3 ms·

No, solar and wind are unstable and don’t match demand. Fossil fuels fill that niche right now.

ben_w 2y ago
Musk is making batteries, they make it match demand. I've been through Nevada and into Utah, you've got loads of desert, enough to make PV stable. Wind is much more stable in certain places than others, and certain altitudes than others. What really makes things unstable is when you don't keep your grid in good shape and it sets fire to a forest. Or acting like Texas and thinking grid connections with other states is somehow bad.
- nithril 2y ago
  Batteries cannot sustain the electricity consumption of a whole nation. Maybe in many years, but right now, no sign that it can, whereas plant can
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Nuclear plants can't be built instantly; the growth patterns for batteries suggest that by the time new nuclear comes online, there will be enough batteries. (And I'm saying this as someone who actually likes nuclear, thinks the public perception of the danger is over-stated, and who thinks everyone should have build a lot more reactors decades ago).
    - nithril 2y ago
      Genuine question: would these batteries be always connected to the grid with enough power and capacity to feed the demand?
      - ben_w 2y ago
        Where the batteries end up and how they're used heavily depends on policy decisions between now and then. I'm expecting most batteries (worldwide) to be used for cars, with bi-directional power so they can function that way (for grid storage) when plugged in. That doesn't say much about what any specific country will do, and as Texas demonstrates, US states can have their own independent energy policies.
- kortilla 2y ago
  >loads of desert, enough to make PV stable. No they don’t. They can provide a stable curve during the day at scale. But that doesn’t help with night time or the fact that demand does not peak when the sun does.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Diurnal is too regular for me to count it as "instability", even if we didn't have batteries and other storage, as hourly pricing is already a thing that has often made nighttime cheaper than daytime because supply didn't used to ramp down to match demand without that discount. Even then, the US covers how many hours of longitude? Because that's how much extra pre-dawn the west can get from the east, and how much post-sunset the east can get from the west — even just diversifying geographically from San Fran to Cisco Utah* gets you nearly two hours. * why is a ghost town the most notable place in the area, according to Google Maps?

Musk is making batteries, they make it match demand. I've been through Nevada and into Utah, you've got loads of desert, enough to make PV stable. Wind is much more stable in certain places than others, and certain altitudes than others. What really makes things unstable is when you don't keep your grid in good shape and it sets fire to a forest. Or acting like Texas and thinking grid connections with other states is somehow bad.

nithril 2y ago
Batteries cannot sustain the electricity consumption of a whole nation. Maybe in many years, but right now, no sign that it can, whereas plant can
- ben_w 2y ago
  Nuclear plants can't be built instantly; the growth patterns for batteries suggest that by the time new nuclear comes online, there will be enough batteries. (And I'm saying this as someone who actually likes nuclear, thinks the public perception of the danger is over-stated, and who thinks everyone should have build a lot more reactors decades ago).
  - nithril 2y ago
    Genuine question: would these batteries be always connected to the grid with enough power and capacity to feed the demand?
    - ben_w 2y ago
      Where the batteries end up and how they're used heavily depends on policy decisions between now and then. I'm expecting most batteries (worldwide) to be used for cars, with bi-directional power so they can function that way (for grid storage) when plugged in. That doesn't say much about what any specific country will do, and as Texas demonstrates, US states can have their own independent energy policies.
kortilla 2y ago
>loads of desert, enough to make PV stable. No they don’t. They can provide a stable curve during the day at scale. But that doesn’t help with night time or the fact that demand does not peak when the sun does.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Diurnal is too regular for me to count it as "instability", even if we didn't have batteries and other storage, as hourly pricing is already a thing that has often made nighttime cheaper than daytime because supply didn't used to ramp down to match demand without that discount. Even then, the US covers how many hours of longitude? Because that's how much extra pre-dawn the west can get from the east, and how much post-sunset the east can get from the west — even just diversifying geographically from San Fran to Cisco Utah* gets you nearly two hours. * why is a ghost town the most notable place in the area, according to Google Maps?