4 ms·

Renewables are subsidized no?

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Yes. As they should be. Utility scale batteries should be subsidized, and there are some efforts to implement policy to do so. I take no issue with existing nuclear subsidized until renewables and storage can bridge the gap. Just don’t waste money on new nuclear that’ll never be cost effective, and will take decades to build. Also set funds aside for nuclear decommissioning and ensure it isn’t misappropriated.
- ThomPete 8y ago
  I take great issue and do not agree at all that energy should be subsidized. Renewables are not going to provide us with the energy we need, not even by a longshot. It's less than 1% of the worlds energy needs, will only be around 3% in 2040. Renewable energy is a linear solution to an exponential problem.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ncmncm 8y ago
    You continue repeating this number, despite being politely corrected numerous times.
    - ThomPete 8y ago
      You are welcome to find a better source.
  - imtringued 8y ago
    I don't think your numbers make sense. As far as I now the world needs around 22000TWh a year and Germany produced around 220TWh just with renewables alone which is enough to reach your 1% claim.
    - ThomPete 8y ago
      You are welcome to find better sources.
- reitzensteinm 8y ago
  I don't see how utility scale batteries could ever be a good idea when you can get dual use out of EV batteries. Not only can you dispatch demand (smoothly scale up and down charging to suit the grid), you can use the cars as storage and inject power in to the grid. If the Model 3 battery is claimed to be good for 1 million miles, it is more than capable of fulfilling this role over the lifetime of the car. A high end Tesla contains enough energy to power the average US household for 40 hours last time I did the calculation. There's no question we have to transition to EVs, and battery capacity is by far the bottleneck in this transition. A grid powered by renewables is going to need a massive amount of storage. Any policy that artificially silos batteries to only be used for only one of the two requirements is a bad policy.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Because batteries will get cheaper rapidly as we start making millions of EVs per year, negating the requirement (but not the capability) of using EVs as distributed storage (instead of simply as distributed load).
    - reitzensteinm 8y ago
      Battery production is going to be a bottleneck for a very long time. There are 1.2 billion vehicles in the world. Renewables are already starting to produce enough power that storage is already a necessity - famously in the case of the Tesla SA battery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve Separately subsidizing EVs and grid storage in this circumstance is insane. You're only getting half the use out of the very expensive batteries you're purchasing today. At some point, batteries are cheap and plentiful enough that you don't have to attempt dual use, but at that point you're not subsidizing them any more, so that's not relevant to your original argument or my response to it. (Though my wording was poor; the "ever" was meant to refer specifically to subsidies on grid scale storage, which I believe will never make sense.)
eli 8y ago
So is coal
- ThomPete 8y ago
  Yes and none of them should be.

Yes. As they should be. Utility scale batteries should be subsidized, and there are some efforts to implement policy to do so. I take no issue with existing nuclear subsidized until renewables and storage can bridge the gap. Just don’t waste money on new nuclear that’ll never be cost effective, and will take decades to build. Also set funds aside for nuclear decommissioning and ensure it isn’t misappropriated.

ThomPete 8y ago
I take great issue and do not agree at all that energy should be subsidized. Renewables are not going to provide us with the energy we need, not even by a longshot. It's less than 1% of the worlds energy needs, will only be around 3% in 2040. Renewable energy is a linear solution to an exponential problem.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ncmncm 8y ago
  You continue repeating this number, despite being politely corrected numerous times.
  - ThomPete 8y ago
    You are welcome to find a better source.
- imtringued 8y ago
  I don't think your numbers make sense. As far as I now the world needs around 22000TWh a year and Germany produced around 220TWh just with renewables alone which is enough to reach your 1% claim.
  - ThomPete 8y ago
    You are welcome to find better sources.
reitzensteinm 8y ago
I don't see how utility scale batteries could ever be a good idea when you can get dual use out of EV batteries. Not only can you dispatch demand (smoothly scale up and down charging to suit the grid), you can use the cars as storage and inject power in to the grid. If the Model 3 battery is claimed to be good for 1 million miles, it is more than capable of fulfilling this role over the lifetime of the car. A high end Tesla contains enough energy to power the average US household for 40 hours last time I did the calculation. There's no question we have to transition to EVs, and battery capacity is by far the bottleneck in this transition. A grid powered by renewables is going to need a massive amount of storage. Any policy that artificially silos batteries to only be used for only one of the two requirements is a bad policy.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Because batteries will get cheaper rapidly as we start making millions of EVs per year, negating the requirement (but not the capability) of using EVs as distributed storage (instead of simply as distributed load).
  - reitzensteinm 8y ago
    Battery production is going to be a bottleneck for a very long time. There are 1.2 billion vehicles in the world. Renewables are already starting to produce enough power that storage is already a necessity - famously in the case of the Tesla SA battery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve Separately subsidizing EVs and grid storage in this circumstance is insane. You're only getting half the use out of the very expensive batteries you're purchasing today. At some point, batteries are cheap and plentiful enough that you don't have to attempt dual use, but at that point you're not subsidizing them any more, so that's not relevant to your original argument or my response to it. (Though my wording was poor; the "ever" was meant to refer specifically to subsidies on grid scale storage, which I believe will never make sense.)

eli 8y ago

So is coal

ThomPete 8y ago
Yes and none of them should be.