Every single energy thread in HN ends like this. Renewable fanatics get backed into a corner when they realize that it is impossible to run a grid on solar and wind alone. Then they start talking about things that currently cannot account for even 0.001% of our global energy storage needs, like hydrogen or batteries.
Backed into a corner? This thread basically started with "Portugal ran on 100% renewables"... Sobat least for one point in time, it is possible.
There are two options now: Take it from there and figure out options to make that one point in time sustainable all the time (requires real engineering and creativity, and time and money). Or throw our hands up, blame environmentalists for shuting down nuclear plants (which wasn't always environmentalists, nor did we ever have enough nuclear plants to begin with). Guess which approach gives us a way forward?
> Backed into a corner? This thread basically started with "Portugal ran on 100% renewables"... Sobat least for one point in time, it is possible.
Sure, but that's not sustainable, as the numbers on the parent comment clearly indicate. From that perspective, what gives us a way forward is acknowledging that headlines such as these are meaningless in the grand scheme of things, and trying to design an energy strategy that is compatible with the facts at hand.
This strategy already exists so: more renewables, heat pumps for heating, EVs, green hydrogen, flatten peak demand by making industrial demand more flexible. That strategy actually does work, it requires a ton of investment, and time, to scale so. Throw in existing nuclear as stop gap solution.
Besides being contrarian, which I get because I have the same tendencies, what would be your alternative? Not doing anything is obviously bad, new nuclear power plants take too long to build and are too expensive (all numbers prove that). So? Any other ideas?
Well, but how much energy storage do you really need if, say, renewables account for 5x or even 10x peak demand? If prices keep going down, I don't see why that wouldn't be possible.
> Then they start talking about things that currently cannot account for even 0.001% of our global energy storage needs
Not currently, but who's to say that it won't be possible to scale out manufacturing capacity for the technologies that we'll need? A couple of decades ago, EV production and EV charging networks basically did not exist, so by the same reasoning you'd be saying that it wouldn't be possible to have them.
But look where we are now.
Furthermore, the space of possibly feasible ideas/technologies is gigantic, you're just lacking in imagination. For starters, we haven't yet explored my idea:
1. Turn gym equipment into energy-generating devices.
2. Mandatory gym time by law for every able-bodied man and woman.
Solve the renewable problem and health/obesity problems at the same time. Boom.
If that's not enough:
3. Mandatory gym time also for pets and farm animals.
4. Install wind turbines on airplanes (deployed only when descending).
5. Install boat engines on floating wind turbines and remotely navigate them into hurricanes (imagine all that wind energy we're currently wasting!).
6. And if that's not enough, let's start constructing a Dyson sphere already. We already know how to build space rockets. So what's taking us so long? Less talk, more action.
And that's just the ideas that I, a layman, have come up with. So imagine what the experts could think of.
Also, peak demand isn't a natural law. When prices change, demand will. And it does already for close to ten years now for the important consumers in the industry. Make it profitable enough for those to move their demand, and they will.
Batteries handle considerably more than 0.001% of the grid in California, and they are buying large scale battery installations like a drunken environmentalist. And the batteries are getting cheaper.
That is from 2022. From what I could gleam from a paywalled Bloomberg article, 2023 continued the growth curve.
Solar plus batteries are just cheaper and faster than nuclear. The pro nuclear argument would have won if we had started the carbon burn shutdown 20 years ago but they snoozed while the mad environmentalists successfully pushed solar and cell phones pushed batteries into economic dominance.
