4 ms·

Wind + Solar are near useless without storage, and we do not have anything close to the storage necessary.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
Not nessesarily, alternative approach is to overbuild them 10x so thay we always generate more wnergy than we need and have continent spanning super-grid because it's always windy and sunny somewhere.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  Today Boston has a sunrise at 11:47 am utc and Los Angeles has a sunset 1:30am utc. That is 10+ hours where the USA gets zero sunlight. Inconveniently, we also hit peak energy usage during those 10 dark hours. So if you want to ignore the storage problem, you need to rely on wind only. And if you have to dramatically over provision production to be able to meet demand, the cost benefits disappear. Storage is a must for renewables to really take off.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > And if you have to dramatically over provision production to be able to meet demand, the cost benefits disappear. "Not cost-effective to be the majority of power production while CO2 pollution is free." is very different from "near useless".
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      > the cost benefits disappear But I am not claiming there is any cost benefit at all - alI am claiming it's doable, and we will have zero or negative electricity price on windy days, that coupd be put to good use for electrolysis, hydrogen production, etc.
AtlasBarfed 5y ago
Storage likely will be a non-issue once sodium ion batteries scale up, even cheaper and safer than LFP. A couple more years of scale efficiencies and alt+storage will be cheaper without subsidies. Consumer solar+storage will be cheaper than nat gas in a couple years with any rational subsidy. Land issues? Seriously? The land issue for solar is a non-issue, it's like fake hand-wringing by the oil astroturfers over birds and windmills when skyscrapers kill 100xs more birds. There's this type of land called desert. Also, there is this thing called roofs where modern solar panels only need a small part of the roof to do a suburban house or apartment building including recharging your EV. The land issue for wind is even less on an issue: As for wind, I don't know if you've seen windmills on farms but... yeah, the pole doesn't take up much space. Then there is offshore wind. Windmills can integrate with existing use land (why not nature preserves?), you don't need to dedicate acreage to windmill farms. Meanwhile, fusion reactors have a wee bit of problems with neutrons flying everywhere and turning the reactor vessels slightly radioactive from neutron capture. Maybe they'll fix that with good absorption spectrum elements, but let's not pretend fusion is 100% clean. https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/ https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-the... But again, the promise is there for fusion and LFTR/"new" fission. Keep the research, maybe the economics will turn around. Industry sure would need it to fully decarbonize, or, heck, space colonies. Or flying cars! Or any of the other sci-fi stuff we have given up on. Right now we have an existential threat from GW, and an actual industrialized / productized and economic path is right there: wind and solar. That's what we need money printing for.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  > Storage likely will be a non-issue once sodium ion batteries scale up, even cheaper and safer than LFP. Sure, once storage is solved it will be a non-issue. But it is not currently solved, and you will forgive my skepticism. I also never brought up land issues; I agree that it's not a real problem. TL;DR we need to be realistic about the capabilities of solar + wind. You argue that storage will solve itself. Your sibling argues that we don't need storage at all. The reality is that storage is a huge issue right now. It's the #1 technical issue stopping us from shutting down coal and natural gas plants.
- 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Not nessesarily, alternative approach is to overbuild them 10x so thay we always generate more wnergy than we need and have continent spanning super-grid because it's always windy and sunny somewhere.

dahfizz 5y ago
Today Boston has a sunrise at 11:47 am utc and Los Angeles has a sunset 1:30am utc. That is 10+ hours where the USA gets zero sunlight. Inconveniently, we also hit peak energy usage during those 10 dark hours. So if you want to ignore the storage problem, you need to rely on wind only. And if you have to dramatically over provision production to be able to meet demand, the cost benefits disappear. Storage is a must for renewables to really take off.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  > And if you have to dramatically over provision production to be able to meet demand, the cost benefits disappear. "Not cost-effective to be the majority of power production while CO2 pollution is free." is very different from "near useless".
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    > the cost benefits disappear But I am not claiming there is any cost benefit at all - alI am claiming it's doable, and we will have zero or negative electricity price on windy days, that coupd be put to good use for electrolysis, hydrogen production, etc.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

Storage likely will be a non-issue once sodium ion batteries scale up, even cheaper and safer than LFP. A couple more years of scale efficiencies and alt+storage will be cheaper without subsidies. Consumer solar+storage will be cheaper than nat gas in a couple years with any rational subsidy. Land issues? Seriously? The land issue for solar is a non-issue, it's like fake hand-wringing by the oil astroturfers over birds and windmills when skyscrapers kill 100xs more birds. There's this type of land called desert. Also, there is this thing called roofs where modern solar panels only need a small part of the roof to do a suburban house or apartment building including recharging your EV. The land issue for wind is even less on an issue: As for wind, I don't know if you've seen windmills on farms but... yeah, the pole doesn't take up much space. Then there is offshore wind. Windmills can integrate with existing use land (why not nature preserves?), you don't need to dedicate acreage to windmill farms. Meanwhile, fusion reactors have a wee bit of problems with neutrons flying everywhere and turning the reactor vessels slightly radioactive from neutron capture. Maybe they'll fix that with good absorption spectrum elements, but let's not pretend fusion is 100% clean. https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/ https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusion-reactors-not-what-the... But again, the promise is there for fusion and LFTR/"new" fission. Keep the research, maybe the economics will turn around. Industry sure would need it to fully decarbonize, or, heck, space colonies. Or flying cars! Or any of the other sci-fi stuff we have given up on. Right now we have an existential threat from GW, and an actual industrialized / productized and economic path is right there: wind and solar. That's what we need money printing for.

dahfizz 5y ago
> Storage likely will be a non-issue once sodium ion batteries scale up, even cheaper and safer than LFP. Sure, once storage is solved it will be a non-issue. But it is not currently solved, and you will forgive my skepticism. I also never brought up land issues; I agree that it's not a real problem. TL;DR we need to be realistic about the capabilities of solar + wind. You argue that storage will solve itself. Your sibling argues that we don't need storage at all. The reality is that storage is a huge issue right now. It's the #1 technical issue stopping us from shutting down coal and natural gas plants.
5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]