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Are the downvotes really hard to understand? Claiming that renewables are untenable without unavailable fantasy technology is clearly ill-informed. Renewables

by derriz 6y ago

Are the downvotes really hard to understand? Claiming that renewables are untenable without unavailable fantasy technology is clearly ill-informed. Renewables are already contributing a significant proportion of generated electricity globally - even in the US it's over 20% versus 8% for nuclear. In many European countries, renewables provide over 30% of the consumed electricity. Renewables are already a big part of electricity generation globally despite the lack of star-trek type batteries. Then the poster turns to politics, suggesting it's just hippies and liberals who have prevented the triumph of nuclear. This is also clearly untrue - the main reason nuclear has all but been abandoned as a source of electricity was decided by the markets - it's just too expensive - without massive government backing nuclear is not economically feasible. Until the 80s, government support was justified because nuclear expertise and materials had military uses but without government support, there hasn't been a single privately financed/build nuclear plant anywhere.

Hammershaft 6y ago
> In many European countries, renewables provide over 30% of the consumed electricity. Renewables are already a big part of electricity generation globally despite the lack of star-trek type batteries. Getting to a fraction of total power demand requires no batteries at all, but that doesn't disprove the OPs point.
pif 6y ago
> In many European countries, renewables provide over 30% of the consumed electricity. That fraction is not very important, unless you can name at least a country who is ready to devote all its renewable enrgy to 30% of their people/services/industries and permanently disconnect them from traditional energy sources.
pif 6y ago
> Until the 80s You mean until Chernobyl?
evilos 6y ago
You can have a big part of your energy generation come from renewables easily (as you pointed out). The hard/impossible part is making renewables the main or only source of power. That requires an insane amount of energy storage capacity, or an amazing electric grid or some combination of these. The US uses 11 Terawatt hours of electric energy every day. Studies project that 80% renewable generation would require 12 hours of battery storage, so 5.5 TWHrs of battery storage. 100% renewable energy needs 3 weeks of storage. Current global production of battery capacity is 300 GWHrs per year. Production is expected to quadruple in 10 years. By these numbers producing enough batteries for the world is not feasible. Also consider that these batteries will need to be recycled and this is a pretty dirty process (currently). Personally, I think the best plan for now is a mix of base load nuclear power(maybe like 20 to 30% of peak demand) and the rest being solar/wind. In the US we'd need to build out thousands of miles of HVDC transmission lines and build lots of battery banks.

by derriz 6y ago

Hammershaft 6y ago

> In many European countries, renewables provide over 30% of the consumed electricity. Renewables are already a big part of electricity generation globally despite the lack of star-trek type batteries. Getting to a fraction of total power demand requires no batteries at all, but that doesn't disprove the OPs point.

pif 6y ago

> In many European countries, renewables provide over 30% of the consumed electricity. That fraction is not very important, unless you can name at least a country who is ready to devote all its renewable enrgy to 30% of their people/services/industries and permanently disconnect them from traditional energy sources.

pif 6y ago

> Until the 80s You mean until Chernobyl?

evilos 6y ago

You can have a big part of your energy generation come from renewables easily (as you pointed out). The hard/impossible part is making renewables the main or only source of power. That requires an insane amount of energy storage capacity, or an amazing electric grid or some combination of these. The US uses 11 Terawatt hours of electric energy every day. Studies project that 80% renewable generation would require 12 hours of battery storage, so 5.5 TWHrs of battery storage. 100% renewable energy needs 3 weeks of storage. Current global production of battery capacity is 300 GWHrs per year. Production is expected to quadruple in 10 years. By these numbers producing enough batteries for the world is not feasible. Also consider that these batteries will need to be recycled and this is a pretty dirty process (currently). Personally, I think the best plan for now is a mix of base load nuclear power(maybe like 20 to 30% of peak demand) and the rest being solar/wind. In the US we'd need to build out thousands of miles of HVDC transmission lines and build lots of battery banks.