The Earth is Dying

[Antiboyscout]

Base load is a bitch and the goose neck from solar only makes it worse.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/worl ... imate.html
"Today, nearly a quarter of all electricity produced in Germany still comes from burning lignite, often called brown coal, one of the dirtiest fossil fuels, making Germany the world’s leader in the mining and burning of lignite, according to the International Energy Agency."

I love how you're making an argument against renewable energy, and post an article about that is almost entirely about political pressure against renewable energy because it will cost coal mining jobs.

There are certainly problems with renewable energy. Our current electrical grids don't play well with highly variable energy sources, we don't have good ways to store excess capacity, and it simply isn't suited for things that require both mobility and large amounts of energy.

But no energy source is suited to all things, which is why all modern economies work on a mix of energy sources. That isn't going to change. What WILL change is the ratio. Renewables are on the way up, coal is on the way down. Oil and nuclear are more difficult to predict...the tech could go either way in the next decade or so.

Considering the Electric Car was invented at roughly the same time as the internal combustion car, history doesn't seem to suggest a victory for electric.

Is this...is this a serious comment?

Technology is not static, and its rate of change is not linear. Gunpower enabled both cannons and rockets at the same time, and people promptly set about building both, but cannons ruled the battlefield for hundreds of years, because we lacked the technology to really capitalize on the potential strengths of rockets. Then we got the micro controller, and the cannon almost instantly fell from favor, because now you could guide a rocket over long distances.

And predicting that kind of change is very hard to do. Electrical cars are...kinda ok now, but they have some distinct problems that really limit their ability to compete with gas on a wide scale. But if some clever bloke ever invents a working fuel cell that could change VERY quickly. The prospect of truly autonomous vehicles would also potentially turn that model on its head.

Your positive article made it a positive point that on one day at one point 100% of power demand was supplied by renewables (including hydro and biomass). Just ignore that coal power plant burning in the background to produce base load.

It's always been batteries. They hold back renewables as they hold back electric cars. As for predictions, I wasn't the one saying history says this perennial problem has and will be solved.

[Antiboyscout]

The joke of course with fusion is that it's fifty years away, and was fifty years away fifty years ago, and will still be fifty years away in fifty years. Some caveman probably looked up at the sun and said "I'll have that working in fifty years' time."

Ironic considering climate scientists seem to always claim that the destruction of the earth is 10-12 years away every 10-12 years.

[Darth Wedgius]

How about energy choice? Let the consumers pick which of the available suppliers to purchase their electricity from. It's being used here and there in the U.S.

[Robovski]

How about energy choice? Let the consumers pick which of the available suppliers to purchase their electricity from. It's being used here and there in the U.S.

If we had a National Grid equivalent you could buy your energy from whom you saw fit instead of your local monopoly.

[Darth Wedgius]

How about energy choice? Let the consumers pick which of the available suppliers to purchase their electricity from. It's being used here and there in the U.S.

If we had a National Grid equivalent you could buy your energy from whom you saw fit instead of your local monopoly.

That would be nice. I'm unsure of how transmission line loss would affect it (about 1% loss per 100 miles, from what I've read), so getting solar power from Texas to New York might be out, but I think the west coast could benefit from that.

[Antiboyscout]

How about energy choice? Let the consumers pick which of the available suppliers to purchase their electricity from. It's being used here and there in the U.S.

If we had a National Grid equivalent you could buy your energy from whom you saw fit instead of your local monopoly.

That would be nice. I'm unsure of how transmission line loss would affect it (about 1% loss per 100 miles, from what I've read), so getting solar power from Texas to New York might be out, but I think the west coast could benefit from that.

You would have to contrast the loss with the benefit of building solar where it it effective (arid sunny locations closer to the equator) and the syncing of power production and power demand (power demand spikes around sunset and solar production spikes at noon) the 4 hour gap could reduce the power gooseneck.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

How about energy choice? Let the consumers pick which of the available suppliers to purchase their electricity from. It's being used here and there in the U.S.

If we had a National Grid equivalent you could buy your energy from whom you saw fit instead of your local monopoly.

Lucky me, I live in Pennsylvania! We may have statewide legal anti-LGBTQ discrimination and flammable tapwater, but at least we can make decisions about our electricity!