We Need an Energy Miracle (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#31

Post by Robotbeat » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 4:48 AM UTC

melling wrote: post #19

Nomentatus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent. Please send me a check for this insignificant amount, at current wholesale (business consumption) rates.

What does the amount of money have to do with anything? If someone found a way to reduce the $20 trillion US deficit by 0.09%, and someone said that it’s not significant, would it rate the snarky “well, then send me a check for that amount”? Would you optimize a program by refactoring a function that used 0.09% of the execution time?

How much of the economy uses Bitcoin, though? That's the denominator to use.

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#32

Post by rtpg » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 4:50 AM UTC

openfuture wrote: post #16

noncoml wrote: post #3

All this cryptocurrenty craziness doesn't help either. I don't understand how the HN crowd that is usually so pro-environment, is also happy with the tons of wasted energy from crytptocurrency mining.

It's still young technology and the energy efficiency will improve with the lightning network or proof of stake or different concepts like filecoin. The societal gain from these technologies is potentially very large and will hopefully realign interests in the direction of saving the environment rather than bailing out businesses.. But the most sane definition of money is actually energy imo Also comparing the energy…

Right now a single transaction on the bitcoin network uses as much energy as powering 7 homes for a day.

There's infrastructure costs, but Visa's network doesn't need that much to process a single POST request

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#33

Post by That-one-thing » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 4:59 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #28

And we got it. Wind power works, is cost effective, and scales well. Solar power works, is cost effective, and scales well. Battery storage works, is starting to be cost effective, and scales well. Fracking works, too, until that level of reserves runs out. Energy has moved down the priority list of problems.

No, now I have trouble finding English sources and I need to go in a while.

But no wind power does not work in large scale in a electric system. The problem is that you need to have a lot of extra power and power electronics to stabilize the effect of wind power. It disturbs the frequency of the electricity in the network and you have to balance it with other sources you have complete control over to keep the power stable.

When the Swedish energy department made a study they found that we can't have more than 10 TWh of wind power (7%)[0]. There is one study from one group that says that we can have up to 30 TWh (21%)[2], but if we are realistic it's probably in the middle. This is things my professors in wind power told us, and they really like wind power.

Sorry the sources are in Swedish, but I really advice you to look into the subject before calming that it's all perfect.

[0] http://www.svk.se/siteassets/om-oss/rapporter/20130313-integ...

[1]http://fof.se/tidning/2012/7/tal-elnatet-mer-vindkraft Lennart Söders forskargrupp.

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#34

Post by pkulak » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 5:01 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #25

layoric wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also comparing the energy cost of printing physical money with mining cryptocurrencies is favorable to CC's iirc. Really? Last I checked, taking the averaged of the top 10 most efficient mining setups, BitCoin network was pulling 9GW+. https://twitter.com/layoric/status/906087502414352384 Another model here showing 18 TWh annual usage, that's still an insane amount of power. https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-…

> Really? Last I checked, taking the averaged of the top 10 most efficient mining setups, BitCoin network was pulling 9GW+. And where is the comparison vs physical money? You know, with trucks moving around every day, and the cost of insurance, special facilities, salaries, etc...

Except that cash is used in about a third of consumer transactions, and basically not at all otherwise. Everything else is chain of trust and essentially free, in terms of energy and every other resource.

Besides, a single truck can move millions of dollars, and I doubt reaching out to take my money and then making change contributes very much to the salary of a shop keeper. Probably far less than scanning my phone and waiting an hour for 3 confirmations. The only way a cash transaction would use the same power as a Bitcoin one would be if I had to personally drive the money 1000 miles to its destination in a Tesla.

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#35

Post by Caveman_Coder » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 5:04 AM UTC

wbl wrote: post #27

Caveman_Coder wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TerraPower is interesting, especially since it recycles previously enriched uranium. On a side note, as far as the future of nuclear power goes, I'm more interested in LFTR designs and I think Flibe Energy is going to someone to watch here in the near future. http://flibe-energy.com/

Totally OT, but have they cracked the corrosion issues?

The last I remember hearing about it was that there is active research in a new Hastelloy-N plus Titanium alloy combo that supposedly eliminates corrosion and neutron embrittlement.

http://moltensalt.org.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/ref...

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#36

Post by QAPereo » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 5:39 AM UTC

Caveman_Coder wrote: post #21

melling wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You derailed the entire point of the article by taking a tangent into a completely different, essentially irrrelevant, discussion. “Bitcoin's electricity consumption as a percentage of the world's electricity consumption 0.09%“ How about Bill Gates and Terrapower trying to build a new generation of nuclear power in China? https://qz.com/627113/bill-gates-says-china-is-the-best-plac...

TerraPower is interesting, especially since it recycles previously enriched uranium. On a side note, as far as the future of nuclear power goes, I'm more interested in LFTR designs and I think Flibe Energy is going to someone to watch here in the near future. http://flibe-energy.com/

I like the notion of Bi-Pb eutectic designs myself, but LFTR is much more likely in the near term.

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#37

Post by LoSboccacc » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 5:55 AM UTC

Nomentatus wrote: post #15

melling wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Bitcoin's electricity consumption as a percentage of the world's electricity consumption 0.09%“ By definition 0.09% is not significant. Eliminating it would not significantly impact climate change.

Excellent. Please send me a check for this insignificant amount, at current wholesale (business consumption) rates.

this is it, we reached peak strawman

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#38

Post by ZeroGravitas » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 5:56 AM UTC

That-one-thing wrote: post #33

Animats wrote: post #28

And we got it. Wind power works, is cost effective, and scales well. Solar power works, is cost effective, and scales well. Battery storage works, is starting to be cost effective, and scales well. Fracking works, too, until that level of reserves runs out. Energy has moved down the priority list of problems.

No, now I have trouble finding English sources and I need to go in a while. But no wind power does not work in large scale in a electric system. The problem is that you need to have a lot of extra power and power electronics to stabilize the effect of wind power. It disturbs the frequency of the electricity in the network and you have to balance it with other sources you have complete control over to keep the power s…

Sweden has had more than 7% wind for a few years now, so we can safely say it's higher than 7%.

There's actually a single giant windfarm due for completion in 2020 that on its own will provide more than 8%.

There are some reasons to think solar and wind have physical limits and can't provide 100% on their own (or even together) economically just as nuclear on its own doesn't really make economic sense, but there's a long history of groups predicting false limits based on strange assumptions.

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#39

Post by ZeroGravitas » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 6:03 AM UTC

The miracle will be society not being run by vested interests who maintain dirty expensive energy sources for their own narrow benefit.

Personally, I've found Gates's public pronouncements unhelpful as they've promoted this idea that the current tech is of no use when simple things like replacing coal with natural gas can have large impacts.

Re: We Need an Energy Miracle (2015)

#40

Post by davedx » Mon, Oct 02, 2017, 6:32 AM UTC

nickhalfasleep wrote: post #30

I wonder if storage could be offset with sufficient grid ties. Power could be shared across the day/night side of the planet, from a sufficient number of areas to avoid 100% cloud cover.

Yes, these are already being built. Interconnects are a large part of the energy transition. In addition to day/night connections, there is also a plan to connect desert regions of Tunisia to Europe via an undersea link, to take advantage of CSP plants that will be built there.

Interconnections reduce the effects of renewable variability.