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When people talk about countries having "energy independence", isn't moving to renewables the right move? (Since you reduce your demand for fuel inputs to 0, as

When people talk about countries having "energy independence", isn't moving to renewables the right move? (Since you reduce your demand for fuel inputs to 0, assuming a 100% transition)

zdragnar 1y ago
For many countries, pure renewables plus batteries only works with an international grid. In a different thread here, Germany was coming up quite a bit during the dunkelflaute, and the only way to go pure renewable is to import energy from, say, Morocco. It does achieve potential independence from current adversaries, but only by introducing dependence on other nations instead. Countries like the US have it a little better independence-wise, except we need (a) significant buildouts of batteries that don't rely on rare earths, because we can't mine them here for environmental reasons, and (b) massive buildouts of solar panels in regions across the country. The upper midwest has something similar to Germany's dunkelflaute- it gets cold enough windmills may even be net negative to keep their turbines ice free, and we can go weeks under total cloud coverage. Supporting all of that is possible, but requires overbuilding the grid to such an extent that the carbon cost of the cement and metals added to the grid would extend the payoff period quite a bit. It's definitely not a free lunch, though probably better to start now than hope for miracle cold fusion or something equally silly.
- nielsbot 1y ago
  I had to look up "dunkelflaute": "A period of time in which little to no energy can be generated with the use of wind and solar power." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute
BLKNSLVR 1y ago
Australia's reticence in embracing renewables has always seemed obviously corrupt to me given the abundant natural sunlight resources Australia is blessed with, combined with the 100% reliance on importing of oil-based fossil fuels. Australia is self-sufficient in keeping the lights on, due to large coal reserves, but wouldn't be able to transport anything if petrol dried up (and I think Australia only has twelve days of petrol reserve storage). Just imagine the chaos... To the point I would think it would be a National Security priority to electrify transport and build whatever is needed to support that electrification.
- Izikiel43 1y ago
  > Just imagine the chaos. The oil shortage in australia in the 70s inspired Mad Max.
- protocolture 1y ago
  There was a Turnbull era report that suggested they could have energy security AND water security, long term, by building 70 - 120 pumped hydro dams. Pumped Hydro would give them heaps of energy storage, and the dams could be tapped in severe droughts. We got Snowy 2.0 out of that process, and a few state governments have some fast tracked private pumped hydro dams, but ultimately there isnt enough political spine in the whole country to tackle it. We cant really scale renewables without storage, and battery storage at scale would probably suck up the worlds supply of lithium. The big battery in SA is great for market arbitration, and smoothing out the frequency, but if it was tapped to supply baseload, would not give you very long. The demand for these batteries would be huge if its left to them. As it is we will move slowly in kinda the right direction, and probably get very lucky. Thats how Australia works usually, just a country of people gambling constantly on remaining relatively lucky.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    > Australia’s NEM will see a massive increase in grid-scale battery energy storage capacity in the next three years. There are 16.8 GW of battery projects that could come online in the National Electricity Market (NEM) by the end of 2027. This would result in a ninefold increase in battery energy storage capacity in just three years - with 2 GW operational today. https://modoenergy.com/research/australia-nem-big-battery-energy-storage-pipeline-report-2025 https://modoenergy.com/research/australia-nem-big-battery-en... https://reneweconomy.com.au/graph-of-the-day-the-stunning-rise-in-big-battery-activity-on-australias-main-grids/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/graph-of-the-day-the-stunning-ri... Compare to ~22.5GW of total coal generation capacity and ~30GW of utility scale solar in Australia. This does not include behind the meter solar and batteries. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/AU/72h/hourly https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/AU/72h/hourly
- someNameIG 1y ago

When people talk about countries having "energy independence", isn't moving to renewables the right move? (Since you reduce your demand for fuel inputs to 0, assuming a 100% transition)

zdragnar 1y ago

For many countries, pure renewables plus batteries only works with an international grid. In a different thread here, Germany was coming up quite a bit during the dunkelflaute, and the only way to go pure renewable is to import energy from, say, Morocco. It does achieve potential independence from current adversaries, but only by introducing dependence on other nations instead. Countries like the US have it a little better independence-wise, except we need (a) significant buildouts of batteries that don't rely on rare earths, because we can't mine them here for environmental reasons, and (b) massive buildouts of solar panels in regions across the country. The upper midwest has something similar to Germany's dunkelflaute- it gets cold enough windmills may even be net negative to keep their turbines ice free, and we can go weeks under total cloud coverage. Supporting all of that is possible, but requires overbuilding the grid to such an extent that the carbon cost of the cement and metals added to the grid would extend the payoff period quite a bit. It's definitely not a free lunch, though probably better to start now than hope for miracle cold fusion or something equally silly.

nielsbot 1y ago
I had to look up "dunkelflaute": "A period of time in which little to no energy can be generated with the use of wind and solar power." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute

BLKNSLVR 1y ago

Australia's reticence in embracing renewables has always seemed obviously corrupt to me given the abundant natural sunlight resources Australia is blessed with, combined with the 100% reliance on importing of oil-based fossil fuels. Australia is self-sufficient in keeping the lights on, due to large coal reserves, but wouldn't be able to transport anything if petrol dried up (and I think Australia only has twelve days of petrol reserve storage). Just imagine the chaos... To the point I would think it would be a National Security priority to electrify transport and build whatever is needed to support that electrification.

Izikiel43 1y ago
> Just imagine the chaos. The oil shortage in australia in the 70s inspired Mad Max.
protocolture 1y ago
There was a Turnbull era report that suggested they could have energy security AND water security, long term, by building 70 - 120 pumped hydro dams. Pumped Hydro would give them heaps of energy storage, and the dams could be tapped in severe droughts. We got Snowy 2.0 out of that process, and a few state governments have some fast tracked private pumped hydro dams, but ultimately there isnt enough political spine in the whole country to tackle it. We cant really scale renewables without storage, and battery storage at scale would probably suck up the worlds supply of lithium. The big battery in SA is great for market arbitration, and smoothing out the frequency, but if it was tapped to supply baseload, would not give you very long. The demand for these batteries would be huge if its left to them. As it is we will move slowly in kinda the right direction, and probably get very lucky. Thats how Australia works usually, just a country of people gambling constantly on remaining relatively lucky.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  > Australia’s NEM will see a massive increase in grid-scale battery energy storage capacity in the next three years. There are 16.8 GW of battery projects that could come online in the National Electricity Market (NEM) by the end of 2027. This would result in a ninefold increase in battery energy storage capacity in just three years - with 2 GW operational today. https://modoenergy.com/research/australia-nem-big-battery-energy-storage-pipeline-report-2025 https://modoenergy.com/research/australia-nem-big-battery-en... https://reneweconomy.com.au/graph-of-the-day-the-stunning-rise-in-big-battery-activity-on-australias-main-grids/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/graph-of-the-day-the-stunning-ri... Compare to ~22.5GW of total coal generation capacity and ~30GW of utility scale solar in Australia. This does not include behind the meter solar and batteries. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/AU/72h/hourly https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/AU/72h/hourly
someNameIG 1y ago