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There's a lot that can be done with renewables without nuclear or fossils, you can use demand response, batteries, hydro storage, and compressed air storage to

There's a lot that can be done with renewables without nuclear or fossils, you can use demand response, batteries, hydro storage, and compressed air storage to store very cheap electricity.

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
Not everywhere has sites that are good for pumped-hydro storage, typically requiring an existing hydro electric dam. Compressed air is very inefficient. But the general argument is: we need to consider what is happening now, not what could be possible under some idealised hypothetical scenario. And right now more renewables, without more, or maintaining existing, nuclear means more base-load coal and more load-following gas. The problems aren't really technical, they're political. Politics appears to be ill-equipped to deal with these problems.
throwawaylolx 7y ago
This is just the typical diversion rhetoric. According to all IPCC reports I've seen, you can't accomplish with renewables without nuclear what you can accomplish with renewables and nuclear, yet all political bodies promote renewables and fossil fuels while pretending it's just renewables.
- Dumblydorr 7y ago
  How is it diversionary to state examples of how renewables can be stored? That is literally the crux of the issue, we need storage for renewables. Nuclear sounds great on paper but look at new capacity additions. No one except China is adding nuclear. So to bring it up over and over here, Many HN commenters simply can't get over the fact that nuclear is way way way more expensive than renewables. Storage is the clear answer, unless you can point me to recently built nuclear and how cheap it is? How about South Carolina? Oh that was a massive fiasco that cost the ratepayers billions for literally nothing. If they spent those billions on solar, efficiency, and demand response, they'd have far cheaper and cleaner electricity. Instead they wasted billions on a nuclear facility that will never be finished.

There's a lot that can be done with renewables without nuclear or fossils, you can use demand response, batteries, hydro storage, and compressed air storage to store very cheap electricity.

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago

Not everywhere has sites that are good for pumped-hydro storage, typically requiring an existing hydro electric dam. Compressed air is very inefficient. But the general argument is: we need to consider what is happening now, not what could be possible under some idealised hypothetical scenario. And right now more renewables, without more, or maintaining existing, nuclear means more base-load coal and more load-following gas. The problems aren't really technical, they're political. Politics appears to be ill-equipped to deal with these problems.

throwawaylolx 7y ago

This is just the typical diversion rhetoric. According to all IPCC reports I've seen, you can't accomplish with renewables without nuclear what you can accomplish with renewables and nuclear, yet all political bodies promote renewables and fossil fuels while pretending it's just renewables.

Dumblydorr 7y ago
How is it diversionary to state examples of how renewables can be stored? That is literally the crux of the issue, we need storage for renewables. Nuclear sounds great on paper but look at new capacity additions. No one except China is adding nuclear. So to bring it up over and over here, Many HN commenters simply can't get over the fact that nuclear is way way way more expensive than renewables. Storage is the clear answer, unless you can point me to recently built nuclear and how cheap it is? How about South Carolina? Oh that was a massive fiasco that cost the ratepayers billions for literally nothing. If they spent those billions on solar, efficiency, and demand response, they'd have far cheaper and cleaner electricity. Instead they wasted billions on a nuclear facility that will never be finished.