5 ms·

Easiest. If that is the easiest way you see I am afraid to ask what the harder alternatives would be.

by hurril 29d ago

XorNot 29d ago
How is it hard? It's difficult to build electrical generation these days and not go renewables because they're so cheap and fast to deploy. It's not a total solution, but market forces wise everything says "build solar and batteries with your money". Governments practically don't need to do anything for this to be the default.
- ifwinterco 29d ago
  Batteries don't solve the storage problem, but surely you know this. China is pursuing the strategy you're describing, but there's a reason they're also building nuclear, they're increasing LNG infrastructure, they haven't phased out coal, and they've built a huge amount of oil storage. Solar and wind can be part of that strategy but it's not so simple, otherwise people would do it
  - watwut 29d ago
    Bateries do solve storage problems. And yes, china energy strategy is based on wind and solar - their portion of China energy production is massively growing.
    - ifwinterco 29d ago
      Batteries can solve short term (days to a week at most) storage problems, they don't solve seasonal storage problems - making sure you have enough energy all the way through a cold, not very sunny, and not consistently windy winter. If you don't believe me, run the numbers of how many kg of lithium batteries China would need to supply an entire week of energy in the middle of winter (all energy, not just current electricity demand, because in this scenario we're assuming everything is 100% electrified). Also if you're potentially going to be fighting a war, you need more energy, not less, and it's even more important for it to be reliable year-round. This is why China is doing what they're doing, they're not idiots and they know that wishful thinking is not a strategy
      - watwut 29d ago
        You dont need "very sunny" for solar to work. If you need to invent dark windless winter to make a non existent issue maybe you are just too deep in bullshit.
        ifwinterco 29d ago
        Again just run the numbers - full sun in summer vs cloudy day in the middle of winter even at only 40 degree latitude. Output in the latter case will be under 10% of full power and probably under 5%. It’s not bullshit it’s just physics, which is why the world looks like it does and not like the world you’re describing
  - locknitpicker 29d ago
    > China is pursuing the strategy you're describing, but there's a reason they're also building nuclear, they're increasing LNG infrastructure, they haven't phased out coal, and they've built a huge amount of oil storage. This opinion is rather simplistic. China is reported to have 60% of it's energy needs already supplied by renewable sources, but this transition creates different types of challenges such as preserving the power grid's inertia. Otherwise you might see yourself in a scenario such as the Spanish blackout. This means having in place strategies for fast response (gas) and baseline (hydro storage, nuclear) to prevent the scenario.
    - dv_dt 29d ago
      batteries are the fastest response power. gas is high maintenance, & bad capex as an intermittent source.
      - locknitpicker 29d ago
        > batteries are the fastest response power. gas is high maintenance, & bad capex as an intermittent source. Batteries have a limited capacity and have a higher investment cost. Gas is the standard option for fast response. Pumped-storage hydro has by far the highest capex and has a heavy environment impact. It's baffling how people show up in this sort of discussions arguing that standard tried-and-true strategies somehow don't work. Quite odd.
        dv_dt 29d ago
        Batteries and solar have been beating lifetime cost of fast response gas turbines for five years or more. Now with uncontrolled fossil fuel cost spikes the operating costs of gas are highly variable compared to the pretty much flat investment and operating cost on battery + solar. if one were comparing battery plus renewables for full seasonal offsets are tighter, but the costs are so much lower, you can provision more and plan to dump power in the summer (or maybe not as this last long hot fossil fueled climate change summer will drive new demand for a/c)
- hurril 29d ago
  I am a non-hater of renewables. I add this because in plenty of _your_ circles, you are either all in on renewables or you are a coal thumper, basically. I am neither. We need to add nuance by complicating this conversation. The main problem of renewables is that it is intermittent and that fact remains to be solved. I want this solved or at least improved because it is the bottleneck. In fact, it is such a bottleneck that its energy generation factor is noted as 1:10, i.e.: a power plant rated at 100MW, registers as 10MW in comparison to nuclear and hydro (and obviously coal and gas.) So this means that to add a 1MW worth of energy generation to the grid, 10MW must be built. Another problem that hits wind farms is that when there's wind blowing somewhere, it tends to blow everywhere, or some large area. So suddenly there is too much energy want to flow in to the grid which hits the core of the problem with grids at this point because energy that is inserted into it, must be extracted to the exact same magnitude at the same time. So a 100GW demand must be met by 100.0GW production. Now if 110GW is produced, something _MUST_ consume it, so there are two choices: 1. make someone consume it, i.e., sell it to them. They have to buy it so the price will drop until there are enough buyers and this does not stop at 0, prices will go in to the negative. So the market will pay you to use electricity. The market. Or: 2. shut off the power plants until we are back at 100GW (or whatever can be met by consumption.) 3. there is also a catastrophic third option. If you have a situation where too much energy (read power if you want to) is inserted into the grid, then its frequency will rise, this damages the infrastructure and connected consumers, so they will get disconnected. Read large and broad power outages. These situations are also non-trivial to recover from. I.e.: to "restart the grid" afterwards. See what happened in Spain last(?) year. How do you run a power plant in a market that demands payment to accept the energy you want to sell? You cannot. So this is the windfarm paradox, feel free to compare to Russel's paradox. It goes something like this: A windfarm makes money whenever the wind blows because only then does it have energy to sell. A windfarm cannot make money whenefer the wind blows because then the market price goes to zero. So a windfarm makes money when the wind blows and does not blow at the same time. To solve this problem, energy consumption must be made capable of also being intermittent. Either run "factories" intermittently, which might very well be part of the solution. And/ or, have huge accumulation capacity in the grid that can swallow the over generation. TLDR: renewables is the easy answer but very hard thing to do. The hard answer is the one I have given, together with getting more nuclear going which is difficult and expensive. But.. what can we do?

Easiest. If that is the easiest way you see I am afraid to ask what the harder alternatives would be.

by hurril 29d ago

Easiest. If that is the easiest way you see I am afraid to ask what the harder alternatives would be.

How is it hard? It's difficult to build electrical generation these days and not go renewables because they're so cheap and fast to deploy. It's not a total solution, but market forces wise everything says "build solar and batteries with your money". Governments practically don't need to do anything for this to be the default.

ifwinterco 29d ago
Batteries don't solve the storage problem, but surely you know this. China is pursuing the strategy you're describing, but there's a reason they're also building nuclear, they're increasing LNG infrastructure, they haven't phased out coal, and they've built a huge amount of oil storage. Solar and wind can be part of that strategy but it's not so simple, otherwise people would do it
- watwut 29d ago
  Bateries do solve storage problems. And yes, china energy strategy is based on wind and solar - their portion of China energy production is massively growing.
  - ifwinterco 29d ago
    Batteries can solve short term (days to a week at most) storage problems, they don't solve seasonal storage problems - making sure you have enough energy all the way through a cold, not very sunny, and not consistently windy winter. If you don't believe me, run the numbers of how many kg of lithium batteries China would need to supply an entire week of energy in the middle of winter (all energy, not just current electricity demand, because in this scenario we're assuming everything is 100% electrified). Also if you're potentially going to be fighting a war, you need more energy, not less, and it's even more important for it to be reliable year-round. This is why China is doing what they're doing, they're not idiots and they know that wishful thinking is not a strategy
    - watwut 29d ago
      You dont need "very sunny" for solar to work. If you need to invent dark windless winter to make a non existent issue maybe you are just too deep in bullshit.
      - ifwinterco 29d ago
        Again just run the numbers - full sun in summer vs cloudy day in the middle of winter even at only 40 degree latitude. Output in the latter case will be under 10% of full power and probably under 5%. It’s not bullshit it’s just physics, which is why the world looks like it does and not like the world you’re describing
- locknitpicker 29d ago
  > China is pursuing the strategy you're describing, but there's a reason they're also building nuclear, they're increasing LNG infrastructure, they haven't phased out coal, and they've built a huge amount of oil storage. This opinion is rather simplistic. China is reported to have 60% of it's energy needs already supplied by renewable sources, but this transition creates different types of challenges such as preserving the power grid's inertia. Otherwise you might see yourself in a scenario such as the Spanish blackout. This means having in place strategies for fast response (gas) and baseline (hydro storage, nuclear) to prevent the scenario.
  - dv_dt 29d ago
    batteries are the fastest response power. gas is high maintenance, & bad capex as an intermittent source.
    - locknitpicker 29d ago
      > batteries are the fastest response power. gas is high maintenance, & bad capex as an intermittent source. Batteries have a limited capacity and have a higher investment cost. Gas is the standard option for fast response. Pumped-storage hydro has by far the highest capex and has a heavy environment impact. It's baffling how people show up in this sort of discussions arguing that standard tried-and-true strategies somehow don't work. Quite odd.
      - dv_dt 29d ago
        Batteries and solar have been beating lifetime cost of fast response gas turbines for five years or more. Now with uncontrolled fossil fuel cost spikes the operating costs of gas are highly variable compared to the pretty much flat investment and operating cost on battery + solar. if one were comparing battery plus renewables for full seasonal offsets are tighter, but the costs are so much lower, you can provision more and plan to dump power in the summer (or maybe not as this last long hot fossil fueled climate change summer will drive new demand for a/c)
hurril 29d ago
I am a non-hater of renewables. I add this because in plenty of _your_ circles, you are either all in on renewables or you are a coal thumper, basically. I am neither. We need to add nuance by complicating this conversation. The main problem of renewables is that it is intermittent and that fact remains to be solved. I want this solved or at least improved because it is the bottleneck. In fact, it is such a bottleneck that its energy generation factor is noted as 1:10, i.e.: a power plant rated at 100MW, registers as 10MW in comparison to nuclear and hydro (and obviously coal and gas.) So this means that to add a 1MW worth of energy generation to the grid, 10MW must be built. Another problem that hits wind farms is that when there's wind blowing somewhere, it tends to blow everywhere, or some large area. So suddenly there is too much energy want to flow in to the grid which hits the core of the problem with grids at this point because energy that is inserted into it, must be extracted to the exact same magnitude at the same time. So a 100GW demand must be met by 100.0GW production. Now if 110GW is produced, something _MUST_ consume it, so there are two choices: 1. make someone consume it, i.e., sell it to them. They have to buy it so the price will drop until there are enough buyers and this does not stop at 0, prices will go in to the negative. So the market will pay you to use electricity. The market. Or: 2. shut off the power plants until we are back at 100GW (or whatever can be met by consumption.) 3. there is also a catastrophic third option. If you have a situation where too much energy (read power if you want to) is inserted into the grid, then its frequency will rise, this damages the infrastructure and connected consumers, so they will get disconnected. Read large and broad power outages. These situations are also non-trivial to recover from. I.e.: to "restart the grid" afterwards. See what happened in Spain last(?) year. How do you run a power plant in a market that demands payment to accept the energy you want to sell? You cannot. So this is the windfarm paradox, feel free to compare to Russel's paradox. It goes something like this: A windfarm makes money whenever the wind blows because only then does it have energy to sell. A windfarm cannot make money whenefer the wind blows because then the market price goes to zero. So a windfarm makes money when the wind blows and does not blow at the same time. To solve this problem, energy consumption must be made capable of also being intermittent. Either run "factories" intermittently, which might very well be part of the solution. And/ or, have huge accumulation capacity in the grid that can swallow the over generation. TLDR: renewables is the easy answer but very hard thing to do. The hard answer is the one I have given, together with getting more nuclear going which is difficult and expensive. But.. what can we do?