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The true energy solution to climate change will need to be a mix of wind, solar, nuclear, storage, and more. No one generation method will solve all of our issu

The true energy solution to climate change will need to be a mix of wind, solar, nuclear, storage, and more. No one generation method will solve all of our issues. We need to start being more technology agnostic (small plug for the https://collective.energy https://collective.energy community)

dimitrios1 6y ago
Also small plug for the ACC -- American Conservation Coalition, a group of millennial conservatives. Whatever you may think of politics, you need support from both sides of the isle to get true change, and they genuinely believe in tackling the issue, but with market-based, evidence-based approaches.
readams 6y ago
Yes the key thing to remember here is that without something to augment it, wind and solar get diminished returned as they become a higher percentage of your generation capacity. You need either nuclear or some heretofore not invented storage technology (or both) to get a reliable grid where wind and solar are a majority of your capacity.
- nkingsy 6y ago
  It seems like we have endless ways to store energy at grid scale but we don't employ them because coal/natural gas is "cheaper" than storage, and likely will be until an industry for grid-scale storage starts grinding down costs (as opposed to piggybacking off of something maximized for power/weight like li-ion).
ipnon 6y ago
The true energy solution to climate change is free markets. Fossil fuels are subsidized[1] and their externalities are untaxed.[2] Our society is structured to generate the suboptimal. This goes for pollution and price. [1] https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subsidies-a-closer-look-at-tax-breaks-and-societal-costs https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subs... [2] https://cleantechnica.com/2018/01/16/carbon-fees-mystery-untaxed-negative-externality/ https://cleantechnica.com/2018/01/16/carbon-fees-mystery-unt...
- cbmuser 6y ago
  Solar and wind are highly subsidized as well. Just look at German electricity prices.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Keep in mind that the subsidy for oil might be "accounting for the entire world's economy collapsing in the future due to climate change".
  - infecto 6y ago
    Agree with this and I would argue that subsidies can be a good thing. In a perfect world (which does not exist) I think subsidies for old power generation would have left long ago and as soon as new tech came out they could be applied to it.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    obviously this varies country by country, and strongly depends on local climate.It's very poor argumentation in that sense. One should actually present numbers, not point fingers circumstantially.
- headsupernova 6y ago
  > free markets > externalities are untaxed. ?? Free markets are utterly and demonstrably unable to solve climate change.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I believe the point was that fossil fuels operate in a market where they are subsidized, which is not really free.
    - monadic2 6y ago
      Yea well "really" free markets don't actually exist so that distinction seems a little silly. I mean obviously the subsidies are bad but removing them isn't going to solve much of anything by itself.
joshlemer 6y ago
I have been wondering why hydro-electric generation is often left out of discussions about renewable energy? Is it because we're currently maxing out the hydro-electric potential of the earth so there's no more gains to be had? If not, it seems like the perfect energy generation method -- it avoids the battery problem, has 0 pollution outside of initial dam construction, is perfectly safe. Three provinces in Canada are ~100% on hydro electric power.
- mcot2 6y ago
  It works extremely well in some areas but it’s not widely available in all areas. One possible solution to that is ultra high voltage dc transmission lines. Hydro Quebec is currently in the process of building one to connect Canada to the New England grid to supply very cheap hydro power to New England.
- surfmike 6y ago
  It not only avoids the battery problem, but can be a solution to the battery problem.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    Pumping water up is very inefficient
    - ascorbic 6y ago
      Pumped hydro has an efficiency of around 80%, which is similar to lithium ion batteries. They also have massive capacity. The downside is that there aren't many places where they can be built.
      - im3w1l 6y ago
        What if we dammed the Mediterranean?
        6y ago
alex_young 6y ago
The 'more' part is currently the most significant chunk and has the highest potential. I'm thinking of hydro primarily, which was 16% of global energy production in 2018: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/world-gross-electricity-production-by-source-2018 https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/world-gross-e...
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  It has almost no potential because most rivers that could be used for hydro generation are already tapped. There are some exceptions in developing nations or sparely populated countries, but there is nothing USA or Germany could do to meaningfully increase amount of Hydro electricity.
  - alex_young 6y ago
    Hydro is 16% and geothermal is less than 1%. Other countries have been able to offset 100% of co2 by exploration of geo, we should do the same here.
mcot2 6y ago
Debatable if Nuclear is even required. Nuclear is fantastic for baseload but the economics are currently terrible mostly due to uncertainty in regulation and spiraling decommissioning and cleanup costs. We need much more investment in reactor technology and there is currently zero appetite for it in the United States. There is however tremendous investments in battery technology. It has yet to be seen whether that could get cost effective enough combined with wind and solar to completely get rid of the need for Nuclear.
- ericvanular 6y ago
  Honestly it provides a huge amount of the base load in Ontario (~60%) and for most intents and purposes is clean. Debatable if we'd be able to get new reactors built today but I'm glad it exists
  - akamaka 6y ago
    New reactors were considered for Ontario, but the plans were withdrawn because it didn’t make economic sense. It would have been great if we had built enough nuclear plants in the 20th century, but at this point it’s pretty clear that most countries would better off going straight to cheaper renewables. http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2009/07/24/bruce-power-will-focus-on-additional-refurbishments-at-bruce-a-and-bruce-b-1014#.X0f5XCRq2Ed http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nucle...
    - marcusverus 6y ago
      > These are business decisions unique to Ontario and reflect the current realities of the market. This doesn't seem to support your general argument. Do you have any evidence that renewables are generally cheaper than nuclear when accounting for storage?
      - VBprogrammer 6y ago
        I've said this before but there is no evidence that battery storage can scale to anything like the required storage. Tesla's battery in Australia stores roughly what the UK receives from French nuclear over production in a few minutes.
macspoofing 6y ago
>The true energy solution to climate change will need to be a mix of wind, solar, nuclear, storage, and more Why? If you have nuclear, why bother with wind and solar - especially since wind and solar don't play well with nuclear.

dimitrios1 6y ago

Also small plug for the ACC -- American Conservation Coalition, a group of millennial conservatives. Whatever you may think of politics, you need support from both sides of the isle to get true change, and they genuinely believe in tackling the issue, but with market-based, evidence-based approaches.

readams 6y ago

Yes the key thing to remember here is that without something to augment it, wind and solar get diminished returned as they become a higher percentage of your generation capacity. You need either nuclear or some heretofore not invented storage technology (or both) to get a reliable grid where wind and solar are a majority of your capacity.

nkingsy 6y ago
It seems like we have endless ways to store energy at grid scale but we don't employ them because coal/natural gas is "cheaper" than storage, and likely will be until an industry for grid-scale storage starts grinding down costs (as opposed to piggybacking off of something maximized for power/weight like li-ion).

ipnon 6y ago

The true energy solution to climate change is free markets. Fossil fuels are subsidized[1] and their externalities are untaxed.[2] Our society is structured to generate the suboptimal. This goes for pollution and price. [1] https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subsidies-a-closer-look-at-tax-breaks-and-societal-costs https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subs... [2] https://cleantechnica.com/2018/01/16/carbon-fees-mystery-untaxed-negative-externality/ https://cleantechnica.com/2018/01/16/carbon-fees-mystery-unt...

cbmuser 6y ago
Solar and wind are highly subsidized as well. Just look at German electricity prices.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Keep in mind that the subsidy for oil might be "accounting for the entire world's economy collapsing in the future due to climate change".
- infecto 6y ago
  Agree with this and I would argue that subsidies can be a good thing. In a perfect world (which does not exist) I think subsidies for old power generation would have left long ago and as soon as new tech came out they could be applied to it.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  obviously this varies country by country, and strongly depends on local climate.It's very poor argumentation in that sense. One should actually present numbers, not point fingers circumstantially.
headsupernova 6y ago
> free markets > externalities are untaxed. ?? Free markets are utterly and demonstrably unable to solve climate change.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I believe the point was that fossil fuels operate in a market where they are subsidized, which is not really free.
  - monadic2 6y ago
    Yea well "really" free markets don't actually exist so that distinction seems a little silly. I mean obviously the subsidies are bad but removing them isn't going to solve much of anything by itself.

joshlemer 6y ago

I have been wondering why hydro-electric generation is often left out of discussions about renewable energy? Is it because we're currently maxing out the hydro-electric potential of the earth so there's no more gains to be had? If not, it seems like the perfect energy generation method -- it avoids the battery problem, has 0 pollution outside of initial dam construction, is perfectly safe. Three provinces in Canada are ~100% on hydro electric power.

mcot2 6y ago
It works extremely well in some areas but it’s not widely available in all areas. One possible solution to that is ultra high voltage dc transmission lines. Hydro Quebec is currently in the process of building one to connect Canada to the New England grid to supply very cheap hydro power to New England.
surfmike 6y ago
It not only avoids the battery problem, but can be a solution to the battery problem.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Pumping water up is very inefficient
  - ascorbic 6y ago
    Pumped hydro has an efficiency of around 80%, which is similar to lithium ion batteries. They also have massive capacity. The downside is that there aren't many places where they can be built.
    - im3w1l 6y ago
      What if we dammed the Mediterranean?
      - 6y ago

alex_young 6y ago

The 'more' part is currently the most significant chunk and has the highest potential. I'm thinking of hydro primarily, which was 16% of global energy production in 2018: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/world-gross-electricity-production-by-source-2018 https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/world-gross-e...

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
It has almost no potential because most rivers that could be used for hydro generation are already tapped. There are some exceptions in developing nations or sparely populated countries, but there is nothing USA or Germany could do to meaningfully increase amount of Hydro electricity.
- alex_young 6y ago
  Hydro is 16% and geothermal is less than 1%. Other countries have been able to offset 100% of co2 by exploration of geo, we should do the same here.

mcot2 6y ago

Debatable if Nuclear is even required. Nuclear is fantastic for baseload but the economics are currently terrible mostly due to uncertainty in regulation and spiraling decommissioning and cleanup costs. We need much more investment in reactor technology and there is currently zero appetite for it in the United States. There is however tremendous investments in battery technology. It has yet to be seen whether that could get cost effective enough combined with wind and solar to completely get rid of the need for Nuclear.

ericvanular 6y ago
Honestly it provides a huge amount of the base load in Ontario (~60%) and for most intents and purposes is clean. Debatable if we'd be able to get new reactors built today but I'm glad it exists
- akamaka 6y ago
  New reactors were considered for Ontario, but the plans were withdrawn because it didn’t make economic sense. It would have been great if we had built enough nuclear plants in the 20th century, but at this point it’s pretty clear that most countries would better off going straight to cheaper renewables. http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2009/07/24/bruce-power-will-focus-on-additional-refurbishments-at-bruce-a-and-bruce-b-1014#.X0f5XCRq2Ed http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nucle...
  - marcusverus 6y ago
    > These are business decisions unique to Ontario and reflect the current realities of the market. This doesn't seem to support your general argument. Do you have any evidence that renewables are generally cheaper than nuclear when accounting for storage?
    - VBprogrammer 6y ago
      I've said this before but there is no evidence that battery storage can scale to anything like the required storage. Tesla's battery in Australia stores roughly what the UK receives from French nuclear over production in a few minutes.

macspoofing 6y ago

>The true energy solution to climate change will need to be a mix of wind, solar, nuclear, storage, and more Why? If you have nuclear, why bother with wind and solar - especially since wind and solar don't play well with nuclear.