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Solar panels clearly don't work wel enough to be able to solve our energy demands. A very significant portion of the day they don't work at all.

burnished 2y ago
We call that the 'night' and our battery tech is improving enormously. Personally I hope solar becomes so cheap that mechanical batteries become popular - pumped resevoirs, inexplicable wood flywheel
- ffgjgf1 2y ago
  > We call that the 'night Or winter sufficiently close to the north pole (i.e. significant proportion of Europe). Days get short and it’s usually cloudy so solar becomes extremely inefficient.
  - immibis 2y ago
    Luckily, most people don't live there and they are well connected to a big grid that isn't like that.
    - ffgjgf1 2y ago
      Well… over 80 million of people live in Germany: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/monthly-generation-of-solar-pv-in-germany https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/monthly-gener... Over-provisioning by 7x might not be extremely practical. I guess there is a lot of space in Spain that could be filled with solar panels (production only falls by ~50% there in winter so it’s not to bad) but there is certainly not enough grid capacity to transfer all of that north (and building new infrastructure is painfully slow and expensive in Europe so it will take a few decades to solve that) My point is that solar is only a part of the solution and wind/etc. is probably more practical and more important in much of Europe.
      - BirAdam 2y ago
        Personally, that lack of space is a thing that bothers me. Screw the plants and animals, we need solar farms, right?
        pfdietz 2y ago
        PV produces much more value per hectare than farming does, so you're even more against agriculture, right?
pfdietz 2y ago
The conclusion of the experts who have studied renewables is that they very clearly can be made to work, and more cheaply than nuclear. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 "With every iteration in the research and with every technological breakthrough in these areas, 100% RE systems become increasingly viable. Even former critics must admit that adding e-fuels through PtX makes 100% RE possible at costs similar to fossil fuels. These critics are still questioning whether 100% RE is the cheapest solution but no longer claim it would be unfeasible or prohibitively expensive."

burnished 2y ago

We call that the 'night' and our battery tech is improving enormously. Personally I hope solar becomes so cheap that mechanical batteries become popular - pumped resevoirs, inexplicable wood flywheel

ffgjgf1 2y ago
> We call that the 'night Or winter sufficiently close to the north pole (i.e. significant proportion of Europe). Days get short and it’s usually cloudy so solar becomes extremely inefficient.
- immibis 2y ago
  Luckily, most people don't live there and they are well connected to a big grid that isn't like that.
  - ffgjgf1 2y ago
    Well… over 80 million of people live in Germany: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/monthly-generation-of-solar-pv-in-germany https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/monthly-gener... Over-provisioning by 7x might not be extremely practical. I guess there is a lot of space in Spain that could be filled with solar panels (production only falls by ~50% there in winter so it’s not to bad) but there is certainly not enough grid capacity to transfer all of that north (and building new infrastructure is painfully slow and expensive in Europe so it will take a few decades to solve that) My point is that solar is only a part of the solution and wind/etc. is probably more practical and more important in much of Europe.
    - BirAdam 2y ago
      Personally, that lack of space is a thing that bothers me. Screw the plants and animals, we need solar farms, right?
      - pfdietz 2y ago
        PV produces much more value per hectare than farming does, so you're even more against agriculture, right?

pfdietz 2y ago

The conclusion of the experts who have studied renewables is that they very clearly can be made to work, and more cheaply than nuclear. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 "With every iteration in the research and with every technological breakthrough in these areas, 100% RE systems become increasingly viable. Even former critics must admit that adding e-fuels through PtX makes 100% RE possible at costs similar to fossil fuels. These critics are still questioning whether 100% RE is the cheapest solution but no longer claim it would be unfeasible or prohibitively expensive."