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Switching to electricity makes the supply much more flexible. When a power plant spins up or shuts down, that affects the CO2 output of every customer on the gr
by sp332 6y ago
Switching to electricity makes the supply much more flexible. When a power plant spins up or shuts down, that affects the CO2 output of every customer on the grid. It's much easier to quickly bring more grid-scale solar and wind online than to retrofit millions of houses with new stoves after the fact.
- testfoobar 6y agoWhat happens at night when solar and wind are not available?
- sp332 6y agoWind is often available at night. Currently, there is not enough renewable capacity to handle everything, but that is changing. As storage gets cheaper and more common (in electric cars for example), it will get more practical.
- testfoobar 6y agoStorage is getting cheaper but the growth curve doesn't have the right exponent because we don't have the battery science or the battery technology to meet grid scale energy needs. You need energy storage at scale at night. The only solution at night after batteries (chemical, stored water, gravity, etc.) are quickly depleted is natural gas. Modern nuclear reactor designs could easily fill the gap. Public sentiment and the risk of building in earthquake prone geography has prevented investment in nuclear.