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US can reach 100% clean power by 2035, DOE finds

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Re: US can reach 100% clean power by 2035, DOE finds

#141

Post by wankle »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #51
davidw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> local objections That's a big component of all this. NIMBYism in this country is becoming a big problem in a lot of ways. Want to build a dense, mixed use development that is less carbon-intensive than single family suburbia? NIMBYs oppose it. Build a transmission line from your green energy source? NIMBYs, again! Build a solar farm? NIMBYs will try and block it.

Our local library wanted to put in an automated drop-off bin that patrons could drive up to and return books into. It was bitterly contested because the adjacent home owners association was worried about the increased noise and traffic. Keep in mind they were already living next to this library and it already had a parking lot. The city paid to construct a high wall as a compromise. It wasn't terribly expensive, but…

> I really do think there is such a thing as "over democratizing" our development process. Sometimes you really do just need to tell someone "this is getting built" and they can get bent if they don't like it.

If they pay me market value plus 35% for being unexpectedly uprooted, that's OK. If the gov wants to steal it, things will get interesting.

Re: US can reach 100% clean power by 2035, DOE finds

#142

Post by epistasis »

lazide wrote: post #137
epistasis wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This paper is saying they can deliver by x, if y is figured out. It's a perfectly cromulent way to make a projection.

Where we have no idea of how expensive or not y will be, or how long it will take to do it. Like saying ‘The UI will be ready in 6 months if the backend is figured out’. Also not a realistic projection. Don’t get me wrong, it’s something . But the error bars are larger than the graph.

I'm sorry, but that characterization of 90% versus 100% is not remotely fair.

"Only 90% unless people let us buy enough land" is a far cry from not having any clue at all.

Re: US can reach 100% clean power by 2035, DOE finds

#143

Post by wahern »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #53
Schroedingersat wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by NIMBYs you mean paid actors attending council meetings and incredibly loud reactionaries from other places, then yeah. There aren't that many actual NIMBYs for this shit.

> If by NIMBYs you mean paid actors attending council meetings Exactly, most anti-renewable objections are outright fraud by the oil companies, it is groups like 'Citizens for responsible solar' that are recieve fossil fuel donations through shell companies. Theu go and complain that a solar farm will spoint the veiw on somw derelic wasteland and robbing locals of job opportunities ities. There isnt a single local pe…

And what about situations like the following,

"‘It’s got nasty’: the battle to build the US’s biggest solar power farm", https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/30/its-got-...

Unfortunately, I don't think people like Connie Ehrlich are rare, especially considering that you typically don't need much money to be as obstructive as she has. Yes, there are corporate-funded "grassroots" lobbying organizations, but when you look at how this stuff plays out across the country, it's not obvious who is using whom. (Also, from what I've seen following disputes over the years, most "grassroots" organizations that fight projects are fronts created by local citizens--or local citizen, singular--at least in California.)

The fundamental problem is that 1) local zoning laws permit too much discretion and 2) are too deferential to public input. These policies were supposed to be empowering to communities, but they're in tension with the principal of rule of law. Rule of law says that a community first makes the rules, then applies them in a principled, arms-length manner to individual cases as they arise. Contemporary zoning policies and procedures permit so much discretion that what we have is a system that effectively makes up the law on a case-by-case basis. It's a system that is fundamentally arbitrary, capricious, and unjust. It's also unconstitutional as a violation of Due Process (even under strict conservative definitions of Due Process), but the Supreme Court is deathly afraid of unleashing a tsunami of constitutional objections to zoning policies so has historically made it very difficult to appeal such cases up to the Federal courts. They usually languish and die in administrative and states courts if they even make it that far, because projects and their developers tend to be time sensitive (you don't spend money, even on lawyers, unless you have a firm time horizon on RoI) and also averse to antagonizing zoning boards.

Re: US can reach 100% clean power by 2035, DOE finds

#145

Post by wankle »

_8j50 wrote: post #103
gregwebs wrote: post #10

We can have 100% clean energy by 2035 if we assume the US is China and the state can build whatever it wants despite any local objections. And assume we increase battery supply by 40x (even though lithium price is going up dramatically now). And assume that clean power is actually 100% clean. It's good to have a vision for clean energy though that is shared with the country that we start working towards. I can see th…

Eminent domain might overcome NIMBY

If the fashion is to approve of the gov taking our stuff, then that includes your pot too right, you know, like for the clean biofuel plant man?

Re: US can reach 100% clean power by 2035, DOE finds

#146

Post by lazide »

woodruffw wrote: post #129
lazide wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why do those consumers prefer that diet? Could it be because of a history of large amounts of open plains with cheap, accessible water and grass, and easy transportation of that meat (rails)? It's quite nutritious too (in a combination with other foods). In Europe, farmland is at an extreme premium in most places given the higher population density and often unfriendly climate and geography. Even more obvious a c…

First, I want to clarify: I haven't made a value judgement like "gluttonous" or "evil." We're operating within the same framework, which is constraints (and incentives). That being said, I think it's overly reductive to chalk it up to the country's size and density. If you take any mid-sized city in the US and wind the clock back by 80 years, you'll see a very different urban structure: dense radial development built…

Europe wise, probably because cars weren’t mass produced until 1910, and weren’t well developed until post WW1 - let alone comfortable, reliable, etc.

WW2 changed that. However in Europe, the industrial base was bombed out, and most of the economy was directing it’s energy towards rebuilding - and even then the density in Europe and existing buildings and housing stock (even with things bombed to smithereens) didn’t support the type of wide open projects and free space the US enjoyed then and often now.

The population in Western Europe in 1950 was 142 million. The population today is approx. 191 million, or about 35% growth, even after that terrible war.

Europe couldn’t do what the US did because it was already too dense, and at the time, too poor.

The United States population in 1950 was 151 million. The population is now 332 million.

In 1950, not only did the US have a fully intact industrial base and economy, it had essentially the only one left in the world. So it could and did pursue aggressive expansion and growth, and adopt new technologies which supported it and worked well at the time. Even with more than a doubling in population in that time, it still mostly works - if we ignore wider environmental impacts, of course.

And still outside of the few areas with dense inner cities, it really makes no sense to try to use public transit - there is no public!

As far as NZ goes, I don’t know enough about them to comment one way or another.

Re: US can reach 100% clean power by 2035, DOE finds

#148

Post by ajross »

wankle wrote: post #144

Storage is the bottleneck that makes 100% clean energy even before 2099 unlikely. I recommend the whole video but this part is relevant to my comment: https://youtu.be/ptI6BRVC1Kw?t=108

Link is to a a Stossel TV segment which right out of the gate misrepresents the problem. They cite some staggering numbers about how many batteries you'd need to match "the energy Europe has in storage right now" failing to note that those are petroleum reserves stored for geopolitical insurance, not to buffer instantaneous shortfalls in electricity generation. Those reserves are designed to be many months of use; no one thinks you need that for grid buffering, where a few days is plenty.

And in any case that oil is going to be used for vehicle fuel, where the linked article is talking about electrical grid generation. No one thinks we're going to be off of fossil fueled vehicles in a decade, though it's definitely possible to reduce the net usage by a ton.

Sorry, that's just a terribly spun video segment. What the linked article claims is absolutely doable.

Re: US can reach 100% clean power by 2035, DOE finds

#150

Post by ajross »

throwaway9870 wrote: post #123
gregwebs wrote: post #10

We can have 100% clean energy by 2035 if we assume the US is China and the state can build whatever it wants despite any local objections. And assume we increase battery supply by 40x (even though lithium price is going up dramatically now). And assume that clean power is actually 100% clean. It's good to have a vision for clean energy though that is shared with the country that we start working towards. I can see th…

I have a real problem with statements like "100% clean energy by 2035". What does that even mean? You will have electric aircraft by 2035? Completely electric ag? Electric trains and trucks? No, not a chance. The article used the term "power" and when you click through to the energy.gov site, it is clear that it is referring to the electric grid. But you said energy and when people make that mistake I often wonder if…

> What does that even mean?

Uh... the linked article actually discusses exactly that. Do you disagree, or did you not read it?

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