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One thing I don't hear discussed much is that we really need enough renewables installed so that on good days for solar and wind, we're actually generating much
by mhandley 7y ago
One thing I don't hear discussed much is that we really need enough renewables installed so that on good days for solar and wind, we're actually generating much more than 100% of demand. This then substantially reduces the fraction of the time we depend on expensive storage. This only works though if we have additional variable demand that can kick in when things are going well, both to stabilize the grid and to provide a profitable market for energy. This is where technologies like Prometheus are developing could fit in really well - generating carbon-neutral aviation fuel from atmospheric CO2 and electricity, so we can decarbonize those parts of the economy that cannot switch directly to electric power.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Dumblydorr 7y agoI think it more likely that utilities (or someone) will begin buying up heating, cooling, and other flexible demand so that they can use a much higher % of their renewables efficiently.
- jabl 7y agoProblem with many of these schemes is that they are capital intensive, so if you can run them only when there's an oversupply of renewables on the grid, well, the economics are going to suck. I do think that synthetic fuels is a likely solution for things like long distance airplanes which are very hard to decarbonize otherwise.