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Love how the topic has shifted from “even an hour of storage” a couple of years ago to now demanding a complete seasonal storage solution without even specifyin

Love how the topic has shifted from “even an hour of storage” a couple of years ago to now demanding a complete seasonal storage solution without even specifying based on which data it is needed. It is funny when reality outpaces contrived made up arguments by conservative detractors.

rich_sasha 2y ago
I never made the "one hour of storage" argument so that's a straw man as far as I'm concerned. And my comment is made sincerely. Seasonal storage is make-or-break for renewables in many geographies (or has to be propped up by fossil fuels, which is the status quo).
- ViewTrick1002 2y ago
  Just a reflection in general on how your exact comment made by different people has evolved over the years. Generally the research sees no problem with 100% renewable energy systems. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 So the question is what problem are you trying to solve? 1% 0.1%? Or even 0.01%? That is a problem we can tackle when we get there in the 2040s with the solutions available at that time. No need to force through expensive white elephants for potential made up problems.
  - rich_sasha 2y ago
    > research I.e. it doesn't yet exist. Until it does, nuclear makes sense. And if lands, sure, let's ditch it. For now the "it will surely happen" reeks of electricity too cheap to meter.
    - ViewTrick1002 2y ago
      Everything is impossible until someone has done it? Meaning the French nuclear buildout also was impossible given your reasoning.
      - pfdietz 2y ago
        The selective impossibility arguments of the nuclear bros are hilarious. No one has ever powered a society with nuclear energy either, yet they have no problem suggesting that with a straight face.
        jadamson 2y ago
        France, where this blogger is from, produces a little under 80% of its power from nuclear. It doesn't just power France, but also exports to the UK and Germany among others. A 100% nuclear society is of course also theoretical, so don't even start with that. We're talking about the optimal mix of sources given currently (and medium-term foreseeable) technology. By most serious analyses, this will include improved energy storage, renewables, and nuclear in the form of SMRs. Serious analysis means people 'at the coal face' who have to deal with the reality of actually powering a country, not posturing bloggers. Most countries don't have a desert to pave over with solar panels, and wind (especially offshore wind) has proven surprisingly expensive. Both the current and previous UK governments, left and right respectively, have committed to increasing nuclear as part of the energy mix. Germany is deeply regretting shutting down its nuclear power stations and the consequences that has had, not only in terms of emissions (twice the per-capita CO2 emissions of France and the UK), but also its energy independence. France is sitting pretty, precisely because they dealt with the reality in front of them and didn't fall for Greenpeace-esque utopian fantasies that you're now projecting onto others. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/01/25/french-government-moves-forward-with-energy-bills-in-parliament_6013049_7.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/01/25/french-g...
        pfdietz 2y ago
        France gets less than half their energy from nuclear. Don't confuse the grid with the society as a whole, with all ways energy is used. And of course no one energizes all activities in their society with nuclear, not even France. I will add that providing the world's approximately 20 TW of primary energy use via today's reactors would expend the estimated resource of uranium at current prices in less than 10 years. So anyone proposing a nuclear powered world is also assuming advances in either breeder reactors or uranium extraction. So the hypocrisy of ruling out renewables because they have not been proved in practice is palpable.
hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
Texas has been adding metric craptons of solar because it's cheaper to deploy than nuclear. The market forces are already on the side of renewables in most advanced economies. PES and neighborhood/distributed battery including V2G are ways out, and hopefully NMC battery technology will gradually be replaced with something safer. At this point, ostensible talk about nuclear that's not going to happen is crypto-techno-religious political virtue-signaling.

rich_sasha 2y ago

I never made the "one hour of storage" argument so that's a straw man as far as I'm concerned. And my comment is made sincerely. Seasonal storage is make-or-break for renewables in many geographies (or has to be propped up by fossil fuels, which is the status quo).

ViewTrick1002 2y ago
Just a reflection in general on how your exact comment made by different people has evolved over the years. Generally the research sees no problem with 100% renewable energy systems. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 So the question is what problem are you trying to solve? 1% 0.1%? Or even 0.01%? That is a problem we can tackle when we get there in the 2040s with the solutions available at that time. No need to force through expensive white elephants for potential made up problems.
- rich_sasha 2y ago
  > research I.e. it doesn't yet exist. Until it does, nuclear makes sense. And if lands, sure, let's ditch it. For now the "it will surely happen" reeks of electricity too cheap to meter.
  - ViewTrick1002 2y ago
    Everything is impossible until someone has done it? Meaning the French nuclear buildout also was impossible given your reasoning.
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      The selective impossibility arguments of the nuclear bros are hilarious. No one has ever powered a society with nuclear energy either, yet they have no problem suggesting that with a straight face.
      - jadamson 2y ago
        France, where this blogger is from, produces a little under 80% of its power from nuclear. It doesn't just power France, but also exports to the UK and Germany among others. A 100% nuclear society is of course also theoretical, so don't even start with that. We're talking about the optimal mix of sources given currently (and medium-term foreseeable) technology. By most serious analyses, this will include improved energy storage, renewables, and nuclear in the form of SMRs. Serious analysis means people 'at the coal face' who have to deal with the reality of actually powering a country, not posturing bloggers. Most countries don't have a desert to pave over with solar panels, and wind (especially offshore wind) has proven surprisingly expensive. Both the current and previous UK governments, left and right respectively, have committed to increasing nuclear as part of the energy mix. Germany is deeply regretting shutting down its nuclear power stations and the consequences that has had, not only in terms of emissions (twice the per-capita CO2 emissions of France and the UK), but also its energy independence. France is sitting pretty, precisely because they dealt with the reality in front of them and didn't fall for Greenpeace-esque utopian fantasies that you're now projecting onto others. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/01/25/french-government-moves-forward-with-energy-bills-in-parliament_6013049_7.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/01/25/french-g...
        pfdietz 2y ago
        France gets less than half their energy from nuclear. Don't confuse the grid with the society as a whole, with all ways energy is used. And of course no one energizes all activities in their society with nuclear, not even France. I will add that providing the world's approximately 20 TW of primary energy use via today's reactors would expend the estimated resource of uranium at current prices in less than 10 years. So anyone proposing a nuclear powered world is also assuming advances in either breeder reactors or uranium extraction. So the hypocrisy of ruling out renewables because they have not been proved in practice is palpable.

hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago

Texas has been adding metric craptons of solar because it's cheaper to deploy than nuclear. The market forces are already on the side of renewables in most advanced economies. PES and neighborhood/distributed battery including V2G are ways out, and hopefully NMC battery technology will gradually be replaced with something safer. At this point, ostensible talk about nuclear that's not going to happen is crypto-techno-religious political virtue-signaling.