[HN Gopher] Solar and wind can meet world energy demand 100 time...
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Solar and wind can meet world energy demand 100 times over
Author : billyharris
Score : 54 points
Date : 2021-04-24 21:21 UTC (1 hours ago)
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| ogre_codes wrote:
| It feels like within the next 20 years we are going to have a
| good handle on "green" power to fixed locations. The tricky piece
| we have left is how do we move people and freight over long
| distances.
|
| EVs can do a decent job of transporting a few people a short
| distance, but aircraft and long distance freight has a whole
| other set of issues.
|
| Look at container ships, one of the biggest polluters and sources
| of carbon on the planet. How do you remove the need for massive
| amounts of diesel on those?
|
| How about passenger and air freight? How do we eliminate all the
| CO2 from jet fuel? In the US we are terrible at infrastructure,
| but do we invest in a super-train system?
|
| This is likely the next big challenge.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| If you talk to Airbus, the current plan is hydrogen, which is
| emission free, besides water. Since you can extract it from
| water by electrolysis, there is an essentially endless supply,
| assuming you have endless clean electricity.
| blake1 wrote:
| Container ships are massive emitters of some pollutants like
| SO2, but not CO2.
|
| Sources usually put the carbon number at around 3%.[1] this
| number has been rising in part because the denominator, global
| carbon emissions, has been falling as power has been emitting
| less.
|
| [1] https://www.transportenvironment.org/what-we-do/shipping-
| and...
| sacomo wrote:
| Serious question. How do we make enough solar panels and wind
| turbines that will be capable of producing all of this energy
| without destroying all of our natural resources/habitats?
| tamaharbor wrote:
| Reminds me of a joke: This machine does the work of 10 men.
| Unfortunately it takes 15 men to operate it.
| insert_coin wrote:
| It's a funny joke, don't get me wrong. But I'll take the 15
| men sitting behind a computer operating remotely a digger
| inside a mine instead of 10 men breaking their backs and
| probably risking their lives with a shovel.
| bpcpdx wrote:
| Not to mention what do we do with old solar panels after
| they've lived their life. There's going to be a lot since a lot
| is needed to generate the amount of power needed. There's a
| good chance it will just get shoved onto some 3rd world country
| for them to deal with.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| And where do we build them? Because where I live, in order to
| have them installed, plenty of whole chunks of forests are
| being wiped.
| steve918 wrote:
| There are a lot of ways to generate lots of power, what we're
| generally lacking is ways to _store_ power to handle things like
| peaks.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Storing power doesn't seem like an intractable problem. With
| the huge incentives with the coming electric car market,
| technology, renewables storage and god knows what else, I
| imagine there will be a lot of investment pouring into solving
| this. It's only a matter of time.
| aqme28 wrote:
| Well if you generate enough excess power, you hardly need to
| store any.
| richwater wrote:
| This makes no sense.
|
| Without storage excess power is useless at best, dangerous at
| worst.
| qayxc wrote:
| Now you shifted the problem to power transmission, because
| there's no way to generate an excess of power at all times in
| all locations using just wind and solar.
|
| So while in my region at the time of posting this, 100% of
| electricity is generated by wind, there'd be 100% less if
| there was no wind (which happens from time to time).
|
| Solar wouldn't help either, because right now it's dark
| outside and it will stay dark for another 6 hours.
|
| So right now, even if there's an abundance of power generated
| elsewhere, it would have to get transmitted efficiently to
| here (and from here to where it's needed if applicable).
|
| Local storage and massive interconnected power transmission
| capacity is what's required. And that ain't cheap.
| adamcstephens wrote:
| Consistency is the reason to store, not amount. The sun
| doesn't shine at night and the turbines don't spin without
| wind (which also is more likely at night). Modern society is
| built on always available electricity, and some things
| absolutely require them (eg a data center).
| angelbar wrote:
| - One is to move back the excess to the grid and then to pump
| water over dams. - Compress air into sealed caverns - Elevating
| mass - Store hot water locally - Crypto currencies maybe?
| ogre_codes wrote:
| We know a lot of ways to store power. The trick is storing it
| efficiently. If we have enough surplus power (which may be the
| case in a few years), efficiency becomes less important.
| makomk wrote:
| The difficult part is storing it on the kind of massive scale
| required full stop. Sacrificing efficiency can only do so
| much to help solve this, especially since the wasted energy
| has to go _somewhere_ and dealing with that has its own
| costs...
| Panino wrote:
| Just as an alternative to prioritizing storage (we should
| still do it, but it's not the only constructive use), we
| could use a lot of excess electricity to create hydrogen,
| desalinate sea water and pump it inland, create biochar
| without kickstarting the heating process via combustion, etc.
|
| The hydrogen could be used for hydrogen vehicles and other
| purposes. Seawater desalination (very partially) addresses
| sealevel rise while also getting water to dry areas. Biochar
| sequesters carbon while helping more plants to grow with less
| water and less chemical fertilizer.
|
| So from a certain point of view, the above pursuits are like
| investing most of your "excess money" in the stock market
| rather than putting most of it in a savings account. And
| since we're starting to address climate change _so late_ we
| need something better than just a savings account or battery.
| insert_coin wrote:
| The world can theoretically meet it, in practice, it is the same
| situation as the "food" shortage.
|
| Solar and food have a distribution problem, not only a generation
| problem, but since the world decided nationalism, protectionism
| and populism is more important than cooperation it is not going
| to get solved and we'll have to generate our needs and store it
| many times over in order for the biggest consumers of energy to
| be satisfied.
|
| Just in time production and energy sharing will remain a dream
| and we'll keep wasting resources and the planet again and again
| just for our petty grievances.
| dmurray wrote:
| "100 times over" is a lot less than I'd have thought or hoped.
|
| We have to cover 1% of the world's surface with solar and wind
| farms to pay for our current energy use? That won't be easy.
| Panino wrote:
| Anyone breaking even usage-wise with rooftop solar is already
| much of the way there, and that's excluding utility generated
| power and big savings from improved home design (e.g. passive
| solar heating) and other technologies not yet well deployed
| like ground source heat pumps and air source heat pumps. Once
| people realize that these technologies are cheaper than the
| current go-to options, things will happen quickly.
| sacomo wrote:
| I'm not very optimistic that we have enough time, nor
| individuals have enough financial resources, for the market
| to realize how cheap / efficient these technologies are. We
| really need this progress implemented as part of large scale
| systemic programs. The market is simply too slow.
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