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Do we have the lithium/etc reserves to meet the storage needs for the entire planet? Nuclear is proven and if we claim to believe that climate change is an exis

Do we have the lithium/etc reserves to meet the storage needs for the entire planet? Nuclear is proven and if we claim to believe that climate change is an existential threat I don’t know why we would pin all our hopes on solar and wind and some to-be-discovered storage solution. To be clear, I’m not against solar and wind—on the contrary, I want a diverse clean energy portfolio. But wasting time emitting while we pray for a storage solution for wind/solar seems utterly foolish.

ben_w 5y ago
> Do we have the lithium/etc reserves to meet the storage needs for the entire planet? Yes. There are basically so many different chemistries (and non-chemical storage methods) that the important question is “which type should we prefer” rather than “can we even do it”.
- vagrantJin 5y ago
  Yeah, I don't think it's an either or science decision any more than its likely a business-cum-political situation.
oezi 5y ago
Sorry, but Nuclear is just proven to fail. Even if we would reverse course on Nuclear today it would be 20 or 30 years until the plants would be build. By that time solar and wind will another magnitude cheaper. The way forward is wind and solar. Everything else shouldn't be focused on.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  What's driving the price decrease in wind?
  - jhgb 5y ago
    Economies of scale, largely.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  > Nuclear is just proven to fail ... the way forward is wind and solar Nuclear is the only proven clean technology for base load generation. The only hiccup is political (i.e., people decided they don't like nuclear), and while it's a big political problem, the whole climate crisis is an enormous political problem. Yes, there's the waste to be disposed of, but we already have to manage some waste and once you have to safely manage a little nuclear waste it's a marginal increase in cost to manage a whole lot of nuclear waste. Further, innovations in nuclear are making it cheaper, safer, and faster to build. Moreover, as another commenter pointed out, if we were willing to ease some of our restrictions on nuclear such that our nuclear plants didn't need to be a thousand times safer than our coal plants (but merely, say, twice as safe), then nuclear could be even less expensive and facilities built more rapidly. Yes, wind and solar will play a major role in the future, but we incur tremendous risk by ignoring nuclear.

ben_w 5y ago

> Do we have the lithium/etc reserves to meet the storage needs for the entire planet? Yes. There are basically so many different chemistries (and non-chemical storage methods) that the important question is “which type should we prefer” rather than “can we even do it”.

vagrantJin 5y ago
Yeah, I don't think it's an either or science decision any more than its likely a business-cum-political situation.

oezi 5y ago

Sorry, but Nuclear is just proven to fail. Even if we would reverse course on Nuclear today it would be 20 or 30 years until the plants would be build. By that time solar and wind will another magnitude cheaper. The way forward is wind and solar. Everything else shouldn't be focused on.

foxfluff 5y ago
What's driving the price decrease in wind?
- jhgb 5y ago
  Economies of scale, largely.
throwaway894345 5y ago
> Nuclear is just proven to fail ... the way forward is wind and solar Nuclear is the only proven clean technology for base load generation. The only hiccup is political (i.e., people decided they don't like nuclear), and while it's a big political problem, the whole climate crisis is an enormous political problem. Yes, there's the waste to be disposed of, but we already have to manage some waste and once you have to safely manage a little nuclear waste it's a marginal increase in cost to manage a whole lot of nuclear waste. Further, innovations in nuclear are making it cheaper, safer, and faster to build. Moreover, as another commenter pointed out, if we were willing to ease some of our restrictions on nuclear such that our nuclear plants didn't need to be a thousand times safer than our coal plants (but merely, say, twice as safe), then nuclear could be even less expensive and facilities built more rapidly. Yes, wind and solar will play a major role in the future, but we incur tremendous risk by ignoring nuclear.