4 ms·

I do not think solar is going to work. As you say, it might take up to 50 years to crack the case on nuclear fusion. I argue that it might take up to 50 years f

by usui 6y ago

I do not think solar is going to work. As you say, it might take up to 50 years to crack the case on nuclear fusion. I argue that it might take up to 50 years for governments and companies around the world to even begin cooperating in a fashion such that they make a dent in carbon-based energy sources at the global scale using solar. The reason why solar is not going to work mostly is because there is no legitimate mass installation of batteries that can handle the demand of energy. And the reason why the batteries cannot handle the demand of energy is because governments are not serious about deploying more, and people are already comfortable with the quality of life they already have, so neither are going to step up to make this work. And to be fair, why should the average citizen impose restrictions on themselves to solve this crisis? It's not realistic. Governments are supposed to be the ones to make these initiatives. Analogy: I hate having to pay for taxes, but I like that the government gets it from everyone, so that it can implement common services that benefit a lot of people, which wouldn't be possible otherwise. The only way is nuclear fission because, as you said, it is proven to be safe and reliable. However, the people have spoken: They do not want "dangerous" nuclear reactors around, even if those impressions were formed by reactors designed and built in the 1950s-1960s. I personally think this is a shut case. There is no convincing of the people to go to nuclear fission anymore.

svara 6y ago
It's a bit odd to me that you seem to deem fusion power realistic, while discounting other ways of generating and storing power that are basically available already. Power from renewables can be stored for the long term as hydrogen. That's well understood technology, scaling up is an engineering problem. When the sun shines and the wind blows, solar and onshore wind are the cheapest ways to make electricity, so there's a huge economic incentive to solving the storage issue.
- usui 6y ago
  Thanks for pointing out, because now that I think of it, my view does come off as odd. What I think it reflects is that despite nuclear fusion being a technical, engineering problem, I believe getting companies/governments to abandon carbon for wind/solar to the point of carbon-neutral is even more insurmountable. Does that viewpoint make sense? For them to get off fossil fuels, it's going to need a ball-out-of-the-park solution. It's too hard to compete with the fracking revolution.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    Why do you think economic incentives won't be enough? Solar and wind are already the cheapest energy sourve in terms of production. We just need large scale storage to become cheap and practical and we're sorted. The UK government has committed to being carbon neutral by 2050. That's well before you're even prediciting the fusion becomes available.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Even if we deploy batteries, wind and solar in an amount needed to mitigate a climate change crisis, the amount of mining and industrial activity that would take would greatly poison our planet in other ways. In terms of "other stuff you need to do" per MW none of these come close to touching fission. Fusion, being much cleaner than fission would be a holy grail of clean cheap energy. I hope it only takes 50yr to figure out and scale up fusion, that would be great.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  What part of a wind turbine 'greatly poisons iur planet"? Its an electric generator on a mast. How is it more poisonos than any other industrial object or consumer device?
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >What part of a wind turbine 'greatly poisons iur planet"? The batteries they're going to be paired with unless some other storage tech becomes better or windmills become so cheap that we can use less storage or inefficient storage. The windmills themselves are mostly fine since they're just fiberglass, metals and concrete. Mining for the things that go into batteries is just as destructive as the mining done for coal. It just happens in Asia so nobody cares. If you destroy the suitability of land for habitation or certain crops (likely by affecting the watershed) then you create many of the same problems climate change would/will cause. If you make mining less destructive to the environment batteries become more expensive hampering renewable adoption. It's a catch 22. Don't get me wrong, it's better than fossil fuels and better than anything involving a solar panel (which has all the mining related dirtiness on the energy production side as well as the storage side) but compared to the bang for your buck you get by knocking atoms around it's a hell of a lot of industrial activity.
    - Reason077 6y ago
      > "Mining for the things that go into batteries is just as destructive as the mining done for coal." Most of what goes in to batteries can be recycled. You can't recycle coal.

by usui 6y ago

svara 6y ago

It's a bit odd to me that you seem to deem fusion power realistic, while discounting other ways of generating and storing power that are basically available already. Power from renewables can be stored for the long term as hydrogen. That's well understood technology, scaling up is an engineering problem. When the sun shines and the wind blows, solar and onshore wind are the cheapest ways to make electricity, so there's a huge economic incentive to solving the storage issue.

usui 6y ago
Thanks for pointing out, because now that I think of it, my view does come off as odd. What I think it reflects is that despite nuclear fusion being a technical, engineering problem, I believe getting companies/governments to abandon carbon for wind/solar to the point of carbon-neutral is even more insurmountable. Does that viewpoint make sense? For them to get off fossil fuels, it's going to need a ball-out-of-the-park solution. It's too hard to compete with the fracking revolution.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  Why do you think economic incentives won't be enough? Solar and wind are already the cheapest energy sourve in terms of production. We just need large scale storage to become cheap and practical and we're sorted. The UK government has committed to being carbon neutral by 2050. That's well before you're even prediciting the fusion becomes available.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

Even if we deploy batteries, wind and solar in an amount needed to mitigate a climate change crisis, the amount of mining and industrial activity that would take would greatly poison our planet in other ways. In terms of "other stuff you need to do" per MW none of these come close to touching fission. Fusion, being much cleaner than fission would be a holy grail of clean cheap energy. I hope it only takes 50yr to figure out and scale up fusion, that would be great.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
What part of a wind turbine 'greatly poisons iur planet"? Its an electric generator on a mast. How is it more poisonos than any other industrial object or consumer device?
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >What part of a wind turbine 'greatly poisons iur planet"? The batteries they're going to be paired with unless some other storage tech becomes better or windmills become so cheap that we can use less storage or inefficient storage. The windmills themselves are mostly fine since they're just fiberglass, metals and concrete. Mining for the things that go into batteries is just as destructive as the mining done for coal. It just happens in Asia so nobody cares. If you destroy the suitability of land for habitation or certain crops (likely by affecting the watershed) then you create many of the same problems climate change would/will cause. If you make mining less destructive to the environment batteries become more expensive hampering renewable adoption. It's a catch 22. Don't get me wrong, it's better than fossil fuels and better than anything involving a solar panel (which has all the mining related dirtiness on the energy production side as well as the storage side) but compared to the bang for your buck you get by knocking atoms around it's a hell of a lot of industrial activity.
  - Reason077 6y ago
    > "Mining for the things that go into batteries is just as destructive as the mining done for coal." Most of what goes in to batteries can be recycled. You can't recycle coal.