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We really need two words for renewables: one for types that scale but don't provide power on demand (wind, solar), and the other for types that provide power on

We really need two words for renewables: one for types that scale but don't provide power on demand (wind, solar), and the other for types that provide power on demand but aren't available at scale everywhere (hydro, geothermal). Costa Rica is blessed with plenty of the second type and uses it. Because we lump it all into "renewables," it sounds like it should be easy for everyone to follow their example, and that's not the case. No country has run on a high percentage of wind/solar/battery for a long period of time.

maxleaf 5y ago
What are you talking about? If AOC and Gov. Brown are confident we can get to 100% renewable energy, then we can. Batteries will solve all the issues you mentioned and 100% renewable we go!
- ajdude 5y ago
  And in fact the battery method has been proven to work to solve Australia's power issue (thanks Elon!).
  - itsoktocry 5y ago
    Part of the bargain was that Tesla will be recycling the materials for these batteries when they are EoL. Until that actually happens, the battery only solves half the problem.
    - samatman 5y ago
      Sure. That seems like a kind of uncharitable way to put it though. It's possible that I'm reading in a tone that isn't there. Building the first grid-scale battery bank, and having it succeed in smoothing out the delivery curve for an intermittent-heavy grid: that's a huge victory! It's a triumph really. Insisting on the accountability and follow-through is important, sure. But that battery solves the whole problem we have right now, and will serve as a test case for solving the problem which it itself created for a decade down the road. Maybe Elon will be broke by then, or living on Mars, or we'll all complete the Singularity and have chips in our head. My hope is that they just fulfill the contract. In any case there's no reason to show that kind of skepticism about something which can't have happened yet.
- rytcio 5y ago
  AOC is not exactly someone I would trust to have deep knowledge about this topic
  - franga2000 5y ago
    A politician doesn't need specialist knowledge, they need to trust in the experts that have it. Looking at the US political landscape, trusting scientists is quite a rare trait and AOC seems to be one of the best when it comes to that.
cronin101 5y ago
I'll concede it's not a typical country since the weather is pretty unique, but Scotland is ~97% renewable and ~75% wind. It's well suited for some parts of the world at least.
- macspoofing 5y ago
  >but Scotland is ~97% renewable ... They aren't. The 97% renewable claim is misleading. Scotland can generate huge amount of wind/solar energy at certain times of day that they cannot use, and therefore they have to rely on fossil fuels for evenings and nights and any time sun isn't shining and wind isn't blowing. Their actual renewable *consumption* is on the order of 30%.
  - cronin101 5y ago
    Do you have a source? I would love to read more about that. FWIW I currently live in Norway which is ~100% renewable but that's mainly hydro and a very different situation with the amount of potential energy that hydro gives the 5M population.
    - aembleton 5y ago
      I just tried to find some more information on Scotlands consumption but couldn't find it. Most interesting piece I found was this: 51.7% of electricity generated in Scotland was generated by renewable technologies, compared to just 29.3% for the UK as a whole (or 25.6% for the rest of the UK, excluding Scotland). [1] The 97% figure quoted earlier is a gross figure [2] that is worked out on the basis of total renewable generation compared to total consumption. The problem is that the two don't always line up and we don't have large scale gird storage to handle it so it doesn't get used. Instead more polluting electricity is imported from England. 1. https://www.gov.scot/publications/annual-energy-statement-2019/pages/3/ https://www.gov.scot/publications/annual-energy-statement-20... 2. https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/statistics/2018/10/quarterly-energy-statistics-bulletins/documents/energy-statistics-summary---march-2021/energy-statistics-summary---march-2021/govscot%3Adocument/Scotland%2BEnergy%2BStatistics%2BQ4%2B2020.pdf https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publ...
wp381640 5y ago
> No country has run on a high percentage of wind/solar/battery for a long period of time. Only because it's early. The first grid-scale battery only went online 3 years ago. In that example (South Australia) you only have to look at this chart[0] to see what it done to grid renewable demand and where the trend is heading. There are multiple GW more of additional battery coming online over the next few years [0] https://opennem.org.au/stripes/sa1/?metric=renewablesProportion https://opennem.org.au/stripes/sa1/?metric=renewablesProport...
cesarb 5y ago
> We really need two words for renewables: one for types that scale but don't provide power on demand (wind, solar), and the other for types that provide power on demand but aren't available at scale everywhere (hydro, geothermal). The wording you are looking for is "dispatchable" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation).
- DennisP 5y ago
  Yes but generally that term includes fossil.
greenonions 5y ago
My state, Iowa, was 60% renewable over the last year. This is almost entirely from wind as Iowa is probably among the flattest US states.
gpt5 5y ago
Isn't geothermal theoretically available everywhere?
- hguant 5y ago
  Some available is more available than others I believe that the issue is that the Earth's crust isn't uniformly thick, and that there are places where one could drill for miles without reaching magma/suitable heat sources, and other places (Costa Rica and Iceland come to mind) where the suitable heat sources are essentially on the surface. Or, looking at it another way - oil drilling happens all over the globe and "hitting magma" isn't really a risk they're concerned about because it's so deep, that even the industry concerned with drilling too greedily and too deep doesn't intersect with it.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Magma is not necessary for geothermal. Regular fracking methods suffice to get to sufficiently hot strata. Once at the right level, you drill two holes horizontally in parallel for several hundred yards and pump cooled water down one and get hot water out the other. It stays liquid under pressure and boils water in a heat exchanger at the surface. The tech is still at pilot stage, but with no fundamental problems to solve. The important question is whether it will be able to compete commercially with solar and wind, which costs are still in free-fall.
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RhodoGSA 5y ago
I would love to a see a cost per watt across all renewables. is building a hydro and geothermal plant much cheaper than solar given you have the right conditions for solar?

maxleaf 5y ago

What are you talking about? If AOC and Gov. Brown are confident we can get to 100% renewable energy, then we can. Batteries will solve all the issues you mentioned and 100% renewable we go!

ajdude 5y ago
And in fact the battery method has been proven to work to solve Australia's power issue (thanks Elon!).
- itsoktocry 5y ago
  Part of the bargain was that Tesla will be recycling the materials for these batteries when they are EoL. Until that actually happens, the battery only solves half the problem.
  - samatman 5y ago
    Sure. That seems like a kind of uncharitable way to put it though. It's possible that I'm reading in a tone that isn't there. Building the first grid-scale battery bank, and having it succeed in smoothing out the delivery curve for an intermittent-heavy grid: that's a huge victory! It's a triumph really. Insisting on the accountability and follow-through is important, sure. But that battery solves the whole problem we have right now, and will serve as a test case for solving the problem which it itself created for a decade down the road. Maybe Elon will be broke by then, or living on Mars, or we'll all complete the Singularity and have chips in our head. My hope is that they just fulfill the contract. In any case there's no reason to show that kind of skepticism about something which can't have happened yet.
rytcio 5y ago
AOC is not exactly someone I would trust to have deep knowledge about this topic
- franga2000 5y ago
  A politician doesn't need specialist knowledge, they need to trust in the experts that have it. Looking at the US political landscape, trusting scientists is quite a rare trait and AOC seems to be one of the best when it comes to that.

cronin101 5y ago

I'll concede it's not a typical country since the weather is pretty unique, but Scotland is ~97% renewable and ~75% wind. It's well suited for some parts of the world at least.

macspoofing 5y ago
>but Scotland is ~97% renewable ... They aren't. The 97% renewable claim is misleading. Scotland can generate huge amount of wind/solar energy at certain times of day that they cannot use, and therefore they have to rely on fossil fuels for evenings and nights and any time sun isn't shining and wind isn't blowing. Their actual renewable *consumption* is on the order of 30%.
- cronin101 5y ago
  Do you have a source? I would love to read more about that. FWIW I currently live in Norway which is ~100% renewable but that's mainly hydro and a very different situation with the amount of potential energy that hydro gives the 5M population.
  - aembleton 5y ago
    I just tried to find some more information on Scotlands consumption but couldn't find it. Most interesting piece I found was this: 51.7% of electricity generated in Scotland was generated by renewable technologies, compared to just 29.3% for the UK as a whole (or 25.6% for the rest of the UK, excluding Scotland). [1] The 97% figure quoted earlier is a gross figure [2] that is worked out on the basis of total renewable generation compared to total consumption. The problem is that the two don't always line up and we don't have large scale gird storage to handle it so it doesn't get used. Instead more polluting electricity is imported from England. 1. https://www.gov.scot/publications/annual-energy-statement-2019/pages/3/ https://www.gov.scot/publications/annual-energy-statement-20... 2. https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/statistics/2018/10/quarterly-energy-statistics-bulletins/documents/energy-statistics-summary---march-2021/energy-statistics-summary---march-2021/govscot%3Adocument/Scotland%2BEnergy%2BStatistics%2BQ4%2B2020.pdf https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publ...

wp381640 5y ago

> No country has run on a high percentage of wind/solar/battery for a long period of time. Only because it's early. The first grid-scale battery only went online 3 years ago. In that example (South Australia) you only have to look at this chart[0] to see what it done to grid renewable demand and where the trend is heading. There are multiple GW more of additional battery coming online over the next few years [0] https://opennem.org.au/stripes/sa1/?metric=renewablesProportion https://opennem.org.au/stripes/sa1/?metric=renewablesProport...

cesarb 5y ago

> We really need two words for renewables: one for types that scale but don't provide power on demand (wind, solar), and the other for types that provide power on demand but aren't available at scale everywhere (hydro, geothermal). The wording you are looking for is "dispatchable" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation).

DennisP 5y ago
Yes but generally that term includes fossil.

greenonions 5y ago

My state, Iowa, was 60% renewable over the last year. This is almost entirely from wind as Iowa is probably among the flattest US states.

gpt5 5y ago

Isn't geothermal theoretically available everywhere?

hguant 5y ago
Some available is more available than others I believe that the issue is that the Earth's crust isn't uniformly thick, and that there are places where one could drill for miles without reaching magma/suitable heat sources, and other places (Costa Rica and Iceland come to mind) where the suitable heat sources are essentially on the surface. Or, looking at it another way - oil drilling happens all over the globe and "hitting magma" isn't really a risk they're concerned about because it's so deep, that even the industry concerned with drilling too greedily and too deep doesn't intersect with it.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Magma is not necessary for geothermal. Regular fracking methods suffice to get to sufficiently hot strata. Once at the right level, you drill two holes horizontally in parallel for several hundred yards and pump cooled water down one and get hot water out the other. It stays liquid under pressure and boils water in a heat exchanger at the surface. The tech is still at pilot stage, but with no fundamental problems to solve. The important question is whether it will be able to compete commercially with solar and wind, which costs are still in free-fall.

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RhodoGSA 5y ago

I would love to a see a cost per watt across all renewables. is building a hydro and geothermal plant much cheaper than solar given you have the right conditions for solar?