[HN Gopher] Switching World to Renewable Energy Will Cost $62T, ...
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Switching World to Renewable Energy Will Cost $62T, Payback Would
Take 6 Years
Author : f_allwein
Score : 32 points
Date : 2022-10-08 19:22 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cleantechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (cleantechnica.com)
| benj111 wrote:
| If this is the situation why isn't any country just unilaterally
| going for it?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable...
|
| 12 countries are listed as over 90% renewable currently.
| Iceland at 100%; Norway at 97.2%.
| digianarchist wrote:
| If Norway included carbon exports then it wouldn't be
| anywhere near 97%.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| Norway has hundreds of fjords, which can be dammed. It is
| hard to compete with that for example for Poland.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| What fjords has Norway needed to dam to reach their current
| 97% rate?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Ah hydro... Explains most cases, not really realistic in
| others. Though there is some interesting cases, but likely
| even those are hard to replicate.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Sure. You do hydro in Norway. Solar in Spain. Wind in the
| North Sea. Geothermal in Iceland. Different places,
| different forms of generation. Trade regionally for
| redundancy.
|
| The question was "why isn't anyone doing it"; the answer is
| "they are".
| Ekaros wrote:
| But other than hydro and geothermal do those run
| 24/7/365? And is the storage in place? Or do they rely on
| some others to fullfil those? What if that isn't an
| option lets say middle of desert?
| klyrs wrote:
| cui bono, indeed
| gehsty wrote:
| Denmark in particular is, but lots of European countries are.
| Reality is it takes time to align markets, development permits
| and supply chains with government policies...
| mrob wrote:
| The next election is less than 6 years away.
| nayuki wrote:
| Not in a dictatorship.
| makomk wrote:
| This isn't an explanation at all. I can tell you that, for
| example, the UK's renewable energy push is operating on a
| timescale rather longer than that - a good six years elapsed
| just between the government deciding to focus on offshore
| wind and the industry getting good enough to build it that it
| was cheaper than onshore (something which was predicted at
| the time) and it'll be a few more years before enough is
| built that we get substantial benefit from those lower costs.
| The more likely explanation is that it just isn't as easy as
| they're claiming.
|
| Admittedly, the government here seems to be getting zero
| benefit politically or in the public opinion from that long
| term planning.
| sveme wrote:
| All studies that I read about 100% reneweables point out that
| you need a large, meteorologically diverse catchment area and a
| highly interconnected grid. That will balance out local
| fluctuations and will massively reduce the need for storage.
| Problem is, it will require lots of countries to cooperate -
| except if you are a very large country. The US should be able
| with its coastlines, deserts, hydropower and so forth.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Also that is rather worrying scenario looking back at USA
| attacks on NS pipelines. What if the target where these grid
| interconnects? That would be catastrophic.
| jaarse wrote:
| Great... Except Steel, Concrete, Plastics, and Ammonia production
| all require fossil fuels and we do not have any alternative. We
| also do not have a viable alternative for air travel, or large
| scale shipping. While I think it is a worthwhile goal to pursue
| clean energy technologies, we are a very long way (with no known
| alternative) from getting rid of fossil fuels.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| > Ford is spending $40 billion to transition to making electric
| cars. Volkswagen, Mercedes, GM, BMW, Hyundai, Honda, Nissan, and
| Toyota are doing the same. Does anyone think that money is just
| an expense or that the managers of those companies have not
| calculated the expected return on their investment down to the
| fraction of a penny?
|
| This statement really annoyed me and undermined their credibility
| choeger wrote:
| Yeah. Except that just building the factories to build the solar
| panels and wind turbines would take longer than that. And that
| statement ignores the whole supply chain.
|
| The thing is, despite what extinction rebellion et. al. tell us,
| the global economy _is_ moving to renewables pretty much full
| speed. It 's just that that same economy has so much inertia that
| it will take decades to make that switch. But the second half
| will not take nearly as long as the first.
| yongjik wrote:
| Yeah I very much doubt that. Until last year, the energy policy
| of Germany, one of the richest countries in the world, depended
| on cheap gas from Russia. It took Russia's invasion of Ukraine
| to force them to reassess their policy.
|
| And their short-term solution? Buy gas from other countries.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| Agree Energiewende is dead end, because Germany is missing
| energy storage to fill out intermittencies, which is now
| substituted by gas. And that energy storage kind of does not
| exist. (aka something what can keep lights on in whole
| country at least over night, not few minutes like batteries)
| bjourne wrote:
| If it is one thing I've learned from Hacker News it is that
| the gut feelings and knee-jerk reactions of anonymous posters
| always and invariably trump whatever "researchers" publish in
| their peer reviewed so called "journals".
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| Like being spammed around 2015 that self driving will be
| common around 2020 or electric cars cheaper than ICE any
| moment. BEVs are now more expensive than ever, expected to
| suffer battery shortages for next decade and are
| economically unviable thanks to expensive energy.
| kitkat_new wrote:
| > The thing is, despite what extinction rebellion et. al. tell
| us, the global economy is moving to renewables pretty much full
| speed.
|
| bold statement - can you back this up? I find it very hard to
| believe
| orwin wrote:
| Not GP, but here highlight the issue:
|
| https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-
| in...
|
| Our bottleneck right now is processing, not mining (because
| of the energy crisis).
| teilo wrote:
| Add this to the list of the article titles that are obvious
| bullsh*t without bothering to RTFA.
| ram4jesus wrote:
| Does anyone actually believe this? This is not possible without
| deindustrialization.
| emit_time wrote:
| Lol
|
| We have no effective way of storing energy. If you only want
| energy on sunny windy days during daytime, this is fine. Enjoy
| the power going out at night and when the wind slows down.
|
| Hopefully we will get much cheaper storage and production soon,
| but it's not completely viable now.
| sschueller wrote:
| We can fill large water dams and store energy easily that way.
|
| This is what Switzerland is focusing on right now to make sure
| they have enough stored power for January and February when
| production doesn't suffice the requirements and purchasing
| electricity from abroad may not be possible.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Do we have locations we haven't build those yet? Is there any
| concerns about building there? Environmental or existing
| communities? Where to get the water to fill those? Does that
| have effect downstream? If it is build on existing rivers, is
| there some minimum amount of water that has to be passed? Or
| maximum capacity after water has to be passed?
| sschueller wrote:
| All valid concerns but if you can find a location that has
| a small impact on the environment it is hugely beneficial.
| kitkat_new wrote:
| there are effective ways of storing energy, but there isn't a
| silver bullet that has high efficiency, low cost, long storage
| duration and high storage capacity
| Ekaros wrote:
| Cost competition is biggest aspect in my mind. Is the storage
| competitive compared to alternative if power is free is good
| benchmark in my mind to start with.
|
| And what are political and ecological implications of them.
| As I doubt even the Greens prepared to build up most
| effective pumped hydro locations anymore. Effectively
| flooding quite large areas. And also I take there is
| questions where to get the water from in parts of the
| world...
| kitkat_new wrote:
| Cost must include environmental costs such as direct
| destruction of the environment and greenhouse gas
| emissions.
|
| Competition on the basis of today's market prices which
| don't include this, is nonsense.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| Energy storage is a part of the problem. The good thing is,
| if we combine multiple energy production methods and connect
| it to a smarter grid with a smarter consumption profile, we
| can do with storing much less. The solutions are already
| known and are feasible. The ultimate problem is, the
| transition takes a lot of time, certainly given it needs to
| be smooth, we don't want too many outages. And we seem be be
| running out of time.
| natch wrote:
| We can store plenty of energy in car batteries as EVs become
| more common.
|
| And that is energy that whether it's available for putting back
| in the grid or not, (usually not, which is fine) replaces a gas
| pump.
| SideQuark wrote:
| Take number of cars, multiply by storage capacity of an EV
| battery, compare to daily energy requirements, fall
| incredibly short.
|
| This is not a solution.
| natch wrote:
| So are you claiming it's not part of the solution? If not,
| then what is your point?
| kitkat_new wrote:
| not to mention given today's technology and growing
| opposition to car centric cities, there won't ever be as
| many BEVs as there are cars today.
| natch wrote:
| Fewer cars, less need for energy. It works out, so no
| problem even if your theory is correct.
| stevenfoster wrote:
| Comrade! I have figured out renewable energy. Let me tell you of
| my top down plan to solve it! Wait in this line. No that's the
| bread line, wait in the other line for your energy then get back
| in the bread line.
|
| With that out of the way, the glaring miss here is that gasoline
| or coal burned at utility scale is quite efficient and while far
| from perfect, that is a different calculation than, wow somehow
| like there are hundreds of millions of gas cars everywhere.
| That's pretty inefficient.
|
| Also with all this renewable energy, how are you going to light
| up the forges that need massive amounts of energy to make the
| materials for wind capture? Will lithium, iron, and phosphate
| mining really do less harm at scale than fracking and mining for
| coal? If shipping and logistics use more energy than individual
| consumers, and consumers buy their home energy from their utility
| companies, why are you trying to hard sell individuals if you
| actually have a solid value proposition for utilities and
| shipping/logistic companies? They have the assets to leverage for
| loans and investments to deploy new means of energy at scale. Why
| do you need to preach to individuals that their gas car is evil,
| when your economies of scale at the corporate level should make a
| consumer option more affordable and accessible?
| pedalpete wrote:
| Understandably so much negativity to this article, and I stopped
| reading after a few paragraphs, it's mostly garbage.
|
| However, let's take a look at it another way.
|
| If it would take $62T to convert to 100% renewable, how much
| would it cost to get to 80% renewable?
|
| I'm trying to get a read on how much of the current energy is
| from renewables, and I'm seeing figures in the 8-30%. It's a big
| spread, but it is showing how far we may have come.
| edwnj wrote:
| This is so dumb it takes superhuman levels of restraint for me to
| not swear.
|
| We literally don't have the tech nor capacity for make this
| transition: - we dont have the rare earth minerals - we don't
| have the metals - with exception of nuclear all these
| alternatives are extremely inefficient.
|
| It takes years of sustained exponential demand to even let
| capacity catch up and thats if we can even feasible find new
| reserves (for rare earth).
|
| Let alone the game theoretic situation where u can only achieve
| this with a tyranny. It will cost significantly less to adapt and
| change..
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(page generated 2022-10-08 23:02 UTC)