Slashdot Mirror
Relying on Renewables Alone Significantly Inflates the Cost of Overhauling Energy (technologyreview.com)
A growing number of US cities and states have proposed or even passed legislation that would require producing all electricity from renewable energy sources like solar and wind within a few decades. That might sound like a great idea. But a growing body of evidence shows it's not. From a report: It increasingly appears that insisting on 100 percent renewable sources -- and disdaining others that don't produce greenhouse gases, such as nuclear power and fossil-fuel plants with carbon-capture technology -- is wastefully expensive and needlessly difficult. In the latest piece of evidence, a study published in Energy & Environmental Science determined that solar and wind energy alone could reliably meet about 80 percent of recent US annual electricity demand, but massive investments in energy storage and transmission would be needed to avoid major blackouts. Pushing to meet 100 percent of demand with these resources would require building a huge number of additional wind and solar farms -- or expanding electricity storage to an extent that would be prohibitively expensive at current prices. Or some of both.
Renewables are always cheaper. The price of fuel for fossil fuels will go up. The price of decomishing a nuclear site will double again in the next 10 years.
What makes renewables bad is that we don't have reliable storage.
Long term is every home can cover 75% of their bas usage with solar and batteries then the need for large grid scale systems shrinks. The large grid is fragile and a mistake in Ohio, can wipe out new York City for 12 hours. (2003 blackout)
More distributed renewables and smaller but numerous storage. Would strengthen the grid with excess.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
SJW world cannot exist on logic and reasoning.
Solution - adapt devices to power output. Use them only when electricity is available.
What makes renewables bad is that we don't have reliable storage.
We have reliable storage, or at least the technology to make it. Tesla and others have seen to that. What we don't have is cheap and plentiful storage. Part of that is because we haven't ramped up battery production to full scale and part of it is that we're still trying to reduce cost in the face of subsidized fossil fuels which makes clean options seem more expensive than they actually are.
Long term is every home can cover 75% of their bas usage with solar and batteries then the need for large grid scale systems shrinks.
Yes, exactly. Every rooftop that can have solar should have solar. It would make the grid more reliable, cleaner, and eventually cheaper. It would require the grid to be upgraded in certain ways but that's not a bad thing. What we have now is rather outdated anyway. Yes we need batteries to do this but again, that's not a bad thing in the long run.
There are two sides of such an argument.
1. Just because it works in Europe it doesn't mean it will work in the USA.
2. Just because it works in Europe it doesn't mean it will not work in the USA.
We were able in the past make a trans-continental railroad, an Interstate system, That connects every state together. Nearly every home has access to Clean Water, Electricity, Telephone... These improvements while cost a lot, helped build the United States into an Economic Power house. Because the 325Million people have access to a wider infrastructure and be part of society, while having the property and space to utilize their own means.
This was all fine and good until the stupid Abortion Debates, where peoples view on the topic, painted the other side as morally deficient. Calling the Other side Misogynists or Baby Killers. Which after a few generations of this, has created a polarized society where working with the other side is considered bad. Even if it for all best interests.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Actually, I don't see any contradiction at all, and you skipped various other links in this piece such as: Deep Decarbonization of the Electric Power Sector from March 2017
I think your sneer-o-matic is stuck.
There is no contradiction. This is the standard 80/20 rule of thumb in engineering. Designing to achieve 80% utilization is easy and cheap. Designing to achieve the remaining 20% is hard and ridiculously expensive, and usually not worth it. All TFA and the paper do is confirm that this rule also applies to renewables.