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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

#171

Post by Gehlitio »

throw10920 wrote: post #145
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…

> Upgrading coal to gas is a great intermediate step. However, it’s not a long term solution because natural gas reserves are limited. Plus, many countries have already done it. I don't see the author as arguing that we should all switch to natural gas. Rather, I believe that they're trying to illustrate what they view to be a idealistic flawed thinking pattern ("utopian energy" or "green energy maximalism" or whatev…

Unfortunately if we would actually put the foot on the pedal we all would be quite surprised how well solar would work.

We know for quite a while how little solar we need globally and we know how to do it but we just don't do it.

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

#172

Post by pfdietz »

77pt77 wrote: post #5

> I used to believe nuclear energy was dangerous and nuclear waste was a big problem. In fact, nuclear is the safestand most reliable way to generate low-emission electricity, and it provides the best chance of reducing CO2 emissions. It releases less radioactivity than coal, just to make things clear.

> It releases less radioactivity than coal, just to make things clear.

If you ignore the radioactivity released in uranium mining.

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

#173

Post by fluoridation »

dpierce9 wrote: post #150
arcticbull wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not efficient at turning sunlight into power - somewhere around 20% depending on the technology, which continues to improve albeit slowly. This efficiency goes down about 2.5% in the first year and another [edit](0.5%-1%) in each subsequent year [1]. These numbers are all at 25C, which is significantly lower than a black solar panel is going to be out in the sun - which reduces its efficiency a further 10-25%…

This is some bad reasoning. Solar efficiency is very different from say engine efficiency. A very efficient combustion engine is 35% efficient meaning it wastes 65% of the energy in the input fuel. Solar panels don’t waste sunlight and have no input costs. Rooftop solar turns 20% of something that would have been 100% wasted into high grade energy. A very efficient coal power plant is 45% efficient before transmissio…

>Solar efficiency is very different from say engine efficiency. A very efficient combustion engine is 35% efficient meaning it wastes 65% of the energy in the input fuel. Solar panels don’t waste sunlight and have no input costs.

They're exactly the same kinds of waste. A 35% efficient IC engine wastes 65% of the energy in the fuel heating itself up. A 20% efficient photovoltaic cell wastes 80% of the energy in the light heating itself up.

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

#174

Post by [deleted] »

pfdietz wrote: post #152
nightski wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#175

Post by fundad »

dogman144 wrote: post #122

I live in one of the beautiful western states where due to the wide open spaces, wind, and carbon reliance due to lack of many of their economic options, wind farms are taking off. Up front, I get it. Wind and solar are likely a large part of how we avoid burning down the world. Without it, Climate change hits this area just as hard. That said, wind farms built to preserve the environment aren’t exactly preserving na…

Sounds like I get to drive around the open land in your state for hours and 3-40 minutes of driving is line of sight to a power installation. The wind farms will go up in NY, Boston etc but it will take a while because of the same NIMBYs. They do wield more NIMBY power because they can raise more money. Income inequality is the system working as designed, we won't nationalize any part of our power industry because the benefit would go to workers and ratepayers.

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

#176

Post by Splendor »

teachrdan wrote: post #148
Splendor wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My reading of your comment was that you were piggybacking on the above: > 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). And your comment specifically mentioned Yucca mountain, which was indeed planned to be a big underground repository for nuclear waste, and therefore vulnerable to the same type of catastrophic failure…

I see. I should've quoted the bit I was replying to.

They said:

> Do it in the middle of a desert far away from any people. No NIMBYs, not interesting for attacks.

And I was just pointing out that building it in the middle of the desert has not proven to be a good way of avoiding opposition.

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

#177

Post by throwaway5752 »

fasteo wrote: post #163
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…

His credentials seem phenomenal: I went to work in construction to build energy-efficient homes, and I started a company that built composting systems for cities and businesses. I became executive director of an organization that championed green building policies and became CEO of a consulting firm that commercialized clean energy technologies and ran energy-efficiency programs. I then founded a software startup to…

Why do you trust him about his credentials? Who is paying him now? He has no articles older than 2020 on his website, and the same is true of his podcasts. Where are his thoughts prior to that?

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

#178

Post by ouid »

thomasmg wrote: post #141
ShockTohp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Solar + wind are actually fixing problems. They are not perfect, but as you said, perfect is the enemy of improvement. Solar + wind are cheaper than almost anything else, specially nuclear. They have much less detrimental effects to the local environment than fossile fuels (specially coal). Yes, they are not guaranteed, so you need a grid (which you have), and some batteries (for short-term storage; like batteries of…

>Nuclear is way too expensive, specially if you account for risks of disasters (no insurance company will insure them, so the risk is on the population).

This is CATO propaganda. All power generation is subsidized by our incredibly relaxed attitude towards externalities in general. Of the reliable sources of energy, nuclear is safest and the least subsidized.

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

#179

Post by telchar »

jacobsimon wrote: post #54
modeless wrote: post #6

I recently heard (on HN, maybe you did too) about a form of energy that sounds pretty utopian to me. Ultra deep bore geothermal. Geothermal has been around for a long time and has problems like causing earthquakes and needing very specific geological formations that only exist in certain places. But these limitations are mostly due to the fact that we can't bore that deep. Geothermal energy exists under every point o…

Sounds too good to be true! Is geothermal truly renewable? Or is it just abundant enough that it would last us for thousands of years? I wonder if there are other long term side effects of releasing heat from the core.

Most geothermal heat is produced by nuclear decay in subsurface radioisotopes vs gravitational/frictional source or residual heat of planetary formation, so it's effectively renewable at any kind of level of extraction that we might feasibly be able to make use of.

"About 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) below the Earth’s crust, or surface, is the hottest part of our planet: the core. A small portion of the core’s heat comes from the friction and gravitational pull formed when Earth was created more than 4 billion years ago. However, the vast majority of Earth’s heat is constantly generated by the decay of radioactive isotopes, such as potassium-40 and thorium-232."[0]

[0] https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/geothermal...

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

#180

Post by throwaway5752 »

CyanBird wrote: post #143
TheBlight wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does solar work in the winter in northern latitudes?

Most of the planet is not "winter in northern latitudes" Indeed, most of the world is rather sunny and "not" located in "northern latitudes"

Most of the planet, most of the people are not in the Arctic. Brief search indicates 4 million, globally. You could have people in the Arctic powering their homes with peat or lignite and it wouldn't be a huge problem. Happily NG is better for this, and the rest of the world has fewer problems with solar seasonality.
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