3 ms·
Energy security is national security. Cheap electricity means you can do things that made "no sense" with expensive electricity. (e.g. smelt aluminum) Cheap e
by NortySpock 7mo ago
Energy security is national security.
Cheap electricity means you can do things that made "no sense" with expensive electricity. (e.g. smelt aluminum)
Cheap electricity means you can underbid regions that have expensive electricity...
As Technology Connections said, "Panels that cover your electrical needs for the next 25+ years? In the Midwest, we call that a good deal!"
- noosphr 7mo agoMost of those technologies also need uninterrupted power supplies. Something wind, solar and batteries for the next 50 years aren't.
- toomuchtodo 7mo agoEmber Energy: Solar electricity every hour of every day is here and it changes everything - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-every-hour-of-every-day-is-here-and-it-changes-everything/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-e... - June 21st, 2025 > Batteries are now cheap enough to unleash solar’s full potential, getting as close as 97% of the way to delivering constant electricity supply 24 hours across 365 days cost-effectively in the sunniest places. What does this mean? It means we are most of the way there with solar and batteries alone, even if we need a bit of carbon based generation to bridge the gap while solar and battery deployments scale globally. Solar and batteries will only continue to get less expensive and better. Our World In Data: Installed solar energy capacity - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capacity https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capaci... Solar PV go brrr.
- alexfoo 7mo agoPumped hydro is one solution. You bank the excess wind/solar using gravitational potential energy and then draw on that whenever you need to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station
- noosphr 7mo agoYes, we just need to build the mountains first.
- Leno1225 7mo agoYeah, or water towers. No need to play god here.
- supertrope 7mo agoPumped hydro energy storage relies on the cheapness of water and existing geology. If you have to build the chambers instead of damming a river it's too expensive. Most of the good spots to have a reservoir are already used. If you have to manufacture the bulk media instead of just using water it's too expensive.
- ben_w 7mo agoPumped hydro doesn't need a river, "just"* rock which isn't water porous and some nearby body of water (lake, sea, whatever). The economics works out even if you were lifting concrete blocks rather than water, hence why you get pictures like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energy_Vault_Test_Tower_2021.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energy_Vault_Test_Tower_2... The argument against lifting concrete is that you can dig a hole in the ground an pump water in/out of it for more reliability and lower cost than having a crane lift and lower concrete, and it's easy to make it much bigger both horizontally and vertically, so why bother. But it does appear to be economical even with that, and water is cheaper. We make lots of holes in the ground on a regular basis, including for extracting fossil fuels. Here's two, note scale bar, though I have no idea what the rock around it is like regarding water losses: https://www.google.com/maps/@50.9063171,6.4418046,17655m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDMwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@50.9063171,6.4418046,17655m/dat... * it's never "just" with things on this scale
- nomel 7mo agoThere are exactly zero economically viable pumped water storage systems where water towers are involved. If you do the math for the amount of a mass of water, you'll see why! It's not feasible.
- eru 7mo agoHave you heard of batteries?
- ben_w 7mo ago> Something wind, solar and batteries for the next 50 years aren't. False. If you'd stopped before the "and" you would have been correct, though. Batteries are really cheap now, and supply of batteries is growing basically as fast as people can get the investments and permissions for the inputs and the factories.
- harrall 7mo ago[flagged]
- hnav 7mo agois that a sustained 20TW? Absolutely crazy that we're generating 60kwh per person daily. Where does it all go?
- toomuchtodo 7mo agoLots of it is lost to heat with legacy fossil generation.
- eru 7mo agoYou have pretty much the same heat losses with nuclear, or anything else where you heat water to turn a turbine.
- toomuchtodo 7mo agoNuclear is low carbon, it’s fine we lose heat to extract that energy versus stationary and mobile combustion generation, as there is no other effective way to extract that energy at this time. Quantification of global waste heat and its environmental effects - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306261918316702 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03062... - Applied Energy Volume 235, 1 February 2019, Pages 1314-1334 * 49.3–51.5% of global energy use would end up as waste heat in 2030. * Transport sector accounts for the largest (43%) recoverable waste heat in 2030.
- eru 7mo agoI made no claims about carbon.
- toomuchtodo 7mo agoTo note, we are almost at installing 1TW of solar PV every year globally.
- eru 7mo agoI love Technology Connections, but he has no idea what discounting is in economics. Or at least he writes his videos as if he doesn't.
- lesuorac 7mo agoWhat discount rate are you using? Solar has one of the lowest capital costs [1] so the discounting works in it's favor. And then the non-discountable operating costs also works in its favor since the fuel supply (light) is free. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#Capital_costs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#...
- cogman10 7mo agoYup. It's why even in fairly red states like my own (Idaho) solar, wind, and battery are going up everywhere. Even without significant subsidies the economics are really good for renewables. They'd be even better if we didn't have extreme tariffs on China. That's actually what's convinced me that renewables are a better choice than nuclear. I still like nuclear, but renewables are just so much easier and faster to deploy while being a lot cheaper. To make nuclear competitive requires regulatory changes along with a government that's simply willing to tell it's NIMBY citizens YIMBY. Government literally has to get in the way of renewable deployments at this point to stop them.
- eru 7mo agoYes, the tariffs on Chinese PV and EV are really crazy. Well, at least we don't believe in tariffs where I chose to live.
- eru 7mo agoNo, the problem is he speaks like he doesn't understand discounting at all. He treats a recurring revenue (or energy) as fundamentally different from a one time gain, as opposed to something you funge via discounting rates. You are one level ahead: I'm more than happy to debate what discounting rates you should be using!