81–90 of 183 posts
Total U.S. energy use: about 27.6 million GWh/yr
From renewables: about 2.5 million GWh/yr
Renewables’ share of total energy: about 9%
This includes the total energy usage, including cars and buses and propane for heating homes and like just about everything else. This is the number we need to maximize.
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Saying humanity should never use nuclear energy just because someone might shoot a missile at it is incredibly stupid when CO2 emissions are causing climate change.
If climate change prevention is the target, then its also an no for nuclear. Nuclear reactors need tons of cement, the fuel needs an complicated and energy intensive process with a lot of waste.
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Firm/dispatchable capacity that can run for arbitrary durations is required unless you've solved seasonal storage. https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30386-6 Firm low-carbon resources consistently lower decarbonized electricity system costs • Availability of firm low-carbon resources reduces costs 10%–62% in zero-CO2 cases • Without these resources, electricity costs rise rapidly as CO2 limits near zer…
The solution mix needs to be tailored the location. Non-tropical equatorial countries don't have meaningful seasonality, so they don't need seasonal storage. For countries far north of the equator, it's more challenging, but there are multiple tools to address this, including: over-building so you have enough in winter, using wind which is seasonally negatively correlated with solar, importing power over HVDC, and di…
" we are dealing with exponential change in the price of storage and solar."
But not in grid storage. That is still incredibly expensive.
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> is bottlenecked by limited capacity to build new turbines currently. its bottlenecked by price. The reason why the UK's electricity is so fucking expensive is because its pegged to international gas prices
My comment, like the linked article, was focused entirely on the US's situation, which has abundant fossil gas to the point that many frackers burn it as a waste product. I'd totally agree for UK and continental Europe. The difference between oil and gas is massive on the distribution angle, oil moves easily as long as there's not a naval blockade, but fossil gas requires super super expensive infrastructure either v…
Extending the life of existing power infra is low-hanging fruit for more power short term, but the economics of renewables are just unstoppable. Article states 93% of new generation capacity was renewable which is good, but I can sense that nimbyism is growing towards wind and solar. Not to mention the animus towards China who has wisely cornered manufacturing of these. The US has shot itself in the foot because of i…
What's even more important is how solar, and to a lesser extent other tech, served as a gateway for China to accumulate electrical engineering, physics, and chemistry talent the US seems committed to offshoring by incentivizing universities to hire the cheapest available grad student talent (inevitably from China). We are training them and not our own.
That isn't how that works. Domestic students are just as cheap.
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Saying humanity should never use nuclear energy just because someone might shoot a missile at it is incredibly stupid when CO2 emissions are causing climate change.
If climate change prevention is the target, then its also an no for nuclear. Nuclear reactors need tons of cement, the fuel needs an complicated and energy intensive process with a lot of waste.
(0) https://co2coalition.org/2024/05/21/coals-importance-for-sol...
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The solution mix needs to be tailored the location. Non-tropical equatorial countries don't have meaningful seasonality, so they don't need seasonal storage. For countries far north of the equator, it's more challenging, but there are multiple tools to address this, including: over-building so you have enough in winter, using wind which is seasonally negatively correlated with solar, importing power over HVDC, and di…
"over-building so you have enough in winter" This makes wind and solar much more expensive to the point where nuclear is cheaper. " we are dealing with exponential change in the price of storage and solar." But not in grid storage. That is still incredibly expensive.
No it doesn't. Why do you just say that? There are simulation studies like CSIRO's work which show that it's still cheaper than nuclear after you account for everything.
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It’s worth noting that at least one of those is being kept open against the operator’s wishes, as it’s no longer profitable to operate. That’s how ridiculous these people are about coal.
"you're not allowed to shut this down until after congressman so and so wins reelection."
On the other hand for House reps the elections are every two years like clockwork, "after they win election" is in effect never because they will already be thinking about re-election, so if that's what they're asking for they mean never.
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> what a horrendous insecurity nuclear power plants are. A direct missile attack on one could be catastrophic The same holds for hydro. Even worse, there would be no time for evacuation. Yet nobody is considering banning dams.
Not in the same ballpark. Chernobyl nearly poisoned the entire continent’s water supply. Nuclear waste is far far worse than excess water.
Extending the life of existing power infra is low-hanging fruit for more power short term, but the economics of renewables are just unstoppable. Article states 93% of new generation capacity was renewable which is good, but I can sense that nimbyism is growing towards wind and solar. Not to mention the animus towards China who has wisely cornered manufacturing of these. The US has shot itself in the foot because of i…
I still don't understand the economics when it comes to power all the time, not some of the time, and I rarely see that being mentioned in this sort of gung-ho post. I want to feel how you feel - can you help with the specifics there?