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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

#151

Post by otikik »

> 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.

That one needs a citation to back it up. It might be true, but natural gas leaks a lot of Methane (CH4) into the atmosphere, which way stronger greenhouse gas effect than CO2. So it might be worse than coal actually.

My sources:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX2aZUav-54 (around 16:11)

* https://www.nature.com/articles/493012a

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

#152

Post by pfdietz »

nightski wrote: post #109
pfdietz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making solar and wind consistent with various kinds of storage is likely going to be more economical than producing said energy with nuclear power plants. As for comparison to natural gas and such, CO2 taxes will be increased until those are phased out. Still economical? Taxes will be raised until they aren't. We have to leave most of the carbon in the ground.

Economical is one thing, but what about sustainability? Isn't nuclear more sustainable in that it produces less overall waste?

The waste produced by a renewable energy system will be small (and of the same kind) compared to the waste produced by industrial society as a whole. If the renewable energy system isn't sustainable because of waste, then neither will be that industrial society, even if it were nuclear powered.

To be fair, waste isn't really the issue with nuclear power either.

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

#153

Post by lukeschlather »

xbar wrote: post #119
colincooke wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ru…

It's really strange for me to hear people saying that. I was pro-nuclear a decade ago and thought solar/wind were pipe dreams. The cost situation is now so much in favor of solar/wind now that I no longer really see the point in nuclear. We should be subsidizing scaling up of storage technologies, not nuclear plants.

If the cost of storage gets cut in half in the next 10 years, we won't need subsidies, nuclear plants will simply be boondoggles. I really don't think we should invest in nuclear until we're sure the cleaner alternatives can't scale.

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

#154

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

Analemma_ wrote: post #139
TheBlight wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does solar work in the winter in northern latitudes?

Very well. Rooftop solar in Seattle pays for itself in 7-9 years, and we have the least sunlight and cheapest grid power of almost any place in the continental US.

> Rooftop solar in Seattle pays for itself in 7-9 years

Can you show me the arithmetic for that? I understand rooftop solar to cost $20,000 - $25,000. Is your non-solar electric bill over 7-9 years really more expensive than that? Seems impossible.

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

#155

Post by RobertRoberts »

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…

> Nuclear is the safest way to generate electricity

Until there is an accident, then it's literally the worst.

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

#156

Post by melling »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #118
melling wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 agai…

“we can easily and cheaply ramp up renewables ”

If this were the case, we wouldn’t be starting all these coal plants.

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

Yes, so coal, with its large greenhouse emissions, is still used instead of renewables

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

#157

Post by rank0 »

Most of us tech folks are WAY out of our depth regarding the energy sector. Everyone on this forum is so freaking heated all the time when in reality, most of us don't know shit about our energy infrastructure.

I don't even have a larger point here...but I swear the loudest most passionate commentary on energy comes from people with no expertise. Nobody should hold dogmatic beliefs without demonstrable knowledge in the area.

I have a few buddies who work as electrical engineers designing power systems. I've witnessed them receive lectures on energy infrastructure from people that have backgrounds in completely unrelated fields like sales, law, marketing...etc. It's bonkers!

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

#158

Post by sct202 »

ShockTohp wrote: post #115
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.

Nuclear is an option but it's not a fast option. The newest reactor designs from Westinghouse and EPR have taken 9 years at the fastest to complete in China and much longer everywhere else. You can say the regulations or NIMBYs are slowing down construction, but those aren't an issue in China.

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

#159

Post by 0x53 »

Analemma_ wrote: post #139
TheBlight wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does solar work in the winter in northern latitudes?

Very well. Rooftop solar in Seattle pays for itself in 7-9 years, and we have the least sunlight and cheapest grid power of almost any place in the continental US.

$25k / 12months / 9 years = $230. Which seems reasonable.

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

#160

Post by boucher »

boringg wrote: post #75

Look at his other articles - this guy is super disingenuous. Disappointed I didn't look at that first before getting baited into trying to refute his heavily inaccurate and biased position. From his other posts "Natural gas provides the most cost-effective near-term solution for affordable, reliable, low-emission energy. Shifts from coal to natural gas have produced the biggest emissions reductions over the past 15 y…

Yes, and he's been posting the same exact nonsense for a while now. The reformed idealist narrative is a marketing gimmick to attract investors.
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