Solar is great, but will never be the only source. The same way burning carbon has never been the only source.
We need to be able to cleanly generate electrons any time, any place and solar can’t do that. Neither can wind, neither can oceans, neither can hydro. We have nuclear now, we still need fusion and geothermal ASAP.
It must be wild being the kind of person who reads about a piece of positive news like any renewable being widely adopted and then believes that it means that everyone is going all-in, 100% on it. Also hydro powers nearly all of Québec and in Ontario there are plenty of different sources of power but we still call it a “hydro bill”, not an “electricity bill”.
You’re like the people who hear about reducing cars in city downtowns and bring up rural farmers needing their trucks as if anyone is talking about that.
Whoa, leave the farmers alone! We’ll never reach 100% farmer dependence. The sun doesn’t shine at night, so plants don’t grow, because they’re sleeping. If you’re hungry at nighttime, you’ll have to harvest from a sleeping plant, and they’ll get angry at you. This is why relying 100% on farmers will result in us eating all the farmers, just like the coal miners who eat only coal, but they also drink petrol. Going all-in on any single source is a recipe for disaster, which is why we need more tractors and need to teach cows how to drive the tractors so that we can eat them, too.
Solars power generation almost halves during winter in any semi-northern/southern region (compared to peak in summer). If wind isn’t plentiful in those areas then you do run into a generation issue.
Solar is great, but I do suspect that there will need to be something else beyond just solar and batteries to make renewable work.
Why do this threads always degrade to 100% renewable solutions only? We can generate most of our power via wind and sun, the rest we can buffer, we don’t need to eliminate burning just reduce it to sporadic buffering of the grid.
Of course the planet’s systems can handle some degree of CO₂ emissions. But there are fields much harder to decarbonize than energy supply. Waste removal for example.
But insisting on a zero emissions solution is exactly what I would do if I were an oil and gas CEO.
And more importantly that “most of our power” that can be generated by wind and sun is far higher than what we do now. This is not a valid argument against building out renewables as fast as possible.
It may be an argument about where our endpoint is but by that time technology and circumstances will both have changed so it’s still an invalid argument
I read a study last fall claiming that with current technology, renewables plus batteries is the cheapest way to generate power, up over 95%! Beyond that you’d have to way overbuild to catch rare weather events so keeping a few gas peaker power plants around are cheaper.
And that was before this years announcements on sodium batteries and aluminum batteries
Nuclear isn’t an energy source that can ramp up or down with demand. In fact, it can take hours to adjust the output.
While nuclear still has a place, that particular place is flat energy input and black start sites.
We don’t need nuclear. We have geothermal, hydro, solar, tidal and wind energy. Combine that with a decentralized approach, a well designed grid infrastructure and storage capacity, voilà. No need for neither fossile nor nuclear.
Solar is great, but will never be the only source. The same way burning carbon has never been the only source.
We need to be able to cleanly generate electrons any time, any place and solar can’t do that. Neither can wind, neither can oceans, neither can hydro. We have nuclear now, we still need fusion and geothermal ASAP.
It must be wild being the kind of person who reads about a piece of positive news like any renewable being widely adopted and then believes that it means that everyone is going all-in, 100% on it. Also hydro powers nearly all of Québec and in Ontario there are plenty of different sources of power but we still call it a “hydro bill”, not an “electricity bill”.
You’re like the people who hear about reducing cars in city downtowns and bring up rural farmers needing their trucks as if anyone is talking about that.
Whoa, leave the farmers alone! We’ll never reach 100% farmer dependence. The sun doesn’t shine at night, so plants don’t grow, because they’re sleeping. If you’re hungry at nighttime, you’ll have to harvest from a sleeping plant, and they’ll get angry at you. This is why relying 100% on farmers will result in us eating all the farmers, just like the coal miners who eat only coal, but they also drink petrol. Going all-in on any single source is a recipe for disaster, which is why we need more tractors and need to teach cows how to drive the tractors so that we can eat them, too.
This is such a chaotic response. 11/10, no notes haha
Bro has never heard of batteries, apparently.
Solars power generation almost halves during winter in any semi-northern/southern region (compared to peak in summer). If wind isn’t plentiful in those areas then you do run into a generation issue.
Solar is great, but I do suspect that there will need to be something else beyond just solar and batteries to make renewable work.
Why do this threads always degrade to 100% renewable solutions only? We can generate most of our power via wind and sun, the rest we can buffer, we don’t need to eliminate burning just reduce it to sporadic buffering of the grid.
Because burning kills the climate. We need to eliminate it.
The planet can handle low levels of C02, just not the levels we are doing.
But insisting on a zero emissions solution is exactly what I would do if I were an oil and gas CEO.
Of course the planet’s systems can handle some degree of CO₂ emissions. But there are fields much harder to decarbonize than energy supply. Waste removal for example.
How so?
Not if it’s closed loop or C negative with renewable sources. There’s nothing inherently bad about combustion, it’s just the scale and externalities.
And more importantly that “most of our power” that can be generated by wind and sun is far higher than what we do now. This is not a valid argument against building out renewables as fast as possible.
It may be an argument about where our endpoint is but by that time technology and circumstances will both have changed so it’s still an invalid argument
Fuck that, fossil’s too expensive
Not if demand drops 90%.
Well, fingers crossed then
If you could make a solar that works at night, this guy will say that it can’t be moved. If it can be moved, he’ll say it doesn’t fit in the pocket.
I read a study last fall claiming that with current technology, renewables plus batteries is the cheapest way to generate power, up over 95%! Beyond that you’d have to way overbuild to catch rare weather events so keeping a few gas peaker power plants around are cheaper.
And that was before this years announcements on sodium batteries and aluminum batteries
All the battery tech is coming out of China. USA really shit the bed on ignoring battery R&D.
Like so many things, a lot of battery R&S was done in the US but someone decided it wasn’t profitable or something so we should just drop it
Nuclear isn’t an energy source that can ramp up or down with demand. In fact, it can take hours to adjust the output.
While nuclear still has a place, that particular place is flat energy input and black start sites.
We don’t need nuclear. We have geothermal, hydro, solar, tidal and wind energy. Combine that with a decentralized approach, a well designed grid infrastructure and storage capacity, voilà. No need for neither fossile nor nuclear.
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