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I think it is obvious to anyone following the technology trajectory that solar is the dominant energy source of the future. No other energy source is on a simil

by oezi 3y ago

I think it is obvious to anyone following the technology trajectory that solar is the dominant energy source of the future. No other energy source is on a similar path to become cheaper so quickly. We won't even focus on storing much of it but just build more and more.

jacquesm 3y ago
Solar + transport is good but still fragile, a cheap, durable and reliable means of storage would complete the picture.
- hcurtiss 3y ago
  What transport? You tried permitting a major transmission line in the western US lately?
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    What societies do to make their energy problems worse has nothing to do with tech, that's entirely self inflicted.
pydry 3y ago
I think a lot of the skepticism around solar/wind/storage rests on an incorrect understanding of how easily variability can be dealt with. Which is understandable, because it's quite a complex problem to model. The story on that is surprisingly positive, but it's quite easy to FUD by parties with a vested interest (carbon lobby, nuclear lobby) because some people will hear: * "well, the sun doesn't shine at night. the wind doesn't always blow! check mate!" E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37161473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37161473 (posted after I wrote this) or, if it's aimed at a slightly higher intellectual level, things like: * "pumped storage is a nice idea but realistically there just isn't enough space for all the pumped storage we need". E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37161790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37161790 (posted after I wrote this) * "we need 1-2 weeks worth of storage to deal with the inherent instability of wind/solar" And they'll believe it because it all sounds plausible enough, even though it's wrong. And then they'll repeat it all over hacker news lol...
- dahfizz 3y ago
  Care to elaborate on what we do when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow, then?
  - pydry 3y ago
    Demand shaping - Germany pioneered this by dialing aluminum smelter usage up and down in the early days. They didn't talk about it much, I think because it functioned as a kind of hidden subsidy and they didn't want to attract undue attention. There's LOTS of scope for stuff like heaters and vehicles batteries to use electricity when it's plentiful and cheap and turn it off when it's not. The UK has a special electricity tariff for this already which is very popular with electric car drivers. Demand shaping is, relative to storage, really cheap and usually gets forgotten about in skeptical renewable energy models. Pumped storage and batteries for short term energy storage - hours to weeks. Australia is already building one pumped storage battery which should provide them with roughly 350GWh - roughly half of the short term storage they'd need if they had a 100% solar and wind based grid. With one plant. You can't do this in, e.g. Florida but the geography to build this is more than plentiful enough in most of the world (this topic is pretty well settled: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14555-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14555-y but for some reason people keep disputing it). Hydrogen for seasonal storage - for weeks when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. Roughly 2-3% of power will need to be stored this way on a 100% solar/wind grid. It's not efficient and expensive to generate hydrogen from electricity and then turn it back into electricity but still cheaper than generating and using nuclear power at the point of generation. It is cheap to store enormous amounts of power for long periods this way though.
    - matkoniecz 3y ago
      The Australian project is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_2.0_Pumped_Storage_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_2.0_Pumped_Storage_Power... But it seems hardly replicable say in central Europe.
      - 3y ago

by oezi 3y ago

jacquesm 3y ago

Solar + transport is good but still fragile, a cheap, durable and reliable means of storage would complete the picture.

hcurtiss 3y ago
What transport? You tried permitting a major transmission line in the western US lately?
- jacquesm 3y ago
  What societies do to make their energy problems worse has nothing to do with tech, that's entirely self inflicted.

pydry 3y ago

I think a lot of the skepticism around solar/wind/storage rests on an incorrect understanding of how easily variability can be dealt with. Which is understandable, because it's quite a complex problem to model. The story on that is surprisingly positive, but it's quite easy to FUD by parties with a vested interest (carbon lobby, nuclear lobby) because some people will hear: * "well, the sun doesn't shine at night. the wind doesn't always blow! check mate!" E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37161473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37161473 (posted after I wrote this) or, if it's aimed at a slightly higher intellectual level, things like: * "pumped storage is a nice idea but realistically there just isn't enough space for all the pumped storage we need". E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37161790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37161790 (posted after I wrote this) * "we need 1-2 weeks worth of storage to deal with the inherent instability of wind/solar" And they'll believe it because it all sounds plausible enough, even though it's wrong. And then they'll repeat it all over hacker news lol...

dahfizz 3y ago
Care to elaborate on what we do when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow, then?
- pydry 3y ago
  Demand shaping - Germany pioneered this by dialing aluminum smelter usage up and down in the early days. They didn't talk about it much, I think because it functioned as a kind of hidden subsidy and they didn't want to attract undue attention. There's LOTS of scope for stuff like heaters and vehicles batteries to use electricity when it's plentiful and cheap and turn it off when it's not. The UK has a special electricity tariff for this already which is very popular with electric car drivers. Demand shaping is, relative to storage, really cheap and usually gets forgotten about in skeptical renewable energy models. Pumped storage and batteries for short term energy storage - hours to weeks. Australia is already building one pumped storage battery which should provide them with roughly 350GWh - roughly half of the short term storage they'd need if they had a 100% solar and wind based grid. With one plant. You can't do this in, e.g. Florida but the geography to build this is more than plentiful enough in most of the world (this topic is pretty well settled: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14555-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14555-y but for some reason people keep disputing it). Hydrogen for seasonal storage - for weeks when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. Roughly 2-3% of power will need to be stored this way on a 100% solar/wind grid. It's not efficient and expensive to generate hydrogen from electricity and then turn it back into electricity but still cheaper than generating and using nuclear power at the point of generation. It is cheap to store enormous amounts of power for long periods this way though.
  - matkoniecz 3y ago
    The Australian project is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_2.0_Pumped_Storage_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_2.0_Pumped_Storage_Power... But it seems hardly replicable say in central Europe.
    - 3y ago