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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

#521

Post by ben_w »

gosub100 wrote: post #517
pjc50 wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is that energy "green" ? Not very, but neither is continuing to use fossil fuels on a huge scale.

So why do it at all if there is no accounting to prove it's green? It's almost as if this movement is a scam. No CO2 equivalent publications on solar, or on recycling. It's just "do what we say or the climate will die". I reject that imperative.

Before you've built any green power plants, none of the energy you use to build green power plants can itself be green.

When all the power plants are green, all of the energy you use to build green power plants is necessarily green.

How green a new power plant is, during the process of construction, is a statement of how much progress you've already made before this step, not how much you make in the act of making this step.

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

#522

Post by gosub100 »

ben_w wrote: post #521
gosub100 wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why do it at all if there is no accounting to prove it's green? It's almost as if this movement is a scam. No CO2 equivalent publications on solar, or on recycling. It's just "do what we say or the climate will die". I reject that imperative.

Before you've built any green power plants, none of the energy you use to build green power plants can itself be green. When all the power plants are green, all of the energy you use to build green power plants is necessarily green. How green a new power plant is, during the process of construction, is a statement of how much progress you've already made before this step, not how much you make in the act of making th…

its not a green plant if they conveniently escape all accounting. its a scam.

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

#523

Post by ben_w »

pfdietz wrote: post #472
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…

With sufficiently cheap storage, no transmission is needed. There's a tradeoff, and batteries are rapidly improving.

While true, with sufficiently cheap transmission, no storage is needed.

But only the Chinese have either the capability to, or interest in, building a one-square-meter-cross-section aluminium belt around the planet, and that means a geopolitical faff.

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

#524

Post by ben_w »

gosub100 wrote: post #522
ben_w wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you've built any green power plants, none of the energy you use to build green power plants can itself be green. When all the power plants are green, all of the energy you use to build green power plants is necessarily green. How green a new power plant is, during the process of construction, is a statement of how much progress you've already made before this step, not how much you make in the act of making th…

its not a green plant if they conveniently escape all accounting. its a scam.

They're also not escaping any such accounting, but that wasn't my point.

PV pays its own energy cost in a few months these days. But even then, the very first PV had to be made with mostly fossil fuels and some hydroelectric, now the new ones in China are made with 35% renewables.

Grids have the same question: how green it is to modify today is the current status of the power supply (etc.), not the status it will be when it's been modified.

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

#525

Post by mrspuratic »

tstrimple wrote: post #493
mrspuratic wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1979 Jimmy Carter installed solar (thermal) panels on the White House roof as part of his fairly progressive environmental and fuel efficiency policies. Now I feel old :/ And also angry that it's been 40 years and electricity generation is still >50% fossil fuels, never mind world energy use overall.

And Reagan tore them down. If you want to look at why we as a country suck at green energy, you don't have to look further than the Republican party behavior over the decades. The party explicitly responsible for why we can't have any number of Good Things.

Yes, but maybe not "tore" since they got reused elsewhere. Solar was (quietly) reinstated by GW, but not on the Whitehouse itself until Obama, I think. https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_13562...

I don't get the two party system where there's such acrimony involved in trashing and undoing anything accomplished by the opposition .

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

#526

Post by pfdietz »

ben_w wrote: post #523
pfdietz wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With sufficiently cheap storage, no transmission is needed. There's a tradeoff, and batteries are rapidly improving.

While true, with sufficiently cheap transmission, no storage is needed. But only the Chinese have either the capability to, or interest in, building a one-square-meter-cross-section aluminium belt around the planet, and that means a geopolitical faff.

> While true, with sufficiently cheap transmission, no storage is needed.

Where "sufficiently cheap" here means "affordable over intercontinental distances".

I believe storage costs are falling faster than transmission costs.

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

#527

Post by privatelypublic »

marze wrote: post #464
jillesvangurp wrote: post #175

The article doesn't mention a technology that deserves some attention because it counters the biggest and most obvious deficiency in solar: the sun doesn't always shine. That technology is cables. Cables allow us to move energy over long distances. And with HVCD cables that can mean across continents, oceans, time zones, and climate regions. The nice things about cables is that they are currently being underutilized.…

Transmission lines are a interesting idea, but expensive. Once solar is cheap (like now, as it already is), you can put in 3x what is needed on a sunny day, and power everything on cloudy days. Solar runs on cloudy days. Night obviously requires a different solution. Start by installing solar over all parking lots. To think that you won't be able to run a 100% solar/wind grid is a bet against human ingenuity. If gene…

You missed a huge upcoming one: EV's. I firmly believe that paying EV owners with vehicle-to-load capability will soon be used to smooth out peaks and troughs in the grid. Maybe in the future even systems that use DC fast charging contacts to get the huge DC voltages needed for an external inverter capable of powering several houses.

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

#528

Post by jonplackett »

adrianN wrote: post #273
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 are not that hard to produce. China just does it cheaper than other countries. Any industrialized country can easily set up the necessary infrastructure if they choose to do so for strategic reasons.

They’re not hard to produce but they are hard to produce really cheap as in as cheap as China. For lots of reasons (state aid being one, extreme competition being another).

It’s hard in a capitalist country to do things that don’t make business sense - eg long term thinking. So I don’t see any reasonable route where China isn’t still making all the panels any time soon.

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

#529

Post by jonplackett »

pshirshov wrote: post #162
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…

> China produces pretty much all the solar panels Why didn't other countries build up solar industries? Were busy with fossils? Were too greedy to subsidise?

We let big corporations run things and they just do what’s best for short term profit.

Long term thinking in the west is like 5 years. Long term thinking in China is 100+ years.

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

#530

Post by triceratops »

conductr wrote: post #519
triceratops wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The rest of the world will keep burning fossil fuel As the article spends so many paragraphs to explain to us, the rest of the world is increasingly not burning fossil fuel for their new energy needs. Most of the fuel it burns is for the energy it already uses. And solar is starting to take a bite out of that too.

That's great but if we had accelerated our transition, it wouldn't have lead to them accelerating their transition. The things are not linked or correlated.

Solar has gotten cheaper and cheaper largely because as we build more panels and batteries, we find efficiencies. If we had accelerated our transition then the increased demand would have driven even more efficiencies and it would be even cheaper it is now.

If it were cheaper, developing countries would buy even more of it, accelerating their own transition.

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