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Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life

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Re: Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life

#111

Post by teachrdan »

Splendor wrote: post #57
V__ wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My (not totally serious but kinda serious though uninformed) solution to the problem: Build a few big underground atomic bunkers around the world and store the long term waste there until we can find a solution (or leave it there). Do it in the middle of a desert far away from any people. No NIMBYs, not interesting for attacks.

Let me introduce you to Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Even the middle of the desert is not safe from NIMBYs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...

Nuclear waste repositories are not immune to accidents. Putting all our nuclear waste in one place may not be the solution we're looking for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant#20...

Re: Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life

#112

Post by causi »

api wrote: post #49
elil17 wrote: post #26

Clever writing can let you argue for any viewpoint. That doesn’t make it true. >I used to think solar and wind power were the best ways to reduce CO2 emissions. But the biggest reduction in CO2 emissionsduring the past 15 years (over 60%) has come from switching from coal to natural gas. Upgrading coal to gas is a great intermediate step. However, it’s not a long term solution because natural gas reserves are limited…

> Clever writing can let you argue for any viewpoint. More people should participate in a debate club. A common assignment is to argue eloquently for a position you don't believe in, allowing you to see how eloquent sophistry can be placed in service of any position. When it comes to technical questions like energy it should be logic, math, and real data or go home.

More people should participate in a debate club. A common assignment is to argue eloquently for a position you don't believe in, allowing you to see how eloquent sophistry can be placed in service of any position.

I believe the opportunity for that has passed. Every debate competition I've watched in the last decade was just people trying to be as emotive and loud as humanly possible.

Re: Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life

#113

Post by alex_duf »

modeless wrote: post #105
elil17 wrote: post #26

Clever writing can let you argue for any viewpoint. That doesn’t make it true. >I used to think solar and wind power were the best ways to reduce CO2 emissions. But the biggest reduction in CO2 emissionsduring the past 15 years (over 60%) has come from switching from coal to natural gas. Upgrading coal to gas is a great intermediate step. However, it’s not a long term solution because natural gas reserves are limited…

Yeah, I thought this point in the article was off target: > Trillions of dollars were spent on wind and solar projects over the last 20 years, yet the world’s dependence on fossil fuels declined only 3 percentage points, from 87% to 84%. Isn't this because we are at the beginning of an exponential curve? Or at least a sigmoid curve. That money wasn't wasted. A growth curve will look like nothing much until suddenly o…

Also let's compare apples to apples and check how much money was spent to generate the 87% of energy... I'm guessing it's much higher than the trillions

Edit: and let's not forget that the capital spent on moving the needle to 84% will keep generating energy at marginal cost.

Re: Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life

#114

Post by thehappypm »

glitchc wrote: post #45
tsjackson wrote: post #13

The cost per kWh of solar and wind is a third of natural gas and nuclear. It's not even close. Filling the gaps left by intermittent production with storage is rapidly decreasing in costs, and will soon be low enough that Solar/Wind/Storage will outcompete Natural Gas or nuclear 95% of the time. There is probably a small role for other sources in filling capacity gaps during uncommon weather events (i.e. natural gas…

Solar and wind will always suffer from a storage problem. The key to modern power is not potential but throughput and consistency. Modern infrastructure needs x Watts delivered 24/7, shifting to y Watts during on-peak hours and z Watts during off-peak hours. Because of inconsistency, solar and wind will remain non-viable as a primary source of power.

I disagree with this premise.

Wind and solar will provide cheap power at times, extremely cheap at times when the production outstrips demand. It’s a simple and easy business model to buy this cheap power and sell it back to the grid at times of high demand. Buy some batteries, then buy low and sell high electricity. Bam, grid evened out by the invisible hand.

Re: Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life

#115

Post by ShockTohp »

elil17 wrote: post #26

Clever writing can let you argue for any viewpoint. That doesn’t make it true. >I used to think solar and wind power were the best ways to reduce CO2 emissions. But the biggest reduction in CO2 emissionsduring the past 15 years (over 60%) has come from switching from coal to natural gas. Upgrading coal to gas is a great intermediate step. However, it’s not a long term solution because natural gas reserves are limited…

But solar and wind are no where near sustainable, or efficient. They are extremely fragile and have serious detrimental effects on their local environment. Nuclear is the best option and gas is a massive improvement. The whole point of this article is that we are chasing a utopian ideal instead of actually fixing the problems. Once again, perfect is being the enemy of improvement.

Re: Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life

#116

Post by vkou »

thehappypm wrote: post #108
ThePhysicist wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Storage is a big, unsolved problem. As a quantitative resource on that I can recommend "Sustainable Energy: Without The Hot Air" by the great (and unfortunately recently deceased) David MacKay [1], it's available for free. For a large country like the UK or Germany you need to increase electricity production with a slew rate of 6-8 GW/h in the morning, and decrease it with the same rate in the evening. Currently the…

Does storage matter short term? If my utility runs a gas generator, wind and solar allow it to run at some fraction of its capacity most of the time. Sure, overnight when there’s little wind, the gas might go full throttle. But that’s still a huge reduction in emissions if most of the time the grid is fully wind/solar.

The problem is that we don't need to halve our emissions, as would happen if we fully switched from coal to natgas (Presumably sourced from a magical, peaceful land of unicorns, as opposed to, say, the Russian Federation, or some middle eastern despot.)

We need to zero our emissions, if we want to avoid climate catastrophe. And natgas isn't going to do that for us.

Re: Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life

#117

Post by Splendor »

teachrdan wrote: post #111
Splendor wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me introduce you to Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Even the middle of the desert is not safe from NIMBYs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...

Nuclear waste repositories are not immune to accidents. Putting all our nuclear waste in one place may not be the solution we're looking for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant#20...

I don't remember saying it was. Did you reply to the wrong comment?

Re: Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life

#118

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

melling wrote: post #77
rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the time any new nuclear reactor is designed, built and turned on, we'll certainly have many new/more ways to store energy for longer time (e.g new battery chemistry, hydrogen…). Here in France, half of our nuclear reactors are now off (and we had to turn on some old coal plants because of many unexpected technical issues). https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/18/business/france-nuclear-p... The new EPR (Flamanville) c…

We’ve been BEGGING for more nuclear power for decades. The world still uses coal for 40% of electricity and now Europe is firing up more coal plants because of the war in Ukraine. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/21/ukraine-war-europe-turns-to-... Would it be safe to assume we lost at least a decade of time waiting for the windmills, batteries, etc? We could be talking about carbon neutral by 2060 instead of 2050.

> We’ve been BEGGING for more nuclear power for decades.

Yes, it really made sense for De Gaulle to launch the French civil nuclear program in 1969 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histoire_du_programme_nucl%C3%...

But we're in 2022 now, and we can easily and cheaply ramp up renewables greatly before we have a storage issue. And by the time we hit such limits, we'll have many more long term storage options.

I'm not against nuclear (it's fine) but let's not pretend we're still in The Glorious Thirty.

>The world still uses coal for 40% of electricity and now Europe is firing up more coal plants because of the war in Ukraine.

Yet France, with all its nuclear power plants (half of them off due to technical issues), also has revived some coal plants.

>Would it be safe to assume we lost at least a decade of time waiting for the windmills, batteries, etc?

We're not waiting https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2021/executive-summar... but we could do much, much more with renewables.

>We could be talking about carbon neutral by 2060 instead of 2050.

We're also talking about being carbon neutral and retiring all nuclear power plants in France by 2050, so… https://www.rte-france.com/analyses-tendances-et-prospective...

Re: Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life

#119

Post by xbar »

colincooke wrote: post #88
corndoge wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Clever writing can let you argue for any viewpoint. That doesn’t make it true. If you lead with this, I expect a refutation of the points in the article. But in each of the statements you take issue with, I don't see any refutation, just additional data. > However, it’s not a long term solution because natural gas reserves are limited. Does the article claim that it is a long term solution? > So green energy has su…

Unless you are being extremelly pedantic than I would agree with the parent. The thesis of the article is essentially "Solar and Wind aren't the way forward, Nuclear is the way". While it is reasonable to acknowledge the solar and wind still face many challenges, the parent is pointing out that they are already doing a good job in accelerating decarbonization and Nuclear, while appealing, isn't the clear cut winner t…

I agree with your criticisms and support of the parent, but the thesis also included a chunk of "here is why I switched from a purely clean energy perspective to one that tolerates a bunch more nuclear."

I have in the past year undergone a similar shift, so perhaps I felt more tolerant of some of the article's slickness. A few centuries of "financially expensive" nuclear energy feels like it could provide a longer runway for science to figure out some alternatives.

Re: Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life

#120

Post by thehappypm »

seibelj wrote: post #60
tsjackson wrote: post #13

The cost per kWh of solar and wind is a third of natural gas and nuclear. It's not even close. Filling the gaps left by intermittent production with storage is rapidly decreasing in costs, and will soon be low enough that Solar/Wind/Storage will outcompete Natural Gas or nuclear 95% of the time. There is probably a small role for other sources in filling capacity gaps during uncommon weather events (i.e. natural gas…

If renewable is so radically better then why did the City of Boston automatically increase everyone's electricity bills by 30%, requiring customers to opt-out? https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2021/01/08/eversource-co... I keep hearing its so much cheaper, but renewables keep requiring dark patterns, more money, more subsidies. If it was so much cheaper it would just win automatically because of the market.

Boston doesn’t have a huge amount of renewable energy in our mix, sadly. Most of New England is fossil fuels. More renewables would make it easier to keep prices low.
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