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Solar and wind still have no path to stability. The point is that we already had proven technology back then. Even now after massive coordinated effort on wind

Solar and wind still have no path to stability. The point is that we already had proven technology back then. Even now after massive coordinated effort on wind and solar, we have to burn gas/coal all over the place to handle generation sags at night and when the wind slows.

cauch 3y ago
> Solar and wind still have no path to stability. This is a surprising assertion. I keep seeing it, and each time, when I dig, it turns out it is from someone who does not really know what they are saying and fall for naive ideas such as "but we don't have energy at night and without wind", while in practice, dunkelflaute appear to be as rare as unexpected shutdown of a nuclear plant anyway. I'm working in the energy sector and I see that solar and wind are considered as a very valid solution. They have disadvantages, but in practice, it's far from being the end of the world, it just makes thing more complicated, but not more than all the other complications that exist for any other sources. Maybe I'm in a bubble, so it would be great if you can show that what you say is not coming from someone who has no idea.
- palata 3y ago
  > I'm working in the energy sector and I see that solar and wind are considered as a very valid solution. I would assume that people working in solar and wind believe in it... could it be a bubble? Jean-Marc Jancovici has really great insights about that. I would recommend looking at them, that's very interesting!
  - cauch 3y ago
    I'm not working in solar and wind. Some of my colleagues are writing reports that recommend more nuclear in some cases, and less nuclear in other cases (I say "some of my colleagues" because I'm not personally working on generation, even if I sometimes peer-review their work). It is very telling that your first thoughts was "if someone says that in the sector, it's not what they say, then, surely this person is wrong somehow". It shows the level of bias. As for Jancovici, I find him very disappointing on solar. In one hand, he says very interesting things on economics and history. On the other hand, my colleagues and I are just looking each other with total surprise when he talk about solar: it looks like he never worked on the subject (but he did). In fact, few decades ago, he was saying that solar has no future, with predictions that are factually BS, proven by the fact that what he predicted never happened (and not because of a fluke, just because it was unrealistic). It feels like he chose a side and got emotionally invested in it, and now he just denies the reality. He may have been confronted to intellectually dishonest people, and now each time there is just neutral facts, he may be systematically concluding that it is impossible for it to not be something from intellectually dishonest people. It's a bit sad, I'm not sure if he is doing more good than bad: he is informing people on some aspect, but he is also spreading a lot of harmful stereotype (for example, in some places, solar is really an essential element for decarbonisation, there is just no other way that is not mathematically absurd, but these conclusions are labelled "ideological" by people having done zero study, "because Jancovici said that only ideological people promotes solar"). Just to be clear: my colleagues and I are paid the same (or even more if we have to be paid again for another study when they choose a bad option), but I just feel it's not good for society that there is so little rationality.
    - palata 3y ago
      > It is very telling that your first thoughts was "if someone says that in the sector, it's not what they say, then, surely this person is wrong somehow". It shows the level of bias. I said that I would expect someone working in the sector to believe in the sector. I did not say AT ALL that someone working in the sector is surely wrong. Of course people in renewables tend to say that nuclear doesn't work, and people in nuclear tend to say that renewables don't work. That's how it works. Asking who is saying what and consider they may have a bias seems reasonable to me. > "because Jancovici said that only ideological people promotes solar" I have been following him for years, and that is not AT ALL what I understood. He never says "solar is completely useless". He says "it depends on the situation, but it won't scale to replace fossil fuels". He also says that in many situations nuclear is a better fit (because if you have enough nuclear energy, then you don't need renewables, but when you have renewables, you need a solution for the times where they don't produce enough). I am absolutely certain that renewables are good in many situations. I just say that people selling solar farms have an interest in believing that solar farms will replace fossil fuels. But they won't.
      - cauch 3y ago
        > I said that I would expect someone working in the sector to believe in the sector. I did not say AT ALL that someone working in the sector is surely wrong. No, you said that you expect someone saying that solar and wind is not that bad to be working IN SOLAR AND WIND and not in nuclear. You said that my view on solar and wind is biased because I work on solar and wind. I don't, I work on the full energy sector, I don't prefer renewables to nuclear. > Of course people in renewables tend to say that nuclear doesn't work, and people in nuclear tend to say that renewables don't work. That's how it works. Asking who is saying what and consider they may have a bias seems reasonable to me. That's exactly my point: you ASSUMED that if I say renewable is good, then I HAVE TO be in renewable. Being careful is fine, you could have asked precision about my domain. But you did not, it was just obvious in your mind: if I'm saying the renewables are not bad, then there is no way I'm intellectually honest and unbiased. > I have been following him for years, and that is not AT ALL what I understood. I have worked on projects where we saw DIRECT AFFIRMATIONS from Jancovici that were, for real, just BS. Not because we were interpreting them badly or something like that, it was very clear cut, such as "we've just done the math for your exact project and we guarantee you you will not get it for less than X euros" and few months later, we got it for 0.001 X euros. You may understand superficially what Jancovici says. But obviously, I've seen, from first hand, the reality, and it will be very difficult for you to convince me that what I've experienced was a dream. Each time he is saying "nuclear is a better fit", you need to be very prudent, he is always comparing the very very worst case scenario for renewables with the unrealistically ideal case for nuclear. > (because if you have enough nuclear energy, then you don't need renewables, but when you have renewables, you need a solution for the times where they don't produce enough) That only is stupid. You cannot place "just nuclear", the way they work is just not suited for flexible grid, which is essential if we want to reduce emissions. You can somehow follow the demand, but you will spend order of magnitude more money than if you use renewables for exactly the same result, and you will never reach the needed reduction in time. You were saying that you reacted to "silver bullet, if you have enough renewables then you don't need nuclear". And there, you are doing exactly the same thing by saying that "if you have enough nuclear, then you don't need renewables". Let be clear: I know you prefer a mixed solution. The problem is that you believe that if you have enough nuclear, then you don't need renewables, which is just not correct.
  - cauch 3y ago
    I've had a look to the other answers parallel to mine, and it looks like I'm not the only one who thinks the affirmation I've reacted to has no ground in any scientific study. I've also seen some of your other contributions, and, hum, for someone who concludes "we need both nuclear and renewables", you seem strangely only interested to criticize renewables while not accepting any of the problems of the nuclear side (I'm not talking about nuclear incident, but just things like "not a single cell has been produced fully with renewable energy": not only it's totally absurd, but this argument would apply identically to nuclear, and yet you thought of it as something against renewables while it does not bother you when it's about nuclear)
    - palata 3y ago
      > you seem strangely only interested to criticize renewables while not accepting any of the problems of the nuclear side Probably my fault, but I was answering to comments that did sound to me like "we don't need nuclear, renewable is the silver bullet". To which I say "I think it is extremely dangerous to think like this, because we are not in a position where we can make mistakes for another few decades, and nobody has deployed renewables at scale yet". If I look at Germany for instance, they pushed a lot for renewables, which was great for the fossil business (e.g. coal and NLG) because renewables are apparently not enough on their own (e.g. when there is no wind and no sun). And that's only for their current electricity needs, we're not talking about replacing fossil fuels in any way (rather they seem to have replaced nuclear with renewables + more fossil). My experience as an engineer is that it's easy to say "yup we made a small prototype, it will most definitely work at scale, just give us the money!". Then you start doing it at scale, and you realize it's a whole new problem. I feel like in HN too many people make a quick calculation ("with a fraction of Earth covered with solar panels, we're good for a thousand years") and forget that in practice, you can't just throw solar panels in the desert and call it a day. Where I come from, solar farms are used at a fraction of their capacity because the electrical infrastructure cannot get their full production. It was just not built like that. But the people working in solar of course did not say it upfront (or did not even know it, I don't know?). Of course there are issues with nuclear plants. But there are countries (e.g. France) who did it at a scale that renewables haven't reached yet. Again, I don't mean that renewables don't work at all. I just think that it is very risky to just hope that all the fundamental problems of renewables (e.g. storage) will be solved in the near future because unlike autonomous cars or AGI it's not just meant to convince VCs: in this case it matters.
- kortilla 3y ago
  Wind and solar do not provide base load anywhere in the US without having to have battery backups. The fallback on all 3 of the major grids are coal and gas. It’s not even close to a closing solution without them. Maybe things are different in the tiny grids in Europe or people are getting really creative with accounting where they take renewable credits from other jurisdictions during excess and then use those to greenwash the fossil fuels they burn during deficits. Either way, there is no large grid running without coal, gas, geothermal, nuclear, and/or hydro anywhere in the world. Even Hawaii’s tiny grid with its excess solar is backstopped by diesel/gas generators.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    > Wind and solar do not provide base load anywhere in the US without having to have battery backups. You're implying this is a showstopper. It's not. > Either way, there is no large grid running without coal, gas, geothermal, nuclear, and/or hydro anywhere in the world. "Nothing can ever been done for the first time." Why, oh why do you imagine this matters?
    - kortilla 3y ago
      >You're implying this is a showstopper. It's not. It has been so far. Nobody has done it in a meaningful enough deployment to make a dent. My entire point is that we willfully did massive climate damage for 50 years to get to today because we didn’t want nuclear. We will still do damage for 20+ years because we’re still waiting on something to replace peaker plant load on solar/wind. People who pushed for solar/wind instead of nuclear are as much to blame for climate change as the fossil fuel junkies for the last 50 years of no effect. At least the fossil junkies didn’t righteously pretend to care.
      - pfdietz 3y ago
        > It has been so far. Nobody has done it in a meaningful enough deployment to make a dent. Nobody has done it because nobody has HAD to do it. If you're still allowed to burn some fossil fuels, it's not necessary. This doesn't mean it isn't possible, and it certainly isn't strong evidence it won't be possible. And by "possible", I mean possible at an acceptable cost. Even you should agree it's possible at sufficiently high cost. I will add that no economy has been nuclear powered yet either (not even France, where most of the energy is still coming from fossil fuels, if one doesn't limit examination to just the grid.)
pfdietz 3y ago
> Solar and wind still have no path to stability. This is a baldfaced lie. Batteries + e-fuels, coupled with predictable decline in cost of these with demonstrated experience effects, will enable 100% renewable energy at a cost competitive with current fossil fuels.
- tmtvl 3y ago
  Something like the battery storage in New South Wales? https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/05/10/edify-energy-switches-on-150-mw-300-mw-of-battery-storage-in-australia/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/05/10/edify-energy-switches...
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Yes, and backed up with other solutions for longer term supply/demand mismatches. We are also increasingly seeing batteries as part of PV fields, charged directly with DC from the PV, where they share the same inverters and grid connection, reducing overall cost.
- kortilla 3y ago
  It’s not a lie, nobody has executed it at scale nor has a proposal to. If you run the numbers on the battery requirements to replace coal/gas/nuclear in the US it’s completely infeasible. Any projects that include battery costs are not competitive at all with fossil fuels unless you price in externalities that people don’t pay for right now. There are no proposals on the table to make them pay for that either.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    If you run the cost optimization with wind/PV/batteries/hydrogen at https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ with 2030 cost projections (some of which have already been met) it comes out cheaper than nuclear at providing baseload (and hence at supplying anything, since baseload is nuclear's best case.) The "running the numbers" you refer to very likely is a scam argument that requires batteries be used as the only storage mode. This can be much more expensive than properly engineered 100% renewable solutions, especially at higher latitude.
Kon5ole 3y ago
>Solar and wind still have no path to stability. There are several paths, they just need to be walked. Gas is a known method to spread heat and electricity, hydrogen is a gas that is entirely downside-free from a eco-fuel perspective. We can burn as much of it as we want 24/7 and we can make it from sunshine and seawater, returning the water in the process. A 6-lane highway to perfect stability right there.
- palata 3y ago
  That's naive. E.g. producing hydrogen requires energy. Renewables are very, very far from replacing fossil fuels (most likely they can't), so it's not like we have extra energy to lose to make hydrogen.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Here we learn that hydrogen cannot be used because it doesn't violate conservation of energy. The things one learns. What hydrogen does is provide a way to store energy for long periods of time much more cheaply than batteries. The cost of hydrogen storage capacity underground is maybe $1/kWh. Of course the round trip efficiency is much lower than batteries, but for long term storage (or when the input energy becomes very cheap) that doesn't matter as much.
    - palata 3y ago
      One problem we have with renewables is that they are not remotely replacing fossil fuels. Another problem is that we can't store their energy efficiently (which we need because unlike nuclear power, we can't control the production). The latter makes the former worse (because we lose some of that energy in the storage process). The truth is that we need a mix of nuclear, renewable, and a ton of sobriety because after fossil fuels we will just live in a world with a lot less energy. And I don't think we can afford ignoring nuclear power. BTW, just compare France and Germany. It seems pretty obvious that the french model (with nuclear power) works a lot better.
      - 3y ago
CyberDildonics 3y ago
This has no evidence behind it and doesn't even really make sense. Electricity generation just has to make money to be viable. Peak electricity use and cost is still during the day when the sun is shining. Both methods make money and their costs are still dropping, that's why they get used. we have to burn gas/coal all over the place We had to burn a lot more gas and coal "all over the place" before wind and solar picked up. https://electrek.co/2024/02/06/eu-coal-and-gas-collapse-wind-and-solar-ascend/ https://electrek.co/2024/02/06/eu-coal-and-gas-collapse-wind... https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=54519 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=54519 https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth https://ourworldindata.org/images/published/Price-of-electricity-new-renewables-vs-new-fossil-no-geo_1350.png https://ourworldindata.org/images/published/Price-of-electri... Why make these claims if you can't back them up with anything?
- kortilla 3y ago
  Peak solar generation does not align with peak demand. That’s super basic solar 101. > We had to burn a lot more gas and coal "all over the place" before wind and solar picked up. I think you’re struggling to grasp the problem here. It isn’t that we won’t find a way to use energy when it’s there. It’s that the wind/solar fall short at calm/night and need something to fill in those gaps. That’s when fuel burning picks up the tab and drives us into more climate change.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Obviously not everywhere, but places where air-conditioning is needed almost year round, and heating is not, it seems to me that solar mostly lines up with when power is needed - while the sun is up. Is that not the case in specifically those regions, eg southern California or Florida?
  - CyberDildonics 3y ago
    I think you’re struggling to grasp the problem here. I think you're struggling to even say the same things in one comment to the next, let alone give any evidence. First you said Solar and wind still have no path to stability. which is vague as a statement because "stability" doesn't mean anything, but they both make money and are displacing fossil fuel. I showed you this through sources I linked. Peak solar generation does not align with peak demand Part of the reason why solar is useful is because it generates electricity when the demand is the highest. Solar is profitable, that's why people use it. https://www.nrel.gov/state-local-tribal/blog/posts/phrase-of-the-day-peak-load.html https://www.nrel.gov/state-local-tribal/blog/posts/phrase-of... https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/peak-and-off-peak-energy-explainer-heres-the-cheapest-time-to-use-electricity/ https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/peak-and-off-... need something to fill in those gaps Where do you think the electricity came from before solar and wind took off? It was all "gaps". We aren't even at the point yet in most places where solar or wind fill the demand for electricity while they are at their peak. Next time remember to back up what you're saying with links and real information.
ben_w 3y ago
> Even now after massive coordinated effort on wind and solar, we have to burn gas/coal all over the place to handle generation sags at night and when the wind slows. Meanwhile in the UK, coal consumption has gone down 96.5% per capita since 1965 despite an increasing population (95.7% in absolute terms). Germany and the USA have also had (smaller) reductions per capita, though the world average is up about 16%: https://ourworldindata.org/energy#explore-data-on-energy https://ourworldindata.org/energy#explore-data-on-energy Also relevant: we will continue to burn fuels until the storage/long distance grids catch up with the generation. Storage is a completely separate axis to generation, which the UK also found out during the coal miner's strikes in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s; as the storage needed for road vehicles is more than sufficient for a national electricity grid, your expectation should be "around the time cars have renewable fuels, be that battery or hydrogen, not significantly sooner or later". Grids are my personal preference (a global 1Ω aluminium grid would cost only about $265 billion in metal, using 1.7 years of current global aluminium production for something that will probably last about a century), but clearly require more international cooperation than the world wishes to engage with at present. As batteries (/hydrogen) are needed anyway for the cars, we're going to get batteries (/hydrogen).
- kortilla 3y ago
  USA drop in coal was almost completely replaced by burning natural gas. > Storage is a completely separate axis to generation It’s not when you can generate on demand from a fuel source that doubles as energy storage.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    > USA drop in coal was almost completely replaced by burning natural gas. The overall faction from all fossil fuels has also declined, in the proportion I would expect from the current deployment of the various alternatives: https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/united-states#what-sources-does-the-country-get-its-energy-from https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/united-states#what... > It’s not when you can generate on demand from a fuel source that doubles as energy storage. It is when your fuel tanks are finite in size. Also we can't generate fuel yet at sufficient scale, and that's just as relevant regarding hydrogen as it is about batteries for electricity storage. I'm optimistic about batteries, but that optimism is realistically that we'll get there over the coming decade, and in the meantime have to deal with naysayers who can't imagine a future different to the past. With hydrogen, I'm pessimistic. Given that hydrogen electrolysis is so easy that I did this before I turned 10, you need to wonder why the USA (and all the other targets of the fuel embargo) failed to do this in any significant level even at the height of the 1970s fuel crisis back when nuclear power was still fashionable. This isn't an unanswerable question, nor is intended to be anti-hydrogen rhetoric — if you can solve the problems that made it unviable back then, that's fantastic and we can use it now. But we do actually have to solve those problems.
fulafel 3y ago
This is not the case, as has been often explained in these debates.

cauch 3y ago

> Solar and wind still have no path to stability. This is a surprising assertion. I keep seeing it, and each time, when I dig, it turns out it is from someone who does not really know what they are saying and fall for naive ideas such as "but we don't have energy at night and without wind", while in practice, dunkelflaute appear to be as rare as unexpected shutdown of a nuclear plant anyway. I'm working in the energy sector and I see that solar and wind are considered as a very valid solution. They have disadvantages, but in practice, it's far from being the end of the world, it just makes thing more complicated, but not more than all the other complications that exist for any other sources. Maybe I'm in a bubble, so it would be great if you can show that what you say is not coming from someone who has no idea.

palata 3y ago
> I'm working in the energy sector and I see that solar and wind are considered as a very valid solution. I would assume that people working in solar and wind believe in it... could it be a bubble? Jean-Marc Jancovici has really great insights about that. I would recommend looking at them, that's very interesting!
- cauch 3y ago
  I'm not working in solar and wind. Some of my colleagues are writing reports that recommend more nuclear in some cases, and less nuclear in other cases (I say "some of my colleagues" because I'm not personally working on generation, even if I sometimes peer-review their work). It is very telling that your first thoughts was "if someone says that in the sector, it's not what they say, then, surely this person is wrong somehow". It shows the level of bias. As for Jancovici, I find him very disappointing on solar. In one hand, he says very interesting things on economics and history. On the other hand, my colleagues and I are just looking each other with total surprise when he talk about solar: it looks like he never worked on the subject (but he did). In fact, few decades ago, he was saying that solar has no future, with predictions that are factually BS, proven by the fact that what he predicted never happened (and not because of a fluke, just because it was unrealistic). It feels like he chose a side and got emotionally invested in it, and now he just denies the reality. He may have been confronted to intellectually dishonest people, and now each time there is just neutral facts, he may be systematically concluding that it is impossible for it to not be something from intellectually dishonest people. It's a bit sad, I'm not sure if he is doing more good than bad: he is informing people on some aspect, but he is also spreading a lot of harmful stereotype (for example, in some places, solar is really an essential element for decarbonisation, there is just no other way that is not mathematically absurd, but these conclusions are labelled "ideological" by people having done zero study, "because Jancovici said that only ideological people promotes solar"). Just to be clear: my colleagues and I are paid the same (or even more if we have to be paid again for another study when they choose a bad option), but I just feel it's not good for society that there is so little rationality.
  - palata 3y ago
    > It is very telling that your first thoughts was "if someone says that in the sector, it's not what they say, then, surely this person is wrong somehow". It shows the level of bias. I said that I would expect someone working in the sector to believe in the sector. I did not say AT ALL that someone working in the sector is surely wrong. Of course people in renewables tend to say that nuclear doesn't work, and people in nuclear tend to say that renewables don't work. That's how it works. Asking who is saying what and consider they may have a bias seems reasonable to me. > "because Jancovici said that only ideological people promotes solar" I have been following him for years, and that is not AT ALL what I understood. He never says "solar is completely useless". He says "it depends on the situation, but it won't scale to replace fossil fuels". He also says that in many situations nuclear is a better fit (because if you have enough nuclear energy, then you don't need renewables, but when you have renewables, you need a solution for the times where they don't produce enough). I am absolutely certain that renewables are good in many situations. I just say that people selling solar farms have an interest in believing that solar farms will replace fossil fuels. But they won't.
    - cauch 3y ago
      > I said that I would expect someone working in the sector to believe in the sector. I did not say AT ALL that someone working in the sector is surely wrong. No, you said that you expect someone saying that solar and wind is not that bad to be working IN SOLAR AND WIND and not in nuclear. You said that my view on solar and wind is biased because I work on solar and wind. I don't, I work on the full energy sector, I don't prefer renewables to nuclear. > Of course people in renewables tend to say that nuclear doesn't work, and people in nuclear tend to say that renewables don't work. That's how it works. Asking who is saying what and consider they may have a bias seems reasonable to me. That's exactly my point: you ASSUMED that if I say renewable is good, then I HAVE TO be in renewable. Being careful is fine, you could have asked precision about my domain. But you did not, it was just obvious in your mind: if I'm saying the renewables are not bad, then there is no way I'm intellectually honest and unbiased. > I have been following him for years, and that is not AT ALL what I understood. I have worked on projects where we saw DIRECT AFFIRMATIONS from Jancovici that were, for real, just BS. Not because we were interpreting them badly or something like that, it was very clear cut, such as "we've just done the math for your exact project and we guarantee you you will not get it for less than X euros" and few months later, we got it for 0.001 X euros. You may understand superficially what Jancovici says. But obviously, I've seen, from first hand, the reality, and it will be very difficult for you to convince me that what I've experienced was a dream. Each time he is saying "nuclear is a better fit", you need to be very prudent, he is always comparing the very very worst case scenario for renewables with the unrealistically ideal case for nuclear. > (because if you have enough nuclear energy, then you don't need renewables, but when you have renewables, you need a solution for the times where they don't produce enough) That only is stupid. You cannot place "just nuclear", the way they work is just not suited for flexible grid, which is essential if we want to reduce emissions. You can somehow follow the demand, but you will spend order of magnitude more money than if you use renewables for exactly the same result, and you will never reach the needed reduction in time. You were saying that you reacted to "silver bullet, if you have enough renewables then you don't need nuclear". And there, you are doing exactly the same thing by saying that "if you have enough nuclear, then you don't need renewables". Let be clear: I know you prefer a mixed solution. The problem is that you believe that if you have enough nuclear, then you don't need renewables, which is just not correct.
- cauch 3y ago
  I've had a look to the other answers parallel to mine, and it looks like I'm not the only one who thinks the affirmation I've reacted to has no ground in any scientific study. I've also seen some of your other contributions, and, hum, for someone who concludes "we need both nuclear and renewables", you seem strangely only interested to criticize renewables while not accepting any of the problems of the nuclear side (I'm not talking about nuclear incident, but just things like "not a single cell has been produced fully with renewable energy": not only it's totally absurd, but this argument would apply identically to nuclear, and yet you thought of it as something against renewables while it does not bother you when it's about nuclear)
  - palata 3y ago
    > you seem strangely only interested to criticize renewables while not accepting any of the problems of the nuclear side Probably my fault, but I was answering to comments that did sound to me like "we don't need nuclear, renewable is the silver bullet". To which I say "I think it is extremely dangerous to think like this, because we are not in a position where we can make mistakes for another few decades, and nobody has deployed renewables at scale yet". If I look at Germany for instance, they pushed a lot for renewables, which was great for the fossil business (e.g. coal and NLG) because renewables are apparently not enough on their own (e.g. when there is no wind and no sun). And that's only for their current electricity needs, we're not talking about replacing fossil fuels in any way (rather they seem to have replaced nuclear with renewables + more fossil). My experience as an engineer is that it's easy to say "yup we made a small prototype, it will most definitely work at scale, just give us the money!". Then you start doing it at scale, and you realize it's a whole new problem. I feel like in HN too many people make a quick calculation ("with a fraction of Earth covered with solar panels, we're good for a thousand years") and forget that in practice, you can't just throw solar panels in the desert and call it a day. Where I come from, solar farms are used at a fraction of their capacity because the electrical infrastructure cannot get their full production. It was just not built like that. But the people working in solar of course did not say it upfront (or did not even know it, I don't know?). Of course there are issues with nuclear plants. But there are countries (e.g. France) who did it at a scale that renewables haven't reached yet. Again, I don't mean that renewables don't work at all. I just think that it is very risky to just hope that all the fundamental problems of renewables (e.g. storage) will be solved in the near future because unlike autonomous cars or AGI it's not just meant to convince VCs: in this case it matters.
kortilla 3y ago
Wind and solar do not provide base load anywhere in the US without having to have battery backups. The fallback on all 3 of the major grids are coal and gas. It’s not even close to a closing solution without them. Maybe things are different in the tiny grids in Europe or people are getting really creative with accounting where they take renewable credits from other jurisdictions during excess and then use those to greenwash the fossil fuels they burn during deficits. Either way, there is no large grid running without coal, gas, geothermal, nuclear, and/or hydro anywhere in the world. Even Hawaii’s tiny grid with its excess solar is backstopped by diesel/gas generators.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  > Wind and solar do not provide base load anywhere in the US without having to have battery backups. You're implying this is a showstopper. It's not. > Either way, there is no large grid running without coal, gas, geothermal, nuclear, and/or hydro anywhere in the world. "Nothing can ever been done for the first time." Why, oh why do you imagine this matters?
  - kortilla 3y ago
    >You're implying this is a showstopper. It's not. It has been so far. Nobody has done it in a meaningful enough deployment to make a dent. My entire point is that we willfully did massive climate damage for 50 years to get to today because we didn’t want nuclear. We will still do damage for 20+ years because we’re still waiting on something to replace peaker plant load on solar/wind. People who pushed for solar/wind instead of nuclear are as much to blame for climate change as the fossil fuel junkies for the last 50 years of no effect. At least the fossil junkies didn’t righteously pretend to care.
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      > It has been so far. Nobody has done it in a meaningful enough deployment to make a dent. Nobody has done it because nobody has HAD to do it. If you're still allowed to burn some fossil fuels, it's not necessary. This doesn't mean it isn't possible, and it certainly isn't strong evidence it won't be possible. And by "possible", I mean possible at an acceptable cost. Even you should agree it's possible at sufficiently high cost. I will add that no economy has been nuclear powered yet either (not even France, where most of the energy is still coming from fossil fuels, if one doesn't limit examination to just the grid.)

pfdietz 3y ago

> Solar and wind still have no path to stability. This is a baldfaced lie. Batteries + e-fuels, coupled with predictable decline in cost of these with demonstrated experience effects, will enable 100% renewable energy at a cost competitive with current fossil fuels.

tmtvl 3y ago
Something like the battery storage in New South Wales? https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/05/10/edify-energy-switches-on-150-mw-300-mw-of-battery-storage-in-australia/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/05/10/edify-energy-switches...
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Yes, and backed up with other solutions for longer term supply/demand mismatches. We are also increasingly seeing batteries as part of PV fields, charged directly with DC from the PV, where they share the same inverters and grid connection, reducing overall cost.
kortilla 3y ago
It’s not a lie, nobody has executed it at scale nor has a proposal to. If you run the numbers on the battery requirements to replace coal/gas/nuclear in the US it’s completely infeasible. Any projects that include battery costs are not competitive at all with fossil fuels unless you price in externalities that people don’t pay for right now. There are no proposals on the table to make them pay for that either.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  If you run the cost optimization with wind/PV/batteries/hydrogen at https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ with 2030 cost projections (some of which have already been met) it comes out cheaper than nuclear at providing baseload (and hence at supplying anything, since baseload is nuclear's best case.) The "running the numbers" you refer to very likely is a scam argument that requires batteries be used as the only storage mode. This can be much more expensive than properly engineered 100% renewable solutions, especially at higher latitude.

Kon5ole 3y ago

>Solar and wind still have no path to stability. There are several paths, they just need to be walked. Gas is a known method to spread heat and electricity, hydrogen is a gas that is entirely downside-free from a eco-fuel perspective. We can burn as much of it as we want 24/7 and we can make it from sunshine and seawater, returning the water in the process. A 6-lane highway to perfect stability right there.

palata 3y ago
That's naive. E.g. producing hydrogen requires energy. Renewables are very, very far from replacing fossil fuels (most likely they can't), so it's not like we have extra energy to lose to make hydrogen.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Here we learn that hydrogen cannot be used because it doesn't violate conservation of energy. The things one learns. What hydrogen does is provide a way to store energy for long periods of time much more cheaply than batteries. The cost of hydrogen storage capacity underground is maybe $1/kWh. Of course the round trip efficiency is much lower than batteries, but for long term storage (or when the input energy becomes very cheap) that doesn't matter as much.
  - palata 3y ago
    One problem we have with renewables is that they are not remotely replacing fossil fuels. Another problem is that we can't store their energy efficiently (which we need because unlike nuclear power, we can't control the production). The latter makes the former worse (because we lose some of that energy in the storage process). The truth is that we need a mix of nuclear, renewable, and a ton of sobriety because after fossil fuels we will just live in a world with a lot less energy. And I don't think we can afford ignoring nuclear power. BTW, just compare France and Germany. It seems pretty obvious that the french model (with nuclear power) works a lot better.
    - 3y ago

CyberDildonics 3y ago

This has no evidence behind it and doesn't even really make sense. Electricity generation just has to make money to be viable. Peak electricity use and cost is still during the day when the sun is shining. Both methods make money and their costs are still dropping, that's why they get used. we have to burn gas/coal all over the place We had to burn a lot more gas and coal "all over the place" before wind and solar picked up. https://electrek.co/2024/02/06/eu-coal-and-gas-collapse-wind-and-solar-ascend/ https://electrek.co/2024/02/06/eu-coal-and-gas-collapse-wind... https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=54519 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=54519 https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth https://ourworldindata.org/images/published/Price-of-electricity-new-renewables-vs-new-fossil-no-geo_1350.png https://ourworldindata.org/images/published/Price-of-electri... Why make these claims if you can't back them up with anything?

kortilla 3y ago
Peak solar generation does not align with peak demand. That’s super basic solar 101. > We had to burn a lot more gas and coal "all over the place" before wind and solar picked up. I think you’re struggling to grasp the problem here. It isn’t that we won’t find a way to use energy when it’s there. It’s that the wind/solar fall short at calm/night and need something to fill in those gaps. That’s when fuel burning picks up the tab and drives us into more climate change.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Obviously not everywhere, but places where air-conditioning is needed almost year round, and heating is not, it seems to me that solar mostly lines up with when power is needed - while the sun is up. Is that not the case in specifically those regions, eg southern California or Florida?
- CyberDildonics 3y ago
  I think you’re struggling to grasp the problem here. I think you're struggling to even say the same things in one comment to the next, let alone give any evidence. First you said Solar and wind still have no path to stability. which is vague as a statement because "stability" doesn't mean anything, but they both make money and are displacing fossil fuel. I showed you this through sources I linked. Peak solar generation does not align with peak demand Part of the reason why solar is useful is because it generates electricity when the demand is the highest. Solar is profitable, that's why people use it. https://www.nrel.gov/state-local-tribal/blog/posts/phrase-of-the-day-peak-load.html https://www.nrel.gov/state-local-tribal/blog/posts/phrase-of... https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/peak-and-off-peak-energy-explainer-heres-the-cheapest-time-to-use-electricity/ https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/peak-and-off-... need something to fill in those gaps Where do you think the electricity came from before solar and wind took off? It was all "gaps". We aren't even at the point yet in most places where solar or wind fill the demand for electricity while they are at their peak. Next time remember to back up what you're saying with links and real information.

ben_w 3y ago

> Even now after massive coordinated effort on wind and solar, we have to burn gas/coal all over the place to handle generation sags at night and when the wind slows. Meanwhile in the UK, coal consumption has gone down 96.5% per capita since 1965 despite an increasing population (95.7% in absolute terms). Germany and the USA have also had (smaller) reductions per capita, though the world average is up about 16%: https://ourworldindata.org/energy#explore-data-on-energy https://ourworldindata.org/energy#explore-data-on-energy Also relevant: we will continue to burn fuels until the storage/long distance grids catch up with the generation. Storage is a completely separate axis to generation, which the UK also found out during the coal miner's strikes in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s; as the storage needed for road vehicles is more than sufficient for a national electricity grid, your expectation should be "around the time cars have renewable fuels, be that battery or hydrogen, not significantly sooner or later". Grids are my personal preference (a global 1Ω aluminium grid would cost only about $265 billion in metal, using 1.7 years of current global aluminium production for something that will probably last about a century), but clearly require more international cooperation than the world wishes to engage with at present. As batteries (/hydrogen) are needed anyway for the cars, we're going to get batteries (/hydrogen).

kortilla 3y ago
USA drop in coal was almost completely replaced by burning natural gas. > Storage is a completely separate axis to generation It’s not when you can generate on demand from a fuel source that doubles as energy storage.
- ben_w 3y ago
  > USA drop in coal was almost completely replaced by burning natural gas. The overall faction from all fossil fuels has also declined, in the proportion I would expect from the current deployment of the various alternatives: https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/united-states#what-sources-does-the-country-get-its-energy-from https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/united-states#what... > It’s not when you can generate on demand from a fuel source that doubles as energy storage. It is when your fuel tanks are finite in size. Also we can't generate fuel yet at sufficient scale, and that's just as relevant regarding hydrogen as it is about batteries for electricity storage. I'm optimistic about batteries, but that optimism is realistically that we'll get there over the coming decade, and in the meantime have to deal with naysayers who can't imagine a future different to the past. With hydrogen, I'm pessimistic. Given that hydrogen electrolysis is so easy that I did this before I turned 10, you need to wonder why the USA (and all the other targets of the fuel embargo) failed to do this in any significant level even at the height of the 1970s fuel crisis back when nuclear power was still fashionable. This isn't an unanswerable question, nor is intended to be anti-hydrogen rhetoric — if you can solve the problems that made it unviable back then, that's fantastic and we can use it now. But we do actually have to solve those problems.

fulafel 3y ago

This is not the case, as has been often explained in these debates.