Fusion reactors: Not what they’re cracked up to be

>100,000 tons of methane with a half life of less than 10 years. The math is complex and 1 ton of methane becomes more than one ton of CO2,

You are downplaying the impact of methane. As I quoted in the last post, the IPCC estimate is that over 100 years a given amount of methane is 34 times more potent as a heat-trapping gas compared to CO2. Over a 20 year period (which is probably more relevant considering where we are in climate change) methane is 86 times more potent.

>...but the actual long term impact is fairly minimal vs the savings from not using Coal.

That's the problem - there is enough methane being released by our new reliance on natural gas there is concern that we may be having just as much of an impact on climate change as if we went and burned coal.

>...Remember that's ~100,000 tons / ~10,000,000,000 tons = 1/100,000 so yea methane is bad, but in this context it's 0.001% so it's still a rounding error even if it's 100 times that bad.

The problem is that EVERY natural gas well, storage facility and pipeline leaks methane. This was just the largest one. As I quoted in the last post, "...Back in August, a NOAA-led study measured a stunning 6% to 12% methane leakage over one of the country’s largest gas fields — which would gut the climate benefits of switching from coal to gas."

>... But, if we got to the point where peaking power from gas makes up ~10% of total electricity supply and the rest of that is renewable power then we will have made massive progress.

Yea no kidding - 90% power from intermittent sources would be pretty remarkable. The problem is that 90% power from intermittent sources won't be possible unless there are major advances in grid storage technologies.

In terms of having to use natural gas, nuclear power plants in France and in Germany operate in load-following mode, so there is no reason this can't be done elsewhere. Minimizing our use of natural gas when when you consider the climate changing negative externalities of natural gas, would be a good thing.

By the time you mount those panels on a floating structure the lifetime energy yield may well drop to zero or (most probably) negative. Building a ship has a huge energy/emissions cost as the raw materials have to be mined, refined, transported, formed and assembled.

I'd recommend this site for a good overview on where our energy really goes and what might be achievable with renewables: https://www.withouthotair.com/

They already do this without any gov intervention. The local steel recycling plant only operates when power is cheap. While they do need some advance notice to make sure they have enough people to run, they probably can get a good enough idea from a weather forecast (power here is mostly hydro with a dollop of wind and fossil).

Some processes are better fits than others. If you have 2-5x extra capacity that is sold cheap on sunny days, someone will figure out how to use it.

"Ok so you are saying that the new solution isn't any worse in terms of security than the current one, so it's fine?"

Yes. You're blowing up the security argument when really it isn't the security of it that is the problem -- our current infrastructure isn't more secure, and we have had only minimal problems with it thus far. The problem is the imminent and looming destruction of various thousands of ecosystems, and the continuing habitability of the planet.

It could be done. We got to the moon in about twenty years, which was much more of a technological leap than this will be. With the concentrated effort and enough propaganda, we could make the switch from coal/gas/oil. We are very rapidly running out of runway.

Bill Gates is very much part of the problem.

Having fossil fuel plants that only operate when needed, but get paid more per kWh than they do now when they run all the time (since as well as fuel costs they have up front construction to cover) is not even close to being a problem. It is in fact part of the solution. What is he doing complaining about this?

Negative prices are also not the big drama he makes them out to be. Sad that he's got a reputation as some kind of genius and he's scared of negative numbers as if it's some kind of witchcraft to have too much of something and use pricing and markets to decide which providers should scale back.

Translating for those scared of negative prices: someone wants to keep providing power for some reason (maybe their setup doesn't like rapid changes in output, which would cost them money in repairs), they want to pay you $X to shut down your system instead. Do a calculation and figure out if shutting down your system is cheaper than that, if so, take the money. Market forces at work! The inflexible system don't make as much money, and the flexible systems gain it.

Or, someone with flexibility in when they need electricity says "I'll agree to heat my water tanks at the point that helps the grid most, how much will you pay me for doing that? The amount we'll pay you is the negative price, except not negative anymore".