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Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

newyorker.com

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Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#151

Post by danhor »

drob518 wrote: post #49
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cheap energy is will power the next AI boom This is already happening, that and the crypto boom from a few years ago. > and lift the poor and middle class up But this is not happening; the ones doing AI stuff, crypto stuff, energy stuff have no interest in lifting any classes up. Energy prices are not going down, because demand is going up alongside supply, to the point where in some places the energy grid can't ke…

Modern nuclear reactors used to be huge, but that’s outdated now. The revolution in small modular reactors promises to change all that.

Current modern nuclear reactors getting built are huge.

Maybe, perhaps, in the next decade or two we'll see small(er) reactors, but this isn't a new idea and hasn't worked out it practice before.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#153

Post by Propelloni »

LetsGetTechnicl wrote: post #35
arh5451 wrote: post #24

Nice article explaining solar energy policy. I think the article still doesn't address the mismatch between solar energy production and consumption, which needs to be filled by storage mechanisms. Also would have been nice to have a critical look at how the Chinese were able to corner the Solar market via state sponsored means.

What "critical look" is there to take? How about the way that the US gov't subsidizes the oil and gas industry, and is about to restart the coal industry? For some reason gov't investment in industry is only bad when China does it.

Nobody complains about China investing in its private industry, all wealthy nations do that. Everybody complains that China is a dictatorship that a) treats its people like shit, b) exploits these shitty conditions to gain global market advantage with state-owned companies, and c) keeps foreign companies from exploiting it, too.

Obviously it is more complex than that, but in a nutshell it's part butt-hurt and part amalgamation of state and private enterprise that does not mesh well with classic liberal ideas of freedom and human dignity.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#154

Post by [deleted] »

pzo wrote: post #139

good article I just don't know why author prefer to spell all numbers using words rather than digits. It's very mentally taxing for me to read, e.g: >> of twenty-one thousand respondents in twenty-one countries, found that sixty-eight per cent favored solar energy, “five times more [...] could be just: >> of 21,000 responders in 21 countries, found that 68% favored solar energy, "5x more [...]

[deleted]

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#155

Post by HPsquared »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #150
pzo wrote: post #139

good article I just don't know why author prefer to spell all numbers using words rather than digits. It's very mentally taxing for me to read, e.g: >> of twenty-one thousand respondents in twenty-one countries, found that sixty-eight per cent favored solar energy, “five times more [...] could be just: >> of 21,000 responders in 21 countries, found that 68% favored solar energy, "5x more [...]

I believe this is a New Yorker magazine house style thing. I'd assume the author uses numerals in the book this article is based on.

If there are two options, you can trust they'll go for the more verbose one.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#156

Post by ZeroGravitas »

arh5451 wrote: post #24

Nice article explaining solar energy policy. I think the article still doesn't address the mismatch between solar energy production and consumption, which needs to be filled by storage mechanisms. Also would have been nice to have a critical look at how the Chinese were able to corner the Solar market via state sponsored means.

One of the good things about solar is the lack of a mismatch between solar production curve and human needs.

People use more energy during the day.

People, globally, use more energy in the summer.

This might not be intuitive if you live nearer the poles, but that's not representative of where the global population live.

And in some of those places, like California people obsesses about the "peak" that is left after you subtract all the solar energy, even if it's lower than the previous real peak.

Luckily that fake peak is immediately after sunset and so easily beaten with a small amount of battery, leaving a much cheaper and easier problem to solve as the peaks are really what drives electricity costs, dictating transmission size and standby capacity.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#157

Post by HPsquared »

ben_w wrote: post #145
VBprogrammer wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any source for this extraordinary claim? It's practically a claim of perpetual motion. Carbon dioxide a tiny fraction of the atmosphere, even in concentrations which are immediately harmful to human life. At the moment it's 400 parts per million. So in order to extract 1kg of Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere you have to pump 2500kg of air through the system. This alone makes it unlikely we can do this p…

They said "If electricity is sufficiently cheap", which is less a claim and more a tautology. Will it be that cheap? I think so, given that trees and grass etc. exist and get their carbon from the air.

Even with free electricity, the capital (and maintenance, consumables etc) costs of the process could easily be too high.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#158

Post by jonplackett »

> Instead of relying on scattered deposits of fossil fuel—the control of which has largely defined geopolitics for more than a century—we are moving rapidly toward a reliance on diffuse but ubiquitous sources of supply. The sun and the wind are available everywhere

I’m all for solar - but does it really solve the geographical / geopolitical issues of oil, as it’s currently rolling out?

China produces pretty much all the solar panels - That’s quite a big concentration of power, even more so than oil.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#159

Post by ben_w »

HPsquared wrote: post #157
ben_w wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said "If electricity is sufficiently cheap", which is less a claim and more a tautology. Will it be that cheap? I think so, given that trees and grass etc. exist and get their carbon from the air.

Even with free electricity, the capital (and maintenance, consumables etc) costs of the process could easily be too high.

I suppose that in principle that is indeed possible; in practice, trees exist and self-seed, so the limit is our own ignorance.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#160

Post by bhaak »

jonplackett wrote: post #158

> Instead of relying on scattered deposits of fossil fuel—the control of which has largely defined geopolitics for more than a century—we are moving rapidly toward a reliance on diffuse but ubiquitous sources of supply. The sun and the wind are available everywhere I’m all for solar - but does it really solve the geographical / geopolitical issues of oil, as it’s currently rolling out? China produces pretty much all…

Solar panels can be locally recycled. Oil cannot.

Of course if you don't build up a local solar industry you are still dependent on foreign countries but it's not that China has an unchanging monopoly on the solar industry.

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