6 ms·

So throw up a few solar panels, hook up some cell phone batteries to it for night time, and we'll easily be able to power our productive system, charge our Tesl

So throw up a few solar panels, hook up some cell phone batteries to it for night time, and we'll easily be able to power our productive system, charge our Teslas, desalinate water for the worsening droughts everywhere, and sequester carbon to undo all the damage we're doing. Luckily, solar panels pretty much grow on trees so we shouldn't have to burn much more fossil fuels to build the panels we need to power everything and then some. Plus, I heard solar is cheap and nuclear is expensive. Can't argue with price (which is never distorted by unincorporated externalities)! We don't need nuclear!

clarionbell 4y ago
I think sarcasm doesn't always translate into text.
tedk-42 4y ago
Haha love the sarcasm! You forgot to add how solar panels are ethically produced in a carbon neutral and sustainable way from our trading fwend China :)
- greenthrow 4y ago
  And nuclear reactors are created in an ethical and carbon neutral way and don't contain tons of components from China?
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    Nuclear power has the lowest net carbon emissions of any electricity source besides hydroelectricity [1]. And no, most don't contain many components from China (besides the nuclear plants actually built in China). Most nuclear plants in the west were built during the 1960s through the 1980s before China became the manufacturing powerhouse it is today. The main components of nuclear plants are concrete containment structures, pressure vessels, heat exchanges, and turbines. These are too large to ship long distances. Good luck shipping one of these [2] across the Pacific! 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emissions_of_energy_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emis... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PCPOST_BabcockWilcox_Train.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PCPOST_BabcockWilcox_Trai...
    - PaulHoule 4y ago
      A factory in China forged the pressure vessel for Vogtle 3 and 4 which are being brought up now.
    - cycomanic 4y ago
      The link you posted has wind lower than nuclear. Also both wind and solar developed immensely since 2014, nuclear not so much.
      - Manuel_D 4y ago
        Offshore wind is higher. Terrestrial wind has a higher minimum estimate, and a median estimate that's nearly the same.
    - speed_spread 4y ago
      I see no issue shipping parts like this across the pacific. If it fits on a train, it sure can fit on a cargo.
    - webmobdev 4y ago
      Just 1 nitpick - huge and big things are actually easier and cheaper to transport by ships.
Manuel_D 4y ago
> hook up some cell phone batteries to it for night time You're going to need a lot of batteries. A lot of batteries. The world uses 60 TWh of electricity per day. So 12 hours of storage would be 30 TWh, or 30,000 GWh. By comparison global annual lithium ion battery production is about 300 GWh.
- greenthrow 4y ago
  Consumption is lower at night pretty much everywhere, so it's not true we need 50% consumption in storage. Additionally, it's obvious there are many other things we can do besides just match current consumption with renewables. We can and must mandate less wasteful consumption. Anyone who has flown at night in a window seat knows just how much energy is being wasted on completely pointless night time signage and lighting for businesses that are closed, as just one small example. Regardless, nuclear and its permanent poisoning of the earth is not the answer.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    It's only in the summer where peak electricity demand happens around noon. It's largely flat across the board for much of the year [1]. Simply telling people to use less electricity is not a viable option. > Regardless, nuclear and its permanent poisoning of the earth is not the answer. By "poisoning the earth" you mean burying extremely small amounts of uranium half a kilometer under the ground. The entirety of the USA's nuclear waste from power generation fits in a volume the footprint of a football field and 10 yards high. That's 70 years of nuclear waste. By comparison, renewables + natural gas is poisoning the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. And there's no plan to operate wind and solar without natural gas until a breakthrough storage solution is discovered. 1. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915
    - cycomanic 4y ago
      > By "poisoning the earth" you mean burying extremely small amounts of uranium half a kilometer under the ground. The entirety of the USA's nuclear waste from power generation fits in a volume the footprint of a football field and 10 yards high. That's 70 years of nuclear waste. Citation needed, just looking and the temporal storage facilities of a single nuclear power plant is bigger than a football field.
cycomanic 4y ago
> Plus, I heard solar is cheap and nuclear is expensive. Can't argue with price (which is never distorted by unincorporated externalities)! The unincorporated externalities make nuclear much more expensive in comparison to solar/wind. Nuclear does not have to cover for the eventualities of an accident, their cost does not include long term storage to name just 2.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
I unironically agree with basically everything you've said, which makes your sarcasm hard to parse for me. Solar and lithium batteries are currently forecast to supply a big chunk of the world's power, cheaper and more cleanly than our current options (both nuclear and fossil). This cheap power will actually be part of the long term carbon reduction steps we'll probably need to do at some point because the transition to carbon fees and renewables was stalled for so long. Theres easier things we can do first though, like building lots of PV and using that power instead of fossil fuels. EV charging and desalination are both good targets for demand response of renewables. PV production is not hard to scale or carbon intense, and even if it was you'd be able to offset it against the carbon free output they produce. Solar is cheap. Nuclear is cheaper than coal and gas, but more expensive than renewables when externalities are included. They're at the point when they're cheaper even without taking externalities into account which is important, as some people will not care about prices they are not directly paying, and other people really don't like government intervention in markets. Nuclear will never achieve this, despite actually being cheaper than fossil fuels. We dont need nuclear. We'll probably build more globally and end up with about 10% of increased electricity demand coming from nuclear as part of the transition away from fossil fuels but we dont need it. What we really don't need is people lying about renewables, even if hiding it behind sarcasm to make it harder to call out.

clarionbell 4y ago

I think sarcasm doesn't always translate into text.

tedk-42 4y ago

Haha love the sarcasm! You forgot to add how solar panels are ethically produced in a carbon neutral and sustainable way from our trading fwend China :)

greenthrow 4y ago
And nuclear reactors are created in an ethical and carbon neutral way and don't contain tons of components from China?
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  Nuclear power has the lowest net carbon emissions of any electricity source besides hydroelectricity [1]. And no, most don't contain many components from China (besides the nuclear plants actually built in China). Most nuclear plants in the west were built during the 1960s through the 1980s before China became the manufacturing powerhouse it is today. The main components of nuclear plants are concrete containment structures, pressure vessels, heat exchanges, and turbines. These are too large to ship long distances. Good luck shipping one of these [2] across the Pacific! 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emissions_of_energy_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emis... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PCPOST_BabcockWilcox_Train.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PCPOST_BabcockWilcox_Trai...
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    A factory in China forged the pressure vessel for Vogtle 3 and 4 which are being brought up now.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    The link you posted has wind lower than nuclear. Also both wind and solar developed immensely since 2014, nuclear not so much.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      Offshore wind is higher. Terrestrial wind has a higher minimum estimate, and a median estimate that's nearly the same.
  - speed_spread 4y ago
    I see no issue shipping parts like this across the pacific. If it fits on a train, it sure can fit on a cargo.
  - webmobdev 4y ago
    Just 1 nitpick - huge and big things are actually easier and cheaper to transport by ships.

Manuel_D 4y ago

> hook up some cell phone batteries to it for night time You're going to need a lot of batteries. A lot of batteries. The world uses 60 TWh of electricity per day. So 12 hours of storage would be 30 TWh, or 30,000 GWh. By comparison global annual lithium ion battery production is about 300 GWh.

greenthrow 4y ago
Consumption is lower at night pretty much everywhere, so it's not true we need 50% consumption in storage. Additionally, it's obvious there are many other things we can do besides just match current consumption with renewables. We can and must mandate less wasteful consumption. Anyone who has flown at night in a window seat knows just how much energy is being wasted on completely pointless night time signage and lighting for businesses that are closed, as just one small example. Regardless, nuclear and its permanent poisoning of the earth is not the answer.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  It's only in the summer where peak electricity demand happens around noon. It's largely flat across the board for much of the year [1]. Simply telling people to use less electricity is not a viable option. > Regardless, nuclear and its permanent poisoning of the earth is not the answer. By "poisoning the earth" you mean burying extremely small amounts of uranium half a kilometer under the ground. The entirety of the USA's nuclear waste from power generation fits in a volume the footprint of a football field and 10 yards high. That's 70 years of nuclear waste. By comparison, renewables + natural gas is poisoning the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. And there's no plan to operate wind and solar without natural gas until a breakthrough storage solution is discovered. 1. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    > By "poisoning the earth" you mean burying extremely small amounts of uranium half a kilometer under the ground. The entirety of the USA's nuclear waste from power generation fits in a volume the footprint of a football field and 10 yards high. That's 70 years of nuclear waste. Citation needed, just looking and the temporal storage facilities of a single nuclear power plant is bigger than a football field.

cycomanic 4y ago

> Plus, I heard solar is cheap and nuclear is expensive. Can't argue with price (which is never distorted by unincorporated externalities)! The unincorporated externalities make nuclear much more expensive in comparison to solar/wind. Nuclear does not have to cover for the eventualities of an accident, their cost does not include long term storage to name just 2.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

I unironically agree with basically everything you've said, which makes your sarcasm hard to parse for me. Solar and lithium batteries are currently forecast to supply a big chunk of the world's power, cheaper and more cleanly than our current options (both nuclear and fossil). This cheap power will actually be part of the long term carbon reduction steps we'll probably need to do at some point because the transition to carbon fees and renewables was stalled for so long. Theres easier things we can do first though, like building lots of PV and using that power instead of fossil fuels. EV charging and desalination are both good targets for demand response of renewables. PV production is not hard to scale or carbon intense, and even if it was you'd be able to offset it against the carbon free output they produce. Solar is cheap. Nuclear is cheaper than coal and gas, but more expensive than renewables when externalities are included. They're at the point when they're cheaper even without taking externalities into account which is important, as some people will not care about prices they are not directly paying, and other people really don't like government intervention in markets. Nuclear will never achieve this, despite actually being cheaper than fossil fuels. We dont need nuclear. We'll probably build more globally and end up with about 10% of increased electricity demand coming from nuclear as part of the transition away from fossil fuels but we dont need it. What we really don't need is people lying about renewables, even if hiding it behind sarcasm to make it harder to call out.