I was having a debate with a big eco-warrior buddy of mine recently so many you anons can help settle this for us.
Technologically speaking, are/will solar panels a viable alternative to fossil fuels?
I was having a debate with a big eco-warrior buddy of mine recently so many you anons can help settle this for us.
solar panels are made of fossil fuels and also need to be replaced every once and a while so 100% no
But if the net energy gain on modern panels is massive. This means that they are definitely viable to replace, as they provide the energy to manufacture their replacements. And if they get better there will need to be half as many or 1/10th as many or what have you, so the use of fossil fuels will only decrease per panel over time.
No, solar boilers in some cases maybe.
you mean for water heating?
what's your resident shithole, anon?
I did read somewhere that they are 10 or 20 times higher in yield than they were a decade ago. Surely this is on the horizon?
>you mean for water heating?
he probably means solar thermal powerplants
heating water is pretty efficient because we only need ~40ºC water to shower or for heating systems, and that is easily achievable with solar power
your pic rel has been a disaster so far because most of them were build when solar panel were expensive and now they're dirt cheap so they're never going to get back their money
Ahh I see. I don't how these work, but I presume it is using heat from the sun to heat water like the steam generated by most power plants.
Yes, but if you are talking about something like batteries or solar panels, they are relatively small units. So does it make much of a difference to have a field of solar panels or one on each roof?
that was about batteries, not solar cells
This. Gfs relatives in Germany have a wood boiler + solar boiler system. Less fragile, longer lasting, direct heating (radiators or underfloor). Her uncle has a part time gig with the town to clear diseased/downed trees. He uses them for firewood. He also collects rainwater and has ducks/cats/dogs. Very comfy.
Not in most cases, no. The scale isn't there, the storage technology isn't there, the required material aren't there. Solar is a good investment, certainly, but it's not going to replace fossil fuels in the foreseeable future. The only thing right now that could outright replace fossil fuels for most uses would be nuclear.
>And if they get better there will need to be half as many or 1/10th as many
It's not going to get 100% better, let alone 1000%. There are advancements to be made, but you're not going to get 100% more energy per area any time soon.
No. Once you account for all uses (concrete, smelting, industrial inputs, electricity, transport, fertilizer, plastics, etc.), renewables are only about 2% of energy use, and most of that is hydro (which is only practicable in a few countries) and biofuels (which are either greenwashing, or a fancy kind of agricultural subsidy depending on how charitable you're feeling). is correct.
well thats also a matter of how you measure. most individuals' net power usage is going down so tiny power sources can cover more of that. if your solar can cover 90% of cases and then you need a super nuke plant for a much heavier 10% that's fine too.
>most individuals' net power usage is going down
Cancelled out by population growth.
The Netherlands (pretty much in the back row of EU green energy integration) recently has moments during the day where 100% of the electricity is produced by wind/sun
Netherlands is a small country with little in the way of heavy industry. Cutting your local greenhouse emissions doesn't mean much if it's because you outsourced the pollution to China.
Nah, the small/very densely populated flat country is what makes it a challenge. There's no huge free spaces to plant solar panel farms. If The Netherlands can do it so can the rest of the west.
The Netherlands doesn't have the energy demand of even a halfway developmented western country. Yet alone a country the size of the United Stayes.
>moments during the day where 100% of the electricity is produced by wind/sun
>moments
I can imagine a load of lanky dutch gas plant workers desperately scrambling to throttle back the turbine when those moments arrive.
Must be exciting on the rare mid-days when it isn't cloudy and the entire continent isn't becalmed.
>The only thing right now that could outright replace fossil fuels for most uses would be nuclear.
Nuclear can't replace FF because I can't own a nuclear generator and keep it in my garage
you can use nuclear to charge batteries or hydrogen cells or something and then it would be even better than fossil fuels at that.
That still requires me to bend over and lube up for Daddy Government to use my Bussy
Look at what happens to Iran when they try to go nuclear power generation
you could never possibly build your own electrical grid or tools anyway, dont know why you think that one central source is worse than that.
You completely avoided the Iran point, which, yeah, they can build their own electic grid, that was my point
>Look at what happens to Iran when they try to go nuclear power generation
the usual, israel and usa meddling into other countries' business
that's not fault of nuclear energy
this is the reason nuclear fails
it's not the expense
it's not the waste
it's not the danger
it's the central control and lack of freedom, the perfect globohomosexual power source
If we let big nucular run power plants as cheap/free as possible, then suddenly safety and waste become problems. You have to choose: Regulated and safe or muh freedums and pollution/accuedents
The US Department of Energy estimates one football field, filled to ten yards in height, has been filled in the last fifty years to meet 20% off the USA's demand.
That means a building/facility with the foot 1x football field, filled to the height of 25 non-manlet men (about 14 storeys high) is sufficient to fill 50 years of total US capacity.
It is SO overblown. Nuclear waste could be handled by one decent sized facility in the middle of some shithole desert.
>one football field
damn, imperial system was already moronic, but this is next level
and yuropoors use it too, just like "olympic pools"
It is 1.38 acres, if you are interested.
360 feet in length and 160 feet in width.
>one decent sized facility in the middle of some shithole desert
When I was going to college at Texas Tech, I took a trip with some friends to El Paso. We drove there (seemed like a "good idea"???), cut through the corner of New Mexico. We stopped a few places along the way, Carlsbad Caverns, Roswell, White Sands, etc.
But a lot of the time I was thinking about how it was a wasteland with no possibility of future industry, or habitation.
I wasn't surprised to later find out that's where the WIPP is. Perfect use for that land.
>lubes up for Big Daddy Oil or Big Daddy Green or Big Daddy Lithium instead
>nuclear bad because a 60 year old soviet piece of junk shat the bed due to operator error
>NEW: nuclear bad because Iran's constantly sabotaged nuclear progran fails
And stuxnet was also the fault of nuclear energy, wasn't it? Big oil shills seem to be getting desperate.
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Bussy so warm so delicious
I did say "for most uses". Yeah, if you live in the woods and aren't connected to the grid, nuclear isn't going to do much for you.
Well, you could, but you'd regret it when you get into an accident.
>And if they get better
they didn't get better in the last decade, so why would they suddenly get better now?
efficiency is still at ~20% peak and the more wattage is achieved simply by making them bigger
>efficiency is still at ~20% peak and the more wattage is achieved simply by making them bigger
Only to a degree. A few years ago 18% efficiency was great and now we're slowly creeping up to 21%. Importantly output without full sun is increasing and still has a relatively large margin among manufacturers; though part of this increase it thanks to tricks like split cells.
Solar panel efficiency, at least how they're currently designed, can LITERALLY never reach 100%. The laws of thermodynamics limit it to about 30% for Si cells, so there will not be a "massive increase". I doubt tandem solar cells will see a residential use in the next several decades, let alone the requirements for concentrating sunlight (see Shockley-Queisser Limit). Undoubtedly solar can play a role in weening off fossil fuels, but it just isn't practical to generate the amount of power we consume.
Not to mention that solar irradiation on the surface peaks at around 1000 W/m2 which is not very energy dense to begin with.
>Solar panel efficiency, at least how they're currently designed, can LITERALLY never reach 100%.
Luckily for the people shilling them, their audience has absolutely zero idea about physics so telling them the efficiency is only at 21% so far makes them think there is a lot of upwards potential because they have no idea what the thermodynamic efficiency limit is
Or they are informed and know that while the current state of the art is around 23% it wasn't that long ago that they were 10 or 15%, and that they're still not near their theoretical limits since they aren't generating power from heat.
Doesn't matter that they'll never be 100% efficient any more that it doesn't matter other sources will never be 100% efficient.
They're one of the cheapest sources of production capacity available, and the easiest to get up and running.
>But if the net energy gain on modern panels is massive.
It's not.
>And if they get better
They won't.
>massive
Do you live in the equator? Are you from Colombia?
Your knowledge of photovoltaics is abysmal.
No, like says they are made of fossil fuels. I once did a back of the napkin calculation on the amount of fossil fuels it would take to produce the silicon needed to meet global power demand with solar panels, it came out to multiple decades worth of global coke production alone. And they have to be replaced, they don't last forever.
Post the calculation, back-of-napkin calculations are rarely accurate
don't forget all the associated industries, boron, phosphorous rare earth elements, all of which aren't found as natural elements and require smelting, in addition, agricultural industries use some of those same elements.
You seem to know what you're talking about, can you give a breakdown on how much rare materials are required and how it damages the environment relative to other power generation options?
I think that they can be part of a solution but there is no way they could be the entire solution
i live in a 3rd wold shithole where power goes out for random reasons
so having solar panel for light and ventilation is a god send
pakistan?
Solar panels will only be viable when energy storage at the grid level/scale is viable. Sadly that is difficult and expensive atm.
>What is pumped storage hydropower
stupid loss of energy with too high a maintenance cost
no because people will never get used to spend energy only when there's sun available and batteries won't be any better in the near future
batteries are great now, just not those garbage lithium shits
they're not, basically because
>short lifespan
theres tons of really great materials-efficient batteries out there that arent shit. lead acid is a great example, lead acid batteries are hypercheap and run for decades (completely 100% unrelated to capacity). i dont remember a lot of them but theres some salt formulations and maybe some air or iron oxide batteries or something? tons of shit that is fine at scale and not at miniature.
>lead acid
>run for decades
Lead acid sits idle for decades. If you actually use it for more than a few seconds at a time (e.g. for starting internal combustion engines), you'll destroy it quicker than any other common battery chemistry. For durability you want something like vandium redox batteries.
it doesn't "destroy" it gets sulfatey and loses a tiny bit of capacity over time. this is fine because it's already dirt cheap to begin with. they're selling at like 10000% markup though which counters that a bit.
don't the good lifepo batteries have a 10+ year lifespan?
theres a million different ways of measuring what a battery lifespan is
yeah it runs 24/7 and at its weakest is overkill for like 12 hours a day so instead of that they just shut off enough reactors to hit as low production as possible off-peak. because you can't lower the output of nukes you do need storage to be more efficient to make use of it and (stored) nuclear is literally the only viable alternative to nuclear. coal is its own political bullshit though not related to practicality.
They definitely aren't spinning reactors up and down all the time. Its better to keep them running at a steady rate. That's why peak plants and renewable power sources exist because they can be spun up and down and react more quickly.
LFP batteries have about a 40 year life cycle. 20 years / 350k miles in a car, then another 20 years in storage applications.
About the same for LNMC, only real difference between the two is energy density, but they're within the point where packaging differences can mostly make that up and get LFP cars to the point where they have enough range to not worry about it most of the time.
>people will never get used to spend energy only when there's sun available
They will when the price gets jacked up.
Uh, not really. Let's take London for example. It gets between 8 and 16 hours of daylight depending on the time of year, 8h is just one work shift and workplaces need power too. And then you get a cloudy day.
Depends on the weather obviously, but also on the particular season depending on your latitude. In winter there is no way these things can meet the energy requirements, especially with the massive push towards ecars. They also take up a lots of space. Nuclear is the way of the future.
Nuclear Chads, rise up.
I have read otherwise, that they are experiencing a massive growth period.
Why is something like a battery fine if grouped in 100s at a plant but the same number distributed in peoples back gardens and it is not as efficient?
>IQfy consumer technology
it's not SIZE efficient. "at scale" doesn't fit in your backyard, it fits on millions of square miles of worthless wasteland.
>I have read otherwise
where?
>a massive growth period
what does than even mean?
I installed panels on my house earlier this year, and I've done a lot of research on it since I did it myself
the efficiency 10 years ago was about the same as it is now: around 20%+-1
the only difference is that before the panels were made smaller and now they are bigger, therefore they have more cells and generate more energy overall
there is research on more efficient panels, but they are just that: papers published to raise money, not real products that exist in the market
we have also been promised graphene batteries for decades and MIT keeps coming out with papers on free and infinite energy every year, but these are things that will never see the light of day in a consumerist world like ours
>where?
Energy Balance of the Global Photovoltaic (PV) Industry - Is the PV Industry a Net Electricity Producer? - Michael Dale*,† and Sally M. Benson‡
That is the name of the paper. I have a pdf but you cannot upload it here. It was hard to find for free online but it is out there. It is mostly about viability (net energy producer enough to manufacture their replacements).
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/solar-pv-has-become-cheaper-and-better-in-the-2010s-now-what
This has some promises stuff in it but I cannot remember all its conclusions.
your paper has been published in 2013, using data from 2011 at most, basically when the technology already peaked
>https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/solar-pv-has-become-cheaper-and-better-in-the-2010s-now-what
>December 17, 2019
>The main reason solar modules have become increasingly cost-competitive is due to economies-of-scale production along the entire supply chain.
damn, if only covid-19 didn't alter supply chains all over the world just when that article was being written...
still, it doesn't say anything about better panels
they're cheaper because there are more being made in the factories, but the technology has stalled
Well it was obviously the first paper that gave me that impression. Has the tech actually petered out though? I have seen no data yet to say it has slowed down.
theres still tech breakthroughs here and there THEN those need to get optimized and efficient so they will economy of scale. like sure you can spend $10000 of cutting edge superblackest materials per cell and have really great solar cells but that isn't going to be practical
>Why is something like a battery fine if grouped in 100s at a plant but the same number distributed in peoples back gardens and it is not as efficient?
>So does it make much of a difference to have a field of solar panels or one on each roof?
There is a difference in efficiency because of the inverter. For the same reason that the engine in your car is less efficient than a similar system in an oil plant.
The inverter you have installed in your house will be more inefficient than an inverter in a power plant. Maybe we're talking about 2-4% losses, not much more, but if you add up thousands of homes with that loss, there are quite a few watts wasted in the end.
Thanks anon. I am an engineer-let. Very helpful.
I wonder how many solar panels I'd need in my current state in life to be energy independent. It's assuming that I continue living myself.
>Typical use of kitchen appliances and laundry machines
>Gaming PC with triple monitor setup that must run all day (sleep at night)
>I don't have a TV entertainment center, I like watching things either at my computer or on my tablet.
>phone and aforementioned tablet
depends on how much power your PC needs and where you live, but you can get away with very little panels
your problem would be the batteries
assuming you'd want to have energy for up to 3 winter days with no sun, that would cost a lot on batteries alone
a petrol based generator for those occasions would be cheaper, but you'd still need fuel
There are a lot of factors you're leaving out; what kind of geographical area are you in and what is the yearly weather like, and what latitude are you at? Northern areas get less sunlight meaning they have piss-poor production during winter, and if you have frequent weather that will also severely impact production.
Air handling/conditioning is the single biggest power draw for almost any home that actually has any kind of air handling, and you omitted it. I suspect you don't have a clear picture of just how much energy you need. Additionally, if you don't have natural gas - for things like a furnace, water heating, and laundry drying - then you're going to be expending absolutely mind-numbingly fricking absurd amounts of power on electric heating: probably more than every appliance you listed, combined, times 4, just for heating.
If you pay your own electric bill then it should give you a pretty straightforward kWh/month amount which skips right past totaling every individual appliance up. Divide that monthly usage by 10 and that gives you a very rough idea of the battery storage capacity you'd need to go 100% off grid without any sacrifice, and you'd still need a panel array capable of generating a similar amount of power in one day.
Like
said, you'll want to budget your power for having 3 days worth of storage unless you like having no electricity any time it rains/snows two days in a row. But it's also important to note that if you only have exactly as much solar production capacity as your demands, then you'll never refill that storage after depleting it. You need overproduction in order to both use the solar and build up a backup for bad weather. Solar just isn't very applicable for 100% off-grid if you aren't going to severely restrict your power usage.
>Solar just isn't very applicable for 100% off-grid
Stirling engine generator using solar with biomass as a backup is probably the best solution if you want to really be off grid. With the added bonus that the solar collector for the Stirling engine can also provide hot water.
No. Nuclear is.
Unfortunately, it's named "Nuclear" so it scares all the normalgays enough for them to protest about it so it's never gonna happen so we're gonna use shittier, less efficient alternatives
What a gigamoron you do realise that nuclear powerplants takes a large chunk of habitable space frick off troon
Producing the same amount of energy via solar would take about 1000 times as much.
Not 100%, no.
A diverse power generation system is ideal.
>you do realise that nuclear powerplants takes a large chunk of habitable space
Not compared to literally any other power generation.
>Not compared to literally any other power generation.
Let me guess, you NEED the space on your roof.
do you realize there are bulidings with MULTIPLE floors right?
there are even some with MORE THAN 5 of them
kind of funny how the same people shilling to replace the suburbs with buildings are the same kind of people that thinks a solar panel in your roof is all energy generation you need in your life
moronic boomer frick off and go to /misc/ where you belong
Modern nuclear power is the greenist form of power. Solar is good in supplementary applications.
>Solar bad even though its for personal usage
>Nuclear good even though its costs and requires logistics
Solar is good for personal scale, nuclear is good if you actually care about emissions instead of just your personal image. There's no contradiction.
Solar pannels are goat, they're pulling money out of thin air doing nothing, it's miracle really.
>pulling money when there's sun
>when there's sun, price of energy is 0 anyway
>when there's sun, price of energy is 0 anyway
how disingenuous do you feel like being today
do you wanna try to go further or is that your peak
nobody said solar is bad for personal usage homosexual, you are just not going to power an entire city with solar panels
>are/will solar panels a viable alternative to fossil fuels?
The problem is the lack of a viable way of storing energy and not the panels themselves. There are a lot of populated places where it can be cloudy without wind for a couple consecutive days. Powering cities in such locations without grid level energy storage that we currently don't have is quite unfeasible.
There's a very good reason why datacenters have battery powered UPS systems that last for a couple minutes at most along with generators. In case of an outage the UPS kicks can kick in instantly and keep things on while the generators start. If we had a magical way of storing electricity that could power cities let alone a single datacenter, they would be using it.
Idk about on a wide scale, but the ones on my roof are covering my electricity usage, including heat and air conditioning, for about 3/4 of the year. During the day in the summer I generate more than I use, which goes into the grid and powers neighboring houses while spinning my meter backwards. At night or in the winter, I use more than I generate and draw power from the grid. It takes about half of the winter to use up the extra allowance it built up during the summer before I start paying anything beyond the basic line fee.
The arrangement I have can't work if everyone gets solar though. Then everyone would be feeding excess power into the grid when it's sunny and nobody would be using it, and then they'd have to turn on the power plants at night anyway even though we're not paying anything since power fed back into the grid is a 100% credit. When enough people don't have solar, it's effectively like a battery with perfect efficiency. Power I feed into the grid just reduces the amount the power plants have to work, and then I can draw from the grid later and make the plants work a bit harder.
In terms of viability to replace fossil fuels, quite probably not 100%, but certainly more than they're doing now. Algae is currently way more efficient at extracting usable energy from sunlight than anything we've made. We're probably going to eventually end up with literally green solar panels either using a very photosynthesis-like process, or containing actual algae or bacteria or whatever arranged so that they absorb sunlight and then shit out electrons onto an electrode.
It really depends on the life span of a solar panel, what that is I don't know..
At least 25 years, that's not the problem really.
What the frick ever happened to the Lockheed Martin 100MW fusion reactors the size of a shipping container?
Their chief Black person said they were ready for production 7 or 8 years ago.
I suspect
>they
(and by >they I mean the you-know-whos, i.e. pic related*) want the world to collapse rather than give us cheap electricity.
*israelites, I mean israelites.
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/compact-fusion.html
depends on where you live it could be viable but only if electricity costs over 0.5€ which is the case in Europe not so much in the US. Wind is tricky you need a lot more space for that but only both combined can secure your needs. Maybe something like a thermal storage that can hold its heat over a year would work...
For my domestic use (single owner, small suburban property), I have a combination of gas for hot water and heating, solar+battery for everything else.
Except for when there's a bunch of really heavy loads happening at the same time (e.g. kettle, microwave, and washing machine all going at once) I don't even touch the grid power, and my battery never really dips below 70% unless I'm using a bar heater in my room, where it gets to maybe 30-40%. Unless it's raining all day, my panels can charge it back up to at least 90% by mid afternoon.
This is with a 13.3kwh battery and a 7.7 kw panel array. I'm sure if I didn't have gas, I would be using a lot more battery power, maybe enough to require 20kwh or more, but that's without counting the possibility of installing a heat pump heating system and using a separate solar hot water system for best efficiency. Not sure how good or practical wind turbines are at the moment, but they could possibly help cover some of the energy needs during stormy weather?
tl;dr - Unless you live somewhere that's really bad for sunlight hours, a suburban house should be able to power itself, but it's still too expensive for most people to justify, especially considering that the battery makes up at least half the cost of the system.
I'm very curious about your home solar + battery system since I'm potentially looking in getting one myself in the future so I'd like to ask you about some details. First of all, how much did the whole thing cost? What's the max power you can draw from your system without touching the grid? Does the max output depend on available sunlight, or can batteries alone cover it while charge remains? What happens if you've got large loads running and drawing extra power from the grid when a power outage occurs? Does the whole system shut down in order to prevent an inverter overload, or does it only disconnect certain circuits while prioritizing others, or what? What type of batteries are you using, and what sort of lifetime do you expect out of them before they degrade to the point of needing replacement?
>First of all, how much did the whole thing cost?
16k AU$ including installation, but that's with various subsidies that cover some of the cost of the panels and battery.
>What's the max power you can draw from your system without touching the grid?
6kw, that's the limit of the inverter.
>What happens if you've got large loads running and drawing extra power from the grid when a power outage occurs?
Depends, either those circuits will turn off because they're not on the dedicated battery backup (depends what your configuration is), or they'll just trip the circuit breakers and you'll have to reset them.
>What type of batteries are you using, and what sort of lifetime do you expect out of them before they degrade to the point of needing replacement?
Alpha ESS lithium ion, it's got a 10 year warranty and should last at least that long without significant degradation if I manage my power usage correctly.
Just calculate the area needed per person that would be needed. Don't forget to put in the energy a person needs indirectly: factories that produce their stuff, trucks that deliver their food etc.
Then factor in energy storage which has to be produced, maintained and discarded. The only thing that works with a reasonable efficiency and everywhere, no only where hydro is an option, are batteries. Don't forget to factor in the energy needed to extract the raw materials at the lithium mine.
Then factor in the fact, that around the geographic height of like NY, winter is a real problem. Very low sun for half a year. Snow on the panels...
All in all: No, sorry. You'll always need other power generation. If you fear fossil fuels, it HAS to be nuclear. And for heavy machinery, like trucks, excavators, etc. anything other than diesel is mostly not possible.
I sell solar, it only makes sense on a small scale for individuals and businesses to save money, because in the US usually half the electric bill is "distribution charges" from the monopoly utility anyway. So it's really an economic alternative rather than environmental, opposite to what most people think.
On a civilizational level, nuclear is the only real choice, everything else is just supplementary and environment dependent. And the only countries with a clear headed energy policy right now are China and France. Take that as you will.
Depends where you live, if sun is in abundance then it can be just needs battery banks. If you live up north then nuclear is greenest you can get
Batteries wear out quickly and are insanely expensive and in short supply right now. We actually actively recommend our customers to shy away from batteries for the next couple of years at least, it's nowhere near cost-effective for the headaches of obtaining it yet.
people i dont politically align with like them so I will never think they are viable no matter how good they get
T. Poltard
>I will never think
It's pretty obvious
Solar panels make sense in locations where there is plenty of sun AND it is cost-prohibitive or impossible to run utilities eg. large rural properties and outer space. They may also make sense where there's plenty of sunlight AND electric costs are very high, but even there you're up against the cost of installing the panels and then offsetting the energy cost of producing the panels.
tl;dr in all but a few scenarios solar is corporate welfare and a means of virtue signaling, just like EVs.
This is such a boomer take it's hilarious. Yeah, it's virtue signaling to drive an EV rather than pay the oil barons $6 a gallon cause some shithole country went to war again.
Fricking lol
I see you didn't do well in your high school economic class. Stay dumb and buy an electric car for $60k.
I see you're not doing well in your actual economy. Stay poor and drive a used Chevy for $100 a tank.
Who gives a frick about the "environment" all I care is to send the middle finger to Southern California Edison, the had been increasing the price for electricity every year and no one fricking complains, I had to pay $800 on my bill every month and keeps going up, some of my friends pay up to $1500 and all for what? for some fricking bullshit they put on the bill like, fixing roads like what the frick has that to do with electricity? my panels cover 120% of all my electronics no problem, we actually generate more than what we use so they have to pay me for it
They can be, but not enough to justify forcing everyone to use them.
>Technologically speaking, are/will solar panels a viable alternative to fossil fuels?
Yes.
On their own are they a complete replacement? No.
Can they, combined with other technologies, form a replacement? Sure.
They and "other technologies" are not even close to being a replacement. "Green" energy is nothing more than a giant government scam being voted for by morons that would rather feel good then do well in science and economics class. Example, not that far from where family I have lives they had a small damn and old hydroelectric plant supplying very cheap electricity to the area for decades. Well the Governor rolls in, orders the damn destroyed and replaced with a wind farm. See if you can guess if the cost of the power being generated went up, down, or stayed the same. See if you can guess why the Governor would do this, and keep trying to do this across the entire state.
>They and "other technologies" are not even close to being a replacement.
you can replace current power sources with nothing if you want. It's all about being willing to tolerate lowering your living standards.
>you can replace current power sources with nothing if you want. It's all about being willing to tolerate lowering your living standards.
You can choose to live in a cave with a single LED light bulb to read your latest green manifesto by, but I'm pretty sure that almost any random woman would happily gut you like a fish and roll you into a ditch to die slowly just so they can keep access to a blow drier. If you believe in man made climate change you should be promoting a rebuild of the electrical grid, and a shit load of new and replacement nuclear plants. Not solar and wind; they're only really useful for areas way off the grid.
I called it an example because it is. Show me a metro area or a small town entirely powered by renewables. It's been decades now since solar panels and wind turbines have been around. Where are they?
He's right, solar panels have a usable life and the time it takes to pay them off and start saving money compared to just buying electricity from the local grid is entirely dependent on how expensive the local rates are. What might work in one area of the world may not work at all just a hundred miles away.
You do understand that the fuel prices are going to drop right? Now show the class the comparative cost over time of putting yourself into $60K of debit to finance $20 charging fill-ups vs just hanging on to your current vehicle and paying more now. Please remember to add the amount of carbon credits you'll go into debt with for having an entirely new vehicle built for you to replace your existing one with.
It's not powering the city, and the panels have to be replaced inside of a decade or so, additionally they're not god damn recyclable and full of toxic heavy metals. Try again, harder.
Energy does get cheaper if you produce it efficiently. Compare electricity prices in Germany who shut down all their coal and nuclear plants to lead the world in green energy to their neighbor France who for decades gets the vast majority of their power from nuclear plants. Power prices have more than doubled in Germany, and they're starting to dig for coal again to power the plants they're having to reopen. Too bad you can't just turn a reactor back on. Too bad they didn't do what the US and France literally next door to them proved works.
As for gas and diesel price, why do you think they're so high right now? What caused it and is it permanent? Do you think prices have never done this before and it is wise to panic? Lookup Jimmy Carter and notable events in the late 70's USA. I'll wait.
>It's not powering the city
It provides enough power for long enough to prevent the need for more expensive fossil fuel peak power plants from needing to switch on. Making demand more predictable and easy to handle with sources that are intermittent like wind and solar, or that provide a flat constant amount of power like nuclear.
>the panels have to be replaced inside of a decade
Solar panels last about 20 years. New capacity gets added to existing plants at about decade intervals due to improvements in panels, and the degradation curve.
>additionally they're not god damn recyclable
As much as you want this to be true, its not. As with batteries this is really more of a lack of supply of fully used up panels to make them worth recycling.
There are also other much more recyclable solutions for solar power like solar thermal, including at the small scale using Stirling engines.
>why do you think they're so high right now?
Uncertainty over Ukraine and OPEC which is dominated by authoritarian governments attempting to exert control over the US and force compliance with their agenda.
Same thing that happened in the 70s really. Carter was very pro-Nuclear and had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House.
OPEC cranked up the gas prices, and they successfully got Reagan who kowtowed to the Saudis, and put the US military at their command for the next several decades.
>It provides enough power for long enough..
You wouldn't need either with a nuclear plant and the electricity would be reliable and cheaper.
>As much as you want this to be true, its not.
Extremely few solar panels are ever recycled for their base materials. Also when Tesla or Toyota or GM get an old battery back it almost always goes to a 3rd party storage facility in Oklahoma where it sits waiting to be "recycled". Some have been waiting there for years, because there is no method to recycle them yet. Cut the bullshit out and just build nuclear, if you want electric cars and don't want rolling blackouts you don't have a choice. You're going to have to rebuild the entire electrical grid and replace and add new nuclear plants. Solar and wind do not have the energy density and reliability and they never will because they are not energy dense.
>Uncertainty over Ukraine and OPEC which is dominated by authoritarian...
The only thing that changed was Biden's first day in office he shutdown the Keystone XL pipeline that was nearly complete and wrote several more orders stopping permitted drilling, prospecting, etc. etc. etc. and went to war with the domestic oil/gas/energy companies like he promised to do during his campaign. This is a self inflicted wound and has very little to do with Ukraine and OPEC which has been slowly falling apart for the last 20 years. Biden has hurt domestic energy production so badly he's now going to Iran and Venezuela to buy oil rather than eat crow and fix the damage he's done here.
>because there is no method to recycle them yet
This is false, the methods to recycle them are well known, they just aren't economical yet because there aren't enough batteries that need to be recycled. The majority of the degraded packs that Nissan or Tesla get from old cars have ~70% of their initial capacity and are still extremely valuable for secondary uses like storage. It doesn't make sense to spin up a plant for a few weeks only to shut it down again.
Saying used batteries, wind turbine blades, or solar panels just sit in storage till recycling sounds bad, until you realize that's how it is with everything.
>if you want electric cars and don't want rolling blackouts
BEVs are less likely to cause 'rolling blackouts' than air conditioning or electric stoves since they can charge when demand is lowest, or supply is greatest, and implement charging blocks to prevent peak demand. Nobody who owns an EV cares exactly when their car charges back up when not in use, as long as it does.
Also consider that BEVs like the Nissan Leaf and F-150 Lightning can double as home storage and reduce peak demand which is what causes 'rolling blackouts'.
>You're going to have to rebuild the entire electrical grid and replace and add new nuclear plants.
This needs to be done anyway, Boomers have blocked infrastructure spending for too long. Its not a problem being caused by electric cars.
>shutdown the Keystone XL pipeline that was nearly complete
Keystone XL was nowhere near complete, and wouldn't have done anything for Domestic US energy production. It was all about allowing Canada to send more fossil fuels to export terminals.
By not building Keystone XL, Biden actually forces Canadian production to stay in North America.
The current jump in prices really has nothing to do with Biden, and everything to do with oil companies cutting back production during the economic disaster caused by mismanagement of the COVID pandemic, and then price gouging on the recovery.
>It's not powering the city
Sure it does. 528,000 solar panels generating 500,000 Mwh per year is more than what Boulder City, NV likely uses. There are ~16000 people in there, divided by 2.5 for avg family size, that's 6000 families * 70% for home ownership = 4200 homes x 10,000 kwh annual = 42,000 MWh.
Tesla says they're powering 60,000 homes. So not only is it likely powering a good chunk of the city, its exporting it to neighboring cities as well.
>You do understand that the fuel prices are going to drop right?
Anyone wants to know how the boomers fricked it all up, this is exhibit A right here.
Yes goy, of course I know the future, energy always gets cheaper... Fricking moron
>solar and wind; they're only really useful for areas way off the grid.
Not really. Wind, when there is enough distributed capacity, makes for a decent solution especially for peak power, and the demand curve for electricity tends to track with the production curve for solar, again making it a good peak power solution.
>a rebuild of the electrical grid, and a shit load of new and replacement nuclear plants.
Agreed. Only the most vocal anti-nuclear Boomers are against that. Nuclear energy is required to get off power sources that emit fossil carbon and that's been known for decades. Part of why the fossil fuel industry lobbies so heavily through fake 'green' group that are anti-nuclear.
>Show me a metro area or a small town entirely powered by renewables.
Lots of places get most of their power from hydro electric plants, and that's a renewable. The combo of hydro electric plant, plus floating solar to reduce losses to evaporation, and provide more peak power is pretty compelling. While not a year round thing, the building out of grid storage and zero carbon energy sources in the UK has allowed them to be fossil fuel free for days at a time.
>You do understand that the fuel prices are going to drop right?
Seems likely, since at least part of this is seasonal. It almost certainly won't go down to previous levels, especially if the massive subsidies for fossil fuels start to be phased out.
>the comparative cost over time of putting yourself into $60K of debit to finance $20 charging fill-up
That assumes that every EV must cost $60k, and gas will cost ~$1.60. When the truth is that EVs capable of 80%+ of most people's driving can be handled by an EV for under $10k and its unlikely gas will be that cheap again.
Similarly if you were already in the market for a new car and a basic gas car plus dealer adjustment is $42k, and a premium EV is $47k making back that $5k price difference over the life of the car is fairly likely depending on how much you drive.
nice anecdotes homosexual
Its cheaper to buy a 10Kw solar panel and pay it off monthly over 10 years than continue to pay the monthly electricity bill to utility for the next 10 years.
Not only that, you now have the extra $10-20K value on top of that when you sell the car. Then on top of that, the next 30-40 years of electricity money is saved because solar panels last long enough time with minimal wear.
look if billionaires were at all concerned about climate change, they wouldnt build mansions on coastlines
No. The real trick with solar panels is that by the time you've saved enough in energy costs for them to have paid for themselves, they already need replaced and the whole cycle starts over again.
Like most things, if they were really worthwhile they'd either be illegal or have such huge taxes/hoops you have to jump through that they might as well be illegal.
So you're paying the same but gaining energy independence? That still sounds like a win to me.
>Like most things, if they were really worthwhile they'd either be illegal or have such huge taxes/hoops you have to jump through that they might as well be illegal.
You are moronic
>Like most things, if they were really worthwhile they'd either be illegal or have such huge taxes/hoops you have to jump through that they might as well be illegal.
That's the case in California right now. California public utility wants to charge solar panel home owners hundreds of dollars a month.
Many states actually ban solar panels on roof and have lot of legal loop holes where you have to get approval from electric utility companies to get your solar panel approved.
I thought that was because California has such a surplus of electricity that they have to sell it to other states (due to infrastructure limitations
Its because people that have solar panels aren't worthwhile customers. Even though they pay the upkeep cost of connecting to the grid, the grid owners still want hundreds per month from solar panels. More than what they would normally pay without solar panels.
The reason they offer is because "equity" as they believe solar panels home owners are benefiting from having solar panels and not paying utility their fair share, and thus solar panel owners are pushing the burden of paying the utility to the poor.
Regressive left's class war + crab in bucket + nefarious private companies trying to take advantage
California did this because with the Federal and State kickbacks to home owners (in effect paying people their own money that was taken in taxes, HA) too many people were throwing up panels and killing the utility company. "Oh well that just proves solar works!" No no no my friend, what do you think will happen to an area that doesn't have a large power plant(s) to provide a baseline load to both residential and commercial service? Everyone that can't afford panels and a battery wall is now living Africa-tier, and worse now there are no jobs because solar and wind can't supply anywhere close to enough power to run a city and industrial facilities. So congratulations, you've now devolved civilization to Mad Max tier, and that will only last until the solar panels and wind turbines give out and need to be replaced. How could California not have predicted this? They knew, of course they did. They also know a gravy train when they smell it so they made their money and when the well dried up they made it effectively impossible and moved onto the next scam. The high speed rail project that is now canceled.
ok schizo
Lets suppose you're right and the problem is the kickbacks. The solution certainly isn't to tax solar panel owners hundreds of dollars per month. Its to cut out kickbacks.
But really, your point is nonsense. Tax credits aren't the problem. People aren't living in mad max style society. Nor are people without solar panels living in Africa tier society. If anything, solar panels only help out during the peak load hours as the sun is the hottest and it helps offload the summer heat. Its not like the utility power companies already maintain a buffer for when things fluctuate and allows the power plant to scale up or down. Reduction in power usage is good thing for summer and its good thing for winter. Its a good thing because it reduces costs in not using extra resources. In the case of California, the vast majority of power is generated from natural gas, so reduction in usage saves the power companies extra resources. With reduction in usage, they have more in reserves for emergencies and more in reserves for new housing/commercial sector projects to use. Furthermore, due to reduction of peak power in summer, it leads to less power generated and more stable power.
The problem isn't the kickbacks, thats just people being opportunists and selling snake oil. My point is that when you make it economically impossible for the local power plant to turn a profit, that money has to come from somewhere (IE your pocket) or it gets shut down. You can almost power the suburbs during certain times of the day with solar because it's less dense than a city, and less power hungry then an industrial zone. But without the city and industrial zone, no one is going to have the money to afford to live in the suburbs or afford solar panels on their roofs.
>Not really. Wind, when there is enough distributed capacity, makes for a decent solution especially for peak power, and the demand curve...
Like I said not really without battery walls, that again have to be replaced and aren't really recycled, and again can't power the things that make jobs in that area possible.
>Agreed. Only the most vocal anti-nuclear...
I wasn't aware every "green" lobby and activist group since the anti-nuclear protests of the 70's was funded by the oil companies. If something is profitable people are going to find a way to get it done; so what is going on that's stopped almost any plants from being built for 40 years? It isn't the oil companies.
>Lots of places..
Lots of places just don't have the geography to do this. And in my example a hydro plant that just needed upgrading was demolished for a much more expensive and less reliable wind farm.
>That assumes that every EV must cost $60k, and gas will cost ~$1.60...
Look at Tesla's price sheet, the Ford Lightning (~$46K). You're not going to find an electric car for $10K that isn't a Chinese death trap. And no the price of gas won't be dropping as low as $1.60 due to the inflation of the US Dollar but it's not going to be staying as high as it is and it hasn't even topped out yet.
>when you make it economically impossible for the local power plant to turn a profit, that money has to come from somewhere
It's a utility. They are supposed to have a very limited profit, because they're supposed to be using money to maintain and upgrade their systems. It's there for the public good, not as a money making endeavor.
Holy shit, is this an actual oil shill on IQfy? Why waste your time here? Not directed at you specifically, but rhetorically at the company contracting your firm.
Anyways, companies can still sell power to other regions, losses are small. This is borderline insane reasoning, that people using solar panels will somehow kill local utilities. The overhead is very low relative to generation. And in the distant future if so many people are using solar that utilities no longer make sense, then everyone can move over to solar because they will only be a few percent. It's really simple.
>battery walls, that again have to be replaced and aren't really recycled
Again, this is due to batteries being more valuable right now for re-use than for recycling, home storage and grid storage is one of the more common secondary uses for EV batteries after they've finished the ~20 year portion of their life cycle spent in a car. There just aren't that many 20+ year old BEVs or home storage packs right now.
>I wasn't aware every "green" lobby and activist group since the anti-nuclear protests of the 70's was funded by the oil companies.
Its not every group, but its a lot of them, and its mostly the coal industry. Which is ironic because coal plants emit far more radiation than any nuclear plant would ever be allowed to produce, and they do it in a far more dangerous particulate form.
>so what is going on that's stopped almost any plants from being built for 40 years?
The subsidies for the fossil fuel industry that have kept the prices for them artificially low, and the lack of any kind of 'clean up' cost included while Nuclear power has to account for everything in advance makes it unreasonably expensive by comparison.
If Coal plants had to account for every kg of CO2 they emitted and included a clean up cost for the particulates they release then nuclear would be more competitive, especially if reactors that can run off of existing 'waste' were built.
>Look at Tesla's price sheet,
Tesla is not the only company making EVs. GM's Bolt costs $25k new, and used short range BEVs like the Leaf can easily be found for under $10k. Short range cars may not be able to provide a 100% solution, but with the cost of gas at $5 a gallon, and un-subsidized gas costing around $8 a gallon the ability to not be entirely dependent on high priced Saudi Oil is going to be a benefit over the 20+ year life of a new car.
>too many people were throwing up panels and killing the utility company
Only if you mean exposing the fact the utility company hasn't been upgrading or maintaining their equipment, which they were legally mandated to do, as "killing" Had they actually been fulfilling their end of the bargain (the one with the government, that grants them a legal monopoly), it would have been a non-issue.
For those of you talking about land use of renewables. There is life cycle analysis done on this in this study I found:
Fthnenakis, Kim "land use and electricity generation: a life cycle analysis"
It's older though: 2009
The difference that study seems to be ignoring is that the effect on the land used between coal and wind, solar, or hydro electric is very different.
Area for solar can be dual purpose, like preventing evaporation on canals or reservoirs, or located on top of housing or businesses.
Area for wind can be dual purpose with farmland, or utilize off-shore areas without disrupting fishing or aquaculture.
Hydro obviously doubles as a reservoir, and recreation areas.
Coal extraction leaves behind a pretty much useless toxic scab land, or turns mountains into decapitated worthless piles of rubble.
Solar on its own? No, I don't think it's feasible. We will need:
1. A mix of technologies: solar, geothermal, hydro, wind, nuclear, ocean that will vary based on location
2. One of: less consumption or less population growth
3. More efficient storage and distribution infrastructure
Even if the Energy was totally clean, every device it powers KILLS THE EARTH
Undervalued I think are comparisons of the lifecycle cost of energy from different sources (IRENA world comparison)
This is a no brainer, we're in a transition period.
Huh, it's just like my doctor said, "The transition is going to last for the rest of your life."
>viable alternative to fossil fuels?
No. Just stop being afraid of nuclear. Its the only hope we have
Solar is useless.
The question is can we ever make batteries good enough for grid level energy use? All evidence seems to say no.
We should focus on nuclear.
>nuclear is a turnkey solution to reducing carbon emissions immediately
>the "climate party" thinks nuclear is racist or some shit
I read somewhere that nuclear power produces like 1 kilogram of nuclear waste per kwh per person over the course of like several decades or something. I wish I could find the stat to be more specific but yeah basically libtards gonna libtard
This isn't even "libtards gonna libtards." 95% of any group you talk to will go into hysterics around nuclear.
Eh... with most people I think it's more of a NIMBY kind of thing rather than full-on hysterics.
Solar is cheaper (per unit of energy produced) than nuclear by a lot.
It makes economic sense for private entities to build PV farms because they can have an accurate estimate of the energy produced and the cost of producing it, the equipment is more or less standardized and it's rather easy to build.
A similar thing happened in the 90s with CCGT power stations which is a big reason we have seen a shift from centralized state controlled power producers to privately owned power generation over the last 30 years all over the world.
battery technology will probably never advance to be grid scale usable, especially in time. Pump hydro is conceivably workable but requires correct landscape.
no one is suggesting nuclear is the only power we should use forever, but continuing to burn fossil fuels for power, and in fact increasing fossil fuel burn in regions like Germany when nuclear exists TODAY is pants on head moronic.
Battery technology is already usable for gridscale. Tesla is building huge amounts of battery and putting them to gridscale usage everywhere. You don't hear about it because its not sexy. Its background work they're doing.
let me rephrase that, to be cost effective and efficient at grid scale, especially imagining a system where say 40% of generation is lost at night.
Battery system does not need to do that right now. Right now, they're replacing/outcompeting the diesel generators that control the fluctuations market. Tesla is eating through that market. Tesla's virtual plant made up of host of solar panels on residential homes, home batteries, will create a huge grid scale energy power system.
You are right, but my point was that we are not going to get nuclear unless new technology makes it so that it is economically viable to build it or by it getting massive government subsidies to build and operate.
Even then, it takes quite a long time to get a nuclear plant online and start generating revenue in comparison with renewables or CCGT.
Pumped hydro is the best solution for grid level storage, and solar or wind are very useful when paired with it.
Nuclear still benefits from renewables and grid storage because nuclear plants can't easily adjust power output up or down, or react quickly to changes in demand.
A big battery by contrast reacts instantly to changes in demand, charging or discharging as needed. It may only be able to provide a few minutes, or an hour of continuous output depending on demand on it, but that can entirely remove the need to activate more expensive fossil fuel peak power plants especially when paired with pumped hydro.
So if a nuclear plant produces some amount of over capacity for its lowest lows, that power can go into a storage medium (battery, water, hydrogen), and then if there is a peak that isn't handled by the wind or solar, then the stored energy can be used preventing the need to burn fossil fuels. Similarly if the wind is blowing or the sun is shining at a time when there isn't much demand, that power can be used to desalinate water and pump it up hill, or split the water to make hydrogen, or just to charge up the battery.
I don't think so if my very un/sci/entific analysis is correct.
So let's think of it this way. Imagine an area covered with nothing but solar panels. How much can this area realistically power?
We take the combined electricity consumption of the world per annum, which was 25 606 Terawatt hours in 2017, or 25.6 Petawatt hours.
The energy by irradiance of the sun is usually approximated to 1 kWh/m^2. Thus if we had a 100% efficient solar panel, for every m^2 of space we could harvest 1kWh of energy per hour. Solar panels are not nearly that efficient, and my latest readings show efficiency of 21% at the higher end of panels (but not so high end as the stuff they put on spacecraft and satellites etc, which is ludicrously expensive). This is also assuming perfect atmospheric conditions and treating the sun as if it just turned on and off like a light bulb, ignoring the pesky concept of a sunrise and sunset. I'll use 20% just for the sake of round numbers.
This means we only recover about 200 Wh per metre squared of area. There are 1 000 000 m^2 in 1 Km^2, so 1 000 000 * 0.2 kWh gives us 200 000 kWh or 200 mWh of energy per hour of perfect sunlight. Not bad considering that's about the size of my small suburb where I live. So in a perfect 12 hour day of sunlight we harvest 2 400 mWh of enery per Km^2 of area, again assuming literal perfection. That means 876 000 mWh per annum or 876 gWh per annum, again, perfection (no rain, storms, short days in winter etc.)
So now lets scale this up. We need 25 606 tWh per annum which equates to 25 606 000 gWh. 25 606 000/876 - 29230.59 Km^2 of area required to fulfil the whole worlds electricity supply in one year.
So we sacrifice Saudi Arabia, annex the frick out of it and build the Mega Ultra Super Cool Solar Land in the middle of one of their unused deserts, and voila, we have solved the energy problem of the World.
Except we haven't quite yet. We only replaced electricity, not energy.
1/2
Now the problem we have is that we have only accounted for the Electricity consumed by end users of the world. We have not replaced the TOTAL energy consumption of the world in all forms, which is the goal here.
Total Energy Consumption is 162 494 tWh in 2017, maybe more now and increasing. This equates to 162 494 000 gWh we need per annum to transition the entire planet to solar power.
162 494 000/876 = 185 495.433 Km^2 of area required. Well what does that look like? we have unfortunately now run out of Saudia Arabia to use, so we need an even bigger area. What's huge and totally abandoned by human beings? That's right, the pacific ocean.
Or maybe we could just use Colorado for this purpose, if it wasn't for all those pesky mountains.
Now what's the problem with this? This calculation has used literal perfection conditions and has not factored in atmospheric conditions, angle/elevation, weather patterns such as clouds, storms, panel degradation and especially area required for battery or stationary storage, which is a separate issue.
With this in mind, an absolutely minimal reduction in output based on one of the above factors would mean we have to scale our area annexed exponentially to accommodate the reduction (or even just potential reduction) so we could not only replace all fuels "technically" but also "comfortably" (as in, have sufficient buffer in place to account for any potential reduction in output due to outside factors).
The only way this issue will be solved is by decentralizing everything, but its fun to see how much earth area theoretically needs to be consumed to accomplish this goal. Or maybe not...
Frick you Colorado. We're coming for you.
2/2
Engineer here. The current "green" alternative to fossil power is a mixture of solar and wind. Solar peaks during the day. Wind peaks at night. They seem to be a lovely pair except they come with enormous problems that actually crash electrical grids when they become too large of a percentage. Solar isn't everyday. Seasons and weather can be large swings. Wind is worse. Wind output is so unsteady that they cause enormous swings in grid frequency.
In order to fix these issues, you need magical batteries that don't exist currently and would be even less green than fossil fuels.
The real solution is more nuclear, with solar helping peaking hours, and natural gas turbines peaking. The only possible use for wind is for use as "battery" chargers. A good example would be to pump water into an uphill reservoir at night and then generating off downhill flow during daytime peaking hours.
>The real solution
You describe is what everyone is actually talking about, except that the need for natural gas peak plants will ultimately be replaced by hydrogen peak plants or synthetic fuel peak plants
Eliminating fossil fuel use for electrical generation is a major part of hitting net zero emissions, just like decarbonizing transportation.
> The current "green" alternative
There's nothing not 'green' about nuclear power, and everyone who is seriously discussing the subject knows that's the case.
Nuclear plants aren't being built right now in part because of red tape put up by fossil fuel lobbying, but also because the next-gen is almost ready.
There are pilot small modular reactors that are getting spun up, and they should enable mass production of new reactor capacity.
Methane fuel cells are a meme at this point and probably will be for a long time since research excitement died down like eight years ago.
I put "green" in highlights for solar and wind which are debatable in their carbon neutrality due to manufacturing and rely heavily on strip mining rare materials. Nuclear is the green solution that we already have. Solar might make an impact due to the ability to make it from ubiquitous materials cheaply, although with pitiful efficiency currently.
lmao tard
>debatable in their carbon neutrality due to manufacturing and rely heavily on strip mining rare materials
Come on, now you're just trolling. Coal requires strip mining for every kWh, and far more rare materials go into the oil refining per gallon.
Wind and solar may not be perfect, but they do not burn anything and so do not generate CO2 for every kWh which is the important thing.
You might as well complain that nuclear plants need concrete for their construction.
>pitiful efficiency
Why do you keep trying to bring this up? Its not like steam turbines are that much more efficient at extracting energy from burning coal, and they have to consume raw materials to keep them spinning. Solar panels produce electricity continuously throughout their lifespan as long as they have photons hitting them. They're already past the point where they're a useful output for most homes, all higher efficiency will do is make getting that amount on a house cheaper.
>Methane fuel cells are a meme
Who said anything about methane fuel cells?
Its most likely that large scale hydrogen storage would take the form of ammonia, and synthetic gasoline could just be burned.
Neither of those may be the most efficient, but they have the benefits of having existing infrastructure and other applications.
thats really the opposite of how those work. nuclear is peak and its turned off for off-peak, solar is basically useless because it only works at peak.
>nuclear is peak and its turned off for off-peak
WTF are you talking about? Nuclear is steady 24/7 base load. Its only issue with peak demand is it can't quickly and easily adjust output up or down.
>solar is basically useless because it only works at peak.
Except that the production curve of solar tracks the demand curve reducing need for other sources at peak, and overproduction of solar can be put into storage.
No. Nuclear is base, it is very slow to respond to load changes. Really prefers to operate at constant power without following the load.
nuclear is too good to be running at off-peak, thats the problem. you can't turn it down enough for off-peak and so it's wasteful and thats where alternative shit is supposed to pick up slack and why solar can't help at all. the bulk storage like gravity battery stuff is good but that will be charged at night with off-peak waste energy and discharged during peak with less nuclear time.
more reactors doesnt help anyone with anything.
>Nuclear is too good to be running at off-peak, thats the problem
Nuclear runs 24/7 that's the whole point.
>it's wasteful
Radioactive elements are going to decay over time anyway. Not capturing that energy and storing it in the form of hydrogen, synthetic fuel, or charging EVs off-peak is the real waste.
>more reactors doesnt help anyone with anything.
More reactors help because they'll replace the 19.1% of the US grid that is still burning coal which is even more wasteful.
load isn't that unpredictable
have you heard of weather forecasts
I heard they can predict trends up to a month ahead
You don't know what you are talking about. If I wasn't phoneposting I'd make a longer post. In short, no nuclear plants can't dynamically follow the load during the day, it's not what they are designed for.
Look up the capacity factor of the nuclear plants in the US, it is over 90% in most cases
I'm in Texas and I've had 7 different sellers come by my house trying to get me to add solar to my house. Several of my neighbors are doing it but I'm still iffy. Apparently there's some kind of government program and it's very affordable. It's just for the panels to feed into the grid, no battery storage.
I would, the climate is only going to get hotter down there and I wouldn't want to pay half my housing costs in AC.
>It's just for the panels to feed into the grid, no battery storage.
Gay. The feed-in tariffs are usually pretty shit and will only become worse as more people install solar. You'd be lucky if you pay back your solar installation after 10-15 years unless you're home all day using that electricity yourself and don't use any after sundown, and even if it's a dirt cheap one the shitty panels will start microcracking by that time anyway, requiring replacement.
Sure, you can add on a battery system later, but it won't necessarily be as efficient as an integrated system and may not provide backup in a blackout.
Sort answer is no. The long answer is nuclear makes both irrelevant.
Nuclear fusion is 30 years away from reality.
But nuclear fission has been possible for the past 80 years. There really aren't any drawbacks to using fission right now then switching to fusion when it's available
its the same all over the globe and until the end of history anon.
Once fuel becomes so expensive (roughly double its current amount 20$ a gallon or so) then solar, electric cars etc will make sense. Until then almost everyone on earth will continue to use gas.
No, but they can be a useful part of a wider system
No, solar is only good for small, off the grid installations, it's just moronic for a large scale operation, where nuclear makes a lot more sense because it takes a lot less space for the same power output, produces considerably less waste (those solar panels don't last long) and doesn't depend on any external factors, like clouds or the sun
Sadly hippies don't want people to have clean, sustainable power, they just want to virtual signal and make lives of others harder, meanwhile we have the tech to go carbon neutral right now, hydrogen powered engines are viable, hydrogen combustion produces only water vapor and hydrogen can be produced through electrolysis, only needs electric power
Having all that, we'd only need petroleum to produce plastic and asphalt, and coal to produce steel, everything else could run directly or indirectly from nuclear plants and we have enough nuclear fuel to power the entire world for at least the next thousand years
Having that, we can just fund nuclear fusion research and if/when it happens we can drop the fission plants and run everything on hydrogen forever
Sadly we're not in that timeline, in this one people will screw everything over because they want solar panels and hydro power, along with lithium batteries everywhere, all this because they think all nuclear reactors as as badly designed and managed as they were almost 40 years ago
Solar energy can't and won't replace fossil fuels if only because you need a stupendous amount of panels to generate something to satisfy even a small city, you need big frickoff batteries and so on.
That's not to say it's worthless, on a single home scale it's actually pretty neat.
If I ever have an actual house that isn't an apartment I'd love to slap a whole bunch of solar panels on the roof.
>paying for energy
nosegang strikes again!
>will solar panels a viable alternative to fossil fuels?
>solar panels
holy shit who are you people
subtle politics thread
>nuclear disaster on specific geolocations good
Did you make this all yourself anon?
kek, based