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“could” being the operative word. so much could happen, but what’s currently realistic is more sobering. currently, we have no way of realistically storing the

“could” being the operative word. so much could happen, but what’s currently realistic is more sobering. currently, we have no way of realistically storing the magnitude of grid-stabilizing power required by intermittent renewables. even all the car batteries in the world are not anywhere close to enough, and that’s after 2+ decades of mining and manufacturing. pumped hydro is similarly limited. molten salt storage? decades. kinetics? decades. but no one is saying we stop renewables. what we need to be saying is that we resume nuclear (primarily a mediopolitical problem) and do away with coal as fast as possible while we sort the storage issue out over the coming decades.

pfdietz 4y ago
At some point caution becomes excessive and obstructive, dismissing a possibility you don't like until after it's been rolled out and solved the problem. A reasonable assessment should look at the technologies and judge how likely they are to work. All the technologies are now subject to ever-increasing economic incentive to make them work. There are trillions of dollars riding on this. The world could spend a quadrillion dollars on energy over the next century. It doesn't get much bigger than that. If there is anything retarding any of these technologies, it's competition from others. In the end, you'll see most of them failing to come out on top. But that will just be a sign there were better options, not a sign that these failures couldn't have also done the job. Molten salt storage, btw, isn't IMO terribly reasonable; there are much cheaper media in which to store heat, like sand.
ncmncm 4y ago
Factories to make storage media are under construction today, as we speak. Do you imagine they will not be operated? Or, that what they build has not already been shown to work before they got investment to build? We don't have much storage because we have not built storage yet. After we build it, we will have it. Is this hard to understand? At the moment, spending on storage would be foolish, because there is nothing to charge it from. But we will need those factories ready to operate when we do begin to need storage.

pfdietz 4y ago

At some point caution becomes excessive and obstructive, dismissing a possibility you don't like until after it's been rolled out and solved the problem. A reasonable assessment should look at the technologies and judge how likely they are to work. All the technologies are now subject to ever-increasing economic incentive to make them work. There are trillions of dollars riding on this. The world could spend a quadrillion dollars on energy over the next century. It doesn't get much bigger than that. If there is anything retarding any of these technologies, it's competition from others. In the end, you'll see most of them failing to come out on top. But that will just be a sign there were better options, not a sign that these failures couldn't have also done the job. Molten salt storage, btw, isn't IMO terribly reasonable; there are much cheaper media in which to store heat, like sand.

ncmncm 4y ago

Factories to make storage media are under construction today, as we speak. Do you imagine they will not be operated? Or, that what they build has not already been shown to work before they got investment to build? We don't have much storage because we have not built storage yet. After we build it, we will have it. Is this hard to understand? At the moment, spending on storage would be foolish, because there is nothing to charge it from. But we will need those factories ready to operate when we do begin to need storage.