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This would’ve been a non issue if human beings worked together as a species, but we don’t. There is plenty of space on the planet where no one lives and nothing
by darth_avocado 6mo ago
This would’ve been a non issue if human beings worked together as a species, but we don’t. There is plenty of space on the planet where no one lives and nothing thrives that could be converted massive solar farms that power the planet.
- SoftTalker 6mo agoTransmitting that energy from where nobody lives to where people do live becomes the problem with that.
- TimorousBestie 6mo agoBuckmister Fuller envisioned a worldwide high-voltage transmission network implemented with 1980’s technology, there just isn’t the worldwide political will or cooperation to build it.
- ahartmetz 6mo agoIt could possibly be combined with a solution to the storage problem: store the energy in some transportable chemical form like hydrogen, methane or the electrolyte of a redox flow battery.
- SoftTalker 6mo agoYeah possibly. Synthetic hydrocarbon fuel that's already compatible with transportation infrastructure and energy consumers might be the best bet.
- devilbunny 6mo agoWe will probably be using that in aviation for a long, long time. Turbines are pretty efficient and jet fuel has a remarkably high energy density for something that does not easily explode.
- Sharlin 6mo agoBuilding HVDC lines from North Africa to Europe, for example, wouldn't be a huge feat of civil engineering. Rather standard stuff, really.
- dathinab 6mo agowe don't need something that long distance at all EU has enough areas with sparse population and not that much nature which also are south enough to have it work out well with solar panels of the current generations. And besides that even most EU countries have enough places in them to still put a lot of solar panels without much issues and/or replacing fields. going as far as North Africa is a bit too far to be convenient for power transport
- ceejayoz 6mo ago"from North Africa to Europe" is, to be clear, ~9 miles in spots.
- ninalanyon 6mo agoSpain and Morocco already have a 1.4 GW DC interconnect and the XLinks project intends to connect Morocco and the UK.
- darth_avocado 6mo ago> Transmitting that energy from where nobody lives to where people do live becomes the problem with that. That’s kind of what we do today for pretty much everything. Most of the population on the planet doesn’t live near oil rigs, refineries, solar farms, power plants or wind. In fact most of the population doesn’t live near where we produce our food or most of the things we need for survival.
- dathinab 6mo agoin the distances we speak about we do so all the time with more centralized energy sources (like e.g. nuklear) due to their centralized nature the issue is less the transport distances but changes in "from where to where" sometimes needing some extensions/improvements to the power grid. Through commonly in ways which anyway make sense and all pretty much "standard" solutions well understood. Through there are some more complicated exceptions to that. EDIT: "distances we speak about" assumed less many local less dense populate/suitable spots across the EU, not a mega project like a energy pipeline from North Afrika.
- jmward01 6mo agoI've been watching the math of batteries and cargo ships and we may not be too far from shipping electrons generated in the Sahara to the UK and Europe at a reasonable price. That totally changes the game if you have cargo ships moving to where the power will be needed. I can imagine these ships going to where the weather is predicted to cause an issue to help even out the grid and just in general creating a responsive base load for the world. It sounds like sci-fi, but with the direction batteries have gone it isn't that crazy anymore.
- etiam 6mo agoDoes it still work out if you take into account the insurance premiums for a cargo ship stacked with batteries? Can't imagine the fire hazard is pretty.
- solarkraft 6mo agoWait until you hear what other stuff gets shipped
- etiam 6mo agoOh, there's precedent for shuttling freighter size metal fire hazards intercontinentally to top up charge, is there? How does that work out in cost per kWh? Profitable operation anywhere close? Crisis relief (as suggested by jmward01 here) may be another matter, but setting up the ability to do this on scale, and maintaining it, can't be anything like easy economically.
- ninalanyon 6mo agoThe only real problems with long distance electricity transmission are political and to a lesser extent financial. Technically it is solved problem. The Desertec project could have turned a relatively small patch of Libyan desert into a solar farm that could supply all of Europe's electricity except that politics makes it impossible.
- moffers 6mo agoWe work together pretty well. From a 20,000 foot level maybe it looks like chaos and like a central guiding hand would make everything better. But, two people working together is easier to direct than 100,000 people (or more!). Unpacking this gives us the wonders of the economics and behavioral psychology. I’d say, all things considered, we could be doing a hell of a lot worse on cooperation with each other.
- dathinab 6mo agolook at satellite images of Denmark or the village in question - that village is the exception, not the norm at all - that village is in a "small" (on agricultural scale) strip of solar panels, around which there are green fields over green fields over green field .... - the photos are deceptive, the first is from the start of the strip to the end and contains the huge majority of all solar panels in like a 50km? 100km? radius. The second photo does not show the village but a separate house up the street, if the photo where in a bit more flat angle you would see a normal filed behind the solar panels. The village itself has a "strip" of (small) green fields around it which should make it less bad to live there. I mean don't get me wrong it probably sucks for the home owners in Hjolderup. But it's not representative for the situation in Denmark at all.