5 ms·

Which is easier: 1. Build solar and wind, anywhere across the globe to 4x overcapacity, and then use power-to-gas technology to store the energy into synthetic

Which is easier: 1. Build solar and wind, anywhere across the globe to 4x overcapacity, and then use power-to-gas technology to store the energy into synthetic hydrocarbons, which can be plugged directly into our current infrastructure. 2. Reinvent the whole of society to run on lithium batteries.

civilized 3y ago
It's a great question! I'd like to think we have good answers or are hard at work on them, but I don't know where to find them.
mirko22 3y ago
Spending all that money on nuclear is easier, and in long term, better option along side with using wind and solar for daily spikes.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  This is completely wrong. Nuclear is more expensive. The optimal strategy going forward likely involves no new nuclear construction. Solar/wind and nuclear do not play well together. The former will push the latter completely out of the market unless nuclear becomes considerably cheaper (and that is a forlorn hope, given the history of the technology.)
  - mirko22 3y ago
    History if it working reliably and providing best base load power supply over 70years? And if you’re referring Chernobyl and Fukushima try seeing how many people die cos of burning coal… It might put things into perspective
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      History of it being expensive and having poor (or negative) learning effects. The coal point there is completely inane, as we were not discussing coal as an alternative.
      - mirko22 3y ago
        What do you mean by poor learning effects? I was assuming that by history mean nuclear is not safe so I brought up coal. From the sources I can find it shows nuclear being as expensive as offshore wind. And I can’t find any sources on how expensive is to store energy produced by solar to provide base loads over night…
        pfdietz 3y ago
        You assumed wrong. I was talking about history of nuclear's economics. It has failed to show good learning effects (that is, getting cheaper as more units are built.) If anything, it has shown negative learning effects -- getting more expensive as more units are built. Contrast this to photovoltaics, which have declined in cost by something like a factor of 300 since they came on the market. PV has shown a robust learning rate of 20% cost reduction per doubling of cumulative production. It should be no surprise that nuclear is sputtering to extinction with such poor cost trends. In contrast, all the competing technologies -- solar, wind, storage -- are showing excellent learning. So, it's only a matter of time until nuclear dies.
        mirko22 3y ago
        So it cheaper and faster to build, however I still see no solution for base loads and land usage, which as far as i can tell nuclear is a minute fraction of land usage as opposed to solar and specially wind. Some estimates put this at 1/400 for nuclear vs solar and 1/2000.vs wind where nuclear produces constant power supply as opposed to “renewables”. So there seems to be natural bounds as to how much these can grow and how much land surface they take and thus damage. Plus, we haven’t put as nearly as much time last 30 years coming up with better nuclear devices as we did in renewables. So even if you are right about the current prices I don’t see that as a nuclear problem but populist problem, since people are scared of nuclear waste but seem to be ok with destroying the marine and land habitats. Hey, let’s wait for another decade and see where it takes us.
        pfdietz 3y ago
jfengel 3y ago
Lithium batteries are used mainly in transportation. And we're already shifting towards them, because they're just plain better. If we were to start over from scratch, the whole notion of covering the landscape with chemical dispensers would be considered absurd: smelly, toxic, and inconvenient. Why wouldn't you just go home and plug your car into your house? Why have a car with thousands of precision moving parts when you can just have a battery on an oversized skateboard? We already have electric distribution infrastructure. It needs to be upgraded, but not created from scratch. The only thing that needs large lithium batteries is vehicles. You can use different chemistries for stable objects like the grid itself, or your house -- which is a nice bonus, in that you can run your house even when the infrastructure is down. And then you can let a whole separate parallel energy infrastructure degrade and vanish. No more gas pipelines or gasoline tankers as we gradually get rid of the dependencies on them. It's not "current infrastructure" forever: it has to be maintained. If we're going to do maintenance anyway, why not put it into the existing electric grid rather than both that and the fossil fuel system?

civilized 3y ago

It's a great question! I'd like to think we have good answers or are hard at work on them, but I don't know where to find them.

mirko22 3y ago

Spending all that money on nuclear is easier, and in long term, better option along side with using wind and solar for daily spikes.

pfdietz 3y ago
This is completely wrong. Nuclear is more expensive. The optimal strategy going forward likely involves no new nuclear construction. Solar/wind and nuclear do not play well together. The former will push the latter completely out of the market unless nuclear becomes considerably cheaper (and that is a forlorn hope, given the history of the technology.)
- mirko22 3y ago
  History if it working reliably and providing best base load power supply over 70years? And if you’re referring Chernobyl and Fukushima try seeing how many people die cos of burning coal… It might put things into perspective
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    History of it being expensive and having poor (or negative) learning effects. The coal point there is completely inane, as we were not discussing coal as an alternative.
    - mirko22 3y ago
      What do you mean by poor learning effects? I was assuming that by history mean nuclear is not safe so I brought up coal. From the sources I can find it shows nuclear being as expensive as offshore wind. And I can’t find any sources on how expensive is to store energy produced by solar to provide base loads over night…
      - pfdietz 3y ago
        You assumed wrong. I was talking about history of nuclear's economics. It has failed to show good learning effects (that is, getting cheaper as more units are built.) If anything, it has shown negative learning effects -- getting more expensive as more units are built. Contrast this to photovoltaics, which have declined in cost by something like a factor of 300 since they came on the market. PV has shown a robust learning rate of 20% cost reduction per doubling of cumulative production. It should be no surprise that nuclear is sputtering to extinction with such poor cost trends. In contrast, all the competing technologies -- solar, wind, storage -- are showing excellent learning. So, it's only a matter of time until nuclear dies.
        mirko22 3y ago
        So it cheaper and faster to build, however I still see no solution for base loads and land usage, which as far as i can tell nuclear is a minute fraction of land usage as opposed to solar and specially wind. Some estimates put this at 1/400 for nuclear vs solar and 1/2000.vs wind where nuclear produces constant power supply as opposed to “renewables”. So there seems to be natural bounds as to how much these can grow and how much land surface they take and thus damage. Plus, we haven’t put as nearly as much time last 30 years coming up with better nuclear devices as we did in renewables. So even if you are right about the current prices I don’t see that as a nuclear problem but populist problem, since people are scared of nuclear waste but seem to be ok with destroying the marine and land habitats. Hey, let’s wait for another decade and see where it takes us.
        pfdietz 3y ago

jfengel 3y ago

Lithium batteries are used mainly in transportation. And we're already shifting towards them, because they're just plain better. If we were to start over from scratch, the whole notion of covering the landscape with chemical dispensers would be considered absurd: smelly, toxic, and inconvenient. Why wouldn't you just go home and plug your car into your house? Why have a car with thousands of precision moving parts when you can just have a battery on an oversized skateboard? We already have electric distribution infrastructure. It needs to be upgraded, but not created from scratch. The only thing that needs large lithium batteries is vehicles. You can use different chemistries for stable objects like the grid itself, or your house -- which is a nice bonus, in that you can run your house even when the infrastructure is down. And then you can let a whole separate parallel energy infrastructure degrade and vanish. No more gas pipelines or gasoline tankers as we gradually get rid of the dependencies on them. It's not "current infrastructure" forever: it has to be maintained. If we're going to do maintenance anyway, why not put it into the existing electric grid rather than both that and the fossil fuel system?