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Solar and batteries can power the world

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Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#181

Post by jwr »

mft_ wrote: post #162
jwr wrote: post #49

No, they can't, not unless we get rid of the fossil fuel lobby, which pretty much runs the world these days. Which isn't surprising, given that fossil fuels are the largest industry ever created by mankind. If you compare it to anything else which was actively harmful and yet big money tried to convince you it wasn't (like tobacco, alcohol, or really anything else), there is nothing that huge. So it isn't surprising…

> Germany shifted from nuclear to coal and gas Sure, but you're attributing this, deliberately or not, to the wrong cause. It wasn't that the fossil fuel industry somehow won - it was range of factors possibly including geopolitics, some existing plants aging, an emotional response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and the Green lobby. Basically, they voted to kill nuclear without a solid plan for an alternative, an…

Hmm. After former chancellor (Schroeder) heavily pushed Russian gas pipelines (Nord Stream 1 and 2) and then swiftly moved to working for Russian state-owned energy companies, including Nord Stream AG, Rosneft, and Gazprom, I have a different outlook on things.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#182

Post by coryrc »

newsclues wrote: post #67
toasty228 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People still build houses like energy is cheap and abundant. A properly insulated house in any temperate climate require very little heating or cooling. Spend 50k on insulation that will last the life of the building instead of 50k on heating and cooling devices which will need constant maintenance and replacement + fuel and end up costing 10x more over the life of the building. A modern house with modern insulation…

It costs a lot more than 50K to retrofit a house towards passive standards. Not everyone has the capital (even with gov subsidies) to make those investments, and it's generally the people who need to save a few bucks on bills the most that DONT have the money.

GP's argument is the marginal cost when building new is roughly that amount, not that any house can be retrofitted for that amount.

However, it's not that far off for retrofitting, if you do it when your siding already needs to be replaced. Add 3-5" XPS foam to the exterior of any standard house; if a basement you bring insulation several feet down and out below the ground. If cathedral ceiling, when replacing the roof you put 6-8" polyiso down over the sheathing before the new roofing material. If vented roof, get 1.5x code minimum blown in the attic. Air seal first, of course (1-hour of air sealing is the best ROI of anything you can do in an old house).

But nobody wants to put that money up.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#183

Post by balderdash »

gpm wrote: post #159
balderdash wrote: post #128

Just my 2c but I think the biggest thing we could do is to reduce the regulatory burden, cost, and complexity associated with installing roof mounted solar. This should be something that can be approved and installed in a week, and should be a half the price (put another it should have a double digit roi) . Right now all of the economics of home solar are consumed by regulation/complexity and the contractors / solar…

At the consumer scale the biggest thing we could do is follow the german model of panels that can be plugged into an outlet and installed in an hour by any homeowner (with the same capacity limits and requirements on the panels electronics to protect the grid/line workers during power outages). That said I'm pretty sure that grid-scale solar is the future of most solar energy, not home solar. It's just cheaper to do…

This statement is 100% correct, but I think is wrong - utility scale solar is 100% more efficient and cheaper to build at scale, the problem is finding large parcels of land to put it on that are close to where the power consumption is, as well as the complexity and cost associated with grid interconnection (and transition if it not close to demand)

Edit: though if we ever get to self driving cars there should be a whole lot of parking lots in metro areas that aren’t needed.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#184

Post by bb88 »

germandiago wrote: post #92
anon7000 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the technology connections video on this was fantastic. If one was to cover that land in solar, you’d produce far more than the current energy demands of the US. Relying on an energy source which requires constant, continuous resource extraction is fucking stupid when we can spend resources up front and get reliable energy (solar + battery) for decades with minimal operating cost & maintenance. And then we’ll h…

So here I go: if it is so stupid, why it is not done yet? Try not to blame anyone. Do it rationally if you can, from your message I understand your opinion. I say this as a person that has lived in a developing country the last 15 years. It is not that simple IMHO...

1. Solar panels need a huge capital expenditure up front.

2. Wind power works better for farmers and provide a smaller footprint. Drive on I-80 in Iowa on a clear night and you'll see the wind farms blink their red lights in the distance. Farmers can lease their land for wind turbines, and the generation companies take on the regulatory / capital / politcal risks, etc.

3. Farming is more or less free market based, and often farmers can let their grain sit in a silo until the price is optimal for them to sell. But for a given location, there's only one power company that you can use, and typically the power companies don't like people putting solar panels on the grid. In many states (like in Idaho) there's regulatory capture or weird politics preventing people putting solar panels up on their own land. (Again Idaho)

As a side note, agriculture uses up lots of water in deserts (more so than people), so it seems like in desert spaces like Idaho, solar would make a lot more sense than agriculture would. And we should move the agriculture to where the water naturally falls from the skies.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#185

Post by Ajedi32 »

DangitBobby wrote: post #46
mtoner23 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then they are wrong. The last 5-10 percent is the hardest part and it's the one consumers complain the most about! You can't run a factory on 90% power availability

But you _can_ run it on 90% solar plus 10% fossil fuels to achieve 100% power availability, which is what GP and the article suggest.

The issue is that to achieve that you can't just build 90% solar plus 10% fossil fuels. You would need to build 100% solar + 100% fossil fuels for the 10% of the time solar doesn't work.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#186

Post by idiotsecant »

balderdash wrote: post #91
mbesto wrote: post #41

Fun fact, 12 million hectares of land of used to produce corn used for ethanol which is used to produce gas. I'll let you draw the conclusion. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2025/04/trading-some-corn-e...

I’d rather people went rooftop solar, and put that land to producing food.

A roof is quite literally the worst place to put solar panels. Its a load most roofs are not designed for, and the whole point of a roof is to keep water out, which is compromised by attaching stuff to it.

The most efficient way to do large scale solar is with semi-local utility scale arrays with ultra efficient inverters and enormous chemical or hydro storage. We have a lot of unused land, that's not a problem

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#187

Post by fch42 »

lstodd wrote: post #35
iamjake648 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

First question should be: what latitude? Because where I live around 55th this winter we had five straight weeks below -15c / 5f daily average plus enough snowfall that it was infeasible to clean anything but the most major roads. Solar is out of question in these conditions and when thermal pump fails you have to evacuate. When just grid electricity fails you have to either have some sort of stored fuel backup or ev…

> "... handwavy crap ..."

handwavy argument. Yes, in the (sub)tropics the argument is even stronger pro-PV, not the least because it'll give you the opposite of heating - aircon - for free right when you need it. And considering summer heatwaves as have been seen the last few years "way north", that benefit will extend that way even if you wouldn't bother considering letting it "assist", if not fully replace, your heating. That said though, for 50° polewards and above, if you wanted to use PV in winter orient the panels vertically. If you can clad your too floor with shiplap larch so you can with PV panels. Given the price of timber ... there's a plan.

(only saying handwaving goes both ways)

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#188

Post by RandomLensman »

palata wrote: post #147
RandomLensman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> and there are alternatives That's a big if, though. Solar and batteries require globalisation, based on fossil fuels. I feel like nuclear reactors are a better choice. > in a conflict, not sure having many around is generally a good idea On the other hand, blowing nuclear reactors could be considered a big escalation. We see with Iran and Ukraine that it's not exactly the first thing one wants to target.

For shipping?

Wind, Tidal or geothermal are also around, for example.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#189

Post by 1970-01-01 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #172
1970-01-01 wrote: post #131

Elon said the same thing about the US a decade ago. "a fairly small corner of Nevada or Texas or Utah." https://www.pcmag.com/news/elon-musk-running-us-on-solar-req... See you next decade when we're saying the same thing and not doing it?

Musk was proposing about 1.2TW of solar capacity, the US installed about 250GW since then and is currently installing about 50GW a year and is projected to have 770GW by 2036 in a decades time. So the US is probably over-delivering compared with many things Elon has proposed delivering himself.

Apples and oranges though. One is a massive public works program and the other is private.

Re: Solar and batteries can power the world

#190

Post by tencentshill »

germandiago wrote: post #165
Retric wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics only changed recently and infrastructure lasts a long time. It’s the same reason EV’s make up a far larger share of new car sales than a percentage of overall cars, EV’s sucked 20+ years ago yet there are a lot of 20+ year old cars on the road. The US stopped building coal power plants over a decade ago but we still have a lot of them. Meanwhile we’ve mostly been building solar, which eventually means w…

> The economics only changed recently and infrastructure lasts a long time This needs investment also. An investment poorer people cannot or do not want to do. It is reasonable that when someone gives up a couple of things because that person is rich (rich as in a person in the developed world) the sacrifice is more or less acceptable. Now change environment and think that these sacrifices are way worse. Even worse t…

That's why it will require a functional government who can use taxes responsibly to make the technology affordable to everyone. The US had a pretty good start until one man decided to stop and try to reverse any progress made.
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