Solar and batteries can power the world • Hacker News Board

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#21

Post by panstromek » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 3:18 PM UTC

declan_roberts wrote: post #5

The article is just wrong. And only mentions energy used for heating in passing. Heating requires MASSIVE amounts of energy. I should know bc I have a whole house battery and solar system (almost 30 kWh battery and 24kW solar). It keeps the lights on, but not heating. I live in a mild climate. The reality is that battery/solar requires major quality of life and activity time shifting trade-offs.

As far as I understood it, it only talks about electricity, so that doesn't seem like a contradiction to me. I think some electrification of heating is expected in 2030, but not that much bigger than it is now.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#22

Post by tonyarkles » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 3:19 PM UTC

silvestrov wrote: post #8

pydry wrote: post #4

>We can get far without worrying about the last 5-10%. The solutions for the last 5-10% could be fossil fuels in the short-term, long-duration storage as it matures, or easily storeable e-biofuels. I think a lot of people truly dont get this . Those days when the wind isnt blowing, the sun isnt shining and the batteries and pumped storage are depleted can be easily handled with, e.g. power2gas. It's pretty expensive…

The article ignores hydropower. The numbers/prices look a lot better with solar + wind + hydro + battery. Norway runs almost entirely on hydropower. Sweden has a lot. Iceland runs on hydropower and geothermal.

I’m happy to be wrong about this globally, but in my neck of the woods the readily exploited hydro resources are already exploited to 90% of their capacity and have been for 100 years. Hydro is in many ways the ultimate renewable energy, but that’s been true since electrification and we’ve been using it as part of the energy mix since then. I’d love to be wrong but my understanding is that there isn’t a huge amount of untapped new hydro capacity available without having severe impacts on ecosystems

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#23

Post by Epa095 » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 3:20 PM UTC

declan_roberts wrote: post #5

The article is just wrong. And only mentions energy used for heating in passing. Heating requires MASSIVE amounts of energy. I should know bc I have a whole house battery and solar system (almost 30 kWh battery and 24kW solar). It keeps the lights on, but not heating. I live in a mild climate. The reality is that battery/solar requires major quality of life and activity time shifting trade-offs.

What's the actual effect you get out of that? Even half, 12 kW, would be an absolutte beast of heating (for a home), even with 'dumb' convection heating. With heat pumps 2-3 kW should really be enough.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#24

Post by fooblaster » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 3:21 PM UTC

declan_roberts wrote: post #5

The article is just wrong. And only mentions energy used for heating in passing. Heating requires MASSIVE amounts of energy. I should know bc I have a whole house battery and solar system (almost 30 kWh battery and 24kW solar). It keeps the lights on, but not heating. I live in a mild climate. The reality is that battery/solar requires major quality of life and activity time shifting trade-offs.

where are you? that is a massive amount of solar in any place at a reasonably low latitude. Is your house enormous or are you heating your house with resistive heating?

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#25

Post by shipman05 » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 3:21 PM UTC

ahhhhnoooo wrote: post #2

China understands this, parts of the EU understands this. The US is currently dead set on betting on the wrong technology, and it's going to put them so far behind. Imagine a world where people didn't care about labeling new things "woke", and instead could all sit down and say, "we're going to make major investments in next generation infrastructure to ensure our capacity and independence."

The American shale gas/fracking boom really distorted a lot of things. The strategic energy situations of the United States, the EU, and China were all pretty similar in the late 20th Century: major dependence on OPEC-controlled oil and gas. Post-fracking, the US strategic energy situation has diverged from the others.

This difference leads indirectly to things like the current "not war" in Iran. (Iran's geography already gives it strong bargaining power via pressure on energy markets. It would have an even stronger hand if the US was not capable of energy independence).

The long term impacts on climate changes are even more negative. It's hard to supplant a cheap, ubiquitous energy source with strong negative externalities when those externalities are subtle, gradual, and strongly denied via propaganda by entrenched interests.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#26

Post by declan_roberts » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 3:22 PM UTC

barbazoo wrote: post #15

iamjake648 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a high efficiency heat pump, or how are you heating?

Heat pump is what I would have expected to be suitable for a setup like that. How big is the house I wonder.

I imagine my system is probably sufficient to keep an 800 sqft house comfortably warm in a climate where it goes down to the 20s in the winter.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#27

Post by tenthirtyam » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 3:23 PM UTC

silvestrov wrote: post #8

pydry wrote: post #4

>We can get far without worrying about the last 5-10%. The solutions for the last 5-10% could be fossil fuels in the short-term, long-duration storage as it matures, or easily storeable e-biofuels. I think a lot of people truly dont get this . Those days when the wind isnt blowing, the sun isnt shining and the batteries and pumped storage are depleted can be easily handled with, e.g. power2gas. It's pretty expensive…

The article ignores hydropower. The numbers/prices look a lot better with solar + wind + hydro + battery. Norway runs almost entirely on hydropower. Sweden has a lot. Iceland runs on hydropower and geothermal.

This is even more true with international grid connections. Europe in a cold spell? Solar countries import, wind & hydro export. Europe in a heat wave? Flip the switches the opposite direction.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#28

Post by mapmap » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 3:24 PM UTC

declan_roberts wrote: post #5

The article is just wrong. And only mentions energy used for heating in passing. Heating requires MASSIVE amounts of energy. I should know bc I have a whole house battery and solar system (almost 30 kWh battery and 24kW solar). It keeps the lights on, but not heating. I live in a mild climate. The reality is that battery/solar requires major quality of life and activity time shifting trade-offs.

This is a large pv system for what I assume is a single family home. Do you have resistive in floor heating or an electric boiler feeding radiators? I imagine you could easily run a half dozen mini-splits drawing 500-1000w each, or a centralized heat pump. Happy to help if you can give more details.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#29

Post by RandomLensman » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 3:25 PM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #16

Nuclear could have powered the world easily and we could have done it with 1960s technology. And we could easily do electricity and heating with nuclear quite easily. The only thing that's actually tricky is synfuels and solar/battery doesn't solve that. High temperature reactors using heat to create hydrogen is arguable the better path to synfuels then electrolysis. And we can go to 100% of electricity from nuclear,…

Nuclear reactors make awful targets in a conflict, not sure having many around is generally a good idea if conflict is a risk and there are alternatives.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#30

Post by tenthirtyam » Fri, Apr 03, 2026, 3:25 PM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #16

Nuclear could have powered the world easily and we could have done it with 1960s technology. And we could easily do electricity and heating with nuclear quite easily. The only thing that's actually tricky is synfuels and solar/battery doesn't solve that. High temperature reactors using heat to create hydrogen is arguable the better path to synfuels then electrolysis. And we can go to 100% of electricity from nuclear,…

IIRC nuclear doesn't really work well as the last 5-10%. Start-up and shut-down for nuclear reactors is a slow process. When it's generating, it needs to just keep on generating. Not so quick to dial down or up just because the wind is(n't) blowing.