3 ms·

Give it a few years; solar and batteries are getting better and cheaper, and the kind of grid interconnections needed for power sharing to even out the intermit

by elihu 4y ago

Give it a few years; solar and batteries are getting better and cheaper, and the kind of grid interconnections needed for power sharing to even out the intermittency of renewables aren't going to be built in a day. It's an ongoing project. On the battery front, a major patent on lithium iron phosphate expired just a couple weeks ago. I don't know what the long term consequences of that will be, but if it means being able to buy LFP batteries at $100/kwh or less outside of China, that could change the economics of utility-scale battery storage quite a bit. In the long run I hope to see high capacity transcontinental HVDC lines linking continents so we can buy solar power from the other side of the Earth when it's night where we are, and sell our surplus when the sun is shining -- no batteries needed. That's hard and expensive. (Supposedly China is working on a deal with Chile where China can buy solar power that gets sent across a proposed trans-Pacific power line. I think that's the kind of megaproject that every industrialized country should be thinking about.)

edhelas 4y ago
"We'll be there soon" : Germany for 20 years Due to the gas issue with Russia Germany is planning to re-commission 15 coal plants, that's 10GW of capacity. 20 years ago, Germany had roughly... 10GW of nuclear, now decommissioned. Source: https://www.montelnews.com/news/1323149/germany-may-allow-return-of-10-gw-capacity-in-gas-crunch https://www.montelnews.com/news/1323149/germany-may-allow-re... But again, let's repeat all together "lets overbuild renewable capacity, non-proved large scaled battery storage, a lot of smart-grid and some hydrogen storage". The biggest world hydrogen tank, the one used by the NASA, can power-up an average natural-gas station for roughly half a day. But hydrogen is the future for sure! Technosolusionism is actually one of the biggest problem we have. You want to solve this CO2 issue, first reduce your consumption by at least 80% to reach Paris Agreement. But don't worry, if we're not doing it by will, the laws of physics and thermodynamic will do it by force ;)
- imtringued 4y ago
  >But don't worry, if we're not doing it by will, the laws of physics and thermodynamic will do it by force ;) What? Humans are known to kill each other to avoid being the one on the losing side.
- adrianN 4y ago
  Well, the last twenty years or so a conservative German government did what it could to slow down the buildout of renewable energy. It's not very surprising that progress lagged behind optimistic assumptions.
- elihu 4y ago
  Reducing total energy consumption by 80% isn't going to happen short of a nuclear war or equivalent event. Even with fairly extreme energy conservation efforts, the total amount of electricity used is likely to go up as people switch to using electric vehicles for transportation. I think we need a lot more renewables and probably more nuclear too. Whatever it takes to not be burning coal and gas. (And there might be an argument in some cases for building gas plants to replace coal plants. But I'd rather than money and effort were spent on something better.) I don't see a realistic path forward for hydrogen, except maybe as fuel for aircraft. Batteries are good enough for most things, and a lot more efficient.
patrickk 4y ago
> In the long run I hope to see high capacity transcontinental HVDC lines linking continents so we can buy solar power from the other side of the Earth when it's night where we are, and sell our surplus when the sun is shining -- no batteries needed. That's hard and expensive. There are a bunch of projects in this space. I love going down this rabbit hole. The EU supergrid is already being built out, and doesn't require linking far flung continents since it links Norwegian hydro and North Sea wind power, among other sources. A mix of geographically distributed hydro, wind, solar, batteries and perhaps geothermal will negate the need for relying on solar + HVDC stretched around the globe along with the geopolitical risks. Some examples from past HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30935073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30935073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29230939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29230939 Morocco-UK solar/wind/battery project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJunxkln578 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJunxkln578 Germany is aiming to get 100% of it's electricity from green sources by 2035, so expect a lot more projects in this space in future: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30500650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30500650
- elihu 4y ago
  I live in Oregon; we have a lot of dams on the Columbia that can be used for intermittent power. I don't know if they have a capability to pump water upstream at Bonneville or any of the others when they have surplus power, but that seems like it'd be a useful thing to add if its feasible.
cturner 4y ago
In this note you speculate optimistically in several places - "give it a few years", "I don't know what the long-term consequences of that will be", "I hope". Right now, we have what we have. The demonstrated paths to emissions reduction include nuclear and gas. We have a weird situation with electric vehicles in some regions where brown coal is being used to power electric vehicles, making for worse emissions at higher cost than oil - that's where speculation-based policy goes.

by elihu 4y ago

edhelas 4y ago

"We'll be there soon" : Germany for 20 years Due to the gas issue with Russia Germany is planning to re-commission 15 coal plants, that's 10GW of capacity. 20 years ago, Germany had roughly... 10GW of nuclear, now decommissioned. Source: https://www.montelnews.com/news/1323149/germany-may-allow-return-of-10-gw-capacity-in-gas-crunch https://www.montelnews.com/news/1323149/germany-may-allow-re... But again, let's repeat all together "lets overbuild renewable capacity, non-proved large scaled battery storage, a lot of smart-grid and some hydrogen storage". The biggest world hydrogen tank, the one used by the NASA, can power-up an average natural-gas station for roughly half a day. But hydrogen is the future for sure! Technosolusionism is actually one of the biggest problem we have. You want to solve this CO2 issue, first reduce your consumption by at least 80% to reach Paris Agreement. But don't worry, if we're not doing it by will, the laws of physics and thermodynamic will do it by force ;)

imtringued 4y ago
>But don't worry, if we're not doing it by will, the laws of physics and thermodynamic will do it by force ;) What? Humans are known to kill each other to avoid being the one on the losing side.
adrianN 4y ago
Well, the last twenty years or so a conservative German government did what it could to slow down the buildout of renewable energy. It's not very surprising that progress lagged behind optimistic assumptions.
elihu 4y ago
Reducing total energy consumption by 80% isn't going to happen short of a nuclear war or equivalent event. Even with fairly extreme energy conservation efforts, the total amount of electricity used is likely to go up as people switch to using electric vehicles for transportation. I think we need a lot more renewables and probably more nuclear too. Whatever it takes to not be burning coal and gas. (And there might be an argument in some cases for building gas plants to replace coal plants. But I'd rather than money and effort were spent on something better.) I don't see a realistic path forward for hydrogen, except maybe as fuel for aircraft. Batteries are good enough for most things, and a lot more efficient.

patrickk 4y ago

> In the long run I hope to see high capacity transcontinental HVDC lines linking continents so we can buy solar power from the other side of the Earth when it's night where we are, and sell our surplus when the sun is shining -- no batteries needed. That's hard and expensive. There are a bunch of projects in this space. I love going down this rabbit hole. The EU supergrid is already being built out, and doesn't require linking far flung continents since it links Norwegian hydro and North Sea wind power, among other sources. A mix of geographically distributed hydro, wind, solar, batteries and perhaps geothermal will negate the need for relying on solar + HVDC stretched around the globe along with the geopolitical risks. Some examples from past HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30935073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30935073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29230939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29230939 Morocco-UK solar/wind/battery project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJunxkln578 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJunxkln578 Germany is aiming to get 100% of it's electricity from green sources by 2035, so expect a lot more projects in this space in future: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30500650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30500650

elihu 4y ago
I live in Oregon; we have a lot of dams on the Columbia that can be used for intermittent power. I don't know if they have a capability to pump water upstream at Bonneville or any of the others when they have surplus power, but that seems like it'd be a useful thing to add if its feasible.

cturner 4y ago

In this note you speculate optimistically in several places - "give it a few years", "I don't know what the long-term consequences of that will be", "I hope". Right now, we have what we have. The demonstrated paths to emissions reduction include nuclear and gas. We have a weird situation with electric vehicles in some regions where brown coal is being used to power electric vehicles, making for worse emissions at higher cost than oil - that's where speculation-based policy goes.