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There's no way to make enough batteries for 100% renewable grid, everyone on the planet would need an electric car sized battery, which means you'd need 10000 g

by mavhc 7y ago

There's no way to make enough batteries for 100% renewable grid, everyone on the planet would need an electric car sized battery, which means you'd need 10000 gigafactories iirc. Which is why I suggested 50% nuclear, 50% renewable. That's still about 100x more renewable than we have today

benj111 7y ago
"everyone on the planet would need an electric car sized battery" This is basically what we're aiming for (in the west at least) anyway, with EVs? Are you saying we don't have the materials to do it? Or we don't have the factory capacity for it? Batteries can be made from a variety of materials, and we supply near enough 1 car per person in the west, so batteries should be doable? Id hope some combination of said car batteries, continent spanning grids, smart appliances would get us most of the way there. The biggest flaw with this model is what happens on cloudy, still weeks? I guess some kind of waste to energy, wood, and bio gas, hydrogen power station would be less expensive than a nuclear reactor.
- godelski 7y ago
  I can't speak for the person you're responding to, but > Are you saying we don't have the materials to do it? Yes. At least without substantially expanding mining operations. > Or we don't have the factory capacity for it? We're NOWHERE near that kind of production level. > The biggest flaw with this model is what happens on cloudy, still weeks? I guess some kind of waste to energy, wood, and bio gas, hydrogen power station would be less expensive than a nuclear reactor. Not if we price in carbon emissions. I also have to mention that there are plenty of places that people live where it is almost always cloudy and almost never windy (at the same time). I will keep saying this: we need diversified energy portfolios. The key though, is we don't want any of those sources producing emissions, or to at least minimize them as much as possible (we're playing a negative sum game here)
  - benj111 7y ago
    "Not if we price in carbon emissions" All those things can be carbon neutral, except waste to energy. Obviously though yes, those places with no wind, sun or other resources. Nuclear will have a place.
    - godelski 7y ago
      > Obviously though yes, those places with no wind, sun or other resources. Nuclear will have a place. And the unfortunate part is that those places hold a fair amount of the world's population. We're not asking for nuclear in places that are sunny and windy. We don't need it there. We're asking for it in places that aren't.
      - pfdietz 7y ago
        95% of the world's population lives below 50 N/S latitude.
pfdietz 7y ago
It's not just batteries. It's batteries, and transmission, and pumped hydro, and dispatchable demand, and overproduction w. hydrogen to soak up the excess, and burning hydrogen in turbines for very rare long lulls. The cost optimized system will exploit most or all of these, and have no place for expensive baseload sources. Nuclear with its current cost structure and cheap renewables simply don't fit well together.

by mavhc 7y ago

benj111 7y ago

"everyone on the planet would need an electric car sized battery" This is basically what we're aiming for (in the west at least) anyway, with EVs? Are you saying we don't have the materials to do it? Or we don't have the factory capacity for it? Batteries can be made from a variety of materials, and we supply near enough 1 car per person in the west, so batteries should be doable? Id hope some combination of said car batteries, continent spanning grids, smart appliances would get us most of the way there. The biggest flaw with this model is what happens on cloudy, still weeks? I guess some kind of waste to energy, wood, and bio gas, hydrogen power station would be less expensive than a nuclear reactor.

godelski 7y ago
I can't speak for the person you're responding to, but > Are you saying we don't have the materials to do it? Yes. At least without substantially expanding mining operations. > Or we don't have the factory capacity for it? We're NOWHERE near that kind of production level. > The biggest flaw with this model is what happens on cloudy, still weeks? I guess some kind of waste to energy, wood, and bio gas, hydrogen power station would be less expensive than a nuclear reactor. Not if we price in carbon emissions. I also have to mention that there are plenty of places that people live where it is almost always cloudy and almost never windy (at the same time). I will keep saying this: we need diversified energy portfolios. The key though, is we don't want any of those sources producing emissions, or to at least minimize them as much as possible (we're playing a negative sum game here)
- benj111 7y ago
  "Not if we price in carbon emissions" All those things can be carbon neutral, except waste to energy. Obviously though yes, those places with no wind, sun or other resources. Nuclear will have a place.
  - godelski 7y ago
    > Obviously though yes, those places with no wind, sun or other resources. Nuclear will have a place. And the unfortunate part is that those places hold a fair amount of the world's population. We're not asking for nuclear in places that are sunny and windy. We don't need it there. We're asking for it in places that aren't.
    - pfdietz 7y ago
      95% of the world's population lives below 50 N/S latitude.

pfdietz 7y ago

It's not just batteries. It's batteries, and transmission, and pumped hydro, and dispatchable demand, and overproduction w. hydrogen to soak up the excess, and burning hydrogen in turbines for very rare long lulls. The cost optimized system will exploit most or all of these, and have no place for expensive baseload sources. Nuclear with its current cost structure and cheap renewables simply don't fit well together.