaining emissions.
Correct, that's what I meant by we could/should always have gone faster.
But, it's still good to acknowledge progress from "We know that we could roll out renewables today to 80% within a specific timescale and actually save money, lives and ecosystems doing so based on proper research" to 100%. It destroys even that tiny kernel of truth that they'd built a very big lie on top of.
But, it's still good to acknowledge progress from "We know that we could roll out renewables today to 80% within a specific timescale and actually save money, lives and ecosystems doing so based on proper research" to 100%. It destroys even that tiny kernel of truth that they'd built a very big lie on top of.
We have had good science but the economics were not favorable until the last decade or so (there have been truly massive declines in solar and wind costs in that period--particularly solar).
At some point the carbon lobby will lose the political upper hand.
This will impact their ability to do public relations/lobbying and that will lead to more taxes and lower profits which will impact their ability still further and so on.
I dont think it'll be a linear decline - there is a political feedback loop here.
At some point after that deniers and skeptics will likely cease to be a thing as the money to push it will dry up.
This will impact their ability to do public relations/lobbying and that will lead to more taxes and lower profits which will impact their ability still further and so on.
I dont think it'll be a linear decline - there is a political feedback loop here.
At some point after that deniers and skeptics will likely cease to be a thing as the money to push it will dry up.
The last 6 months have not helped your cause. Turning off the nuclear plants in Germany and stopping new oil leases in the US has turned out to be a strategic weakness for NATO, and allowed some dictators in Russia and Saudi Arabia to create a recession. Things also aren't looking good for heating in Europe this winter.
Appropriately, I was just reading a climate change denying article by Bjorn Lomborg from the last Ukraine gas crisis in 2014.
He said we shouldn't roll out more solar and more wind, because they are never going to be cheaper than fossil fuels. How does that claim stack up today?
He also really doesn't like EVs. Imagine a German (and global) car industry that was making as many EVs as it is today, and growing every year, but 8 years ago, what would that would do to Russia's geopolitical strength.
He said we shouldn't roll out more solar and more wind, because they are never going to be cheaper than fossil fuels. How does that claim stack up today?
He also really doesn't like EVs. Imagine a German (and global) car industry that was making as many EVs as it is today, and growing every year, but 8 years ago, what would that would do to Russia's geopolitical strength.
I partially disagree. It is true that [Europe] does need to ramp up/diversify fossil fuel right now to prevent disaster as Russia closes the tap. But I think there's a feeling at the moment that this fossil fuels thing is not something that is going to last; and that Europe has a strategic need to divest itself of fossil fuels as quickly as possible.
That feeling seems to have been wrong, though. There isn't enough wind, solar, and nuclear to actually replace fossil fuels yet, and there isn't nearly enough energy storage to cover the gaps in the renewables. I believe there is a need to drop fossil fuels, but it seems to have happened too fast.
> That feeling seems to have been wrong, though
I'm failing to derive meaning from that sentence? The feeling is wrong - they're not actually feeling it?
Europe is very clearly ramping up energy alternatives to fossil fuels, for very sound reasons. They not wrong about that.
No, there isn't enough to replace fossil fuels yet; yes, it's an abrupt transition due to external events. changing that is the plan. The plan's not wrong.
But the idea that "this fossil fuels thing is not something that is going to last" and that depending on importing it in years to come, has been demonstrated to be bad idea, is IMHO not wrong in the slightest. It's a matter of security not profits.
I'm failing to derive meaning from that sentence? The feeling is wrong - they're not actually feeling it?
Europe is very clearly ramping up energy alternatives to fossil fuels, for very sound reasons. They not wrong about that.
No, there isn't enough to replace fossil fuels yet; yes, it's an abrupt transition due to external events. changing that is the plan. The plan's not wrong.
But the idea that "this fossil fuels thing is not something that is going to last" and that depending on importing it in years to come, has been demonstrated to be bad idea, is IMHO not wrong in the slightest. It's a matter of security not profits.
No, it means that the thing that Europeans have been feeling - that they need to get off fossil fuels before there is enough technology to enable an all-renewable grid - appears to be wrong. There is no doubt that European governments jumped the gun here, and they are now relying on dictators to cover their energy shortfall. I'm sure that many of them relied on the US as a supplier of LNG in wartime, but they didn't count on the fact that our government would cut production too.
I'm not sure how you have constructed your argument here.
My understanding is that the European Union has had 2 options:
a) pay dictators for non-renewables, or
b) switch to renewables and not pay dictators.
It is a fact that European countries have been slow to adopt renewables, and have continued to pay dictators for access to fossil fuels. Due to the situation with Ukraine, this has now been shown to be an untenable position.
The remaining option is for West European countries to adopt renewables as rapidly as possible. This is now not (just) for moral reasons, but rather it has now become a national security imperative.
My understanding is that the European Union has had 2 options:
a) pay dictators for non-renewables, or
b) switch to renewables and not pay dictators.
It is a fact that European countries have been slow to adopt renewables, and have continued to pay dictators for access to fossil fuels. Due to the situation with Ukraine, this has now been shown to be an untenable position.
The remaining option is for West European countries to adopt renewables as rapidly as possible. This is now not (just) for moral reasons, but rather it has now become a national security imperative.
The EU had a third option: hold off decomissioning the "dirty" plants (nuclear and coal) until the renewables could actually handle the load. There are literally not enough lithium ion batteries in the world to solve renewable energy storage for the EU. The EU does not have very much domestic oil, but it does have coal, and there is enough fissile material in the EU to fuel nuclear reactors for long enough.
For most politicians, recommissioning those plants seems to be off the table. But why? Yes, it is expensive and not "green," but it will save the EU a lot of potential human suffering (and death) over the next year if they can do it. It only seems to be off the table because the politicians are unwilling to admit that they were wrong. The option you are not considering is to eat crow, turn the coal plants back on, and save lives.
Switching to renewables as fast as possible is literally not an option without the batteries, and there are not enough batteries to solve the problem. Switching to renewables too quickly is what causes the dependence on dictators, since the remaining plants are natural gas fired, which needs oil. Going "all in" on renewables in a more serious way will not improve the dependence on dictators for natural gas.
There is plenty of coal in the EU and plenty of fissile material. Turn the reliable energy sources back on.
For most politicians, recommissioning those plants seems to be off the table. But why? Yes, it is expensive and not "green," but it will save the EU a lot of potential human suffering (and death) over the next year if they can do it. It only seems to be off the table because the politicians are unwilling to admit that they were wrong. The option you are not considering is to eat crow, turn the coal plants back on, and save lives.
Switching to renewables as fast as possible is literally not an option without the batteries, and there are not enough batteries to solve the problem. Switching to renewables too quickly is what causes the dependence on dictators, since the remaining plants are natural gas fired, which needs oil. Going "all in" on renewables in a more serious way will not improve the dependence on dictators for natural gas.
There is plenty of coal in the EU and plenty of fissile material. Turn the reliable energy sources back on.
> The remaining option is for West European countries to adopt renewables as rapidly as possible.
> The EU had a third option: hold off decomissioning the "dirty" plants (nuclear and coal) until the renewables could actually handle the load.
These are the same? I'm not seeing the difference between "as rapidly as possible" and "when the renewables could actually handle the load" ? That's pretty much when it's possible, isn't it?
The rest (e.g. oil vs coal vs gas, how much exactly to try to buy from Russia) is manoeuvring and details towards that goal.
> The EU had a third option: hold off decomissioning the "dirty" plants (nuclear and coal) until the renewables could actually handle the load.
These are the same? I'm not seeing the difference between "as rapidly as possible" and "when the renewables could actually handle the load" ? That's pretty much when it's possible, isn't it?
The rest (e.g. oil vs coal vs gas, how much exactly to try to buy from Russia) is manoeuvring and details towards that goal.
* The plans to decommission nuclear power plants are looking less likely by the day, so that part we agree on.
* The EU needs to import Gas to run the gas plants. As it turns out, the EU is indirectly paying Putin to use it to blow up their own weapons supplies. Hence this needs to stop as soon as is practical.
* The EU actually needs to import Coal to run all the current coal plants it seems. Lessons Have Been Learned about the import of strategic energy supplies; so I presume that any plans leading to a long-term increase in coal imports would be a hard non-starter. Short term the EU is indeed increasing coal imports for extant plants.
The EU is stuck between a rock and a hard place here. I agree with you that the only way out will need to include very large investments in storage. I also think we both agree that batteries are not a viable solution for large-scale long-term storage, I don't think many people seriously propose them for that purpose though?
* The EU needs to import Gas to run the gas plants. As it turns out, the EU is indirectly paying Putin to use it to blow up their own weapons supplies. Hence this needs to stop as soon as is practical.
* The EU actually needs to import Coal to run all the current coal plants it seems. Lessons Have Been Learned about the import of strategic energy supplies; so I presume that any plans leading to a long-term increase in coal imports would be a hard non-starter. Short term the EU is indeed increasing coal imports for extant plants.
The EU is stuck between a rock and a hard place here. I agree with you that the only way out will need to include very large investments in storage. I also think we both agree that batteries are not a viable solution for large-scale long-term storage, I don't think many people seriously propose them for that purpose though?
> the thing that Europeans have been feeling - that they need to get off fossil fuels before there is enough technology to enable an all-renewable grid
I do not agree that this specific and silly thing about "before it's ready" is "what Europeans have been feeling". It seems like a straw man construction. ASAP means as soon as possible, not sooner.
I do not agree that this specific and silly thing about "before it's ready" is "what Europeans have been feeling". It seems like a straw man construction. ASAP means as soon as possible, not sooner.
Then build more. Where I live we have been building wind turbines like crazy for the last 10+ years, and as a result wind is most of our energy mix. Only Texas has more wind generation, and that is a much larger state. (Kansas is right behind us)
The feeling is not past tense. I don't think many people disagree with you: the current precipitous drop in fossil fuel supply in Europe happened too fast.
It wasn't exactly voluntary.
All the more reason for haste in replacing&phasing out of fossil fuels.
It's better to do it on one's own terms.
It wasn't exactly voluntary.
All the more reason for haste in replacing&phasing out of fossil fuels.
It's better to do it on one's own terms.
IDK, some of that is factual: Germany turning from nuclear was a bet that did not pay off at all. Heating in Europe in the 2022-2023 winter is indeed looking bad.
But.
Europe knows which way to go - away from fossil fuels and being beholden to petrostate dictators, and is going in that direction, faster than ever (1).
I have heard it described as a a shift "on a war footing" (2) . The next winter will be cold, for sure - even on a war footing, these things take a long time. But the idea that this cause is harmed, especially in the time frame longer than 12 months is, I think, very wrong.
A "war footing" implies not just the investment in scaling up production that is not typically seen peacetime, but also that what's at stake is more than free markets and profits. Sure the fossil fuel industry has even more money because of the circumstances; war footing implies that for once profit is not the main concern, security overrides it.
The main hope is that the lessons learned in 2022 are not forgotten quickly, that the direction of travel remains in place, instead of reverting to increasing reliance on imported hydrocarbons.
1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-war-in-uk...
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/how-t...
2) https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/russias-invas...
https://fortune.com/2022/03/09/europe-wean-1-billion-russia-...
But.
Europe knows which way to go - away from fossil fuels and being beholden to petrostate dictators, and is going in that direction, faster than ever (1).
I have heard it described as a a shift "on a war footing" (2) . The next winter will be cold, for sure - even on a war footing, these things take a long time. But the idea that this cause is harmed, especially in the time frame longer than 12 months is, I think, very wrong.
A "war footing" implies not just the investment in scaling up production that is not typically seen peacetime, but also that what's at stake is more than free markets and profits. Sure the fossil fuel industry has even more money because of the circumstances; war footing implies that for once profit is not the main concern, security overrides it.
The main hope is that the lessons learned in 2022 are not forgotten quickly, that the direction of travel remains in place, instead of reverting to increasing reliance on imported hydrocarbons.
1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-war-in-uk...
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/how-t...
2) https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/russias-invas...
https://fortune.com/2022/03/09/europe-wean-1-billion-russia-...
There will be ups and downs, but the trend is clear. Already 80% of my electric comes from wind power, and if you don't watch the local news or work for the utility you wouldn't know. It was nice to look at the wind on some very hot days and think at least my AC is all renewable powered.
What is your region ? Is it referenced on electricitymap ? I don't remember seing any US state in the green zone apart from those having lots of hydro, so I'm interested in knowing about outliers !
Des Moines iowa. The utility that serves us has a lot of wind turbines. The other utility appearently has much less as the statewide total is less than 50%. Our utility just did a press release claiming 88%.
It'd be interesting, then to know which proportion of the electricity consumed by the region corresponds to the wind energy produced in the region. Utilities will do press release, which is fair game - but if in the end their "80% wind" was a one-of, and has to be compensated by the "50% coal, 45% gas" of someone else to keep the lights on...
We have pretty much the same situation in Europe with Denmark, some parts of Spain, etc... Which still don't help with a big Germany or Poland in the middle.
Grids aren't easy !
We have pretty much the same situation in Europe with Denmark, some parts of Spain, etc... Which still don't help with a big Germany or Poland in the middle.
Grids aren't easy !
I thought it was clear I was talking about a timeframe of the next 10 years not the next 6 months. The idea that the carbon industry might start giving up the ghost in 6 months is fantasy.
But yes, war has been good for the carbon industry, both in Russia and the US, and no doubt both are keen to perpetuate this war as it gives them a new lease of life.
German nuclear plants are a blip. The amount them getting turned off get talked about is baffling, frankly, given their extreme high expense, the need to plan out decades in advance, the fact they can only do baseload and how little they actually contribute to german electricity. The current german gas crisis wouldnt be much different if the government made the decision 10 years ago to not kick off the shutdown process.
But yes, war has been good for the carbon industry, both in Russia and the US, and no doubt both are keen to perpetuate this war as it gives them a new lease of life.
German nuclear plants are a blip. The amount them getting turned off get talked about is baffling, frankly, given their extreme high expense, the need to plan out decades in advance, the fact they can only do baseload and how little they actually contribute to german electricity. The current german gas crisis wouldnt be much different if the government made the decision 10 years ago to not kick off the shutdown process.
Dictators are always going to do their thing.
2 years ago the price of oil dropped below $0. Don't believe the hype about oil policy being predictable.
2 years ago the price of oil dropped below $0. Don't believe the hype about oil policy being predictable.
The drop below zero was literally predicted by experts and even in published articles weeks before it happened. However, it occurred due to the pandemic shutdowns causing a historic demand drop, and the oil currently flowing through the system had nowhere to go.
In contrast, oil and electric markets are actually some of the most predictable markets that exists today. Renewables and the weather are actually the most unpredictable factors involved.
In contrast, oil and electric markets are actually some of the most predictable markets that exists today. Renewables and the weather are actually the most unpredictable factors involved.
I'd love to use this datum to bash people over the head about volatile markets or so.
However, the reason oil prices dropped below 0 for a short while was due to the pandemic and temporary slowdown of the economy of course. So I don't think that's indicative of long-term trends either way.
However, the reason oil prices dropped below 0 for a short while was due to the pandemic and temporary slowdown of the economy of course. So I don't think that's indicative of long-term trends either way.
I'd say NIMBYism is also a big contributor. Renewable energy farms are rarely located near population centers and convincing rural people to sell their land to generate/transport energy to urban centers is a multiyear process with single holdouts stalling projects. The alternative of invoking eminent domain is also politically unattractive.
I agree, and want to add that I feel that NIMBYism would decrease if the residents (as opposed to huge corporations) would earn the profits from those renewable energy farms. You think differently about a wind park at the horizon if you know that each rotation earns turn earns you money.
I have seen less NIMBY during the last 10 years in some areas, is this a general trend?
Farmers love wind farms on their land. Once the windmills are up they farm most of the land as before, and get a nice lease payment from the land they can't farm.
NIMBY is the town folks who have to look at them, but don't really get any benefit from them. A few farmers refuse to lease their land for wind turbines, but there are a lot more who have run the numbers and are trying to get someone to lease their land for wind turbines.
NIMBY is the town folks who have to look at them, but don't really get any benefit from them. A few farmers refuse to lease their land for wind turbines, but there are a lot more who have run the numbers and are trying to get someone to lease their land for wind turbines.
Most governments are converting coal to Methane gas ("Natural Gas"). Replacing one lobby with another.
Most governments are not deploying storage solutions that would allow continous energy supply irrespective of intermitent renewable energy generation.
Neither of the above has anything to do with NIMBYs and everything to do with spineless anemic Energy Policy.
Most governments are not deploying storage solutions that would allow continous energy supply irrespective of intermitent renewable energy generation.
Neither of the above has anything to do with NIMBYs and everything to do with spineless anemic Energy Policy.
Is it surprising that people who are looked down upon and kicked at every opportunity might not want to lower their quality of life so those who never miss a chance to broadcast their hate for rural folks can increase their standard of living even further? "Uneducated rednecks" in "flyover country" at least understand the concept of reaping what one sows.
Global warning doesn’t care about the aesthetics of your hiking trail. But, no, no, let’s catch it progress towards a sustainable planet on hold because some folks don’t like the look of solar farms.
> At press time, representatives from the world’s leading economies had signaled that they would continue to heavily rely on fossil fuels until they had something more than an overwhelming scientific consensus to go on.
Lol
Lol
> Technology isn't what's stopping us from saving the planet, greedy corporations and corrupt politicians are.
and the anti-nuclear crowd that has been brainwashed for 50 years
and the anti-nuclear crowd that has been brainwashed for 50 years
I somewhat think the obvious political decision is to embrace a bit of corruption for the greater good, and just offer the fossil fuel companies the opportunity to transition to green energy and own the next great monopoly. Or just pick new winners.
frankly dealing with a monopoly and a bit of corruption is better than dealing with the effects of climate change.
frankly dealing with a monopoly and a bit of corruption is better than dealing with the effects of climate change.
You can no more be “a bit” corrupt than you can be “a bit” pregnant.
They’d just pocket the monopoly and continue BAU. More profitable in the short term.
They’d just pocket the monopoly and continue BAU. More profitable in the short term.
We're already dealing with effects so in this case we get both. Which I guess is what the oil companies want.
I guess it's like working at Facebook and Instagram and learning what the product does to young people. The cognitive dissonance must be profound to just keep thinking that 'steady as she goes' will be a fine approach. What's even crazier is that all of the people working in Oil, and Gas, and Coal industries, they have families that will be touched by climate change. Even the wealthy won't escape (See Californian wildfires.)
Facebook: we are connecting people.
Coal industry: we are heating people's homes.
Coal industry: we are heating people's homes.
I’m on board with corruption for the greater good. Giving Joe Manchin $1 billion and a yacht would be a bargain.
People have called the Onion the world's most reliable source.
I'd modify that to 'greedy states and corporations' as the state-run socialist-style nations with excess fossil fuel reserves (Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Russia, etc.) are just as bent on exporting their fossil fuels as those that adhere to Wall Street corporate capitalism models (the USA, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, UAE, etc.).
In both cases, the problem is explainable - here's a person sitting on an oil well that brings them US$10 million per year (or equivalent), resulting in a lifestyle of relative luxury and abundance, and you say to them, shut down that oil well, use your saved resources to put up solar and wind turbines and batteries to meet your regional energy needs, and reduce your yearly income by 90% as a result, because no more exports!
Short-sighted greed is certainly a universal phenomenon, we can conclude.
In both cases, the problem is explainable - here's a person sitting on an oil well that brings them US$10 million per year (or equivalent), resulting in a lifestyle of relative luxury and abundance, and you say to them, shut down that oil well, use your saved resources to put up solar and wind turbines and batteries to meet your regional energy needs, and reduce your yearly income by 90% as a result, because no more exports!
Short-sighted greed is certainly a universal phenomenon, we can conclude.
If “green technology” was superior on it’s own terms (cheaper, more available, etc) it wouldn’t need support from politicians.
Hint: it’s not, it’s a massive failure, and stupid countries like Germany are now paying the price.
Hint: it’s not, it’s a massive failure, and stupid countries like Germany are now paying the price.
Fossil fuels have two major unaccounted-for externalized costs: pollution, and the national security risk inherent in importing fossils from unsavory regimes.
Once you account for these, renewables are far cheaper.
All the green movement is really doing is calling for better accounting standards for energy.
Once you account for these, renewables are far cheaper.
All the green movement is really doing is calling for better accounting standards for energy.
Yet Germany still depends heavily on imported Russian gas despite all of theirs green propaganda
The idea was, that gas is certainly much cleaner than oil and coal. And that some gas will be needed in the transition to 100% renewable, gas is ideal for peaker plants. It was of course completely stupid to rely to such a large extend on immported Russian gas, especially since 2014.
It is also a lot to blame the previous government for, who curbed the roll out of renewables, or otherwise germany would be much further ahead with its transition as it is. Nevertheless, producing over 50% of all electricity by renewable sources is an achievement for a large industrial nation.
It is also a lot to blame the previous government for, who curbed the roll out of renewables, or otherwise germany would be much further ahead with its transition as it is. Nevertheless, producing over 50% of all electricity by renewable sources is an achievement for a large industrial nation.
Yeah sure, because superior always wins ... not.
Just look at France on how cheap and available nuclear energy is for instance.
Germany is paying the price because politicians blocked green energy they effectively hindered the expansion of solar and wind energy.
Take Bavaria as example they don't want wind turbines and prefer nuclear energy but the don't want power lines for wind energy from north Germany or a nuclear repository. Instead their Minister President suggests fracking, not in Bavaria of course.
Just look at France on how cheap and available nuclear energy is for instance.
Germany is paying the price because politicians blocked green energy they effectively hindered the expansion of solar and wind energy.
Take Bavaria as example they don't want wind turbines and prefer nuclear energy but the don't want power lines for wind energy from north Germany or a nuclear repository. Instead their Minister President suggests fracking, not in Bavaria of course.
Nuclear is the optimal solution only in rather small niches (polar zones with long winters for example). As far as France, the drought has taken several French nuclears offline due to the high cooling water demand for nuclear reactors:
https://www.thelocal.fr/20200825/france-authorities-shut-dow...
That's on top of several major aging and maintenance issues which arose some months ago:
https://news.sky.com/story/nearly-half-of-frances-nuclear-re...
Add in the current European wide-risk of the military destruction of the largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine, and the balance sheet for nuclear relative to solar/wind/storage looks more and more negative.
https://www.thelocal.fr/20200825/france-authorities-shut-dow...
That's on top of several major aging and maintenance issues which arose some months ago:
https://news.sky.com/story/nearly-half-of-frances-nuclear-re...
Add in the current European wide-risk of the military destruction of the largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine, and the balance sheet for nuclear relative to solar/wind/storage looks more and more negative.
Polar zones with long winters away from coastlines. Near coasts, wind is really great in polar zones.
When I play with my favorite modeling site https://model.energy/ the place with the lowest cost to get to 100% renewable baseload is... Greenland!
When I play with my favorite modeling site https://model.energy/ the place with the lowest cost to get to 100% renewable baseload is... Greenland!
Oops, that's not right. The cheapest place is Antarctica.
(These assume the cost to install a wind turbine is the same everywhere, which obviously isn't right, but it does give an idea how good the wind resource is in these places.)
(These assume the cost to install a wind turbine is the same everywhere, which obviously isn't right, but it does give an idea how good the wind resource is in these places.)
The drought doesn't really have to affect nuclear power's output. This is because of environmental regulation that requires that the plant keep a river below a certain temperature. Because apparently warming a river is worse environmental impact than climate change. Furthermore, many nuclear plants are cooled by the ocean or by waste water.
Renewables require immense amounts of storage to even out intermittency. Even just building one hour of storage is 2,500 GWh globally. We'll need around 3 weeks of storage to make a completely renewable grid: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
We have no feasible way of delivering that much storage. Wind and solar are cheaper to make small reductions in a grid that is mostly fossil fuels. Their intermittency isn't an issue there because it's just opportunistically shutting down the fossil fuel plants when wind and solar are producing. But actually delivering a 0% carbon grid with intermittent sources is not just hard, it's not possible.
Renewables require immense amounts of storage to even out intermittency. Even just building one hour of storage is 2,500 GWh globally. We'll need around 3 weeks of storage to make a completely renewable grid: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
We have no feasible way of delivering that much storage. Wind and solar are cheaper to make small reductions in a grid that is mostly fossil fuels. Their intermittency isn't an issue there because it's just opportunistically shutting down the fossil fuel plants when wind and solar are producing. But actually delivering a 0% carbon grid with intermittent sources is not just hard, it's not possible.
But heating up rivers is one reason why nuclear energy isn't green.
Our problem isn't energy production, it's energy production with the least damage to our environment.
Our problem isn't energy production, it's energy production with the least damage to our environment.
In what world does heating up a river even remotely come close to the environmental impact of, say, lithium extraction? https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/the-env...
Trying to shut down nuclear because a river gets too hot is the kind of faux-environmental that's hampering out efforts to combat climate change.
Trying to shut down nuclear because a river gets too hot is the kind of faux-environmental that's hampering out efforts to combat climate change.
> If “green technology” was superior on it’s own terms (cheaper, more available, etc)
You should inform yourself before making wild claims. Fossil fuels are cheap mostly because of government subsidies.
Reminder that 6.8% of the world's entire GDP (5.9 trillion US dollars) was spent on subsidies for fossil fuels just in 2020. [0]
[0] https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidie...
You should inform yourself before making wild claims. Fossil fuels are cheap mostly because of government subsidies.
Reminder that 6.8% of the world's entire GDP (5.9 trillion US dollars) was spent on subsidies for fossil fuels just in 2020. [0]
[0] https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidie...
You should read more attentively before jumping in on a high horse.
Making statements that imply that the "cost" only boils down to "fuel cost" is essentially lying.
Calculate how much it will cost to power a city 100% with renewables for a week. Oops, you can't, cuz we don't have the technology for uninterrupted power draw from non-nuclear renewables.
Making statements that imply that the "cost" only boils down to "fuel cost" is essentially lying.
Calculate how much it will cost to power a city 100% with renewables for a week. Oops, you can't, cuz we don't have the technology for uninterrupted power draw from non-nuclear renewables.
> Making statements that imply that the "cost" only boils down to "fuel cost" is essentially lying.
And yet this is exactly how fossil fuel companies and their proponents (even individuals outside the industry, if you can believe it) justify their "lower cost". The true cost of fossil fuels is hidden due to extreme externalities such as their impact on the climate, ecology, and human health.
And yet this is exactly how fossil fuel companies and their proponents (even individuals outside the industry, if you can believe it) justify their "lower cost". The true cost of fossil fuels is hidden due to extreme externalities such as their impact on the climate, ecology, and human health.
You realize there's options besides intermittent sources and fossil fuels? Nuclear power has been around for decades. When plants are built in series, it's a lot cheaper than the one-off plants that have been built recently. The plants built in series cost about $1-2 billion per GW.
This doesn't really contradict my point (maybe it's a reply to a different comment). Letting fossil fuel proponents hand-wave or ignore or lie about externalities won't make nuclear power happen any faster.
Pointing out the deficiencies of intermittent sources isn't ignoring the externalities of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels have bad externalities to put it lightly. Intermittent sources require storage which we lack the capacity to build at anywhere near relevant scales. That leaves nuclear as the viable option.
There's also the possibility of using both nuclear and intermittent sources. But between the fact that peak demand happens when intermittent sources are at their lowest production in the evening and the fact that nuclear is just as cheap to run 100% of the time as it is to run at 50% of the time, renewables become redundant. If we're building enough nuclear power to fill in the gaps of intermittent sources' periods of non production then we're building enough nuclear power to fulfill 100% of grid demand anyway. So just skip the intermittent sources.
There's also the possibility of using both nuclear and intermittent sources. But between the fact that peak demand happens when intermittent sources are at their lowest production in the evening and the fact that nuclear is just as cheap to run 100% of the time as it is to run at 50% of the time, renewables become redundant. If we're building enough nuclear power to fill in the gaps of intermittent sources' periods of non production then we're building enough nuclear power to fulfill 100% of grid demand anyway. So just skip the intermittent sources.
> Pointing out the deficiencies of intermittent sources isn't ignoring the externalities of fossil fuels.
Oh, but it is. It is such a common trope, always trotted out as a reason to keep using coal or natural gas. Often it is paired with appeals to nuclear power which isn't being built, leaving us with fossil fuel energy while we wait for something to not happen.
> So just skip the intermittent sources.
Let's say we spend $100B on new power generation over the next 10 years: $50B for nuclear and $50B for wind+storage. Which do you think will produce more watt-hours during this 10 year period? Which will reduce dependence on fossil fuels more? We both know the answer to this so consider it rhetorical.
Arguments against renewables are arguments for the status quo, which includes some imagined ideal that won't happen.
Oh, but it is. It is such a common trope, always trotted out as a reason to keep using coal or natural gas. Often it is paired with appeals to nuclear power which isn't being built, leaving us with fossil fuel energy while we wait for something to not happen.
> So just skip the intermittent sources.
Let's say we spend $100B on new power generation over the next 10 years: $50B for nuclear and $50B for wind+storage. Which do you think will produce more watt-hours during this 10 year period? Which will reduce dependence on fossil fuels more? We both know the answer to this so consider it rhetorical.
Arguments against renewables are arguments for the status quo, which includes some imagined ideal that won't happen.
$100B on wind and solar with no storage would outperform $50B on wind and $50B on storage. But what happens when we actually try to achieve 0% carbon emissions? Once wind and solar saturate their periods of peak production they become less and less effective because more and more of their energy goes to waste. Worse yet, peak energy demand happens in the evening right after sundown, when intermittent sources are at their lowest period of production. Mitigating fossil fuel use and actually eliminating fossil fuel use are very different goals.
Solar and wind are good for the short-term goal of small fossil fuel reductions. They are not very good at actually providing the bulk of a decarbonized grid. Storage remains a fantasy, so that leaves nuclear and hydroelectricity as the only non-intermittent carbon-free sources of energy. For places with the right geography for dams, great. For everywhere else, nuclear is the only option.
There's a few other sources of energy like geothermal and tidal power, but those are similarly geographically limited.
Solar and wind are good for the short-term goal of small fossil fuel reductions. They are not very good at actually providing the bulk of a decarbonized grid. Storage remains a fantasy, so that leaves nuclear and hydroelectricity as the only non-intermittent carbon-free sources of energy. For places with the right geography for dams, great. For everywhere else, nuclear is the only option.
There's a few other sources of energy like geothermal and tidal power, but those are similarly geographically limited.
For quite some time, some pioneers found a use for Renewables and improved efficiency. The ROI was (marginally) viable to them. Over time technology got cheaper/more efficient (gradual improvements to ROI), and slowly more and more people started to adopt renewables, better insulation, heat pumps, etc.
Recently, energy prices in Europe have (roughly) doubled [1].
And suddenly -by comparison- that same ROI starts to look very interesting to a lot more people.
[1] (YMMV, check your local energy spot prices for actual numbers)
Recently, energy prices in Europe have (roughly) doubled [1].
And suddenly -by comparison- that same ROI starts to look very interesting to a lot more people.
[1] (YMMV, check your local energy spot prices for actual numbers)
This.
Heat pumps and solar everywhere!
And as the summers get hotter, everyone wants solar + aircon. It's crazy!
Heat pumps and solar everywhere!
And as the summers get hotter, everyone wants solar + aircon. It's crazy!
Just for the data point. Around here (southern Sweden) energy prices for the coming winter may very well be close eight times higher than normal.
The demand for new heat pumps is very high at the moment
The demand for new heat pumps is very high at the moment
Yeah, "green technology" isn't more profitable if corporations don't have to deal with the consequences of non-green energy production. Everyone knows that.
Some people are also interested in not destroying the environment they live in, though. They are interested in acting as a global society to stop destroying the planet.
To that end, they want to pass laws that force corporations to clean up the messes they make and include the cost of that in their energy production. If they had to pay for the mess they make, it might very well make "green" energy more profitable and also help our environment. At the very least, they'd have to stop destroying the environment.
Some people are also interested in not destroying the environment they live in, though. They are interested in acting as a global society to stop destroying the planet.
To that end, they want to pass laws that force corporations to clean up the messes they make and include the cost of that in their energy production. If they had to pay for the mess they make, it might very well make "green" energy more profitable and also help our environment. At the very least, they'd have to stop destroying the environment.
If X inferior to Y but X is supported by politics to a degree that Y is being slowed down and prevented, then Y still needs political support, even if superior in objective terms.
It blows my mind that the very same people who can't seem to talk about anything but growing the economy don't see the incredible opportunity to grow the economy that building tons of new green tech represents. Like, completely replacing the world's energy infrastructure is more jobs (and money) than all the defense projects and military tech we could ever think up, combined.
It's almost like it was never about the economy, but just about keeping the existing set of corporations raking in the profits and protecting them from disruption.
It's almost like it was never about the economy, but just about keeping the existing set of corporations raking in the profits and protecting them from disruption.
Yes, historically, all major economic booms coincide with some dramatic evolution in the use of energy. If you stop thinking about renewables as some hippy pipe dream and start thinking about them as a roughly two orders of magnitude drop in cost for energy, it's immediately obvious that this is going to kick off another such boom and that it will happen a lot faster than some people expect precisely because of that drop in price.
Initially, not a lot of people believed this and it was kind of expensive to e.g. put solar on your roof and even make the argument that it was at all economical to do so. That changed a few years ago and people around the world are doing the math and coming to the conclusion that these systems pay for themselves in well under half their supposed life time. Ever since that became obvious, there is a lot of demand for solar panels. Companies building more or better panels are popping up everywhere. There's a lot of innovation happening. And the net result is better, cheaper, technology produced at a rapidly expanding scale. We have already hit the point that even the subsidies and incentives that are available for this are not technically needed any more.
IMHO, learning effects, and ongoing research will cause cost to drop much further still. We have nowhere near reached the point of what is technically feasible here at all. What happens when you drop the cost of energy by about 100x in a few decades or so? An economic boom is what happens. Things that used to be prohibitively expensive now become cheap to do. And people start doing these things as quickly as they can.
You might think 100x is an exaggeration. But actually, we've already experienced that with solar in the past 20 years. Price parity was reached more than 5 years ago. I'm actually talking about another 100x improvement So four orders of magnitude in total. About 2 orders relative to fossil fuel powered energy, which is a fair benchmark because that's what we are trying to get rid off. At some point renewables are going to be so obviously cheaper that they start pushing out anything more expensive out of the market. The cheaper things get, the faster that happens. The more it happens, the faster learning effects, R&D, etc. will happen. That massive acceleration is basically what is causing people to move targets.
Initially, not a lot of people believed this and it was kind of expensive to e.g. put solar on your roof and even make the argument that it was at all economical to do so. That changed a few years ago and people around the world are doing the math and coming to the conclusion that these systems pay for themselves in well under half their supposed life time. Ever since that became obvious, there is a lot of demand for solar panels. Companies building more or better panels are popping up everywhere. There's a lot of innovation happening. And the net result is better, cheaper, technology produced at a rapidly expanding scale. We have already hit the point that even the subsidies and incentives that are available for this are not technically needed any more.
IMHO, learning effects, and ongoing research will cause cost to drop much further still. We have nowhere near reached the point of what is technically feasible here at all. What happens when you drop the cost of energy by about 100x in a few decades or so? An economic boom is what happens. Things that used to be prohibitively expensive now become cheap to do. And people start doing these things as quickly as they can.
You might think 100x is an exaggeration. But actually, we've already experienced that with solar in the past 20 years. Price parity was reached more than 5 years ago. I'm actually talking about another 100x improvement So four orders of magnitude in total. About 2 orders relative to fossil fuel powered energy, which is a fair benchmark because that's what we are trying to get rid off. At some point renewables are going to be so obviously cheaper that they start pushing out anything more expensive out of the market. The cheaper things get, the faster that happens. The more it happens, the faster learning effects, R&D, etc. will happen. That massive acceleration is basically what is causing people to move targets.
This gives me hope. It also makes me increasingly annoyed at the political forces that have stood in the way for the past few decades. It would merely be an annoying roadblock in a technological fantasy if it weren't the case that fossil fuels are totally fucking up the planet, and they fucking know that.
My comment isn't related specifically to going green, but replacing infrastructure that works perfectly well just for jobs is basically the broken window fallacy in economics.
Repaving the highway every six months would "create" lots of jobs too.
Repaving the highway every six months would "create" lots of jobs too.
Yes, except the broken window fallacy doesn't quite work here for a few reasons:
First, the current technology is already breaking. It needs to be updated and maintained. So why not invest the same money in the newer tech.
Two, the current technology is way better. We will be able to get more bang for our buck with the newer technologies AND they have the benefit of not poisoning our sky.
First, the current technology is already breaking. It needs to be updated and maintained. So why not invest the same money in the newer tech.
Two, the current technology is way better. We will be able to get more bang for our buck with the newer technologies AND they have the benefit of not poisoning our sky.
I was replying more to the original claim that people should support this because it creates jobs. In general I support green energy anyway.
Really glad to see this discussion! My former advisor, Mark Jacobson, is one of the authors of the paper cited in the article. His book "100% Clean, Renewable Energy and Storage for Everything" [1] is a good starting point for folks with a more technical background. I recently started working on my own version [2] for young people and beginners that uses code as a medium to explore these ideas.
Perhaps more directly relevant for the HN crowd, Tom Greenwood's book "Sustainable Web Design" [3] provides simple strategies for reducing the climate impacts of the software systems we build.
[1] https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/WWSBook/WWSBook...
[2] https://goodenergy.cc
[3] https://abookapart.com/products/sustainable-web-design/
Perhaps more directly relevant for the HN crowd, Tom Greenwood's book "Sustainable Web Design" [3] provides simple strategies for reducing the climate impacts of the software systems we build.
[1] https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/WWSBook/WWSBook...
[2] https://goodenergy.cc
[3] https://abookapart.com/products/sustainable-web-design/
Hi, are there Jacobson papers for 100% renewables looking at geographical distribution of generation, storage and interconnectors, then modelling them against weather and demand, or are they cruder than that? If those papers exist, can you recommend an accessible way to understand these models, and their outcomes? For instance, are there areas for wind generation which are more valuable that others, to provide a balance to regional lulls, and is that data published?
Is model code available so that it can be run by any of us?
Is model code available so that it can be run by any of us?
Great question! The studies do consider the spatio-temporal distribution of generation and demand. Here's a recent paper [1] that develops roadmaps for 145 countries and has infographics with links to additional resources.
I found the source code for the LOADMATCH model [2] used in the studies which can run on a laptop. You can email Mark about data, source code for the GATOR-GCMOM model [3], and advice on running it.
And here's a talk [4] he gave on the topic at NASA Ames Research Center a few years back.
[1] https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/WWS-...
[2] https://github.com/mzjacobson/Public/blob/main/powerworld.f
[3] https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/GATOR/GATOR-GCM...
[4] https://youtu.be/espLfnvuYps
I found the source code for the LOADMATCH model [2] used in the studies which can run on a laptop. You can email Mark about data, source code for the GATOR-GCMOM model [3], and advice on running it.
And here's a talk [4] he gave on the topic at NASA Ames Research Center a few years back.
[1] https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/WWS-...
[2] https://github.com/mzjacobson/Public/blob/main/powerworld.f
[3] https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/GATOR/GATOR-GCM...
[4] https://youtu.be/espLfnvuYps
I read these titles and always facepalm and laugh.
If you remove researchers who have differing opinions *of course* you’ll get the claims you want. Particularly, when those researchers are funded in a way that incentivizes particular claims.
Now to these easily debunked claims, look at energy production vs capacity vs consumption in Germany:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany
Even though renewable energy capacity is 60% renewables, energy consumption is only 10% renewables.
This is every country. Because renewable energy comes in bursts. This also doesn’t include the fact it costs a ton of fossil fuel energy to produce a lot of these renewable systems (solar, wind turbines, batteries).
I’m not saying this isn’t a “doable” goal, but only way you might get there by 2050 is destroying quality of life, population reduction and investing all resources into this space. You’d also have to force countries like China and Russia with force… so good luck.
If you remove researchers who have differing opinions *of course* you’ll get the claims you want. Particularly, when those researchers are funded in a way that incentivizes particular claims.
Now to these easily debunked claims, look at energy production vs capacity vs consumption in Germany:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany
Even though renewable energy capacity is 60% renewables, energy consumption is only 10% renewables.
This is every country. Because renewable energy comes in bursts. This also doesn’t include the fact it costs a ton of fossil fuel energy to produce a lot of these renewable systems (solar, wind turbines, batteries).
I’m not saying this isn’t a “doable” goal, but only way you might get there by 2050 is destroying quality of life, population reduction and investing all resources into this space. You’d also have to force countries like China and Russia with force… so good luck.
You are wrong in several points.
First of all, if we switch from burning fossil fuels to electricity for providing most uses of energy, energy consumption falls by 2/3rds. Heat pumps are easily more than 4x as effective per unit of energy used than burning fossil fuels. Similar numbers for electric cars and many other usages. So we are litterally looking at a moving goal post :)
Renewable energy also doesn't come in "bursts". Yes, the maximum available production varies over time, for that we need to compensate. By storage, by grids, by having more flexible loads (for many decades providers worked hard to make loads non-flexible to make their jobs easier, now it is the other way around). And of course, some amount of power2gas will provide us with perfectly renewable gas which can be easily stored for whenever it is needed - we only want to limit that because it uses more power than using the electricity directly.
And no, to get there we are not "destroying quality of life". There is no idication it would even compared to our current quality of life. Quite the contrary, as cheap, clean energy will improve quality of life. You are also missing, that our quality of life isn't given. It currently is constantly reduced by the effects of climate change we are already experiencing. Europe is going through a catastrophic hot and dry summer. With ironically energy shortages as the water cooling for nuclear power plants is failing.
Just being able to maintain todays quality of life would be quite an accomplishment, which can only be achieved by cutting CO2 emissions very quickly, if at all.
Renewable energy also doesn't come in "bursts". Yes, the maximum available production varies over time, for that we need to compensate. By storage, by grids, by having more flexible loads (for many decades providers worked hard to make loads non-flexible to make their jobs easier, now it is the other way around). And of course, some amount of power2gas will provide us with perfectly renewable gas which can be easily stored for whenever it is needed - we only want to limit that because it uses more power than using the electricity directly.
And no, to get there we are not "destroying quality of life". There is no idication it would even compared to our current quality of life. Quite the contrary, as cheap, clean energy will improve quality of life. You are also missing, that our quality of life isn't given. It currently is constantly reduced by the effects of climate change we are already experiencing. Europe is going through a catastrophic hot and dry summer. With ironically energy shortages as the water cooling for nuclear power plants is failing.
Just being able to maintain todays quality of life would be quite an accomplishment, which can only be achieved by cutting CO2 emissions very quickly, if at all.
I don't think anyone is arguing whether or not they are more efficient. Yet, in practice:
>Heat pumps
Most governments seem awfully eager on pushing the costs onto individuals. With big inflations and a breakeven point anywhere between 5 and 20 years case-by-case, that's a hard sell for individuals and causes no end of political pressure. In practice, a lot of people are not eager to move to heat pumps in older houses, while (re)building is still severely hampered.
>Similar numbers for electric cars and many other usages.
Same as above. Electric car subsidies are incredibly limited, used electric cars still have to flow to the market at a rate they become affordable for the less fortunate. At the same time, there's not a whole lot being done about the short duration of generations which is part of what causes environmental issues (goes for everything, not just cars). Of course, combatting that means products have to become more expensive to keep the current cashflow alive, something most stakeholders aren't willing to bet on. Alternatives are cheaper public transit (which would beat out EV altogether, especially if the used vehicles become electric themselves), but again, governments don't seem too eager to invest into it beyond some token experiments.
And you can say this for anything. We already have solutions. We have tons of solutions, some for individuals, some for entire communities, some for the rich, etc. We're just not implementing them or trying to implement them without hurting the status quo (or pushing the pain onto specific groups). Which makes everything just not work in practice and we're waiting for the theory to magically solve our disputes, instead of adapting to the theory.
Case in point: remote work. If the environment was our biggest concern, remote work wouldn't be a discussion.
>Heat pumps
Most governments seem awfully eager on pushing the costs onto individuals. With big inflations and a breakeven point anywhere between 5 and 20 years case-by-case, that's a hard sell for individuals and causes no end of political pressure. In practice, a lot of people are not eager to move to heat pumps in older houses, while (re)building is still severely hampered.
>Similar numbers for electric cars and many other usages.
Same as above. Electric car subsidies are incredibly limited, used electric cars still have to flow to the market at a rate they become affordable for the less fortunate. At the same time, there's not a whole lot being done about the short duration of generations which is part of what causes environmental issues (goes for everything, not just cars). Of course, combatting that means products have to become more expensive to keep the current cashflow alive, something most stakeholders aren't willing to bet on. Alternatives are cheaper public transit (which would beat out EV altogether, especially if the used vehicles become electric themselves), but again, governments don't seem too eager to invest into it beyond some token experiments.
And you can say this for anything. We already have solutions. We have tons of solutions, some for individuals, some for entire communities, some for the rich, etc. We're just not implementing them or trying to implement them without hurting the status quo (or pushing the pain onto specific groups). Which makes everything just not work in practice and we're waiting for the theory to magically solve our disputes, instead of adapting to the theory.
Case in point: remote work. If the environment was our biggest concern, remote work wouldn't be a discussion.
> Case in point: remote work. If the environment was our biggest concern, remote work wouldn't be a discussion.
You'd think so, but the evidence is less than clear with some pre-corona studies suggesting WFH resulting in more emissions: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13762-014-0556-5
And some people involved in the transit space think that corona didn't change that: https://twitter.com/alon_levy/status/1538697382958968834
The basic gist is, the best way to reduce carbon emissions from transport is to drive less. This is most easily accomplished by being poor/expensive fuel (slightly unpopular) or living somewhere central with short distances and good alternatives (like walking, biking or transit). People switching to remote work tend to move out of dense locations, increasing the distance they need to drive for non-work activities and to the time they do drive for work.
You'd think so, but the evidence is less than clear with some pre-corona studies suggesting WFH resulting in more emissions: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13762-014-0556-5
And some people involved in the transit space think that corona didn't change that: https://twitter.com/alon_levy/status/1538697382958968834
The basic gist is, the best way to reduce carbon emissions from transport is to drive less. This is most easily accomplished by being poor/expensive fuel (slightly unpopular) or living somewhere central with short distances and good alternatives (like walking, biking or transit). People switching to remote work tend to move out of dense locations, increasing the distance they need to drive for non-work activities and to the time they do drive for work.
I am not sure about the point you are trying to make. Yes, politics makes a lot of mistakes and those deserve to be critisized. And the efficiency point I made was about countering the previous posters numbers - which were plain wrong.
And of course the end user pays the costs. But if heat pumps are cheaper over the life time than gas, they are cheaper. And they were already pre-war and now are drastically so. By the way there are huge subsidies for heat-pumps in Germany, the state really helped there.
Not sure how remote work fits into the discussion about which are our energy sources. Obviously, we should also try to not waste energy - at least until we have a surplus of renewables. Doing more remote work can certainly help with that. Less traffic would be beneficial beyond carbon emissions. Remote work is one thing we should do more, but it isn't applicable in all case and only a part of the solution.
And of course the end user pays the costs. But if heat pumps are cheaper over the life time than gas, they are cheaper. And they were already pre-war and now are drastically so. By the way there are huge subsidies for heat-pumps in Germany, the state really helped there.
Not sure how remote work fits into the discussion about which are our energy sources. Obviously, we should also try to not waste energy - at least until we have a surplus of renewables. Doing more remote work can certainly help with that. Less traffic would be beneficial beyond carbon emissions. Remote work is one thing we should do more, but it isn't applicable in all case and only a part of the solution.
> With ironically energy shortages as the water cooling for nuclear power plants is failing.
lol what? No, energy shortages are occurring because of government rationing of fossil fuels.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/20/europe-to-ask-countries-to-r...
I can debate the other points, but the fact remains — 12 years into Germany “going green” and hundreds of billions of dollars and all they can show for it is… drum roll… 10% of their energy consumption and they’re currently rationing energy.
lol what? No, energy shortages are occurring because of government rationing of fossil fuels.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/20/europe-to-ask-countries-to-r...
I can debate the other points, but the fact remains — 12 years into Germany “going green” and hundreds of billions of dollars and all they can show for it is… drum roll… 10% of their energy consumption and they’re currently rationing energy.
We have energy shortage right now, because a lot of nuclear power plants, especially the French, are powered down for lack of heating. This is why Germany has so far produced an extra 20TWh hours of electricity this year, also compensating for the nuclear power plants down for maintenance.
There is no shortage of electricity in Germany and energy is not rationed.
However, due to the need of filling gas stores till the winter, the government strongly campaigns on saving energy, especially any use of gas. There might be rationing of gas, if Germany fails to refill the gas storage (they are at over 70% right now) and if Russia cuts its delivery entirely. That doesn't mean there is a shortage of electricity.
There is no shortage of electricity in Germany and energy is not rationed.
However, due to the need of filling gas stores till the winter, the government strongly campaigns on saving energy, especially any use of gas. There might be rationing of gas, if Germany fails to refill the gas storage (they are at over 70% right now) and if Russia cuts its delivery entirely. That doesn't mean there is a shortage of electricity.
In case the GP is unaware of the magnitude of the problem, this article says that already in April exactly half (28) of French nuclear plants were offline for maintenance. Likely the situation hasn't improved with the summer heat wave, since the plants all need water cooling.
https://news.sky.com/story/nearly-half-of-frances-nuclear-re...
https://news.sky.com/story/nearly-half-of-frances-nuclear-re...
A lot of plants had to be reduced in power output and are running only because of special allowances to heat the river water hotter than normally allowed. Meanwhile rivers like the Rhine and the Loire are at record low levels, in many places you can walk large parts of the river bed leaving only a narrow par where there is water. Shipping on the Rhine might have to be stopped in a week or so.
The government is advising against walking in the river beds, as people might step on WW2 ammunition which had not exploded.
The government is advising against walking in the river beds, as people might step on WW2 ammunition which had not exploded.
Germany gas consumption is 90 per year. Storage capacity is 24. It seems that some people think that full storage is what they need to survive the winter. That's not entirely correct. Storage is required to smooth short-time issues. You still need enough supply even with full storage to survive the winter.
That is correct. But having the storage filled to the maximum is the best we can do in preparation because... we can't fit more than 100% into the storage :)
That is the one preparation goal, to enter storage at maximum levels.
In parallel, all options for other sources are evaluated. Towards the end of the year, a temporary LNG terminal in Wilhelmshaven should become operational and contribute to the gas imports. Furthermore, there will be gas imports via other European countries. Norway and the Netherlands are producers themselves. France also has pledged some support as they are currently quite depending on German electricity.
There is also some reason to assume Russia isn't completely stopping gas delivery to Germany. They need the money, the don't want to damage their own infrastructure, which could be the result of stopping gas export entirely for a longer time span. Finally, if they stop gas export entirely, it is unlikely that Germany ever would consider buying Russian gas again.
There is also some reason to assume Russia isn't completely stopping gas delivery to Germany. They need the money, the don't want to damage their own infrastructure, which could be the result of stopping gas export entirely for a longer time span. Finally, if they stop gas export entirely, it is unlikely that Germany ever would consider buying Russian gas again.
IMO Russia wants to force Germany to open north stream 2. It would look like a political win for Putin.
Yes, that is definitely one goal of his, as well as in general to find out, how much Germany would yield under his pressure. So far Germany hasn't, quite contrary, the population in larger parts is in favor of delivering weapons to Ukraine as well as rearming the Bundeswehr.
He really should be considerate whether he wants to cut off Germany from gas supplies.
He really should be considerate whether he wants to cut off Germany from gas supplies.
> Even though renewable energy capacity is 60% renewables, energy consumption is only 10% renewables.
You make a lot of unsubstantiated, untrue and misleading claims, but just to drill into this one for people who haven't seen this classic dodge before:
"Primary Energy Consumption" measures all the energy in fossil fuels. About 2/3 of that energy is lost as waste heat when generating electricity which isn't actually useful for "quality of life" but people love quoting it to make renewables seem ridiculous.
When in fact, it's one of the main reasons they're a good idea and we should Electrify Everything:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262545044/
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-substitution-method
You make a lot of unsubstantiated, untrue and misleading claims, but just to drill into this one for people who haven't seen this classic dodge before:
"Primary Energy Consumption" measures all the energy in fossil fuels. About 2/3 of that energy is lost as waste heat when generating electricity which isn't actually useful for "quality of life" but people love quoting it to make renewables seem ridiculous.
When in fact, it's one of the main reasons they're a good idea and we should Electrify Everything:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262545044/
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-substitution-method
Renewable energy doesnt come in bursts: Wind across big areas (e.g. Europe), biogas, running water, geothermal power, osmotic power, etc.
I don't know where you are taking renewable energy capacity from and what are you trying to say. Same goes for producing wind turbines, which actually doesn't require fossil fuel at all.
> I’m not saying this isn’t a “doable” goal, but only way you might get there by 2050 is destroying quality of life, population reduction and investing all resources into this space.
You couldn't make less baseless comments
I don't know where you are taking renewable energy capacity from and what are you trying to say. Same goes for producing wind turbines, which actually doesn't require fossil fuel at all.
> I’m not saying this isn’t a “doable” goal, but only way you might get there by 2050 is destroying quality of life, population reduction and investing all resources into this space.
You couldn't make less baseless comments
Wind absolutely does come in bursts. Peak production is as much as 4x as much as trough production. There's also hourly variation: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2015.02.25/main.png
Think bigger: Entire continent
This is way harder than you think it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OpM_zKGE4o
Entire world vs entire continent (already partly reality in Europe)
The lines are just a few hundred kilometers in that video. If your plan is to even out the intermittency of wind and solar with long distance transmission, then you'll need lines that are thousand and tens of thousands of kilometers long. Europe has an interconnected grid, but most of it is in AC lines that have unacceptably larger transmission losses.
> Even though renewable energy capacity is 60% renewables, energy consumption is only 10% renewables. This is every country. Because renewable energy comes in bursts.
Any engineer could have told you that switching to renewables requires grid expansion and ideally energy storage with renewable overcapacity generation. The more grid expansion, the less storage you'll probably need and vice versa. Germany is just another case of politicians not listening to experts.
Any engineer could have told you that switching to renewables requires grid expansion and ideally energy storage with renewable overcapacity generation. The more grid expansion, the less storage you'll probably need and vice versa. Germany is just another case of politicians not listening to experts.
> Germany is just another case of politicians not listening to experts.
The politicians pay the “expert”. So unfortunately, I think you’re mistaken. This was my primary point, you get what you pay for.
I totally agree any engineer or frankly anyone with baseline competency and a minor amount of research would come away with the same conclusions. The challenge is these “experts” have every incentive to push the political agenda. Further, they’ll ban anyone who disagrees. How many “global warming deniers” (99% of whom just believe humans aren’t the primary cause) are banned from discussion? All of them. They are all ridiculed, banned, and many can’t get grants or publish.
Th challenge is even with storage capacity (even a hell of a lot of it), you’re still going to get issues on the edges. For instance, if a volcano erupts and blacks out a region relying on solar… you’re out of luck.
The politicians pay the “expert”. So unfortunately, I think you’re mistaken. This was my primary point, you get what you pay for.
I totally agree any engineer or frankly anyone with baseline competency and a minor amount of research would come away with the same conclusions. The challenge is these “experts” have every incentive to push the political agenda. Further, they’ll ban anyone who disagrees. How many “global warming deniers” (99% of whom just believe humans aren’t the primary cause) are banned from discussion? All of them. They are all ridiculed, banned, and many can’t get grants or publish.
Th challenge is even with storage capacity (even a hell of a lot of it), you’re still going to get issues on the edges. For instance, if a volcano erupts and blacks out a region relying on solar… you’re out of luck.
> How many “global warming deniers” (99% of whom just believe humans aren’t the primary cause) are banned from discussion? All of them.
You only have so much time for nonsense. There's no question that humans are driving climate change at this point. Might as well ask why we don't accept papers arguing for flat Earth.
> For instance, if a volcano erupts and blacks out a region relying on solar… you’re out of luck.
What happens if your primary natural gas supplier starts a war and you have to sanction them? As you can see this is not a problem with renewables so much as with single points of failure. Volcanic eruptions don't stop wind power, or tidal power, or geothermal power, or nuclear power.
You only have so much time for nonsense. There's no question that humans are driving climate change at this point. Might as well ask why we don't accept papers arguing for flat Earth.
> For instance, if a volcano erupts and blacks out a region relying on solar… you’re out of luck.
What happens if your primary natural gas supplier starts a war and you have to sanction them? As you can see this is not a problem with renewables so much as with single points of failure. Volcanic eruptions don't stop wind power, or tidal power, or geothermal power, or nuclear power.
> How many “global warming deniers” (99% of whom just believe humans aren’t the primary cause) are banned from discussion?
First of all, it doesn't matter if humans are the primary cause. Any negative consequences of climate change affect us exactly the same way regardless of the cause. We are in fact much worse off if humans aren't the primary cause, because it would mean simply reducing human emissions would not be enough. We would need to do things to actively reduce greenhouse gas levels from non-human sources too.
Second, humans are in fact the primary cause. We know this because (1) we know what role greenhouse gases play in warming, and (2) we know that the rapid increase in greenhouse gases over industrial times is due to human activity.
We know the role of greenhouse gases because we can measure incoming and outgoing radiation at the surface, at various levels of the atmosphere, and in space. We can measure temperatures at those places too. We can literally see incoming radiation heating the surface, being reemitted as infrared, and getting blocked from leaving by gases in the atmosphere. We can measure the spectrum of the radiation at various levels to find out how much is getting absorbed where, and we can look at the absorption spectrum of the various gases there to see which ones are responsible.
We know humans are responsible because we can look at the gases involved and check the isotope ratios of the carbon in those gases. Carbon from living or recently living sources has a different isotope ratio than does carbon that has never been involved with life or has not been involved with life for a very long time. This is because cosmic rays hitting the upper atmosphere convert nitrogen into C14 which gets distributed throughout the atmosphere, and gets included in living things, and gets put back into the atmosphere when living things that breath exhale or when they die and decay unless the die someplace where they won't be eaten or used as fertilizer by some other living thing.
Carbon that is not involved with living things has its C14 decay (half life 5730 years). By looking at the fraction of the atmospheric carbon that is C14 we can determine how much of the carbon came from ancient sources. There are geological sources that put ancient carbon into circulation, mainly outgassing from mid-ocean ridges and volcanoes, which do put a lot of carbon into the atmosphere. But their activity has not changed much in industrial times. There is a human source that puts ancient carbon into the atmosphere: burning fossil fuels. That has changed massively over industrial times and correlates nearly perfectly with the increases in ancient carbon in the atmosphere. Hence we can include that the greenhouse gases that are driving climate change in fact come from human activity, specifically burning fossil fuels.
First of all, it doesn't matter if humans are the primary cause. Any negative consequences of climate change affect us exactly the same way regardless of the cause. We are in fact much worse off if humans aren't the primary cause, because it would mean simply reducing human emissions would not be enough. We would need to do things to actively reduce greenhouse gas levels from non-human sources too.
Second, humans are in fact the primary cause. We know this because (1) we know what role greenhouse gases play in warming, and (2) we know that the rapid increase in greenhouse gases over industrial times is due to human activity.
We know the role of greenhouse gases because we can measure incoming and outgoing radiation at the surface, at various levels of the atmosphere, and in space. We can measure temperatures at those places too. We can literally see incoming radiation heating the surface, being reemitted as infrared, and getting blocked from leaving by gases in the atmosphere. We can measure the spectrum of the radiation at various levels to find out how much is getting absorbed where, and we can look at the absorption spectrum of the various gases there to see which ones are responsible.
We know humans are responsible because we can look at the gases involved and check the isotope ratios of the carbon in those gases. Carbon from living or recently living sources has a different isotope ratio than does carbon that has never been involved with life or has not been involved with life for a very long time. This is because cosmic rays hitting the upper atmosphere convert nitrogen into C14 which gets distributed throughout the atmosphere, and gets included in living things, and gets put back into the atmosphere when living things that breath exhale or when they die and decay unless the die someplace where they won't be eaten or used as fertilizer by some other living thing.
Carbon that is not involved with living things has its C14 decay (half life 5730 years). By looking at the fraction of the atmospheric carbon that is C14 we can determine how much of the carbon came from ancient sources. There are geological sources that put ancient carbon into circulation, mainly outgassing from mid-ocean ridges and volcanoes, which do put a lot of carbon into the atmosphere. But their activity has not changed much in industrial times. There is a human source that puts ancient carbon into the atmosphere: burning fossil fuels. That has changed massively over industrial times and correlates nearly perfectly with the increases in ancient carbon in the atmosphere. Hence we can include that the greenhouse gases that are driving climate change in fact come from human activity, specifically burning fossil fuels.
> We are in fact much worse off if humans aren't the primary cause, because it would mean simply reducing human emissions would not be enough.
Enough for what? I'm not convinced the climate changing is a bad thing. Nor have I seen evidence it in fact is changing at any alarming rate (and I worked in this space for a while).
Increasing the temperatures and increases in carbon mean more food and more habitable land. "Global warming" is the best thing that has ever happened to humanity. The world has been warming for around 20,000 years and even if we take the argument "global warming" is bad at face value... Supposedly, there is no evidence we caused global warming until the industrial revolution -- right?
Recall history class, when the North American continent was covered in a sheet of ice. Recall history class, when you learned the largest dessert in the world was a green oasis until the last few thousand years.
> We know humans are responsible because we can look at the gases involved and check the isotope ratios of the carbon in those gases. Carbon from living or recently living sources has a different isotope ratio than does carbon that has never been involved with life or has not been involved with life for a very long time. This is because cosmic rays hitting the upper atmosphere convert nitrogen into C14 which gets distributed throughout the atmosphere, and gets included in living things, and gets put back into the atmosphere when living things that breath exhale or when they die and decay unless the die someplace where they won't be eaten or used as fertilizer by some other living thing.
Oh boy... C14 comes from nuclear reactions and atmospheric production. If we get hit with a solar storm you're going to see an increase in C14. You'll also see a spike after nuclear testing. I see what you're saying regarding the idea that we can see how much carbon came from ancient sources, but IMO that is pseudo-science. The baselines simply aren't there.
Which brings me to my next point, you say a very authoritative statement "Second, humans are in fact the primary cause." --
Again to my parent comment, politicians are using this "science" to hammer home their political agenda. They aren't funding contrarian research and if you share an alternative, research backed view, you wont get published. It'll be blocked by the editors of the journal (who happen to also be publishing research on how climate change is dire & are often political ideologues).
Having read a LOT of these "research papers" and having worked on climate models. I can tell you, at least I am highly unconvinced. Often these papers will cherry pick their results that they want. In simulations they'll modify their variables and make assumptions. If you read the papers you can see these curves that look too perfect for their theories. Then in a decade or two they don't pan out. The reality is "science" is hard. Anything said with certainty is almost certainly an opinion or belief.
You want to know how I know the authoritative statement "Second, humans are in fact the primary cause." is unknowable? Because we only have ~100 years of measured data. We have statistical reasons to believe certain things (like temperatures in particular regions), but we don't have proof. It is conjecture. It could be right, it could be wrong. Frankly, I don't know. I also know no one else actually can prove their correct -- so all theories should be on the table.
Enough for what? I'm not convinced the climate changing is a bad thing. Nor have I seen evidence it in fact is changing at any alarming rate (and I worked in this space for a while).
Increasing the temperatures and increases in carbon mean more food and more habitable land. "Global warming" is the best thing that has ever happened to humanity. The world has been warming for around 20,000 years and even if we take the argument "global warming" is bad at face value... Supposedly, there is no evidence we caused global warming until the industrial revolution -- right?
Recall history class, when the North American continent was covered in a sheet of ice. Recall history class, when you learned the largest dessert in the world was a green oasis until the last few thousand years.
> We know humans are responsible because we can look at the gases involved and check the isotope ratios of the carbon in those gases. Carbon from living or recently living sources has a different isotope ratio than does carbon that has never been involved with life or has not been involved with life for a very long time. This is because cosmic rays hitting the upper atmosphere convert nitrogen into C14 which gets distributed throughout the atmosphere, and gets included in living things, and gets put back into the atmosphere when living things that breath exhale or when they die and decay unless the die someplace where they won't be eaten or used as fertilizer by some other living thing.
Oh boy... C14 comes from nuclear reactions and atmospheric production. If we get hit with a solar storm you're going to see an increase in C14. You'll also see a spike after nuclear testing. I see what you're saying regarding the idea that we can see how much carbon came from ancient sources, but IMO that is pseudo-science. The baselines simply aren't there.
Which brings me to my next point, you say a very authoritative statement "Second, humans are in fact the primary cause." --
Again to my parent comment, politicians are using this "science" to hammer home their political agenda. They aren't funding contrarian research and if you share an alternative, research backed view, you wont get published. It'll be blocked by the editors of the journal (who happen to also be publishing research on how climate change is dire & are often political ideologues).
Having read a LOT of these "research papers" and having worked on climate models. I can tell you, at least I am highly unconvinced. Often these papers will cherry pick their results that they want. In simulations they'll modify their variables and make assumptions. If you read the papers you can see these curves that look too perfect for their theories. Then in a decade or two they don't pan out. The reality is "science" is hard. Anything said with certainty is almost certainly an opinion or belief.
You want to know how I know the authoritative statement "Second, humans are in fact the primary cause." is unknowable? Because we only have ~100 years of measured data. We have statistical reasons to believe certain things (like temperatures in particular regions), but we don't have proof. It is conjecture. It could be right, it could be wrong. Frankly, I don't know. I also know no one else actually can prove their correct -- so all theories should be on the table.
C14 from solar storms and nuclear testing can be taken into account. If for some reason it was not taken into account when someone was using isotope ratios to determine how much of the atmospheric carbon is from ancient sources, or if there was some other C14 source that was missed, the result would be that the calculated amount of ancient atmospheric carbon would come out lower than the correct amount.
As for having only ~100 years of measured data, around 70% of the increase in atmospheric CO2 in the last several hundred years has taken place in the last 60 years. We have much more than enough measured data to say that nearly all of that increase in the last 60 years is due to human activity.
BTW, that also matches very well the curve you get when you try to calculate human CO2 emissions over time by looking at the known sources of human CO2 emissions and estimating their growth over time by looking at the economic records. Most of the human sources are commodities and there is extensive historical data on their markets.
As for having only ~100 years of measured data, around 70% of the increase in atmospheric CO2 in the last several hundred years has taken place in the last 60 years. We have much more than enough measured data to say that nearly all of that increase in the last 60 years is due to human activity.
BTW, that also matches very well the curve you get when you try to calculate human CO2 emissions over time by looking at the known sources of human CO2 emissions and estimating their growth over time by looking at the economic records. Most of the human sources are commodities and there is extensive historical data on their markets.
> Increasing the temperatures and increases in carbon mean more food and more habitable land. "
More CO2 actually decreases the nutritional content of grown food.
Also, if the climate changes faster than animals can adapt, it can lead to a collapse of a number of food chains that many people depend on.
Finally, I'm not sure why you assume more land would be habitable when some currently habitable zones are on the brink of becoming uninhabitable. You just seem to assume that we'll end up better off because…?
> Nor have I seen evidence it in fact is changing at any alarming rate (and I worked in this space for a while).
Surely you agree that temperatures are changing faster than at any point in history that didn't involve some ecological catastrophe.
> Recall history class, when the North American continent was covered in a sheet of ice. Recall history class, when you learned the largest dessert in the world was a green oasis until the last few thousand years.
So your argument is, "there have been significant natural climate changes that caused ecological upheaval, therefore we shouldn't worry about this climate change that is also sure to cause ecological upheaval "? I honestly have no idea why you would find that reassuring.
Best case projections are still quite disruptive, and worst-case projections are catastrophic. Maybe a little more caution is warranted when the survival of humanity may be at stake, don't you think?
> You want to know how I know the authoritative statement "Second, humans are in fact the primary cause." is unknowable? Because we only have ~100 years of measured data.
You really need to read some more if you think we don't have evidence of the temperature record before that.
More CO2 actually decreases the nutritional content of grown food.
Also, if the climate changes faster than animals can adapt, it can lead to a collapse of a number of food chains that many people depend on.
Finally, I'm not sure why you assume more land would be habitable when some currently habitable zones are on the brink of becoming uninhabitable. You just seem to assume that we'll end up better off because…?
> Nor have I seen evidence it in fact is changing at any alarming rate (and I worked in this space for a while).
Surely you agree that temperatures are changing faster than at any point in history that didn't involve some ecological catastrophe.
> Recall history class, when the North American continent was covered in a sheet of ice. Recall history class, when you learned the largest dessert in the world was a green oasis until the last few thousand years.
So your argument is, "there have been significant natural climate changes that caused ecological upheaval, therefore we shouldn't worry about this climate change that is also sure to cause ecological upheaval "? I honestly have no idea why you would find that reassuring.
Best case projections are still quite disruptive, and worst-case projections are catastrophic. Maybe a little more caution is warranted when the survival of humanity may be at stake, don't you think?
> You want to know how I know the authoritative statement "Second, humans are in fact the primary cause." is unknowable? Because we only have ~100 years of measured data.
You really need to read some more if you think we don't have evidence of the temperature record before that.
Your first sentence is very condescending.
Would be fine if your comment would actually criticize something not mention.
But it states that they include energy storage.
You 'facepalm and laugh ' while probably only skimming the article.
Would be fine if your comment would actually criticize something not mention.
But it states that they include energy storage.
You 'facepalm and laugh ' while probably only skimming the article.
Can you explain what in the Wikipedia page you linked to substantiates the 60% vs 10% claim? I’m just not seeing it.
Look at the energy capacity data / charts. 60% of the capacity is from renewables (it’s what the German greens promote as well). But if you look at energy consumption, you’ll see only 10% is from renewables.
Especially Russia since they’ll only benefit from climate change - destabilisation of Europe via refugees from Africa and more arable land in Taiga
If you think climate change leads to more arable land in Russia, well, I think you are wrong. And of course, Russia is missing the least arable land. They could do with some airplanes and more population in general though.
Has anyone seen any good explanations or visualisations of how long term storage would be achieved? For instance in Britain solar in winter has 1/10th of the output in summer, and we can have lulls in wind output for many days at a time. Using these resources to reduce gas use makes sense, but our current plans call for about 30% of electricity generated from gas using carbon capture and storage. How would this be handled under a 100% renewable scenario? Is it just generating Hydrogen?
Or it is that these intermittency gaps can be closed using long distance connectors? Has anyone done studies showing exactly where resources would need to be located and the length of connectors, modelled against weather and demand patterns?
Or it is that these intermittency gaps can be closed using long distance connectors? Has anyone done studies showing exactly where resources would need to be located and the length of connectors, modelled against weather and demand patterns?
Yes, long distance transmission for geographical diversity of wind power. This is studied a lot in the power generation industry. Without long distance transmission you need natural gas peaker plants capable of the same output as solar/wind, and solar/wind is more expensive than just building natural gas plants (but less CO2). We cant build enough batteries to use in place of peaker plants until sodium batteries are production ready and produced at large scale (this could happen by the end of the decade though).
Hydrogen for short term storage, ammonia for medium term storage. Both much less efficient than just using electricity directly, but the aim is to drive down the cost of generation so that the inefficiency doesn’t matter so much.
There are also tons of other short-medium term storage solutions, and we probably need all of them that we can get our hands on, but hydrogen and ammonia are the ones that feel most likely to operate at grid scale.
There are also tons of other short-medium term storage solutions, and we probably need all of them that we can get our hands on, but hydrogen and ammonia are the ones that feel most likely to operate at grid scale.
Hydrogen is not for short term storage. In short term storage, efficiency becomes important, and the round trip efficiency of hydrogen isn't great.
https://www.wartsila.com/energy/towards-100-renewable-energy...
Suggests Great Britain would ideally have only 1% solar, and storing 8% of the wind production as Green Hydrogen
Doing it without Green Hydrogen, just solar wind batteries would double the cost.
Connectors help too, though they also cost money to build. As renewables and batteries have plummeted in price, connectors have become less necessary. Once you have Green Hydrogen you can ship it around and store it like LNG.
Suggests Great Britain would ideally have only 1% solar, and storing 8% of the wind production as Green Hydrogen
Doing it without Green Hydrogen, just solar wind batteries would double the cost.
Connectors help too, though they also cost money to build. As renewables and batteries have plummeted in price, connectors have become less necessary. Once you have Green Hydrogen you can ship it around and store it like LNG.
Pumped hydro and hot sand batteries should be enough if we get our act together and actually commit to something. There’s also no reason solar from Spain or Morocco couldn’t be wired in at some point. Obviously we currently have a chicken and egg situation where it’s not worth building the X times our peak need in renewables without the storage and not worth building the storage when renewables are a fraction rather than a multiple of our current supply.
The problem with getting electricity from Spain or Morocco (or any other country) during winter is not a technical but a political one. Once a nation energy security depends on an another nation you may end up in situation Germany found herself in
Well I’m pretty sure Morocco becoming as wealthy as Saudi would make it stable enough, one way or another.
> For instance in Britain solar in winter has 1/10th of the output in summer, and we can have lulls in wind output for many days at a time.
Wind has higher output during winter
Wind has higher output during winter
Wind has higher average output in winter and at night, but even in winter and at night, it has lulls which last for many days. Look at the wind and solar generation numbers for Germany for a month last winter:
https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c...
If you connect wind production across regions the lulls can be averaged out, but I want to know how reliable that is and what distances are required.
https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c...
If you connect wind production across regions the lulls can be averaged out, but I want to know how reliable that is and what distances are required.
days is already way less than seasonal - and it can't be averaged out entirely even across europe -> storage capacity still needs to be increased when approaching higher shares of renewables across europe
> For instance in Britain solar in winter has 1/10th of the output in summer, and we can have lulls in wind output for many days at a time.
Grid expansion can average over regional lulls. Renewables also need to be built to provide significant overcapacity. Storage can help, but you can do it with only those two.
Grid expansion can average over regional lulls. Renewables also need to be built to provide significant overcapacity. Storage can help, but you can do it with only those two.
Just like when dealing with the losing side of a war we need to have a serious debate into implementing an exit strategy for Oil&Gas companies.
We have plenty of technical solutions, but they will all continue to face an enormous amount of friction due to Oil&Gas profits/lobby.
We need a political solution and we need to have an honest debate on how to sunset a trillion dollar industry without them putting up a fight.
We have plenty of technical solutions, but they will all continue to face an enormous amount of friction due to Oil&Gas profits/lobby.
We need a political solution and we need to have an honest debate on how to sunset a trillion dollar industry without them putting up a fight.
Not just Oil & Gas companies - but oil and gas nations. There's quite a few geopolitically important countries that either derive a large proportion of their GDP / foreign exchange from hydrocarbons, or rely on them so heavily there's no practical path for transition by 2050.
Compared to the difficulty in getting these nations to play a full and productive part in any transition (requiring essentially restructuring a large chunk of their economies), settling up with extractor companies will be a walk in the park.
Compared to the difficulty in getting these nations to play a full and productive part in any transition (requiring essentially restructuring a large chunk of their economies), settling up with extractor companies will be a walk in the park.
> Many young people are depressed because they feel climate change cannot be stopped. We want to offer them hope by showing that our world can get all its energy needs from renewables at a price below that of fossil fuels
idk, to me saying that fossils can be replaced by 2050 is pretty much same as saying that climate change cannot be stopped. I think the discussion has largely moved from preventing the climate change to trying manage how bad it will be, as it seems pretty inevitable at this point.
idk, to me saying that fossils can be replaced by 2050 is pretty much same as saying that climate change cannot be stopped. I think the discussion has largely moved from preventing the climate change to trying manage how bad it will be, as it seems pretty inevitable at this point.
Yes, damage control becomes more and more necessary. That just means any progress is becoming more urgent.
The fact that we might have a technology to do something says nothing about whether it is actually will be done.
For example, there is no need for war, we can feed everyone using the technology available today but it is almost certain millions will continue to die from hunger every year and of cause the peace is just a wild dream.
For example, there is no need for war, we can feed everyone using the technology available today but it is almost certain millions will continue to die from hunger every year and of cause the peace is just a wild dream.
I like Vaclav Smil’s shorthand tool for assessing these claims. Be suspicious of any predicted year for full renewable rollout that ends in a zero or a five.
This is silly: the estimates are rounded, because there's huge uncertainty. It's a very long way away from "these plants will come online on these dates". Perhaps "2045 plus or minus five years"?
We all understand how difficult software development time estimation is, right?
We all understand how difficult software development time estimation is, right?
From Smil this is a valid criticism in my opinion. He's got the data and he knows how to do the math, so he's basically saying come correct if you want to debate at his level.
The tipping point has come and gone as far as the climate trajectory goes, although actions taken today will reduce the slope of the trajectory say 50 years from now. When you throw the rudder over on the Titanic too late, you must prepare for the impact. Hence this kind of messaging is rather futile:
> "Many young people are depressed because they feel climate change cannot be stopped. We want to offer them hope by showing that our world can get all its energy needs from renewables at a price below that of fossil fuels. When we first proposed this, we were ridiculed, but this paper shows our ideas are now scientific mainstream", says Auke Hoekstra from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands."
The one (going to 100% renewables) no longer implies the other (stabilizing the climate system within the lifetime of anyone alive today). Hugely expensive steps must be taken - retreat from flood plains that will be experiencing 500-year floods every 5 years, securing water supplies to survive epic droughts (with the additional loss of much of the seasonal snowpack in many regions), building termite-mound like architecture to handle the record heat waves, moving critical infrastructure back from the coastlines to deal with rising sea levels and saltwater intrusion, dealing with insects that love these new warm conditions, etc.
On top of that, replacing the existing fossil fuel infrastructure is going to cost trillions and require a complete reorganization of the global economic system - just look at all the oil tankers, pipelines, internal combustion engines, gas-and-coal fired power plants. No time to watch TikTok videos, it's going to be work, work, work. Scaling up industrial production of wind turbines, solar panels and batteries by a factor of what, 100X? Better get busy, humans.
Think of it more as an exciting challenge, adapting to these frightening new conditions - interesting times!. Of course, we'll have to raid the wealth of the fossil fuel sector and their investors to pay for all this adaptation and industrial development. Sticking the major producers with the bill makes optional sense. Implementing a ban on the global trade in fossil fuels would also be reasonable under these conditions (note that this was the first major step in eliminating the practice of chattel slavery, for comparison).
> "Many young people are depressed because they feel climate change cannot be stopped. We want to offer them hope by showing that our world can get all its energy needs from renewables at a price below that of fossil fuels. When we first proposed this, we were ridiculed, but this paper shows our ideas are now scientific mainstream", says Auke Hoekstra from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands."
The one (going to 100% renewables) no longer implies the other (stabilizing the climate system within the lifetime of anyone alive today). Hugely expensive steps must be taken - retreat from flood plains that will be experiencing 500-year floods every 5 years, securing water supplies to survive epic droughts (with the additional loss of much of the seasonal snowpack in many regions), building termite-mound like architecture to handle the record heat waves, moving critical infrastructure back from the coastlines to deal with rising sea levels and saltwater intrusion, dealing with insects that love these new warm conditions, etc.
On top of that, replacing the existing fossil fuel infrastructure is going to cost trillions and require a complete reorganization of the global economic system - just look at all the oil tankers, pipelines, internal combustion engines, gas-and-coal fired power plants. No time to watch TikTok videos, it's going to be work, work, work. Scaling up industrial production of wind turbines, solar panels and batteries by a factor of what, 100X? Better get busy, humans.
Think of it more as an exciting challenge, adapting to these frightening new conditions - interesting times!. Of course, we'll have to raid the wealth of the fossil fuel sector and their investors to pay for all this adaptation and industrial development. Sticking the major producers with the bill makes optional sense. Implementing a ban on the global trade in fossil fuels would also be reasonable under these conditions (note that this was the first major step in eliminating the practice of chattel slavery, for comparison).
Now add a political researcher to the group and see that percentage drop rapidly
Totally agree - technologically possible. Now who’s ambition, will, and money are behind this to get those who are in the middle, don’t care, or need to look after themselves first in the ecosystem to get this done?
governments have been funding renewables left and right because it's a populist measure, and it creates jobs that guarantee voters. The dynamic is a positive feedback loop
on that front. Europe is subsidizing teslas. But one has to look at the downsides. Germany has overinvested in solar, but the results are feeble as it's not a sunny country and renewables are unreliable.
Even if there was an agreement on 100% renewables, i m certain it would get squandered in silly but popular projects such as solar curtains or rooftop
Even if there was an agreement on 100% renewables, i m certain it would get squandered in silly but popular projects such as solar curtains or rooftop
What's wrong with rooftop solar? Seems like a great use for an otherwise unused roof?
Maybe in american suburbs it makes more sense, but in old cities like europe electric grids are not designed to feed into the network, and the installations are small, thus no economies of scale. The money spent on subsidizing them would be better spent on large installations
No it really isn't technologically possible.
Throw in a physicists who actually understands the difference between power, energy and time offset and the green grid plans that assume the sun shines at midnight underestimate the cost of replacing on demand power by two orders of magnitude.
Throw in a physicists who actually understands the difference between power, energy and time offset and the green grid plans that assume the sun shines at midnight underestimate the cost of replacing on demand power by two orders of magnitude.
You make the foolish assumption that theses "researchers" are not biased simply because you agree with the premise due to your own bias.
It is rather surprising to me how people who used to rail against the "evil corporation" now love them some evil corporation simply because evil corporations have been created to pilfer society through renewable energy.
It could be a scene from 1984; yesterday the people hate corporations they always have been at war with and always will be, today they have been told to love corporations and they do so with zealous mania.
It is rather surprising to me how people who used to rail against the "evil corporation" now love them some evil corporation simply because evil corporations have been created to pilfer society through renewable energy.
It could be a scene from 1984; yesterday the people hate corporations they always have been at war with and always will be, today they have been told to love corporations and they do so with zealous mania.
The issue isn't that we as a race can reach 100% renewable energy, it's at what cost? Right now displacing fossil fuels comes at such an enormous financial cost it's an all of humanity thing or none (or very little) of humanity thing. Also there would be such high costs for poor nations that rich nations would have to pay way more than their proportional share. Sadly it's wishful thinking to get the entire human population/their respective representatives and despots to agree to solve this problem. Our best hope is that a new technological solution with near zero marginal cost emerges and displaces fossil fuels as much as possible.
It's all about the tradeoff. 100% renewable energy would nuke the economy.
I find this highly unlikely, but then again I'm not a "researcher", so what do I know?
Far less than the people who actually researched the matter, obviously.
Is this a sarcastic comment? It is hard to tell these days, because it is ironic in many ways.
I’ve researched this extensively and I don’t agree, so there’s that.
This is a common insidious tactic of the media…pay attention to how presumptuous they are especially in headlines. I can’t even keep track of how many baseless claims they make as if they’re accepted fact anymore.
This is a common insidious tactic of the media…pay attention to how presumptuous they are especially in headlines. I can’t even keep track of how many baseless claims they make as if they’re accepted fact anymore.
They could start by not commuting to the office/university
Cue substance free ideological posting in 3... 2...
Why not offer a small list of most relevant studies then? I can claim there are hundreds of studies and that MIGHT be true or not, offer a small glimpse is not only useful to teach readers looking for sources but also to prove I've done my research not just claim to have done it.
Beside that: I doubt. Cyclically we see promise, like IBM research that cyclically say they achieve a hyper-big advances in storage, something that "in the near future" can store Zettabyte of data in a rice grain etc, and I still have to see anything even similar. I have built my new home, just six years ago, well insulated, airtight, with proper ventilation, recently upgraded from passive temperature recovery (classic VMC with a paper heat-exchanger) to a heat-pump one, with a small p.v. and lithium storage, all electric again with heat-pumps etc. well it can potentially be "autonomous" IF I'm willing to waste a very big amount of money in a very big battery, much more space for solar panels to have enough energy to recharge the bigger battery AND still depending on a grid or generator for backup because a "reasonably bigger" battery (BEVs alike size) suffice to be comfortable just from a day to the next. Just two day means I need more land to harvest enough energy from the Sun. Oh and that being in France south Alps so in a significantly sunny place. Oh I'm just talking about a home, not a factory.
Sure we can already made let's say a glass production AND recycling factory 100% circular and renewable, we just need mountain hydro nearby. Enough, perhaps, if we are Norway with many mountains, water, little population. Or maybe Iceland with geothermal. Hardly for France.
So far we have seen MANY promises in terms of new battery tech, but essentially nothing really ready. Potentially in 2050 we can even have finally achieved nuclear fusion, witch is renewable formally. But we can't forecast that. It's a hope. It might be even computed in a game-of-if: if we finally discover a battery tech with this and that characteristic we can produce on scale with this and that intensity what time it take to spread it? It's still a study, but just an hypothetical one.
What we see so far is that FOR HOMES we can made single-family homes almost everywhere and power that with electricity only at rate "small enough" to be sustainable even at some arctic latitudes. This on scale means we need abandon dense tall-buildings since YES, we can made them TODAY with similar energy needs BUT we can't really upgrade them in the future, so to be future proof we need homes like cars, with a longer life-cycle but still small enough to be created and re-created after a certain amount of times (like a single human life) to align them with current needs and tech at any point in time. It might be doable if we agree to do so even before 2050 at least in western world, but I see no real push to do so. Just few do so on their own, no plans to design a new society seems to go in that direction, UN New Urban Agenda goes actually in the OPPOSITE direction. The rest are collection of dreams.
Beside that: I doubt. Cyclically we see promise, like IBM research that cyclically say they achieve a hyper-big advances in storage, something that "in the near future" can store Zettabyte of data in a rice grain etc, and I still have to see anything even similar. I have built my new home, just six years ago, well insulated, airtight, with proper ventilation, recently upgraded from passive temperature recovery (classic VMC with a paper heat-exchanger) to a heat-pump one, with a small p.v. and lithium storage, all electric again with heat-pumps etc. well it can potentially be "autonomous" IF I'm willing to waste a very big amount of money in a very big battery, much more space for solar panels to have enough energy to recharge the bigger battery AND still depending on a grid or generator for backup because a "reasonably bigger" battery (BEVs alike size) suffice to be comfortable just from a day to the next. Just two day means I need more land to harvest enough energy from the Sun. Oh and that being in France south Alps so in a significantly sunny place. Oh I'm just talking about a home, not a factory.
Sure we can already made let's say a glass production AND recycling factory 100% circular and renewable, we just need mountain hydro nearby. Enough, perhaps, if we are Norway with many mountains, water, little population. Or maybe Iceland with geothermal. Hardly for France.
So far we have seen MANY promises in terms of new battery tech, but essentially nothing really ready. Potentially in 2050 we can even have finally achieved nuclear fusion, witch is renewable formally. But we can't forecast that. It's a hope. It might be even computed in a game-of-if: if we finally discover a battery tech with this and that characteristic we can produce on scale with this and that intensity what time it take to spread it? It's still a study, but just an hypothetical one.
What we see so far is that FOR HOMES we can made single-family homes almost everywhere and power that with electricity only at rate "small enough" to be sustainable even at some arctic latitudes. This on scale means we need abandon dense tall-buildings since YES, we can made them TODAY with similar energy needs BUT we can't really upgrade them in the future, so to be future proof we need homes like cars, with a longer life-cycle but still small enough to be created and re-created after a certain amount of times (like a single human life) to align them with current needs and tech at any point in time. It might be doable if we agree to do so even before 2050 at least in western world, but I see no real push to do so. Just few do so on their own, no plans to design a new society seems to go in that direction, UN New Urban Agenda goes actually in the OPPOSITE direction. The rest are collection of dreams.
[deleted]
the establishment just loves to latch onto a narrative and push it till....either they win...or... there's a civil war...
How many paid "experts" do you need to "set the Science"?
Tell that to the electric grid. Natural gas is still king in the U.S, and always will be. That's because it's the only power source that can scale with demand. When everyone turns their AC on in the summer, or heat in the winter, renewables can only offset the cost.
Ah, linear extrapolationists are again at their game.
The world doesn't need 100% renewable energy, and does not need to build enormous power storage farms to deal with unstable power supply from solar and wind. The correct answer is nuclear power, and the sooner people will stop having NDS (Nuclear Derangement Syndrome), the better for humanity.
The world doesn't need 100% renewable energy, and does not need to build enormous power storage farms to deal with unstable power supply from solar and wind. The correct answer is nuclear power, and the sooner people will stop having NDS (Nuclear Derangement Syndrome), the better for humanity.
How do we deal with the security issues of nuclear, though?
Look at the situation in Ukraine with Russia actively threatening the stability of their nuclear power plant as a bargaining chip. Attacks on nuclear facilities during war are quite common, even the US has done it a few times.
Also, unstable countries need energy too - would it really be a good idea to start building nuclear power plants in Syria or Somalia?
Perhaps we need an international UN agency in charge of all nuclear reactors in the world, with every country signing a defence pact? To be clear, I do want nuclear power, I just don't feel like society is stable enough to deliver it.
Look at the situation in Ukraine with Russia actively threatening the stability of their nuclear power plant as a bargaining chip. Attacks on nuclear facilities during war are quite common, even the US has done it a few times.
Also, unstable countries need energy too - would it really be a good idea to start building nuclear power plants in Syria or Somalia?
Perhaps we need an international UN agency in charge of all nuclear reactors in the world, with every country signing a defence pact? To be clear, I do want nuclear power, I just don't feel like society is stable enough to deliver it.
By nuclear deterrence. None of this would have happened if Ukraine had nuclear weapons. And nuclear weapons are best developed when you have nuclear power production and a lot of nuclear physicists.
> energy storage
The thing no one talks about.
A battery that can store energy over 24 hours costs more than an equivalent nuclear power plant, loses half it's capacity within a decade and has never been build.
The closest one in South Australia could match a nuclear plant for all of 10 minutes and still needed the solar panel and wind generation to work.
We're out of time. We don't have another 40 years to wait for renewables to mature.
The thing no one talks about.
A battery that can store energy over 24 hours costs more than an equivalent nuclear power plant, loses half it's capacity within a decade and has never been build.
The closest one in South Australia could match a nuclear plant for all of 10 minutes and still needed the solar panel and wind generation to work.
We're out of time. We don't have another 40 years to wait for renewables to mature.
This is one of the specific things they are now saying they have good science on, allowing previous models that forecast it as a problem to be updated:
> Fifth, many scenarios suffer from incomplete power-to-X routes, a lack of comprehensive sector coupling, and excessively high costs assumed for key flexibility-providing technologies: batteries and electrolyzers. These are the two most important VRE supporting technologies that strongly increase the VRE supply share in scenarios by overcoming the day-night limitation of solar PV, supporting strong electrification of practically all on-road transportation, squeezing out biofuels for road vehicles, and enabling highly cost-attractive power-to-hydrogen-to-X routes for almost all remaining energy segments that cannot be directly electrified, including long-distance transportation, high temperature industrial energy demand that may remain despite comprehensive direct electrification, and hydrogen-based chemicals demand in industry. Thus, low-cost batteries, low-cost electrolyzers, and established power-to-X routes strongly increase the VRE share in covering the total primary energy demand. Solar PV benefits more from low-cost electrolyzers than wind power, since low-cost electricity is most efficiently matched with relatively inflexible energy demand categories through the intermediaries of hydrogen storage and electrolyzer-based power-to-X routes
Since you mention Australia, they seemed to be one of the first movers on green hydrogen, though everyone else seems to have caught up recently.
The amount of hydrogen used just for fertilizer globally dwarfs the amount of pumped hydro storage by multiple orders of magnitude.
> Fifth, many scenarios suffer from incomplete power-to-X routes, a lack of comprehensive sector coupling, and excessively high costs assumed for key flexibility-providing technologies: batteries and electrolyzers. These are the two most important VRE supporting technologies that strongly increase the VRE supply share in scenarios by overcoming the day-night limitation of solar PV, supporting strong electrification of practically all on-road transportation, squeezing out biofuels for road vehicles, and enabling highly cost-attractive power-to-hydrogen-to-X routes for almost all remaining energy segments that cannot be directly electrified, including long-distance transportation, high temperature industrial energy demand that may remain despite comprehensive direct electrification, and hydrogen-based chemicals demand in industry. Thus, low-cost batteries, low-cost electrolyzers, and established power-to-X routes strongly increase the VRE share in covering the total primary energy demand. Solar PV benefits more from low-cost electrolyzers than wind power, since low-cost electricity is most efficiently matched with relatively inflexible energy demand categories through the intermediaries of hydrogen storage and electrolyzer-based power-to-X routes
Since you mention Australia, they seemed to be one of the first movers on green hydrogen, though everyone else seems to have caught up recently.
The amount of hydrogen used just for fertilizer globally dwarfs the amount of pumped hydro storage by multiple orders of magnitude.
Great, where is the link to cheap batteries that can store energy overnight?
There aren't any because they don't exist.
Renewables without grid scale storage are a pipe dream. We don't have grid scale energy storage and we won't have it for decades yet.
There aren't any because they don't exist.
Renewables without grid scale storage are a pipe dream. We don't have grid scale energy storage and we won't have it for decades yet.
Currently;
[1] https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/batteries-and-energy-storage/n...
[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-24/community-battery-yac...
[3] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-05/community-battery-in-...
'Community' local area batteries are $1 million (AU) and service ~ 200 homes (at $5,000 per home across a decade) with some 280 kilowatt-hours of storage, soaking up power during the day from rooftop solar | wind and feeding it back at night | during lulls.
These complement hybrid smart grids and greatly reduce fossil fuel usage at approx $500 per home per year.
Early days, time will tell.
[1] https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/batteries-and-energy-storage/n...
[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-24/community-battery-yac...
[3] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-05/community-battery-in-...
'Community' local area batteries are $1 million (AU) and service ~ 200 homes (at $5,000 per home across a decade) with some 280 kilowatt-hours of storage, soaking up power during the day from rooftop solar | wind and feeding it back at night | during lulls.
These complement hybrid smart grids and greatly reduce fossil fuel usage at approx $500 per home per year.
Early days, time will tell.
> Renewables without grid scale storage are a pipe dream.
Renewables don't technically need storage, as long as you overbuild them and expand the grid to average over regional variability. Storage just obviates the need for expanding the grid. This was all known decades ago when I was studying engineering. The technology is not the problem, the political will has always been the problem.
Renewables don't technically need storage, as long as you overbuild them and expand the grid to average over regional variability. Storage just obviates the need for expanding the grid. This was all known decades ago when I was studying engineering. The technology is not the problem, the political will has always been the problem.
It's funny how you sweep _trillions_ of investment to get back to 2010 levels of electric supply as lack of political will.
It's funny how you sweep the _tens of trillions_ spent on invasions in the middle east to achieve that stable 2010 electric supply, to say nothing of the millions of lives lost.
Yeah, "lack of political will" is exactly the problem, because the incentives to continue spending in the current manner are considerable.
Yeah, "lack of political will" is exactly the problem, because the incentives to continue spending in the current manner are considerable.
> Western Australia putting 1,000 PV-plus-battery standalone power systems into remote and rural areas
https://www.energy-storage.news/western-australia-putting-10...
https://www.energy-storage.news/western-australia-putting-10...
That's wonderful. Now they only need to build another 299,000 of those units to meet the current energy demand in Western Australia.
No they don't, but if they did, then they could use the money they have saved by rolling these out today to pay for some of them.
> The initial rollout seeks to replace reliance on about 762km of overhead power lines, in the process freeing up land for agricultural use and crucially reducing the risk of bushfires caused by problems with power infrastructure going to remote areas.
https://www.wartsila.com/energy/towards-100-renewable-energy...
Suggests you'd need enough batteries to run Western Australia for 1 hour and enough green hydrogen produced to power the region for 11 days. But mostly it would be wind and solar.
If for whatever reason you think Australia isn't about to start making Green Hydrogen at scale, they also provide numbers if you want to go hard on batteries.
You'd use 150% more solar and 10x more batteries, but 6% less wind (and no power-to-x turbines) this would cost a whopping 50% more overall and be 10 hours of battery storage.
> The initial rollout seeks to replace reliance on about 762km of overhead power lines, in the process freeing up land for agricultural use and crucially reducing the risk of bushfires caused by problems with power infrastructure going to remote areas.
https://www.wartsila.com/energy/towards-100-renewable-energy...
Suggests you'd need enough batteries to run Western Australia for 1 hour and enough green hydrogen produced to power the region for 11 days. But mostly it would be wind and solar.
If for whatever reason you think Australia isn't about to start making Green Hydrogen at scale, they also provide numbers if you want to go hard on batteries.
You'd use 150% more solar and 10x more batteries, but 6% less wind (and no power-to-x turbines) this would cost a whopping 50% more overall and be 10 hours of battery storage.
> No they don't, but if they did, then they could use the money they have saved by rolling these out today to pay for some of them.
Wonderful, they spend $37 million on 1,000. Now they just need to use the savings from the $37 million to offset the next 130 trillion dollars needed for the next 299,000 installations.
Wonderful, they spend $37 million on 1,000. Now they just need to use the savings from the $37 million to offset the next 130 trillion dollars needed for the next 299,000 installations.
The savings come not from how much you spend, but how much you save.
So, they don't need to buy and burn fuel, they don't need to build or maintain transmission, they don't need to fight as many bushfires, they get to sell the land that was previously occupied by pylons etc. etc.
The claim was that batteries didn't exist and/or were too expensive.
And yet here, as in EVs, there is a situation were cold hard cash dictates that rolling out batteries is a good idea. And that's what's driving the massive global expansion of battery production.
So, they don't need to buy and burn fuel, they don't need to build or maintain transmission, they don't need to fight as many bushfires, they get to sell the land that was previously occupied by pylons etc. etc.
The claim was that batteries didn't exist and/or were too expensive.
And yet here, as in EVs, there is a situation were cold hard cash dictates that rolling out batteries is a good idea. And that's what's driving the massive global expansion of battery production.
> > energy storage
> The thing no one talks about.
Given how many people talk about energy storage every time renewables come up (including in this very thread), would you agree to stop pretending they don't? You're not smarter than the rest of us for "finding" the storage issue or better for "revealing" it to us. Just stop telling lies, that's all I ask here.
> The thing no one talks about.
Given how many people talk about energy storage every time renewables come up (including in this very thread), would you agree to stop pretending they don't? You're not smarter than the rest of us for "finding" the storage issue or better for "revealing" it to us. Just stop telling lies, that's all I ask here.
Snowy Hydro 2.0 will be able to generate from water storage dams, 2GW of continuous energy for 175 hours. As long as gravity keeps working it should be good for a while. https://www.snowyhydro.com.au/snowy-20/about/
Brilliant.
We just need 10 of those and we'd have covered the base load of NSW as long as there isn't a drought in the worlds driest continent.
Now all we need to do is build a few mountains to put the dams in and we're golden.
We just need 10 of those and we'd have covered the base load of NSW as long as there isn't a drought in the worlds driest continent.
Now all we need to do is build a few mountains to put the dams in and we're golden.
Then heat sand, turn sea water into hydrogen, compress air. There are plenty of options that can be explored that don't require continuing to dig up what we can't replace.
We have a proven power source on the one hand that's been ready for 40 years.
On the other we have 20 years of missed deadlines and broken promises. Watching Germany head to a winter where people will freeze to death if Putin cuts the gas is hilarious. Here's hoping that it finally cures them of their delusions.
On the other we have 20 years of missed deadlines and broken promises. Watching Germany head to a winter where people will freeze to death if Putin cuts the gas is hilarious. Here's hoping that it finally cures them of their delusions.
> A battery that can store energy over 24 hours costs more than an equivalent nuclear power plant, loses half it's capacity within a decade and has never been build.
Multiple have been built, for cheaper than a nuclear reactor, losing zero capacity within a decade.
I present you Nant de Drance [0]:
- 20 GWh of storage capacity
- 900 MW of power
- 2.1 * 10^9 USD cost
This kind of project cannot be replicated just anywhere. Other fairly cheap large scale scalable electricity storage solutions do exist.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nant_de_Drance_Hydropower_Plan...
Multiple have been built, for cheaper than a nuclear reactor, losing zero capacity within a decade.
I present you Nant de Drance [0]:
- 20 GWh of storage capacity
- 900 MW of power
- 2.1 * 10^9 USD cost
This kind of project cannot be replicated just anywhere. Other fairly cheap large scale scalable electricity storage solutions do exist.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nant_de_Drance_Hydropower_Plan...
Show me where you will build it in Poland or even Germany?
Goldisthal [0], Markersbach [1] and Żarnowiec [2] exist and are quite significant. Also, the Młoty pumped hydro storage project is being worked on again after 33 years.
The best sites for this have been taken already, but there is still some potential in new sites and optimisation of existing ones.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldisthal_Pumped_Storage_Stat...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markersbach_Pumped_Storage_Pow...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBarnowiec_Pumped_Storage_...
[3] https://notesfrompoland.com/2022/01/18/poland-set-to-resume-...
The best sites for this have been taken already, but there is still some potential in new sites and optimisation of existing ones.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldisthal_Pumped_Storage_Stat...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markersbach_Pumped_Storage_Pow...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBarnowiec_Pumped_Storage_...
[3] https://notesfrompoland.com/2022/01/18/poland-set-to-resume-...
So you can build only few and only in specific geography. Thus pumped storage is mostly worthless for anything else than smoothing out dips in energy supply.
Utility scale MW Compressed Air Energy STorage is much much cheaper . . .
[1] https://energystorage.org/why-energy-storage/technologies/co...
[2] https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/sepm/article/view/1574/131...
and, of course, there are other approaches.
[1] https://energystorage.org/why-energy-storage/technologies/co...
[2] https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/sepm/article/view/1574/131...
and, of course, there are other approaches.
That's great. How much does a 25 TWh storage plant cost?
For my local state, some three times larger than Texas, that's irrelevant.
Total yearly energy consumption here (of all forms of energy) is 1,271.9 PJ aka 3.533056e+11 kilowatt hours aka 353.3 TWh or approx 1 TWh / day.
Given the dispersed area we're more interested in distributed buffering storage to smooth solar, wind, and wave generated energy over the top of natural gas baseload generation.
Thanks for the ridiculous non applicable straw question though, that was a chuckle.
Total yearly energy consumption here (of all forms of energy) is 1,271.9 PJ aka 3.533056e+11 kilowatt hours aka 353.3 TWh or approx 1 TWh / day.
Given the dispersed area we're more interested in distributed buffering storage to smooth solar, wind, and wave generated energy over the top of natural gas baseload generation.
Thanks for the ridiculous non applicable straw question though, that was a chuckle.
The cost of storing hydrogen underground can be as low as $1/kWh, so that would be $25B (electrolyzers and turbines/generators are additional, but that's not per-energy capacity cost.)
For the low low price of 6 over budget 1TW nuclear power plants we could have a single hydrogen _storage_ plant.
What a bargain.
Oh sorry, we could have the storage facilities of a single hydrogen storage plant with none of the equipment needed to turn the stored hydrogen to electricity.
What a bargain.
Oh sorry, we could have the storage facilities of a single hydrogen storage plant with none of the equipment needed to turn the stored hydrogen to electricity.
Nuclear power plants are more like 1 GW, not 1 TW.
You mean six reactors that produce about the storage capacity of the hydrogen storage facility over a year, I'm guessing.
The problem is the nuclear power plants just dribble out their power at a constant rate, while hydrogen storage can deliver its output just when it's needed (and is most valuable). In other words, the hydrogen output is dispatchable, nuclear is not. The output part of the hydrogen storage would be either simple cycle turbines or combined cycle, which are 20x (10x for CC) cheaper than NPPs per unit power output.
You mean six reactors that produce about the storage capacity of the hydrogen storage facility over a year, I'm guessing.
The problem is the nuclear power plants just dribble out their power at a constant rate, while hydrogen storage can deliver its output just when it's needed (and is most valuable). In other words, the hydrogen output is dispatchable, nuclear is not. The output part of the hydrogen storage would be either simple cycle turbines or combined cycle, which are 20x (10x for CC) cheaper than NPPs per unit power output.
>has never been build
Unless you count pumped storage, in which case it has.
Unless you count pumped storage, in which case it has.
The trouble with pumped storage is that in most cases, our ancestors were smart enough to identify all the locations that lent themselves to building a dam and built them. Often more than 100 years ago. We aren't the first generation to be faced with the energy storage problem.
In Central Europe, where I live, there aren't that many opportunities left to build new ones on a large enough scale. Also, if a drought comes, you suddenly have a double whammy on your hands: not enough water and not enough electricity.
In Central Europe, where I live, there aren't that many opportunities left to build new ones on a large enough scale. Also, if a drought comes, you suddenly have a double whammy on your hands: not enough water and not enough electricity.
Although dams can and are being used as a kind of pumped storage, pumped storage != dams and dont need rivers.
The nuclear/carbon lobbies opine pretty loudly that there isnt enough suitable geography for it around the world. They are not correct though: https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/anu-finds-530000-potent...
The nuclear/carbon lobbies opine pretty loudly that there isnt enough suitable geography for it around the world. They are not correct though: https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/anu-finds-530000-potent...
"Disclaimer: None of the sites discussed in this study have been the subject of geological, hydrological, environmental, heritage and other studies, and it is not known whether any particular site would be suitable. The commercial feasibility of developing these sites is unknown. As with all major engineering projects, diligent attention to quality assurance would be required for safety and efficacy. There has been no investigation of land tenure apart from exclusion of some environmental areas and urban areas, and no discussions with land owners and managers. Nothing in this list of potential site locations implies any rights for development of these locations."
That's a whole lot of important things that they didn't even bother to check before pushing out a nice impressive press release for the media to latch on to. Also, from what I can tell even finding that many potential candidates required changing the very definition of a suitable site away from the type actually used by existing real-world pumped hydro projects.
That's a whole lot of important things that they didn't even bother to check before pushing out a nice impressive press release for the media to latch on to. Also, from what I can tell even finding that many potential candidates required changing the very definition of a suitable site away from the type actually used by existing real-world pumped hydro projects.
It didnt focus on those aspects because they are not about the core question which is the presence of suitable geography.
Nonetheless nuclear power really doesnt stack up well against pumped storage on any of those other dimensions either. Certainly not cost or NIMBY potential.
Nonetheless nuclear power really doesnt stack up well against pumped storage on any of those other dimensions either. Certainly not cost or NIMBY potential.
I'm not sure we have another decade for each nuclear plant to get built, either.
Can't you sell the excess capacity to another country? Or convert the excess capacity to green hydrogen which is used as an energy source for things like steel manufacturing?
If we're talking Europe sized countries. But Europe is pretty small relati ely speaking...it's hard to move a lot of electricity thousands of miles without losing too much.
From Google: "HVDC transmission losses are quoted at 3.5% per 1,000 km"
Seems like small losses for large distances.
Seems like small losses for large distances.
And even in Europe the weather patterns tend to be quite larger. So you would need very long transmission lines. And then compete for the supply from the areas that have momentary production, with other areas that don't.
Theoretically long distance sounds like fancy idea, but I don't think geopolitics are exactly ready for that yet. At least not on intercontinental scale.
Theoretically long distance sounds like fancy idea, but I don't think geopolitics are exactly ready for that yet. At least not on intercontinental scale.
High voltage inter connects are also more expensive than nuclear power to build.
Outside of Russia there are no transcontinental high voltage lines.
The US doesn't even have a single energy grid despite being a single country.
The European market is probably the most tightly coupled in the world and the inter-border power lines can carry less than 20% of most countries power demand.
>Or convert the excess capacity to green hydrogen which is used as an energy source for things like steel manufacturing?
We don't have 40 years to wait for that technology to mature. We need to be cutting emissions now. Green energy has resulted in increasing use of fossil fuels. The only reason why total CO2 production has dropped is because we've been building gas power plants instead of coal.
Outside of Russia there are no transcontinental high voltage lines.
The US doesn't even have a single energy grid despite being a single country.
The European market is probably the most tightly coupled in the world and the inter-border power lines can carry less than 20% of most countries power demand.
>Or convert the excess capacity to green hydrogen which is used as an energy source for things like steel manufacturing?
We don't have 40 years to wait for that technology to mature. We need to be cutting emissions now. Green energy has resulted in increasing use of fossil fuels. The only reason why total CO2 production has dropped is because we've been building gas power plants instead of coal.
> High voltage inter connects are also more expensive
Aren't these paid for by the excess electricity that you've sold?
> Outside of Russia there are no transcontinental high voltage lines. The US doesn't even have a single energy grid despite being a single country. The European market is probably the most tightly coupled in the world and the inter-border power lines can carry less than 20% of most countries power demand.
Isn't this simply describing what the current situation is?
Aren't these paid for by the excess electricity that you've sold?
> Outside of Russia there are no transcontinental high voltage lines. The US doesn't even have a single energy grid despite being a single country. The European market is probably the most tightly coupled in the world and the inter-border power lines can carry less than 20% of most countries power demand.
Isn't this simply describing what the current situation is?
>The US doesn't even have a single energy grid despite being a single country.
That is because America technically is not or should not be and what definitely not founded as "a single country". The USA was supposed to be and by law, i.e., the constitution should far more be governed like a ~2005 EU. The Federal government is in many ways extremely illegitimate in how it acts in illegal ways in direct violation and contradiction with the Constitution, i.e., the supreme law of the land, i.e., the highest law above which even Federal legislators cannot act without violating the law.
It is one of those fundamental things that the vast majority of people even in the USA simply do not comprehend on an even basic level, not even to mention anyone outside of the US. It's one of those obvious and blatant lies that humans somehow have the capacity to simply live with as if it is not a lie.
It is an odd phenomenon when one is able to recognize the mass delusion for what it is. Imagine being somewhere in a group and all the sudden everyone in that group but you insists that grass is in fact not green at all, but rather purple. You would be astonished and confused at first and incredulous as to what is going on, before you went through some phases to rest on a kind of bargained acceptance of "ok, well I guess we are doing that now", regardless of how insane and stupid it is.
That is because America technically is not or should not be and what definitely not founded as "a single country". The USA was supposed to be and by law, i.e., the constitution should far more be governed like a ~2005 EU. The Federal government is in many ways extremely illegitimate in how it acts in illegal ways in direct violation and contradiction with the Constitution, i.e., the supreme law of the land, i.e., the highest law above which even Federal legislators cannot act without violating the law.
It is one of those fundamental things that the vast majority of people even in the USA simply do not comprehend on an even basic level, not even to mention anyone outside of the US. It's one of those obvious and blatant lies that humans somehow have the capacity to simply live with as if it is not a lie.
It is an odd phenomenon when one is able to recognize the mass delusion for what it is. Imagine being somewhere in a group and all the sudden everyone in that group but you insists that grass is in fact not green at all, but rather purple. You would be astonished and confused at first and incredulous as to what is going on, before you went through some phases to rest on a kind of bargained acceptance of "ok, well I guess we are doing that now", regardless of how insane and stupid it is.
Care to share any evidence for your argument?
The us is too large to have a single grid. AC can't be synchronized across that large an area, sine waves need to be in different parts of the cycle at different times and so a generator on either coast end up fighting each other.
We can and should do more high voltage DC interconnects, but that isn't the same as making the grid larger.
We can and should do more high voltage DC interconnects, but that isn't the same as making the grid larger.
The world could reach 100% renewable energy by next year if every citizen took a massive cut to their quality of life.
And it isn't going to happen at all if at least some citizens don't take a cut to their quality of life (compared to what they could have had with no action)
So it's a trade-off....
And it isn't going to happen at all if at least some citizens don't take a cut to their quality of life (compared to what they could have had with no action)
So it's a trade-off....
No! Implying that this has to do with lifestyle is the same trite that BP came up with when they pushed the PR spin of "carbon footprint" to deflect attention onto consumers.
What you suggest would push many Energy companies and the entire Oil&Gas complex into insolvency. So I can guarantee that politically there will be no "trade-off".
Of course emissions per capita matter but this constant spin that consumers drive demand and depiction of industry as a passive agent victim of consumer desire is naive at best and malicious at worse.
What you suggest would push many Energy companies and the entire Oil&Gas complex into insolvency. So I can guarantee that politically there will be no "trade-off".
Of course emissions per capita matter but this constant spin that consumers drive demand and depiction of industry as a passive agent victim of consumer desire is naive at best and malicious at worse.
See I hate this kind of statements. Even if every citizen "did their part" simple actions by corporations can undo all of their effort.
This is plain false. Quality of life is in no way strictly correlated with energy usage and pollution.
It's product of thousands more variables and the most important ones are urban planning and social issues.
It's product of thousands more variables and the most important ones are urban planning and social issues.
Quality of Life is too fuzzy to make such a strong statement. But if we take economic output as a proxy, it's your view that is demonstrably false.
You're roughly claiming that "Decoupling" (economic growth without resource consumption) is not only possible but has already occurred? Seriously? Global GDP is very highly correlated with energy use, fossil fuel use specifically.
You probably heard that some countries (the US, EU) are in the process of decoupling. Bullshit. Looking at this on a per-country basis is a deeply flawed analysis at best, a deceptive account trick. We have a global trade network and you can't outsource your fuel consumption to China, import their products, and call yourself green. If you extend the analysis globally, you will not find decoupling at all - energy is the economy.
I encourage you to read this paper by the European Environmental Bureau: https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/
You're roughly claiming that "Decoupling" (economic growth without resource consumption) is not only possible but has already occurred? Seriously? Global GDP is very highly correlated with energy use, fossil fuel use specifically.
You probably heard that some countries (the US, EU) are in the process of decoupling. Bullshit. Looking at this on a per-country basis is a deeply flawed analysis at best, a deceptive account trick. We have a global trade network and you can't outsource your fuel consumption to China, import their products, and call yourself green. If you extend the analysis globally, you will not find decoupling at all - energy is the economy.
I encourage you to read this paper by the European Environmental Bureau: https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/
> Quality of Life is too fuzzy to make such a strong statement.
So it is GDP. Also environmental impact, happiness an much more.
Yet you can find plenty of lists of countries by per capita income, QoL and so on and make comparisons.
> But if we take economic output as a proxy, it's your view that is demonstrably false.
Wrong.
> You're roughly claiming that ... is not only possible but has already occurred?
It's clearly shown if you compare QoL vs environmental impact across nothern european countries, japan and US for example.
US being pretty terrible at that, to no surprise.
> Bullshit.
You can do better.
> I encourage you to read this paper by the European Environmental Bureau: https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/
From the landing page: "Is it possible to enjoy both economic growth and environmental sustainability?"
...which is nowhere close to my initial point.
And for the record I'm actually going to finish reading the pdf instead of just calling things "Bullshit"
So it is GDP. Also environmental impact, happiness an much more.
Yet you can find plenty of lists of countries by per capita income, QoL and so on and make comparisons.
> But if we take economic output as a proxy, it's your view that is demonstrably false.
Wrong.
> You're roughly claiming that ... is not only possible but has already occurred?
It's clearly shown if you compare QoL vs environmental impact across nothern european countries, japan and US for example.
US being pretty terrible at that, to no surprise.
> Bullshit.
You can do better.
> I encourage you to read this paper by the European Environmental Bureau: https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/
From the landing page: "Is it possible to enjoy both economic growth and environmental sustainability?"
...which is nowhere close to my initial point.
And for the record I'm actually going to finish reading the pdf instead of just calling things "Bullshit"
> Bullshit
Sorry for the language but the argument that you can have economic growth without energy/resource consumption is just plain false. I'm deeply frustrated that people continue parroting that view without any credible evidence.
To be fair to you, your initial point only hinted at Decoupling and didn't claim it directly. My bad.
> "Is it possible to enjoy both economic growth and environmental sustainability?" ...which is nowhere close to my initial point
So in your view, quality of life and happiness are separate concerns from "the economy"? I truly hope you're right! We may never be able to decouple resource extraction from economic production - but we might have a shot at decoupling economic production from QoL if we can learn to collectively reduce our consumption and find more fulfilling ways to live on less. There's no historical precedent for a civilization ever willingly de-growing themselves and surviving (see the work of Joseph Tainter) let alone thriving, but one can hope.
Sorry for the language but the argument that you can have economic growth without energy/resource consumption is just plain false. I'm deeply frustrated that people continue parroting that view without any credible evidence.
To be fair to you, your initial point only hinted at Decoupling and didn't claim it directly. My bad.
> "Is it possible to enjoy both economic growth and environmental sustainability?" ...which is nowhere close to my initial point
So in your view, quality of life and happiness are separate concerns from "the economy"? I truly hope you're right! We may never be able to decouple resource extraction from economic production - but we might have a shot at decoupling economic production from QoL if we can learn to collectively reduce our consumption and find more fulfilling ways to live on less. There's no historical precedent for a civilization ever willingly de-growing themselves and surviving (see the work of Joseph Tainter) let alone thriving, but one can hope.
We've already allowed narrow-field experts to largely dicate our policy re: covid response, and the results are worse than the disease. Let's hope more people are brought into decision making this time.
The quality of comments on HN has really started to degrade.
Yes, your comment is very low grade. I agree.
Yes, please stop posting ad-hominem attacks like that. If you have nothing to contribute beyond them, just refrain from posting.
"results worse than the disease" by what measurement?
Inflation getting out of control which will disproportionally affect poor people in Africa, Asia etc. Whereas we might have to get less nicer car on our next trade-in, they might not be able to get enough food. Plus, if the strained economy results in even just one war, the deaths and suffering from it alone will probably be greater than the lives saved via covid response.
For children for sure. Two years of lockdowns and wearing useless masks caused psychological damage and impaired learning. Not a good trade-off
Renewable energy is a lot less energy dense than oil or nuclear. Just to maintain renewable energy projects we need to re-invest about 25% of its energy output to keep it going long-term. This 25% needs to come from your living standards. Compare that to oil of about 10% and nuclear of less than 5%. Going green means that we loose productivity and have less money available on non-essential products and services. And many "greens" think they can keep their iPhone - I dont think so -, far away vacation - nope -, having a car - maybe a tiny one which you share with the whole family (incl. uncles and aunts).
What we care about is overall cost, not how much is required to reinvest.
If a renewable energy source is for example twice cheaper overall including the need to reinvest 25% then it is twice cheaper overall.
If a renewable energy source is for example twice cheaper overall including the need to reinvest 25% then it is twice cheaper overall.
The major driver of renewables costs is investment. The wind blowing and sun shining does not cost anything.
Sadly regarding renewables, there is no twice cheaper available right now. Maybe through innovation somewhere in the future. Right now only hydro power is close to fossil fuel energy density. But it is only available in a few places around the world.
Sadly regarding renewables, there is no twice cheaper available right now. Maybe through innovation somewhere in the future. Right now only hydro power is close to fossil fuel energy density. But it is only available in a few places around the world.
Solar is on par with fosil fuels. And at least in EU with cap & trade system accounting for externalities as well as stopping sponsoring Russian wars and terrorism, I would not be surprised if renewables were twice as cheap.
Interesting that you speak from some group of "we". Seems presumptuous at best.
The cost of fuel is rapidly increasing in lots of countries, which is affecting living standards. And global warming is affect living standards.
It's about everyone's best option for energy production and consumption. Rather than the "greens" and their iPhones — let's have the discussion and make informed choices, rather than accepting the status quo as the choice.
It's about everyone's best option for energy production and consumption. Rather than the "greens" and their iPhones — let's have the discussion and make informed choices, rather than accepting the status quo as the choice.
Lets see what the "informed choice" is? Freezing to death in winter or burn higher energy dense fuels. But you have a choice :-D
Great illustration of my point... Let's get informed on the choices. Where I live the choices are not binary like you've implied.
Energy density is an irrelevant metric. I don't care about the energy density of the source producing the power coming out of my sockets; I care about what it costs me.
Energy density is at best a contributor to cost, but if we have the actual cost there's no reason to use this dubious substitute. No reason, that is, unless you know the actual cost figures do not support your argument and are trying to dissemble.
Energy density is at best a contributor to cost, but if we have the actual cost there's no reason to use this dubious substitute. No reason, that is, unless you know the actual cost figures do not support your argument and are trying to dissemble.
The beauty of energy density is that you pay energy to get energy. You pay 1 kWh to get out 4 kWh in renewables. Thus you have 3 kWh available for society. Oil provides 9 kWh for society per 1 kWh investment. Nuclear provides 19 kWh for society. In developed economies we are about 12 kWh for society per 1 kWh investment. Thus going to renewables will cut society wealth by a factor of 4! The energy is not gone but it is redirected to maintain renewables infrastructure. If you live in the US rn, your renewables living standard will be equivalent to Mexico rn.
Money is quasi-energy. The petrodollar is not a joke. It literally binds the US dollar to barrels of oil. As everybody needs energy / oil, everybody needs US dollars.
Money is quasi-energy. The petrodollar is not a joke. It literally binds the US dollar to barrels of oil. As everybody needs energy / oil, everybody needs US dollars.
> Money is quasi-energy
Except it isn't. Energy is only one of the resources that goes into making things. Other costs, like materials, labor and cost of capital, are also important. Nuclear has the problem that these other costs are significantly higher than for renewables.
Except it isn't. Energy is only one of the resources that goes into making things. Other costs, like materials, labor and cost of capital, are also important. Nuclear has the problem that these other costs are significantly higher than for renewables.
Nonsense because non of it is actually renewable.
There is an insane amount of commodity input into so called renewable energy sources.
And what happens once you have two or more dry, becalmed winters, going to be hellishly cold when there is no juice in the battery and you've killed all meaningful hydrocarbon energy sources. On a long enough time line you will eventually not have enough storage to cover these scenarios. The idiocy of the narrative "climate change makes the climate unpredicable, solution become dependent on the climate", fucking moronic.
The EU could be a revelation of what's to come. The current drought has brought hydro to it's limits, the progressive liberal foreign policy has starved it of hydrocarbons. If this winter is cold and becalmed europe will collapse and all of you bleeding heart liberal bear responsibility for the millions who will die.
And if we do get through this winter we'll have the massive global shortfall in food due to the war on fertilizer both the Netherlands and Canada are waging.
You know what, fuck the animals and fuck the climate I want to be able to eat and not freeze to death.
No credit no control. No vote no power.
There is an insane amount of commodity input into so called renewable energy sources.
And what happens once you have two or more dry, becalmed winters, going to be hellishly cold when there is no juice in the battery and you've killed all meaningful hydrocarbon energy sources. On a long enough time line you will eventually not have enough storage to cover these scenarios. The idiocy of the narrative "climate change makes the climate unpredicable, solution become dependent on the climate", fucking moronic.
The EU could be a revelation of what's to come. The current drought has brought hydro to it's limits, the progressive liberal foreign policy has starved it of hydrocarbons. If this winter is cold and becalmed europe will collapse and all of you bleeding heart liberal bear responsibility for the millions who will die.
And if we do get through this winter we'll have the massive global shortfall in food due to the war on fertilizer both the Netherlands and Canada are waging.
You know what, fuck the animals and fuck the climate I want to be able to eat and not freeze to death.
No credit no control. No vote no power.
Mate, Europe ain’t gonna collapse. Even with cold winter, enough resources to keep citizens running will be found. We might have to cut production output, yes. There will be more climate related deaths, yes. But we ain’t gonna collapse.
Systems subject to stress sometimes do exhibit a phase change, also known as "collapse". Hard to predict when and what shape, but the probability of a phase change is rather uncomfortable. When it happens, we will likely blame social / ethnic group X, because our brains are, sadly, hardwired for social scapegoating in face of severe grief.
This reads like FUD. If more progress was made on the renewable energy front we would be in much better shape.
Technology isn't what's stopping us from saving the planet, greedy corporations and corrupt politicians are.