5 ms·
Darkness is temporary (in the sense of nights) only when close enough to equator. Here in Finland even as far south as you can go solar efficiency drops to almo
by doikor 7y ago
Darkness is temporary (in the sense of nights) only when close enough to equator. Here in Finland even as far south as you can go solar efficiency drops to almost nothing for a good 4 months a year. And in the north it goes to literally to nothing. And it isn’t very safe to rely on other counties for electricity over this period. Doing that basically hands the keys to freeze a sizable portion of our population to an external entity (government)
Though even now we aren’t independent when it comes to heating over the winters. We have to import oil, gas and coal. But with those one can have strategic stockpiles to last over the next/current winter at least if things go bad. Kind of similar for nuclear fuel. We have stockpiles for years but don’t mine it here (we could but economically much cheaper to buy from Sweden and Russia). Just much easier to stockpile that stuff.
But yeah for the vast majority of the whole planets population solar with batteries should work just fine.
- jacquesm 7y agoI would be highly surprised if the habitable zone of our planet in 'sustainable' mode would be the exact same habitable zone in 'unsustainable' mode.
- marcosdumay 7y agoI wouldn't. We are roughly distributed by local food availability, and that correlates well with solar power availability. The one large difference is that food is easier to import. But I am pretty sure we can solve the energy long distance trade problems.
- pfdietz 7y agoExpensive nuclear is not going to save your energy-hungry industries when the cheap energy is available at low latitudes. Boreal countries will be energy ghettos in a solar powered world.
- doikor 7y agoOur energy hungry industries are building nuclear with their own money. And even with the delays of olkiluoto 3 they want to build more (but are having a hard time getting the permit). TVO Teollisuuden voima (heavy industries power) is the company that built, operators and owns half of the nuclear plants in Finland (one of the owners of TVO owns the rest) If they can get the financing from private markets to build more I say let them. None of the current/future plants were built with government money outside of them being the backer for the insurance.
- pfdietz 7y agoYou do not contradict what I wrote. Yes, your industries are going with nuclear. No, they will not be able to compete toe-to-toe with equatorial countries getting solar at $0.01/kWh, as they will likely be able to in a few years.
- doikor 7y agoWill the equatorial countries have the skilled workers, raw resources, logistical infra (roads etc) required to run the plant? Energy is not the only thing you need to run a plant. I doubt prices will never reach $0.01/kWh. At least here in Finland transmissions fees are a larger part of the bill then the energy itself already. So unless every plant builds an absolutely massive solar farm next to it (and never plans to sell its overproduction from the day) the network fees alone will be much more then that.
- pfdietz 7y agoWhy should they not? Is this something that dark skinned countries cannot do? I think your position there is showing a thinly cloaked racism. I suspect much anti-solar talk has that as a motivation. The idea that white skinned boreal countries will become the future's "third world" may be intolerable.
- maxibon98 7y agoDude I'm really stunned, you guys were talking about energy, industry, Economics, but how did that turn into racism? you scare me wow
- ZeroGravitas 7y agoA map that shows population by latitude and longitude: https://www.datagraver.com/thumbs/1300x1300r/2016-09/density3.png https://www.datagraver.com/thumbs/1300x1300r/2016-09/density...
- mannykannot 7y agoThis is rather beside the point, but this is the population divided by the land area, which accounts for things like the large spike at about 22 degrees East (Reykjavik, and not much else.)
- treis 7y ago>Darkness is temporary (in the sense of nights) only when close enough to equator. But cloudy weather isn't. Ultimately that's the problem with doing a straight cost comparison between solar and wind. You have to build much more capacity to account for times when they aren't producing at 100%.
- skitout 7y agoWith a lot of energy efficiency, heat/cold storage, electricity storage and demand-response you can go a long way while limiting the extra "capacity to account for times when they aren't producing at 100%"... . But of course, having different (renewable) source of energy on the grid always make sense and often make it easier
- treis 7y agoSure, but you still have to account for the cost of that storage and demand response. And when you're talking about days worth of energy storage things get very expensive.