4 ms·

It would be fantastic to turn the chapters into Templates where one has to plug in the relevant parameters for a country and see the calculations for that count

It would be fantastic to turn the chapters into Templates where one has to plug in the relevant parameters for a country and see the calculations for that country.

algo_trader 5y ago
And multiple PhD students have done so! For example, the Stanford/Jacobson study on powering the world with wind/solar/water. Some results were famously silly, such as filing Finland with solar panels, or adding the cost of nuclear war to nuclear reactors. Jacobson sued other academics then backed down. The point is, 5-10 years on, these models turned out to be over pessimistic! Australia doesn't need fancy modelling - simple roof top solar there is on target to meet full day time demand in 2-3 years. Conversely we still dont really know how to meet the last 5% of outlier energy demand scenarios.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  Has Jacobson stopped suing people though
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > Some results were famously silly, such as ... adding the cost of nuclear war to nuclear reactors. Is that really silly? The incremental increase in the risk of nuclear war for each gigawatt of civilian nuclear power generation might be small, but the costs of a nuclear war could be quadrillions of dollars (for example if it set the world back by 100 years). Obviously measuring that risk is difficult, but to give an example, imagine that civilian nuclear power were limited to just the countries which currently have nuclear weapons. That would greatly reduce the proliferation risk and the chance of nuclear breakout in countries like Iran. The urgency of addressing climate change may take precedence over these concerns in the short term, but if we do manage to reach net zero with a mixture of renewables and nuclear energy, then it's not inconceivable that over-provisioning renewables might allow us to phase out nuclear energy later on. Suppose it would take 50 years to build up that renewable energy capacity, and 10 years to build a new nuclear power station. That would mean the nuclear power station would only be useful for 40 years, which limits the amount of time they'd have to recoup their costs over.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  > Conversely we still dont really know how to meet the last 5% of outlier energy demand scenarios. Hydrogen w. combustion turbines. When a simple cycle turbine power plant is 5% of the cost of a nuclear plant of the same output, we can back up the entire grid and not have it be too expensive.

It would be fantastic to turn the chapters into Templates where one has to plug in the relevant parameters for a country and see the calculations for that country.

algo_trader 5y ago

And multiple PhD students have done so! For example, the Stanford/Jacobson study on powering the world with wind/solar/water. Some results were famously silly, such as filing Finland with solar panels, or adding the cost of nuclear war to nuclear reactors. Jacobson sued other academics then backed down. The point is, 5-10 years on, these models turned out to be over pessimistic! Australia doesn't need fancy modelling - simple roof top solar there is on target to meet full day time demand in 2-3 years. Conversely we still dont really know how to meet the last 5% of outlier energy demand scenarios.

selimthegrim 5y ago
Has Jacobson stopped suing people though
dane-pgp 5y ago
> Some results were famously silly, such as ... adding the cost of nuclear war to nuclear reactors. Is that really silly? The incremental increase in the risk of nuclear war for each gigawatt of civilian nuclear power generation might be small, but the costs of a nuclear war could be quadrillions of dollars (for example if it set the world back by 100 years). Obviously measuring that risk is difficult, but to give an example, imagine that civilian nuclear power were limited to just the countries which currently have nuclear weapons. That would greatly reduce the proliferation risk and the chance of nuclear breakout in countries like Iran. The urgency of addressing climate change may take precedence over these concerns in the short term, but if we do manage to reach net zero with a mixture of renewables and nuclear energy, then it's not inconceivable that over-provisioning renewables might allow us to phase out nuclear energy later on. Suppose it would take 50 years to build up that renewable energy capacity, and 10 years to build a new nuclear power station. That would mean the nuclear power station would only be useful for 40 years, which limits the amount of time they'd have to recoup their costs over.
pfdietz 5y ago
> Conversely we still dont really know how to meet the last 5% of outlier energy demand scenarios. Hydrogen w. combustion turbines. When a simple cycle turbine power plant is 5% of the cost of a nuclear plant of the same output, we can back up the entire grid and not have it be too expensive.