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Any energy expert(s) here? Can the world just run on renewables like Greenpeace is claiming? What are the significant obstacles to be overcome?

by venk12 3y ago

VHRanger 3y ago
Significant obstacles like: - Batteries don't work at the scale of a grid. There are a few 'natural' batteries, like the water level of a hydro dam, but none for renewables. - Sometimes it's cloudy - Sometimes there's no wind - The renewable grid isn't, you know, BUILT yet. So, despite handwaving these issues away, the "baseload" capacity remains a problem which has to be addressed by something with storable energy - eg. nuclear, hydro or coal.
- venk12 3y ago
  Do you believe we have the technology needed to safely dispose nuclear waste without affecting the environment and future generations?
  - yaantc 3y ago
    Do you believe the possible threat of nuclear waste to future generations, considering our current waste management technologies, to be higher than the impact due to more CO2 generation by running electrical coal plants instead of nuclear ones? That seems a more relevant question to me. There's no silver bullet, and pointing problems on one side only may help win arguments (maybe?) but is not so helpful when trying to find the "best" option. Which, in real life, usually means the less bad option. Warts everywhere...
    - venk12 3y ago
      Indeed, you are correct! Is there an 'impartial' governing body that has examined these two alternatives and determined the advantages and disadvantages of each? Or is there any relevant literature that focuses on simulating/evaluating these options?
  - kirrent 3y ago
    Yes.
  - VHRanger 3y ago
    Easily, yes. It's easy and safe to dispose of, and doesn't take much space at all. Disposing nuclear waste effectively means putting it under ~3m of water in a place where people won't mess with it. As of 2016, France has produced 14,000 tons of nuclear waste *in its entire history*. That's about 7 normal olympic swimming pools in total volume. We have much bigger issues with other forms of waste, nuclear waste has always just been a scaremongering tactic for the anti-nuclear crowd.
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      Nuclear waste is also the issue the nuclear stans like to bring up, to propagate the falsehood that it is the issue that's holding back nuclear (so they can then correctly argue that it's not that big a problem, so incorrectly claim building more nuclear is a good idea.)
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Batteries work fine at scale. What they don't do is get you to 100% renewables. But hydrogen can be used for that last 5-10%, and Europe has many petawatt hours of hydrogen storage potential available in salt formations.
  - VHRanger 3y ago
    Sources on "they work fine at scale"? Last I checked 4 years ago they didn't at all in terms of costs or pollution to produce/dispose of. Natural stores energy like nuclear or hydro remain best.
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      Now you're moving the goal posts. If something is too expensive, it's too expensive at small scale as well as large scale. There is no engineering reason why a grid cannot have very large amounts of batteries attached to it. If they're at the moment too expensive, that's no inherent obstacle, since battery prices have been falling rapidly, much faster than nuclear's price ever did. > Sources on "they work fine at scale"? Hitchen's Razor. I can dismiss your original claim without evidence, since it was presented without evidence. In other words: sources? You go first. I suspect you are parroting studies that assume batteries are used to get to 100% renewables, then clutch their pearls at how many batteries are needed. Using batteries for that last 10% or so is just bad engineering, so those studies are strawmen.
  - _hypx 3y ago
    If you have many petawatt-hours of hydrogen storage, you don't need batteries at all.
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      Batteries are likely going to be better for short term storage, due to their higher round trip efficiency. Hydrogen would win for long term storage (seasonal, for example) and backing up the system against rare prolonged dark-calm periods. A combination of the two storage modes could be better than either one alone. Adding additional capabilities (transmission, intermediate term storage, dispatchable demand of various kinds) can only make things cheaper.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  > Batteries don't work at the scale of a grid https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2019/Sep/IRENA_Utility-scale-batteries_2019.pdf https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication... They do. This is from 2019, there are probably better and more recent sources. > Sometimes it's cloudy > Sometimes there's no wind Yes, so you always use a mix. The biggest problem is when there is no sun and no wind and this happens for an extended period. At those times power will likely become a lot more expensive. And as long as we don't have seasonal storage there will always be periods in the year like that, no matter where you live unless it is close to the equator. > The renewable grid isn't, you know, BUILT yet. You don't need a 'renewable grid', the one we have will serve just fine. Gamechanger: HVDC to offset day/night and seasonal cycles because it allows the transport of electricity over far larger distances. This + a relatively modest amount of storage may well be the ticket.
  - TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
    Batteries are expensive + needs to be replaced periodically, which is making whole setup even more expensive in the long run. Batteries are dead end for energy storage.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Batteries are emphatically not a dead end, there are many more chemistries than Lithium Ion and the life spans are approaching 6000 cycles for the best kinds which is a 20 year lifespan. Yes, they are expensive, so is everything else connected to the power grid. The cost of storing a KWh and retrieving it has been steadily dropping over the past two decades making this now a feasible method to store energy at grid scale. Even so, like everything else, it is an optimization problem, you don't want to overdesign your battery storage because the safe assumption seems to be that future tech will be even better so pacing the roll-out of such tech is a prudent approach.
forty 3y ago
The main obstacle to overcome is to decrease the consumption of energy :) it's tough because people don't really care about the environment as soon as they have to even slightly change any of their habits, and the situation would require that people significantly change their habits (so I'd say we are probably screwed)
- pieix 3y ago
  As you’ve identified, few people will opt into a lower quality of living in the name of the greater good. The solution is to find better power generation methods, rather than force people to accept a downgrade.
  - forty 3y ago
    Well, it's not that much about acceptance, the downgrade is being forced on people right now (via drought, ocean rise, heat, fire, and other climatic events, and all this will also cause hunger, population move and wars), and it's a much worse downgrade than what people could do volontarily to mitigate the issue.
- venk12 3y ago
  To what degree is personal consumption driving the demand for energy? And to what degree are industrials, workplaces or collective activities we do as part of the society? In any case, what are the ways to reduce consumption of energy at an individual level and society as a whole? Are there any novel ideas that are yet to be explored?
  - forty 3y ago
    For personal consumption, I'd assume a large part of the energy used directly come from home heating/cooling and transportation (cars). Solutions exist to improve both in many cases (insulation and public transportation/biking/walking).
- kcplate 3y ago
  >> Can the world just run on renewables like Greenpeace is claiming? > The main obstacle to overcome is to decrease the consumption of energy If we can’t produce enough power using renewables to meet current demand you cannot run the world on renewables. So “no”.
jamil7 3y ago
I'm pro renewables, but I think the supply side is a significant obstacle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc
- pfdietz 3y ago
  I'm not going to waste time watching a video; they're very poor at efficiently transmitting information compared to text. Can you summarize the argument so I can poke holes in it?
ianpurton 3y ago
Germany is running on coal. It's by far the worst example of energy vs pollution in Europe.
- jamil7 3y ago
  I think Poland might be worse actually, but yes Germany is bad.
- jojobas 3y ago
  But this coal is endorsed by Greenpeace so it's basically renewable energy.
  - ianpurton 3y ago
    It's renewable if Greenpeace can somehow release the CO2 from our childrens lungs.
    - jojobas 3y ago
      1. Poe's law 2. Removing CO2 is basically 50% of the lungs job and they do it just fine.
  - zapnuk 3y ago
    That a dumb and incorrect statement. Here is the first link when you google "greenpeace coal germany". The level of stupidity from this and many other comments makes me wonder how many russian plants are here trying to push some agenda. https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/20429/greenpeace-welcomes-germanys-plan-to-phase-out-coal-but-urges-haste/ https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/20429...
    - jojobas 3y ago
      Russian plants are feeling accomplished ever since Germany started building gas power plants like crazy. Phasing out coal is great, phasing out nuclear before coal is as idiotic as you can get. I'm convinced that European Greens are 50% Russian assets 50% useful idiots.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Symbiote 3y ago
Greenpeace want a collection of energy policies to be implemented: demand reduction, renewable power generation, no nuclear power, no fossil fuel power. [1] is their policy from 2010. It suggests more CHP, renewable electricity generation with demand peaks balanced with hydrogen storage, improved electric public transport, rail rather than road freight, etc. I don't have time to read it now, it is 260 pages with lots of figures. [1] https://wayback.archive-it.org/9650/20200402044541/http://p3-raw.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/climate/2010/fullreport.pdf https://wayback.archive-it.org/9650/20200402044541/http://p3...
pfdietz 3y ago
Yes, the world can run on renewables. This has become completely clear. And it's likely to end up cheaper than using nuclear, especially when you consider that today's thermal reactors cannot power the world for more than a few years before the cheap uranium runs out. Europe's problem is that they're not well sited to use solar, compared to places closer to the equator. So heavy industry may move elsewhere. Nuclear will not change this, since solar in those best locations is very cheap.

Any energy expert(s) here? Can the world just run on renewables like Greenpeace is claiming? What are the significant obstacles to be overcome?

by venk12 3y ago

Any energy expert(s) here? Can the world just run on renewables like Greenpeace is claiming? What are the significant obstacles to be overcome?

VHRanger 3y ago

Significant obstacles like: - Batteries don't work at the scale of a grid. There are a few 'natural' batteries, like the water level of a hydro dam, but none for renewables. - Sometimes it's cloudy - Sometimes there's no wind - The renewable grid isn't, you know, BUILT yet. So, despite handwaving these issues away, the "baseload" capacity remains a problem which has to be addressed by something with storable energy - eg. nuclear, hydro or coal.

venk12 3y ago
Do you believe we have the technology needed to safely dispose nuclear waste without affecting the environment and future generations?
- yaantc 3y ago
  Do you believe the possible threat of nuclear waste to future generations, considering our current waste management technologies, to be higher than the impact due to more CO2 generation by running electrical coal plants instead of nuclear ones? That seems a more relevant question to me. There's no silver bullet, and pointing problems on one side only may help win arguments (maybe?) but is not so helpful when trying to find the "best" option. Which, in real life, usually means the less bad option. Warts everywhere...
  - venk12 3y ago
    Indeed, you are correct! Is there an 'impartial' governing body that has examined these two alternatives and determined the advantages and disadvantages of each? Or is there any relevant literature that focuses on simulating/evaluating these options?
- kirrent 3y ago
  Yes.
- VHRanger 3y ago
  Easily, yes. It's easy and safe to dispose of, and doesn't take much space at all. Disposing nuclear waste effectively means putting it under ~3m of water in a place where people won't mess with it. As of 2016, France has produced 14,000 tons of nuclear waste *in its entire history*. That's about 7 normal olympic swimming pools in total volume. We have much bigger issues with other forms of waste, nuclear waste has always just been a scaremongering tactic for the anti-nuclear crowd.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Nuclear waste is also the issue the nuclear stans like to bring up, to propagate the falsehood that it is the issue that's holding back nuclear (so they can then correctly argue that it's not that big a problem, so incorrectly claim building more nuclear is a good idea.)
pfdietz 3y ago
Batteries work fine at scale. What they don't do is get you to 100% renewables. But hydrogen can be used for that last 5-10%, and Europe has many petawatt hours of hydrogen storage potential available in salt formations.
- VHRanger 3y ago
  Sources on "they work fine at scale"? Last I checked 4 years ago they didn't at all in terms of costs or pollution to produce/dispose of. Natural stores energy like nuclear or hydro remain best.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Now you're moving the goal posts. If something is too expensive, it's too expensive at small scale as well as large scale. There is no engineering reason why a grid cannot have very large amounts of batteries attached to it. If they're at the moment too expensive, that's no inherent obstacle, since battery prices have been falling rapidly, much faster than nuclear's price ever did. > Sources on "they work fine at scale"? Hitchen's Razor. I can dismiss your original claim without evidence, since it was presented without evidence. In other words: sources? You go first. I suspect you are parroting studies that assume batteries are used to get to 100% renewables, then clutch their pearls at how many batteries are needed. Using batteries for that last 10% or so is just bad engineering, so those studies are strawmen.
- _hypx 3y ago
  If you have many petawatt-hours of hydrogen storage, you don't need batteries at all.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Batteries are likely going to be better for short term storage, due to their higher round trip efficiency. Hydrogen would win for long term storage (seasonal, for example) and backing up the system against rare prolonged dark-calm periods. A combination of the two storage modes could be better than either one alone. Adding additional capabilities (transmission, intermediate term storage, dispatchable demand of various kinds) can only make things cheaper.
jacquesm 3y ago
> Batteries don't work at the scale of a grid https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2019/Sep/IRENA_Utility-scale-batteries_2019.pdf https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication... They do. This is from 2019, there are probably better and more recent sources. > Sometimes it's cloudy > Sometimes there's no wind Yes, so you always use a mix. The biggest problem is when there is no sun and no wind and this happens for an extended period. At those times power will likely become a lot more expensive. And as long as we don't have seasonal storage there will always be periods in the year like that, no matter where you live unless it is close to the equator. > The renewable grid isn't, you know, BUILT yet. You don't need a 'renewable grid', the one we have will serve just fine. Gamechanger: HVDC to offset day/night and seasonal cycles because it allows the transport of electricity over far larger distances. This + a relatively modest amount of storage may well be the ticket.
- TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
  Batteries are expensive + needs to be replaced periodically, which is making whole setup even more expensive in the long run. Batteries are dead end for energy storage.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Batteries are emphatically not a dead end, there are many more chemistries than Lithium Ion and the life spans are approaching 6000 cycles for the best kinds which is a 20 year lifespan. Yes, they are expensive, so is everything else connected to the power grid. The cost of storing a KWh and retrieving it has been steadily dropping over the past two decades making this now a feasible method to store energy at grid scale. Even so, like everything else, it is an optimization problem, you don't want to overdesign your battery storage because the safe assumption seems to be that future tech will be even better so pacing the roll-out of such tech is a prudent approach.

forty 3y ago

The main obstacle to overcome is to decrease the consumption of energy :) it's tough because people don't really care about the environment as soon as they have to even slightly change any of their habits, and the situation would require that people significantly change their habits (so I'd say we are probably screwed)

pieix 3y ago
As you’ve identified, few people will opt into a lower quality of living in the name of the greater good. The solution is to find better power generation methods, rather than force people to accept a downgrade.
- forty 3y ago
  Well, it's not that much about acceptance, the downgrade is being forced on people right now (via drought, ocean rise, heat, fire, and other climatic events, and all this will also cause hunger, population move and wars), and it's a much worse downgrade than what people could do volontarily to mitigate the issue.
venk12 3y ago
To what degree is personal consumption driving the demand for energy? And to what degree are industrials, workplaces or collective activities we do as part of the society? In any case, what are the ways to reduce consumption of energy at an individual level and society as a whole? Are there any novel ideas that are yet to be explored?
- forty 3y ago
  For personal consumption, I'd assume a large part of the energy used directly come from home heating/cooling and transportation (cars). Solutions exist to improve both in many cases (insulation and public transportation/biking/walking).
kcplate 3y ago
>> Can the world just run on renewables like Greenpeace is claiming? > The main obstacle to overcome is to decrease the consumption of energy If we can’t produce enough power using renewables to meet current demand you cannot run the world on renewables. So “no”.

jamil7 3y ago

I'm pro renewables, but I think the supply side is a significant obstacle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc

pfdietz 3y ago
I'm not going to waste time watching a video; they're very poor at efficiently transmitting information compared to text. Can you summarize the argument so I can poke holes in it?

ianpurton 3y ago

Germany is running on coal. It's by far the worst example of energy vs pollution in Europe.

jamil7 3y ago
I think Poland might be worse actually, but yes Germany is bad.
jojobas 3y ago
But this coal is endorsed by Greenpeace so it's basically renewable energy.
- ianpurton 3y ago
  It's renewable if Greenpeace can somehow release the CO2 from our childrens lungs.
  - jojobas 3y ago
    1. Poe's law 2. Removing CO2 is basically 50% of the lungs job and they do it just fine.
- zapnuk 3y ago
  That a dumb and incorrect statement. Here is the first link when you google "greenpeace coal germany". The level of stupidity from this and many other comments makes me wonder how many russian plants are here trying to push some agenda. https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/20429/greenpeace-welcomes-germanys-plan-to-phase-out-coal-but-urges-haste/ https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/20429...
  - jojobas 3y ago
    Russian plants are feeling accomplished ever since Germany started building gas power plants like crazy. Phasing out coal is great, phasing out nuclear before coal is as idiotic as you can get. I'm convinced that European Greens are 50% Russian assets 50% useful idiots.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Symbiote 3y ago

Greenpeace want a collection of energy policies to be implemented: demand reduction, renewable power generation, no nuclear power, no fossil fuel power. [1] is their policy from 2010. It suggests more CHP, renewable electricity generation with demand peaks balanced with hydrogen storage, improved electric public transport, rail rather than road freight, etc. I don't have time to read it now, it is 260 pages with lots of figures. [1] https://wayback.archive-it.org/9650/20200402044541/http://p3-raw.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/climate/2010/fullreport.pdf https://wayback.archive-it.org/9650/20200402044541/http://p3...

pfdietz 3y ago

Yes, the world can run on renewables. This has become completely clear. And it's likely to end up cheaper than using nuclear, especially when you consider that today's thermal reactors cannot power the world for more than a few years before the cheap uranium runs out. Europe's problem is that they're not well sited to use solar, compared to places closer to the equator. So heavy industry may move elsewhere. Nuclear will not change this, since solar in those best locations is very cheap.