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How are there so many trolls on places like Twitter that go on & on & on about nuclear or coal or whatever... the facts speak for themselves. solar + batteries

How are there so many trolls on places like Twitter that go on & on & on about nuclear or coal or whatever... the facts speak for themselves. solar + batteries is the obvious future. Would be great to see some robots get made that can much more rapidly install solar in big solar farms. I suppose most of it is mechanized already... but maybe robots could help automate it more.

gameswithgo 5y ago
Because people correctly point out that if you had literally 100% solar (or near it) the amount of battery you would need is of completely impractical scale in even the medium term future. More reasonable approaches would include many massive lakes with pumped hydro stations. I personally think it is entirely possible but the scale of the operation is a massive undertaking similar to the sum total of fossil fuel extraction infrastructure built up over the last 100 years. We are talking trillion dollar scale. Can the USA summon the political will to do it fast? Probably not. Building more nuclear power plants for base load is probably easier.
- sytse 5y ago
  You need to overbuild solar with a factor of 5 to get to a practical amount of batteries. See https://twitter.com/sytses/status/1441605024887427073?s=21 https://twitter.com/sytses/status/1441605024887427073?s=21 One side benefit of that is that energy will be free 90% of the time. Great for carbon extraction and desalination.
  - bigfudge 5y ago
    That presumably ignores the fact that other industries would adapt to respond to energy that was essentially free for even shorter periods. The economics of heavy industries might change if the energy input was free for 3 hours a day (e.g. offsetting great capital spend to overbuild infrastructure there).
  - Ajedi32 5y ago
    Overbuilding by 5x means you also need to multiply the cost by 5x. Is solar still cheaper than nuclear once you factor that in? (Not to mention the cost of energy storage.)
    - pydry 5y ago
      In Iceland probably not, in Hawaii hell yes.
  - mrep 5y ago
    Has he never heard of power to gas [0]? We already have lots of storage and generators for natural gas. I doubt you'd need more than twice the capacity using power to gas. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas
- pfdietz 5y ago
  The usual con to get to the conclusion you reached is to assume batteries are used to get to 100% renewables. But batteries are terrible for long term storage and rare event backup, so this is just bad engineering. Batteries + hydrogen does much better in most places, especially at high latitude.
  - gameswithgo 5y ago
    And hydrogen comes with it's own challenges, as a large % of energy is lost in the conversion to and from. This multiplies how much solar you need appreciably. There is no easy solution here, many hard ones. We can do it but need to be willing to do that hard/expensive work.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      Most of the hydrogen produced would, anyway, be used immediately in industry, excepting only when the storage tanks need topping off. The electrolyzers would never, ever be idle. We need the hydrogen regardless, so its usefulness to store surplus energy besides is a bonus.
    - pfdietz 5y ago
      Yes, hydrogen comes with its own challenges, but batteries and hydrogen are synergistic. Each covers the weak point of the other. Most of the energy stored goes through batteries (efficiency), while most of the energy storage capacity is in hydrogen (capital cost). So the system ends up being cheaper. You do not actually increase the needed generation all that much, because most of the stored energy is still going through batteries, not hydrogen. And in particular, unlike the only-battery solution you don't need to ludicrously use batteries for seasonal energy storage or rare event backup.
rayiner 5y ago
Renewables are a technology for a civilization that has decided to accept being in a state of slow decline. Higher stages of civilization will require more power, which can be practically provided only by nuclear. If the west goes all-in on solar, China’s investments into nuclear will give it the opportunity to become the dominant civilization.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  Utter nonsense. Judging by all evidence, renewables will provide more high quality energy (that is, looking at work rather than thermal energy produced, since renewables produce the former directly) more cheaply than nuclear. Even China is emphasizing renewables over nuclear, you know.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    > renewables will provide more high quality energy (that is, looking at work rather than thermal energy produced, since renewables produce the former directly) I have no idea how this makes electricity from renewables “higher quality”.
    - pfdietz 5y ago
      In the sense that 1 joule of electrical energy is inherently more valuable than 1 joule of thermal energy. A current commercial nuclear reactor requires 3 units of the latter to produce 1 unit of the former. This issue comes up all the time in energy analysis where you need to carefully distinguish between "primary" (i.e., before conversion in a heat engine) energy to zero-entropy energy (electrical energy, work).
      - xyzzyz 5y ago
        > In the sense that 1 joule of electrical energy is inherently more valuable than 1 joule of thermal energy. A current commercial nuclear reactor requires 3 units of the latter to produce 1 unit of the former. When people are talking about 1 GW nuclear reactor, they mean that reactor is generating 1 GW of electricity, so that the reactor is in fact >3 GW thermal. Nobody is comparing electricity from renewables to thermal energy from nuclear. In fact, this actually makes nuclear superior: you can use the waste 2 GW of heat to run district heating in nearby located cities. Pretty popular in Europe, though with coal/gas plants. There is no similar useful byproduct to solar/wind.
Hypocritelefty 5y ago
sdunwoody 5y ago
Solar doesn't work that well the further you get from the equator. Nortern Europe? Freezing in the winter (so lots of heating necessitating more electricity), and generally poor weather, plus the daylight hours can be incredibly short. I'm not sure how solar works in places like this unless you massively overbuild (not exactly appealing, efficient, or environmentally friendly), and/or rely on electricity transported over vast distances (which I understand is not particularly viable).
- gameswithgo 5y ago
  When going for serious global scale stuff you put the panels in sunny places and run gigantic cables to the places it isn't sunny. Again, possible to do but massive scale infrastructure projects that take time, money, and political will.
  - sdunwoody 5y ago
    I'm not an expert at all when it comes to this sort of stuff, but don't you lose quite a high percentage of the electricity generated when you move it over the vast distances needed for that to work?
    - gameswithgo 5y ago
      You lose some but it is manageable, there are already private projects to do things like this, including undersea cables!
    - zionic 5y ago
      >but don't you lose quite a high percentage of the electricity generated when you move it over the vast distances needed for that to work? No. 1-2MV DC transmission lines can move power 3000+ miles at >97% efficiency. This isn't directed at you, but I'm starting to get super frustrated with this myth that transporting electricity is inefficient. I see it almost everywhere these discussions take place and I don't know why.
      - 5y ago

gameswithgo 5y ago

Because people correctly point out that if you had literally 100% solar (or near it) the amount of battery you would need is of completely impractical scale in even the medium term future. More reasonable approaches would include many massive lakes with pumped hydro stations. I personally think it is entirely possible but the scale of the operation is a massive undertaking similar to the sum total of fossil fuel extraction infrastructure built up over the last 100 years. We are talking trillion dollar scale. Can the USA summon the political will to do it fast? Probably not. Building more nuclear power plants for base load is probably easier.

sytse 5y ago
You need to overbuild solar with a factor of 5 to get to a practical amount of batteries. See https://twitter.com/sytses/status/1441605024887427073?s=21 https://twitter.com/sytses/status/1441605024887427073?s=21 One side benefit of that is that energy will be free 90% of the time. Great for carbon extraction and desalination.
- bigfudge 5y ago
  That presumably ignores the fact that other industries would adapt to respond to energy that was essentially free for even shorter periods. The economics of heavy industries might change if the energy input was free for 3 hours a day (e.g. offsetting great capital spend to overbuild infrastructure there).
- Ajedi32 5y ago
  Overbuilding by 5x means you also need to multiply the cost by 5x. Is solar still cheaper than nuclear once you factor that in? (Not to mention the cost of energy storage.)
  - pydry 5y ago
    In Iceland probably not, in Hawaii hell yes.
- mrep 5y ago
  Has he never heard of power to gas [0]? We already have lots of storage and generators for natural gas. I doubt you'd need more than twice the capacity using power to gas. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas
pfdietz 5y ago
The usual con to get to the conclusion you reached is to assume batteries are used to get to 100% renewables. But batteries are terrible for long term storage and rare event backup, so this is just bad engineering. Batteries + hydrogen does much better in most places, especially at high latitude.
- gameswithgo 5y ago
  And hydrogen comes with it's own challenges, as a large % of energy is lost in the conversion to and from. This multiplies how much solar you need appreciably. There is no easy solution here, many hard ones. We can do it but need to be willing to do that hard/expensive work.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Most of the hydrogen produced would, anyway, be used immediately in industry, excepting only when the storage tanks need topping off. The electrolyzers would never, ever be idle. We need the hydrogen regardless, so its usefulness to store surplus energy besides is a bonus.
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    Yes, hydrogen comes with its own challenges, but batteries and hydrogen are synergistic. Each covers the weak point of the other. Most of the energy stored goes through batteries (efficiency), while most of the energy storage capacity is in hydrogen (capital cost). So the system ends up being cheaper. You do not actually increase the needed generation all that much, because most of the stored energy is still going through batteries, not hydrogen. And in particular, unlike the only-battery solution you don't need to ludicrously use batteries for seasonal energy storage or rare event backup.

rayiner 5y ago

Renewables are a technology for a civilization that has decided to accept being in a state of slow decline. Higher stages of civilization will require more power, which can be practically provided only by nuclear. If the west goes all-in on solar, China’s investments into nuclear will give it the opportunity to become the dominant civilization.

pfdietz 5y ago
Utter nonsense. Judging by all evidence, renewables will provide more high quality energy (that is, looking at work rather than thermal energy produced, since renewables produce the former directly) more cheaply than nuclear. Even China is emphasizing renewables over nuclear, you know.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  > renewables will provide more high quality energy (that is, looking at work rather than thermal energy produced, since renewables produce the former directly) I have no idea how this makes electricity from renewables “higher quality”.
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    In the sense that 1 joule of electrical energy is inherently more valuable than 1 joule of thermal energy. A current commercial nuclear reactor requires 3 units of the latter to produce 1 unit of the former. This issue comes up all the time in energy analysis where you need to carefully distinguish between "primary" (i.e., before conversion in a heat engine) energy to zero-entropy energy (electrical energy, work).
    - xyzzyz 5y ago
      > In the sense that 1 joule of electrical energy is inherently more valuable than 1 joule of thermal energy. A current commercial nuclear reactor requires 3 units of the latter to produce 1 unit of the former. When people are talking about 1 GW nuclear reactor, they mean that reactor is generating 1 GW of electricity, so that the reactor is in fact >3 GW thermal. Nobody is comparing electricity from renewables to thermal energy from nuclear. In fact, this actually makes nuclear superior: you can use the waste 2 GW of heat to run district heating in nearby located cities. Pretty popular in Europe, though with coal/gas plants. There is no similar useful byproduct to solar/wind.

Hypocritelefty 5y ago

sdunwoody 5y ago

Solar doesn't work that well the further you get from the equator. Nortern Europe? Freezing in the winter (so lots of heating necessitating more electricity), and generally poor weather, plus the daylight hours can be incredibly short. I'm not sure how solar works in places like this unless you massively overbuild (not exactly appealing, efficient, or environmentally friendly), and/or rely on electricity transported over vast distances (which I understand is not particularly viable).

gameswithgo 5y ago
When going for serious global scale stuff you put the panels in sunny places and run gigantic cables to the places it isn't sunny. Again, possible to do but massive scale infrastructure projects that take time, money, and political will.
- sdunwoody 5y ago
  I'm not an expert at all when it comes to this sort of stuff, but don't you lose quite a high percentage of the electricity generated when you move it over the vast distances needed for that to work?
  - gameswithgo 5y ago
    You lose some but it is manageable, there are already private projects to do things like this, including undersea cables!
  - zionic 5y ago
    >but don't you lose quite a high percentage of the electricity generated when you move it over the vast distances needed for that to work? No. 1-2MV DC transmission lines can move power 3000+ miles at >97% efficiency. This isn't directed at you, but I'm starting to get super frustrated with this myth that transporting electricity is inefficient. I see it almost everywhere these discussions take place and I don't know why.
    - 5y ago