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

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

#351

Post by horsawlarway »

harperlee wrote: post #331
lukan wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ships carrying energy are a pretty easy explosive target as well. Local ressilence is needed in any case and mass produced batteries can provide that safety.

Diesel, iron or aluminum, from your parent post, are difficult to explode… (personally, no clue about magnesium); and the point of the latter two is that you can “store” energy by upstreaming its consumption when power is available, you don’t necessarily need to produce an actual reversible energy store.

> and the point of the latter two is that you can “store” energy by upstreaming its consumption when power is available

Are you sure the parent isn't referring to something like a rust (iron-air) battery? Aluminum, Iron, and Magnesium are all viable battery chemistries.

Side note - I'm pretty certain you don't actually need to make contents of a ship explode to easily sink it with explosives.

I'm actually somewhat concerned that between drones and smart mines - we've never had a better chance of completely ruining our ability to do ocean based shipping during combat.

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

#352

Post by matwood »

markus_zhang wrote: post #260
matwood wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently bought a heat pump dryer and it's pretty cool. No exhaust vent, just water drain. It also doesn't need the heavy duty power plug since it pulls so much less electricity than a typical heated air dryer.

I don’t know this thing exists. I need to take a look and maybe buy one when the current one breaks down. What brand did you purchase? Thanks.

I have an LG. They look to cost a premium in the US above heated air one. They also seem to be gentler on clothes since they pump in warm dry air vs. super heated air.

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

#353

Post by pjc50 »

gosub100 wrote: post #345
idiotsecant wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is literally the problem. Transmission is desperately needed, much more than generation right now. The issue is that it's hard to explain to people why this is, and even when they understand they react like you do. RENEWABLES NEED TRANSMISSION!!! We need to be building unprecedented Manhattan project levels of transmission, yesterday! But instead we will put some solar panels on a car park and feel like we did o…

Is this whole "new set of cables" factored into the CO2 emissions equation? We're undoubtedly going to use massive amounts of energy to mine the metal, melt it into wire, transport it to the site, build the towers, etc. Is that energy "green" ?

> Is that energy "green" ?

Not very, but neither is continuing to use fossil fuels on a huge scale.

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

#354

Post by wffurr »

jjulius wrote: post #315
philipallstar wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The oil-soaked 20th century created all the millions of necessary precursors to miracles like phones and youtube and people in Namibia being able to get them. It's not out-hustled; it's just a miniscle increment. But it's good to see.

>... miracles like... youtube... ... miracle ?

It's an amazing repository of how-to videos on every subject imaginable.

It's also a massive attention sink that burns both copious amounts of energy and the world's attention span to earn some clicks and ad dollars.

It's a mixed bag.

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

#355

Post by pjc50 »

markus_zhang wrote: post #346
pjc50 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a benefit or a cost? People these days have to train at their own expense, and construction trades are in something of a short supply.

I'm more thinking about the side of designing and implementing complex engineering systems instead of individual trades, but I'm just an armchair poster so don't know much.

There's a property called "learning rate", which roughly measures the extent to which doing some kind of project more makes it cheaper. Renewables have hugely benefited from this at every level, from manufacture to installation.

Nuclear, somehow, exhibits a negative learning rate: the more nuclear projects you do, the more expensive it gets. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...

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

#356

Post by [deleted] »

rpozarickij wrote: post #179

> Solar power is now growing faster than any power source in history, and it is closely followed by wind power—which is really another form of energy from the sun, since it is differential heating of the earth that produces the wind that turns the turbines. It's interesting to realize that the vast majority of the energy used by humans comes from the sun (with the exception of nuclear and geothermal energy). Even hyd…

[deleted]

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

#357

Post by pjc50 »

amarait wrote: post #348
rel_ic wrote: post #347

Renewable energy is great, but we're not replacing fossil fuels with it, we're just adding more energy usage. And our energy usage is destroying the environment. Don't let these advancements in solar make you think things are getting better. We need to reduce fossil fuel usage, not just increase solar usage. https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/b3b696c0-226d-0137-f265-1d2...

What replaces fossil fuels is some kind of breakthrough in batteries. At the moment its getting better every year were currently at less than $100 per KWh which is crazy but needs to be improved for allowing more off the grid energy consumption

The lesson from solar is that it won't be "a breakthrough" but the gradual accumulation of a thousand different efforts at cost-shaving across the whole supply chain making batteries gradually but inexorably cheaper.

There won't be fanfare when fixed batteries start using sodium chemistry rather than lithium, for example, but that will start happening across the next few years.

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

#358

Post by pydry »

amarait wrote: post #348
rel_ic wrote: post #347

Renewable energy is great, but we're not replacing fossil fuels with it, we're just adding more energy usage. And our energy usage is destroying the environment. Don't let these advancements in solar make you think things are getting better. We need to reduce fossil fuel usage, not just increase solar usage. https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/b3b696c0-226d-0137-f265-1d2...

What replaces fossil fuels is some kind of breakthrough in batteries. At the moment its getting better every year were currently at less than $100 per KWh which is crazy but needs to be improved for allowing more off the grid energy consumption

We can either pray and wait for a technological breakthrough that makes storage tech way cheaper than gas or we can just use taxes and subsidies to make it happen now.

It's not so hard. Lavish subsidies were used to make nuclear power semi-sort-of-competitive even though it's way more expensive.

The same thing could have been done with solar and wind but apparently we thought the best course of action was just to wait until they became cheaper than coal without subsidies (& then Obama and Trump slammed solar with tariffs).

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

#359

Post by bena »

amarait wrote: post #348
rel_ic wrote: post #347

Renewable energy is great, but we're not replacing fossil fuels with it, we're just adding more energy usage. And our energy usage is destroying the environment. Don't let these advancements in solar make you think things are getting better. We need to reduce fossil fuel usage, not just increase solar usage. https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/b3b696c0-226d-0137-f265-1d2...

What replaces fossil fuels is some kind of breakthrough in batteries. At the moment its getting better every year were currently at less than $100 per KWh which is crazy but needs to be improved for allowing more off the grid energy consumption

I think the overall point is that we will never get there.

Renewables will never be cheap enough to fully replace fossil fuels, batteries will never be good enough.

No matter what, as long as the cost of extracting and burning fossil fuels is less than the result of what gets produced by the consumption, someone will be doing it.

It’s why crypto will never solve the energy issue. Why AI/GPT/LLM won’t either. Especially when the cost of that output is pegged to the cost of generating the above.

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

#360

Post by conductr »

pydry wrote: post #358
amarait wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What replaces fossil fuels is some kind of breakthrough in batteries. At the moment its getting better every year were currently at less than $100 per KWh which is crazy but needs to be improved for allowing more off the grid energy consumption

We can either pray and wait for a technological breakthrough that makes storage tech way cheaper than gas or we can just use taxes and subsidies to make it happen now. It's not so hard. Lavish subsidies were used to make nuclear power semi-sort-of-competitive even though it's way more expensive. The same thing could have been done with solar and wind but apparently we thought the best course of action was just to wai…

“We” are only in control of “us”. The rest of the world will keep burning fossil fuel
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