[HN Gopher] Getting the Grid to Net Zero
___________________________________________________________________
Getting the Grid to Net Zero
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 103 points
Date : 2024-04-15 12:34 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| fedeb95 wrote:
| I keep wondering how we'll get rid of used batteries and panels
| in the future.
| breischl wrote:
| There are recycling pilot projects out there, but yeah it's a
| problem.
|
| Do you also wonder how we'll get rid of used coal power plants,
| massive piles of toxic fly ash, and tons of pollutants from
| natural gas plants? Because so far the answer is not good.
| kvgr wrote:
| I know how we can get rid of nuclear fuel. Coal is very very
| dirty... nobody challenges that
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| How can we get rid of spent nuclear fuel
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| Burn it in a fast reactor
| marcosdumay wrote:
| How do we get rid of a fast reactor's spent parts?
|
| (Yeah, it should be possible to design a reactor so it
| consumes more long-lived waste than it creates. But I
| don't think anybody ever bothered to do that.)
| stavros wrote:
| Nobody challenges it, but when someone says "I wonder how
| we'll get rid of the byproducts of solar", it obviously
| frames the discussion differently than "I wonder how much
| less impact the byproducts of solar have on the environment
| than those of coal".
| 15155 wrote:
| Fly ash is a key ingredient in Portland cement.
| jeffbee wrote:
| You could take every PV panel ever made and just stack them up
| in the desert. It would hardly take any space and nobody would
| notice.
|
| That is, if you refuse to recycle them, which would be silly.
| asynchronous wrote:
| Surely something with a higher energy output to waste ratio
| like nuclear energy waste would be an even better compromise
| then?
| jeffbee wrote:
| If you stack spent fuel bad things occur. And no, I don't
| agree. The volume and mass of PV panels in the world is
| already negligible and making the waste stream smaller is
| not important or relevant to anyone. Even in an extreme
| case nobody would pursue, it doesn't take any space. In a
| sane case it is a high quality silicon feedstock.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Yeah that plan works great for things like tires. It's not
| like there are multiple large tire dumps in the world with
| fires that are always burning in them.
| maherbeg wrote:
| Did you know that something like 70% of tires in America
| are recycled?
| jeffbee wrote:
| Also that 2,000 times more tires are made than PV
| modules? 55GT compared to 22MT annually.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| That is simply a policy decision. Here in Norway such
| things are collected and recycled.
| burkaman wrote:
| Batteries are recyclable and a bunch of companies are already
| doing it, for example: https://li-cycle.com/press-releases/li-
| cycle-reports-full-ye.... As demand for battery materials grows
| I think recycling will become more profitable and widespread.
|
| Solar panels are also largely recyclable, especially since most
| of the panel is metal and glass (which we've been recycling for
| millennia): https://www.epa.gov/hw/solar-panel-recycling. I
| don't know as much about recycling the actual useful part of
| the panel, and I'm sure it depends on the type, but there are
| companies doing this as well: https://www.solarcycle.us/.
|
| However efficient the recycling is, it can't possibly be worse
| than what we do with used oil, gas, and coal (set it on fire
| immediately and then pretend it magically disappeared).
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > I don't know as much about recycling the actual useful part
| of the panel
|
| For almost all panels out there, even the toxic ones,
| recycling should be a lot cheaper than purifying new silicon.
|
| It's not viable today because we have way too little trash to
| even start the process.
| akira2501 wrote:
| The question you want to ask, as always in recycling, is:
| "How much water do these processes use?"
| briantakita wrote:
| Is it as efficient as recycling plastic bottles? Effectively
| in the landfill & ocean.
|
| Theory & marketing science fiction are all well & good...But
| let's have some success with existing recycling programs
| before assuming that everything is going to work perfectly
| according to someone's vision.
|
| If you are actually serious about reducing CO2 emissions,
| let's start with the biggest producer of CO2. The US Military
| & MIC. Cause I don't see any solar powered military vehicles,
| munitions, or ordinances anytime in the next 100 years.
|
| How ironic when it's time for the US Military. With it's gas
| guzzling transports. To be used to enforce environmental
| statutes. Against the rural/suburban peasants who demand
| their own grid.
| titzer wrote:
| Better solid waste than gas.
| maherbeg wrote:
| Battery recycling is already spinning up and becoming
| profitable. It also means we won't have to rely as much on
| imports of rare earth materials because we can use already
| mined materials over time!
| fedeb95 wrote:
| many interesting responses which I'll read in depth better
| later. My comment wasn't against solar panels and batteries and
| in favour of oil etc. as some assumed. Just interested, because
| recycling seems a pretty big deal to become really sustainable
| in all economic matters. In my mind, which might be wrong about
| many things, until we get a rate of recycling >= that of waste
| there's a problem, maybe showing up later than today, but
| eventually it will surface again. Repeating myself, this is my
| mind model and of course subject to error.
| triceratops wrote:
| Should be easier than cleaning up oil spills.
| kibwen wrote:
| With the advent of solar and HVDC, is there a potential future
| where AC stops being the backbone of the grid, letting us drop
| the whole notion of grid-scale frequency? It sure sounds simpler
| not to have do the delicate phase matching dance, among other
| things.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| But transforming high voltage to low voltage or vice versa is
| really trivial with AC.
| GaggiX wrote:
| I believe that with AC is easier and cheaper to change the
| voltage using transformers compare to DC.
| nick7376182 wrote:
| Very much so. That is why it seems we won't have DC
| distribution (ever? Not sure what it would take for DC to
| make more sense)
| bee_rider wrote:
| For DC, you don't need to synchronize the grids.
|
| For some reason HVDC (specifically HVDC, not just DC, most
| DC devices use low voltages, far below the voltages that
| would be efficient for transmission), is apparently more
| power efficient than AC. I'm not sure why, though.
| markus92 wrote:
| At certain power levels, reactive effects take over.
| Takes more energy to charge up the transmission lines 50
| or 60 times a second, than it actually can transmit.
| Also, no skin effect.
| amoshebb wrote:
| In a DC circuit, a capacitor looks like an open circuit
| because after it fills up it just sits still.
|
| In an AC circuit, a capacitor looks like a resistor, it
| takes work to fill and empty it every cycle.
|
| Transmission lines over the earth behave not just like
| wires, but also like capacitors. Higher voltage reduces
| resistive losses, but in AC they're penalized by these
| "fill and empty a capacitor" ones, that DC doesn't.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| > there is no need to support three phases and there is
| no skin effect. AC systems use a higher peak voltage for
| the same power, increasing insulator costs
|
| > This is because direct current transfers only active
| power and thus causes lower losses than alternating
| current, which transfers both active and reactive power.
|
| > Nevertheless, for a long AC overhead transmission line,
| the current flowing just to charge the line capacitance
| can be significant, and this reduces the capability of
| the line to carry useful current to the load at the
| remote end. Another factor that reduces the useful
| current-carrying ability of AC lines is the skin effect,
| which causes a nonuniform distribution of current over
| the cross-sectional area of the conductor. Transmission
| line conductors operating with direct current suffer from
| neither constraint. Therefore, for the same conductor
| losses (or heating effect), a given conductor can carry
| more power to the load when operating with HVDC than AC
|
| Basically, while heat losses are the same, the AC system
| requires extra power to constantly be switching the
| electron flow whereas in a DC system there's only active
| power to move the electrons and the only loss is heat
| loss. Additionally, for a given conductor, HVDC can be
| transferring at the peak rated voltage for the wire
| whereas AC can only transfer that voltage at the peak
| which means it's 71% less power (although that's more a
| cost savings thing).
| crmd wrote:
| The grid needs to run at multiple voltages - transmission,
| distribution, industrial/commercial/residential service - which
| is complex on a DC grid. Synchronizing the phases is an easier
| problem.
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| Synchronization is a one time event. Once the networks are
| coupled the physics itself keeps it in sync.
|
| The problem is that physics also dictates that the
| interconnection links need to be big enough to handle the
| power imbalance between the different parts of the networks.
| So grid management is mostly about balancing production and
| demand as a whole and in sub-grids.
| vegetablepotpie wrote:
| This is unlikely. While transmission lines may go DC, all of
| the distribution, the lines that goes from a substation to
| peoples houses, in the US is AC. Although it's possible to wire
| a house for DC, and people have done that, many of the
| appliances we use, use AC power.
|
| Although AC phase matching is a delicate technical problem,
| it's one we've solved for over a hundred years. DC presents
| other engineering challenges that are non-trivial. For example,
| circuit breakers for AC power are designed to "break" when the
| AC curve hits zero volts. This eliminates the chance of arcing
| and makes breakers smaller and cheaper to manufacture. A DC
| breaker has a chance of arcing and it may be necessary to make
| them larger, or use exotic gasses with high dielectric values
| to prevent this from occurring. Either of these increase costs
| for homeowners.
| stavros wrote:
| You're assuming that, in the future, we'll still have huge,
| centralized plants. With solar, it's very possible that we'll
| have small stations in each town or area, and only need to
| balance between them infrequently, greatly reducing the
| amount of energy we need to carry across large distances.
| dgfitz wrote:
| > You're assuming that, in the future, we'll still have
| huge, centralized plants.
|
| You're assuming that we won't.
|
| > With solar, it's very possible that ...
|
| How nice the world would be we could all lean on "well
| because it is possible it must eventually happen."
| stavros wrote:
| - Things will be the same, except for X.
|
| - Maybe other things will be different too.
|
| - Oh, so _everything_ will be different?!
| remram wrote:
| > You're assuming that we won't.
|
| That's really not how I read that comment.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Inertia will keep the status quo for a very very very long
| time. Combine that with heterogeneity (i.e. not everyone
| will be using local solar plants) and that the distribution
| concerns noted still apply to local plants outside your
| house and it doesn't seem like it'll go away without some
| kind of central planning forcing the issue.
| nostrademons wrote:
| I think municipality-sized microgrids are a big part of the
| future, but they still don't remove the requirement for a
| grid, simply because of weather. Most renewables are very
| dependent on local weather conditions: you don't get solar
| when it's cloudy, and you don't get wind when it's calm.
| The grid needs to equalize power generation and
| consumption, and it's probably more economical to have a
| few transmission lines running between cities and to remote
| power generation facilities than it is add the utility-
| scale batteries needed to power through a week of cloudy
| weather.
|
| I could however see a future where cities refuse to
| subsidize rural homeowners and communities, disconnect from
| the country-level grids that exist today, let them de-
| energize and fall into disrepair, and then maintain only a
| few transmission links over major transportation corridors
| to connect with other major cities.
| stavros wrote:
| Sure, but when you only need to transmit the difference,
| and even that only to charge batteries, the transmission
| lines can be much smaller.
| nostrademons wrote:
| That's not true, and stems from mistakenly thinking of
| electricity as a fluid instead of working through the
| math of the laws of electrodynamics themselves.
|
| With AC, there is no _net_ current anyway - nothing
| physical is being transmitted any substantive difference.
| The actual electrons travel on the order of 0.2 microns
| per 60Hz cycle, and then move back the other way. [1]
|
| In reality, in the absence of fundamental electric
| components like resistors/capacitors/transformers, all
| points of a circuit have the same voltage and same
| current. The transmission lines are just connecting
| different cities into the same circuit, there's nothing
| flowing between them. This allows your solar array in the
| Mojave Desert to power your data center on the Columbia
| River, but there aren't fewer electrons traveling between
| them just because you also have a hydro power plant on
| the Dalles. The load from _all_ devices on the grid is
| shared across _all_ generation sources.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drift_velocity
| hwillis wrote:
| You're oversimplifying. US residential power is currently
| supplied by a pair of 120 V wires, but most of the stuff in
| your house only uses one leg of that pair. That's alright
| because it's AC, and the ground wire doesn't actually need
| to carry any significant current. Power just returns time-
| lagged through the same wire when the voltage changes.
|
| If you switch to DC, that doesn't work any more. Every amp
| in requires an amp out. The wiring in your house just got a
| lot more complicated, not to mention the wiring in the
| local grid.
|
| Also, running your neighborhood on 85 V (the DC equivalent
| to 120 V) isn't exactly efficient. Even large ground-
| mounted transformers only provide power to 10-15 houses at
| most, and pole-mounted transformers may only service one
| house. The main power to your neighborhood is 7.2 kV
| because it's more efficient to to send power at high
| voltage and low current.
|
| It's not impossible for a residential solar setup to output
| thousands of volts, but it's not easy and it's pretty
| constraining for designs. There's also a world of
| difference between that voltage at the street and that
| voltage in the house. Things go wrong in the house.
| mcbishop wrote:
| > You're oversimplifying. US residential power is
| currently supplied by a pair of 120 V wires, but most of
| the stuff in your house only uses one leg of that pair.
| That's alright because it's AC, and the ground wire
| doesn't actually need to carry any significant current.
| Power just returns time-lagged through the same wire when
| the voltage changes.
|
| This isn't how it works.
| noodlesUK wrote:
| Maybe my model of how AC works is wrong, but my
| understanding is that neutral wires exist and are
| necessary in addition to safety earth, even though
| neutral and ground are eventually tied.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| > _and only need to balance between them infrequently_
|
| I think it's exactly the opposite. There will frequently be
| a need to balance them.
|
| With wind and solar in the mix, generation will fluctuate
| with the weather. In a given area, it could be cloudy one
| day and sunny the next. Or windy one day but not the next.
| And consumption won't be correlated with that, so that
| creates an _extra_ source of mismatches between demand and
| consumption within each area.
|
| Transmission is one way to solve that. You could also solve
| it with storage (within _every_ area), but that 's probably
| less efficient and/or more expensive.
| stavros wrote:
| It's easier for me to bring you some food when you're
| running out than to bring you food every single meal.
| notahacker wrote:
| Sure, but you need the same road to get there regardless
| of how many hours a week it gets used.
| hackerlight wrote:
| It's a trade off. More transmission lines means less
| overbuilding and less storage. Really it's an
| optimization problem that will be solved on a case by
| case basis given geography and so on.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Transmission has a bunch of problems with DC as well.
| Transformers are fundamentally AC devices; if you want to use
| them in a DC circuit, you need an inverter anyway to convert
| the DC to AC and back again. There are ways to step up DC
| voltage, but none are as cheap or reliable at utility scale
| as a transformer is. If you don't step up the voltage, you'll
| lose basically all your power to transmission losses, since
| delivering high power at low voltage requires high current,
| and power loss increases with the square of the current.
|
| High-voltage DC is also extremely dangerous, as it's prone to
| arcing and electrocution.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > you need an inverter anyway to convert the DC to AC and
| back again
|
| But you have complete freedom to choose their frequency, so
| you can use much cheaper transformers.
| falcrist wrote:
| There may be a potential for more localized grids that are
| interconnected by HVDC transmission lines. I'm not sure what
| the impetus for that would be, however. I agree that it would
| be unlikely.
|
| Interestingly, HVDC actually becomes a more efficient method
| of transmission over longer distances. Perhaps it's feasible
| to generate electricity half a continent away. Maybe tile the
| Sahara with solar panels and power all of Africa with it.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Naw, we'll just take the long path and send the electricity
| to a richer continent:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xlinks_Morocco%E2%80%93UK_P
| o...
| PaulHoule wrote:
| The arcing is no joke. In my building they have a new
| assembly of three coupled water pumps and an electrical box
| that is waiting to be installed that has a scary warning
| about how the electrical box could create a dangerous arc.
| RetroTechie wrote:
| > A DC breaker has a chance of arcing and it may be necessary
| to make them larger, or use exotic gasses with high
| dielectric values to prevent this from occurring.
|
| That's a problem for mechanical switches (were conductors
| move to make contact or disconnect).
|
| If you use semiconductors to do the switching, it becomes a
| problem of how fast they switch, how much energy is
| dissipated during the switch, and how much energy those
| semiconductors can absorb momentarily (thermal mass).
|
| For small equipment, this is a solved problem. Fast switching
| FETs are cheap & robust.
|
| For utility-scale, semiconductors are an entirely different
| ballgame. Big advances have been made over the last decades.
|
| So a HVDC grid might in theory be possible. But in practice,
| it'll be an engineering tradeoff between HVDC+semiconductors
| almost everywhere vs. HVAC+more traditional gear like
| transformers.
|
| And even if a HVDC grid were practical with modern tech, in
| most places there's existing AC-based grid & power plants. I
| suspect the "sync AC phases" is an easier problem to solve
| than "re-do the grid to use HVDC".
|
| But for 'simple' point-to-point connections like an offshore
| windpark or long international lines, HVDC is sometimes
| practical (and used, if so).
| londons_explore wrote:
| I think a DC grid is likely. But it's still 100 years away.
|
| Over time, more and more components will be built DC (DC long
| distance cables are already popular, due to being slightly
| cheaper. DC for electronics is popular due to AC being poorly
| suited to microprocessors/logic. DC sees wide use in cars.
| USB-C brings computer peripherals into the DC world).
|
| Eventually, whenever two DC bits of power infrastructure are
| touching oneanother, someone will notice that removing the
| DC->AC->DC conversion steps saves money and increases
| efficiency.
|
| Eventually enough bits of the grid will be DC that AC
| 'islanding' can occur - whenever every link from A to B is
| DC, there is nothing to keep the phase locked between place A
| and place B. Initially that will be solved with software
| locking means.
|
| But finally maintaining that anti-islanding tech will be too
| costly, and all remaining bits of the AC grid will be
| removed.
|
| But it's gonna take 100 years because grid tech changes
| slowly, and infrastructure like buried cables can be 70+
| years years old.
| ianburrell wrote:
| The problem is that the DC from the grid is going to be way
| higher voltage than the voltage to the house. There are
| lots of AC-AC transformers that would need to be replaced
| to use DC for distribution and hard to switch incrementally
| without a dual converter in every house. Also, AC is better
| for medium distance transmission, DC can boosted to super
| high voltage for long distance but that isn't practical
| inside a city.
|
| Then, the house DC voltage is going to be higher than the
| electronics DC. So you'll need to have a box at every
| single outlet to convert DC-DC. The appliances are going to
| need the higher voltage house DC. And the house DC voltage
| is going to be more dangerous than AC. Also, there are no
| standards or even proposals for DC electrical system: no
| voltage and no outlets.
|
| The problem is that replacing DC-AC-DC with DC-DC-DC and
| there isn't much savings from all those conversions. Would
| you replace all of your appliances for 1% savings in
| electrical cost?
| londons_explore wrote:
| And those reasons are why it'll take 100+ years...
|
| However, the AC-AC transformers currently use a lot of
| Steel+copper. That's expensive. New developments will be
| pushed towards solid state alternatives which are
| theoretically cheaper (and exist today, but aren't widely
| used).
|
| Outlets in your house I suspect will get replaced with
| super-USB-C. Ie. something which is 5 volts and then
| negotiates a higher voltage as needed. A future version I
| bet will support 3 kilowatts for hair dryers, etc. That
| will be safer. It'll also be pushed by device makers who
| currently hate the headache of making different versions
| of electrical devices for every country with different
| plugs. Fancy houses already have USB outlets in every
| socket. Cheapo devices like flashlights already use USB
| power input for worldwide universality.
|
| I could imagine rules might push people to super-USB-C
| too. Laying AC lines requires highly qualified labour,
| but plugging in super-USB-C cables into a super-USB-hub
| can be done by anyone - the safety is in the design,
| rather than requiring careful installation.
|
| When every outlet in your house is super-USB-C, it won't
| take much for newly built houses to instead use DC
| everywhere (maybe even negotiated voltages too - ie. your
| house only receives 5 volts until any device needs more
| power, and then it'll ramp up).
| Gare wrote:
| > However, the AC-AC transformers currently use a lot of
| Steel+copper. That's expensive. New developments will be
| pushed towards solid state alternatives which are
| theoretically cheaper (and exist today, but aren't widely
| used).
|
| In what world is steel and copper more expensive than
| semiconductors?
| ianburrell wrote:
| It is impossible for super-USB-C to carry that much
| power. The new 240V is at the limit of what USB-C can do
| and you are talking about order of magnitude difference.
|
| First, the wire thickness needs to be like regular wires
| to carry enough current. Changing the wiring in the walls
| is the hardest thing. Second, the voltage needs to be
| like regular service to carry enough power over regular
| sized wires. Higher voltages, like 500V, are better since
| DC loses more energy over distance than AC. Third, the
| plug needs to be similar size to power plugs to not arc,
| and DC arcs worse than AC.
|
| Is replacing everything worth the effort to increase
| efficiency by a little bit? You are optimizing for low-
| power DC devices at the expense of high-power AC
| appliances. The only way I can see DC power happening is
| in isolated community like the Moon or Mars.
| avianlyric wrote:
| Probably not. Spinning inertia and grid frequency are a core
| component of running a stable grid. Gives you a large store of
| energy that can absorb sudden spikes in demand or drops in
| supply, so systems have time to react before really bad things
| happen.
|
| The grid frequency is an incredibly useful communication tool
| that allows any piece of equipment to easily and accurately
| measure the current health the overall grid, and automatically
| make adjustments to help balance and improve the health the of
| the grid (either by increasing or decreasing load/supply).
| Because the frequency is set by physically large spinning
| turbines it means it's also a direct and inseparable measure of
| total grid health, not something that's dependent on another
| system to monitor and communicate grid health.
|
| It's hard to overstate how much of our electricity grids depend
| on grid frequency, and one having thousands of systems
| monitoring and adapting to grid frequency, to remain as robust
| and stable as they are. In a DC world you don't get that
| anymore, and keeping a grid balanced becomes substantially more
| complex requiring potentially unreliable side-channel
| communication to allow equipment on the grid to coordinate
| themselves. Its really hard to beat a system where one of it
| core fundamental attributes (frequency) needed for power
| transmission, is also the perfect attribute for distributed
| coordination of load and supply.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > Gives you a large store of energy that can absorb sudden
| spikes in demand or drops in supply, so systems have time to
| react before really bad things happen.
|
| Capacitors do the same for DC. They are also more efficient
| and reliable.
|
| The thing about a communication channel is true. But it will
| become true for AC after almost all of the generation becomes
| free of rotational inertia too (PV, modern wind, and
| batteries). And you need side-channel communication to decide
| what generator will take over what load right now.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > Capacitors do the same for DC. They are also more
| efficient and reliable.
|
| Yea.. but their failure mode can sometimes be a dead short.
| Engineering around this in a power delivery application is
| a severe hassle.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Don't look too close at spinning wheels failure modes.
|
| The fact is that for most applications, there isn't
| enough technical difference to justify either of the
| options. It's all path dependency based on random choices
| made ages ago.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > Don't look too close at spinning wheels failure modes.
|
| It's a sealed turbine, not a "spinning wheel." It's
| failure modes, while internally destructive, are often
| limited to the device itself, and trips are much easier
| to install and utilize in this path.
|
| Dead short DC failures have a tendency to destroy nearby
| equipment and start fires as well. You're also going to
| need a bank of capacitors, so you've multiplied your
| failure rate for each capacitor required.
|
| > there isn't enough technical difference to justify
| either of the options
|
| There's a massive amount of difference and AC is
| obviously justified.
|
| > based on random choices made ages ago.
|
| You don't seem to be aware of the history of the power
| grid and how we've arrived at the technology we have.
| avianlyric wrote:
| Well this is what the article covers, Grid Forming
| Inverters, I.e. inverters that have the ability to behave
| like they've got inertia, and where the feedback loop
| between frequency and power output is tight enough they
| will naturally migrate to a stable grid frequency, rather
| than just bouncing around all over the place like normal
| Grid Following Inverts do if there isn't enough spinning
| inertia in the system.
|
| So even in world where all power sources are coupled to the
| grid via inverters, it's still possible to use the grid
| frequency as communication channel.
|
| Side channels that exist physically outside the grid will
| never be reliable and ubiquitous enough to replace grid
| frequency, for grid stability you need a feedback loop
| measured in nanoseconds to avoid scary oscillations in load
| and supply, that feedback loop needs to be faster than a
| microcontroller can manage, hence the reason why Grid
| Forming Inverters are more complex than normal Grid
| Following Inverters. After all the system you're trying to
| monitor and keep stable naturally communicates at the speed
| of light, so it really isn't possible to use digital
| systems to keep it stable. You need some sort of analog
| inertia (whether that's spinning rotors, or clever analogue
| electronics doesn't really matter) to handle the high
| frequency changes, and damp them enough for digital
| electronics to deal with the longer term drift.
|
| Also it's not just suppliers that coordinate via frequency,
| it's also loads. Anyone out there running a large semi-
| continuous, but interruptible loads (e.g. water pumps,
| large arc furnaces, heating systems, bulk EV charging etc)
| can usually get a discount on their energy prices, in
| exchange for voluntarily disconnecting their load if the
| grid frequency drops too far, allowing the grid to shed the
| least sensitive loads first, before it's starts forcefully
| disconnecting more sensitive loads.
|
| > Capacitors do the same for DC. They are also more
| efficient and reliable.
|
| I don't know who told you that, but capacitors aren't even
| vaguely close to reliable compared to a spinning turbine.
| Not once you consider how many capacitors you would need to
| store an equivalent amount of energy as a spinning turbine.
|
| Super capacitors top out at about 4 Wh/kg, and can get up
| to 10 Wh/kg if you're using hybrid capacitors (which
| basically a mix of a battery and capacitor). A flywheel
| energy storage systems are around 100Wh/kg. So at least one
| order of magnitude more energy per kg. So you need a lot of
| capacitors to replace the energy storage of a turbine. Once
| you've got that many very expensive capacitors linked up
| with the needed control electronics, I doubt it's anywhere
| near as reliable (or cost effective) as a big spinning
| chunk of steel.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| This will take expenditure that utility shareholders won't
| tolerate. Most of the electrical grid in the US gets used until
| it just can't work safely anymore, and the determinant of whether
| it can work safely is whether it has already caused a very
| hazardous condition that simply can't be ignored by the public-
| at-large.
|
| They're not going to suddenly say, "Oh, sure, we can make a
| decent gain in efficiency by updating the grid, let's build those
| projects out."
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| My understanding is that utilities keep a percentage of the
| cost of capital improvements they make. This is because the
| utilities' original arrangement from way back when was designed
| to incentivize the rollout of electricity as fast as possible.
| To that extent their incentive is actually to undertake the
| largest and most expensive development projects possible. The
| issue with distribution infrastructure as I understand it is
| not a lack of will or incentives on the utilities side but
| simply the difficulty in acquiring right of way and permitting.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Most of the stuff that could be replaced exists in an
| easement. I don't have to agree to let my local utility
| upgrade my infrastructure.
|
| Also, any time something "just works" and a business can
| charge someone to use it, they'll do that instead of actively
| working to improve the product, particularly if that product
| is a commodity and they have a monopoly on it. They've also
| leveraged regulatory capture to make sure that the public
| utility boards don't put a lot of pressure on them to make
| needed changes.
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| I think the type of improvement you're talking about falls
| under the category of 'reconductoring', or capacity
| improvements to existing deployments. That can help, but
| interconnection and new distribution is, I think, a much
| bigger piece of what's needed, and for that, we need to get
| all over the place.
| itishappy wrote:
| The article is about exactly that:
|
| > Normally, such a sudden loss would spell disaster for a
| small, islanded grid. But the Kauai grid has a feature that
| many larger grids lack: a technology called grid-forming
| inverters. An inverter converts direct-current electricity to
| grid-compatible alternating current. The island's grid-forming
| inverters are connected to those battery systems, and they are
| a special type--in fact, they had been installed with just such
| a contingency in mind.
|
| > At the time of this writing, at least eight major grid-
| forming projects are either under construction or in operation
| in Australia, along with others in Asia, Europe, North America,
| and the Middle East.
|
| Utilities are low margin businesses. Why wouldn't they jump at
| any opportunity to improve efficiencies?
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| It depends on the expected ROI of the investment
|
| Utilities don't face competition so the efficiency gains have
| to speak for themselves. They can't gain marketshare.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| The parent companies that own the utilities can (and do)
| gain marketshare, and/or profits. They're diversified so
| they can get profit from other places. There's lots of
| tricks to use to create profits; get government grants, try
| to replace old expensive inefficient infrastructure with
| newer more efficient cheaper stuff, create more
| infrastructure to service the growing power needs of new
| power-hungry industries, supply more power to new or
| growing cities, build out electric vehicle charging, try
| out new technologies like hydrogen, etc. They are quite
| expansive operations with a lot of fingers in a lot of
| pies.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| None of that is particularly relevant to the claim that a
| small efficiency improvement is automatically worth the
| capital cost when there's no competitors.
| vegetablepotpie wrote:
| The article says we can build grid forming inverters, which can
| solve the reliability issues of highly renewable grids, and
| used Hawaii as an example of how to do this. These inverters
| are expensive. As a utility I can finance grid upgrades through
| corporate bonds or, or as you said, with investor money. Bonds
| need to be paid back in a defined time period, investors expect
| a ~10%/yr ROE, or else they do flee. As a utility, investments
| I make are financed through ratepayer funds. The problem has
| shifted from engineering, to financial, to political. I need to
| ask my states utility commission for a raise in rates. This
| hits on affordability issues, poverty etc. Who pays for it? Who
| benefits? This is determined by state elections.
| akamaka wrote:
| > They're not going to suddenly say, "Oh, sure, we can make a
| decent gain in efficiency by updating the grid, let's build
| those projects out."
|
| That's actually happening, though. One quarter of new capacity
| this year is battery systems:
|
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2024/04/11/...
| superboum wrote:
| It seems the correlation between the article title ("Getting the
| Grid to Net Zero") and the subject that is actually discussed
| (maintaining a power grid stability in presence of inverters) is
| very weak.
|
| Don't get me wrong: the article is very interesting. I really
| learnt something: I discovered "system inertia", I was not aware
| of stability issues linked to inverters, and did not know about
| grid-forming & grid-following inverters, and the research about
| finding the minimal amount of grid-forming to keep a power-grid
| stable in case of an issue in a given power plant. All of these
| topics are very interesting.
|
| But making a connection between inverters and ecology through the
| "net zero" terms seems either off topic, misleading or
| irrelevant. First because this "net zero" term is heavily
| criticized as it means carbon are still emitted but companies are
| paying for carbon credits (that are not compensating at all the
| carbon emitted for many reasons [1]). Here building solar panels,
| wind turbines & batteries emits CO2, and their lifespan is
| relatively short (at most 10 years for batteries, ~25 years for
| wind turbines & solar panels, compared to hundreds of years for a
| dam[7]). Second because climate change is not the only concern
| about ecology, there are concerning questions about mineral
| resource extraction, like lithium[2] that is heavily used in
| batteries, but more generally, we are already extracting the
| whole Mendeleev periodic table[3]: we don't have alternative
| mineral resources for batteries or other technologies, the only
| solution is to extract, produce & consume less. Third, if your
| only goal is to reduce carbon dioxide equivalent (eqCO2), you
| should advertise nuclear power plant as the solution. Depending
| on studies, they produce the same amount or less eqCO2 compared
| to a wind turbine without batteries[4]. Of course, often eqCO2 is
| not the only important subject here (being renewable/sustainable
| is also important, and uranium is a limited resource). And
| finally, the fact we use renewable energy more and more did not
| lead to a worlwide energy transition, but an addition. Having a
| transition will require way more than technologies[5], something
| that is also not discussed here.
|
| Speaking about solutions to pack a higher percentage of
| Intermittent renewable energy sources (IRES)[6] in a power-grid
| through the help of batteries and inverters would have been more
| accurate in my opinion. Maybe "Why we were not able to achieve
| 100% renewable energy before?" if you want to be catchy, and it's
| not perfect, as you are still hiding that you rely on lot of
| batteries, that are far from being renewable.
|
| As a conclusion, I would say it would be great to be careful when
| engineers (here IEEE) discuss specific technologies (here power-
| grid inverters) to not draw conclusion too quickly (having a
| positive environmental impact), as it's far from being obvious. I
| know they want to be read, I know that the title must be catchy
| to attract readers, but it's not an excuse as illustrated above.
|
| [1]: https://demandclimatejustice.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/10/...
|
| [2]: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/29/a-worldwide-lithium-
| shortage...
|
| [3]: https://www.euchems.eu/euchems-periodic-table/
|
| [4]: https://www.edfenergy.com/media-centre/news-releases/over-
| it...
|
| [5]:
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22146...
|
| [6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_renewable_energy
|
| [7]: https://www.power-technology.com/data-insights/power-
| plant-p...
| LUmBULtERA wrote:
| Where is your source that, e.g. LFP grid scale batteries only
| last at most 10 years?
| cal5k wrote:
| > Reaching net-zero-carbon emissions by 2050, as many
| international organizations now insist is necessary to stave off
| dire climate consequences, will require a rapid and massive shift
| in electricity-generating infrastructures.
|
| Vaclav Smil's excellent analysis on this is worth reading:
| https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-wm-aem/glob...
|
| The tl;dr is that net zero by 2050 would require all major
| economies to spend 15-20% of GDP for the next 26 years
| uninterrupted. For reference, the entire US federal budget was
| around 23.7% of GDP in 2023.
|
| It simply is not going to happen, and pretending it will greatly
| undermines the pragmatic conversations we should be having about
| adaptation.
|
| I think there's a strong optimistic case that the private sector
| can get us there by 2100 or so - lots of fundamental advancements
| can happen in that timeframe - but hamfisted government policy in
| the EU and America that blunts economic growth will mean there's
| less money to spend on solving these problems in the future.
| titzer wrote:
| > I think there's a strong optimistic case that the private
| sector can get us there by 2100 or so
|
| So, never. The private sector has been dragged kicking and
| screaming to where we are now; Oil CEOs _today_ are still
| resisting calls to decarbonize
| (https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ceraweek-big-oil-
| exe...) like it's the 1990s. Trillions in corporate
| sharedholder value are _diametrically opposed_ to
| transitioning. They have vested interests, and a massive sunk
| cost with the current fossil fuel economy. We are so utterly
| screwed.
|
| > that blunts economic growth
|
| While economies have somewhat decoupled carbon from economic
| growth, putting economic growth as a master priority above all
| others is exactly what got us here and looking increasingly
| like a _bad move_.
| bluGill wrote:
| There is more than oilin the private sector. No surprise oil
| is resisting, but others are not.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Yes, private industry is famously very good at solving
| existential threats to the species when solving those problems
| also results in a loss in the quarterly earnings.
| stetrain wrote:
| _Yes the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in
| time we created a lot of value for shareholders._
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995
| olau wrote:
| Here are some things Smil gets wrong:
|
| https://cleantechnica.com/2020/11/13/what-does-bill-gates-fa...
|
| IEA has historically been bad at forecasting renewables.
|
| The GDP numbers you mention are very far from the studies I've
| seen over the years.
|
| I've been following debates about renewables for probably 15
| years. Most common objections are: It's too expensive, it's
| impossible, it's not worth doing anything about, we should wait
| until later to do anything about it.
|
| The truth is that the transition is happening, we have most of
| the things in place we need, and the rest we'll develop as we
| go along - they are mostly not developed much because their big
| market opportunity hasn't happened yet.
| specialist wrote:
| > _The truth is that the transition is happening_
|
| Emphatic agreement. Now it's a choice between faster (more
| Bidenomics) or slower (rear-guard obstruction by the loyal
| opposition).
|
| > _the rest we 'll develop as we go along_
|
| Yes and:
|
| Per Saul Griffith and others, we have the tools today to
| achieve net zero. The primary hurdles are legal, capacity,
| and financing. Not technology.
|
| For example, there's a huge backlog of renewable energy just
| waiting to join the power grid. But the utilities remain
| loyal to natural gas, refuse to upgrade or expand.
|
| IIRC, the 4 major categories of (human) CO2 pollution are
| transportation, manufacturing, buildings, and agriculture.
|
| We now have the tech to achieve net zero for all but
| agricultural.
|
| Successor legislation (BBB/IRA 2, 3, 4, etc) must address
| agricultural. And the stubbornly carbon-based industry
| segments, like "fast fashion", which alone accounts for > 2%
| of CO2 pollution (and growing).
| silverquiet wrote:
| I'm beginning to believe that the continued existence of
| humanity (let alone human civilization) requires net zero by
| way sooner than 2050. Kurt Vonnegut may be proved right after
| all that we'll go extinct because of economics.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| > Vaclav Smil's excellent analysis on this is worth reading:
| https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-wm-aem/glob...
|
| While a good read, I'm not sure how anyone can take this
| seriously. He says " Efficiency gains from the electrification
| of industrial processes would vary widely, and not all of them
| could be electrified. And there will be negligible gains for
| space heating , with 100% efficiency for electric resistance
| heating compared to as much as 93-99% for modern gas furnaces
| (Lennox 2023)."
|
| Heat pumps have a COP of 1.5 - 4, which are eventually going to
| replace all heating/cooling. He does not consider efficiency
| from heat pumps at all.
|
| Two thirds of fossil fuel energy is wasted:
| https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/sites/flowcharts/files/2023-10/U...
|
| Electrification is efficient and the transition won't need as
| much:
| https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/electrification-en...
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| > hamfisted government policy in the EU and America that blunts
| economic growth will mean there's less money to spend on
| solving these problems in the future.
|
| Disasters brought on by climate change that blunt economic
| growth will also mean there's less money to spend on solving
| these problems in the future.
| stetrain wrote:
| What would motivate the private sector to solve the problem?
|
| What economic incentive does a specific company have to make
| decisions that may negatively impact its short term earnings to
| address a global issue that will manifest slowly over the
| course of a century?
|
| What if the "economically sustainable" path to net zero by 2100
| results in existential issues for large parts of the human
| population, food supply, etc? There is an economic cost to
| allowing the climate to continue on its current path and
| actually net zero doesn't necessarily reverse that change, it
| just prevents its continued acceleration. If the "economically
| sustainable" path results in the destruction of the economy,
| then it's no longer sustainable.
| prewett wrote:
| > What would motivate the private sector to solve the
| problem?
|
| Money.
|
| Cost of grid-solar is somewhere between 50% - 70% of coal and
| the trend is decreasing renewable cost. [1] If you are a
| utility, what is the next plant you are going to install? If
| you can get solar for a fraction of the cost of a coal plant,
| it's a pretty easy decision. Plus, you can probably keep the
| rates the same and pass on that savings to your shareholders.
|
| Every time I visit family in Oklahoma I see more and more
| wind farms. Texas is has one of the highest level of
| renewable energy. These are states that have a knee-jerk
| opposition to "the liberal agenda", and yet Texas the largest
| producer of renewable energy (solar + wind handily beats
| California), and the most "anti-liberal" red states are
| generating the most renewable energy: Oklahoma (42%), Kansas
| (47%), Iowa (60%), S. Dakota (57%).
|
| [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/493797/estimated-
| leveliz...
|
| [2] https://www.fool.com/research/renewable-energy-by-state/
| (switch to the second tab for percentages)
| stetrain wrote:
| But would renewables be cheaper today without the
| "hamfisted government policy" referenced above?
|
| Government policy that creates or increases the economic
| incentive to move in the "desired" direction is an
| effective tool.
| prewett wrote:
| I'm not saying anything one way or the other what we
| "should" do, just answering the question "what would make
| private parties adopt renewable energy". My answer
| ("money"), in fact, agrees with you: whether it is
| artificially cheaper or naturally cheaper doesn't matter.
|
| However, I think renewables would be cheaper even without
| government subsidies. Texas had large wind farms over
| even 15 years ago. I don't have any information about
| subsidies on solar panels, but given that the cost trend
| is halving the price every <n years>, that's pretty
| powerful. I think you could remove the subsidy and solar
| panels would still be competitive, and even if not now,
| than in one more halving period.
| stetrain wrote:
| It's also hard to detangle the effects of local subsidies
| vs those in say China which are also driving down costs
| of solar.
|
| Really in context my question was "What would motivate
| the private sector in the absence of government
| intervention". The comment I was replying to was clearly
| setting up a contrast between letting the "private
| sector" solve it instead of "hamfisted government
| policy."
|
| Really those two aren't separate. The government even
| when it "overreaches" in the eyes of some rarely tackles
| large projects on its own. Most of what it does is
| regulate, tax, and inventive the private sector to
| attempt to achieve some desired outcome.
| titzer wrote:
| > Money.
|
| Sure, but please also recognize that the only reason we've
| gotten to renewables being cheaper is through _massive_
| subsidies. Solar has gotten there from economies of scale
| and technological innovation, which has been driven by
| government R &D, grants, and also massive subsidies.
|
| But also keep in mind that _money_ as the sole motivator
| for the market is a sword that cuts both ways. If two
| competitors A and B are in the same market or are producing
| the same product, and company A uses any one of a number of
| environmental cheats, like fossil-fuels, then company A is
| going to out-compete B, make more profit, and eventually
| crowd out B.
|
| The private sector will go for maximum profit and socialize
| the losses wherever it can. The role of the rest of society
| is to hold the line and not ruin the planet so that company
| A can make 5 extra cents a share.
| zackmorris wrote:
| Nonsense. And also I find it rather amusing that technologists
| so passionately predict exponential innovation in all areas of
| science except for sustainability. If you want to find the
| truth, it's best to discount propaganda from banks like
| JPMorgan Chase. Blaming the government for slowing economic
| growth instead of corporations, in this age of unrestrained
| late stage crony capitalism and neoliberalism, is not a great
| look either.
|
| What I see coming is that the powers that be will crash the
| global economy and ignite more proxy wars in the next 6 months
| before the US presidential election to throw it and cement
| minority rule for as many more years as possible. That looks
| like sewing suspicion around such basic American values as
| democracy. Because we're all struggling so hard just to survive
| that we turn on each other instead of the owner class which
| funds most tech companies and even HN itself.
|
| I can't really blame them, as they have the power. This is all
| just a big game to them, as they dip into our money supply to
| ratchet up their fortunes at perhaps 1% per day whenever they
| need money, through stock market algorithmic trading which we
| don't have access to.
|
| So it makes little sense to talk about societal investment when
| over 50% of Americans no longer have any disposable income to
| speak of. Regulatory capture has sunk what was once our
| retirement and social safety net into a $30+ trillion national
| debt paid as treasury yield to the same wealthy financiers who
| are buying up over 40% of US homes through private equity
| groups to convert us to a renter society.
|
| It would cost next to nothing to convert to a solar grid-tie
| infrastructure amortized over a decade, with positive dividends
| paid back to all of us after that. But they won't even give us
| nothing to spend, they just keep us perpetually in debt so we
| can't improve our situation at even the most basic level.
|
| https://www.tiktok.com/@r4ultra/video/7350811129926536478
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/21/how-wall-street-bought-singl...
| hackerlight wrote:
| I'll save you all a click. Vaclav Smil doesn't do any analysis
| around costings. He pulls the figure from a Mckinsey report[1]
| (now 2 years old) and multiplies it by 2. To have a meaningful
| discussion about this, you would have to read the Mckinsey
| report and understand the input assumptions. In particular,
| what are the assumptions around cost curves?
|
| [1]
| https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/business%20functio...
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| FWIW "Net Zero" is using carbon offsets to have "net output" of
| zero carbon emissions, but you can still emit as much carbon as
| you can buy credits for. Credits have been widely regarded as
| ineffectual and even worsening carbon emissions, deforestation
| etc.
|
| Some utilities now have programs where you can pay them extra
| money "to get a portion of your power from a clean energy
| source". This money is used effectively to buy carbon credits. So
| they're asking customers to subsidize them in not needing to
| eliminate carbon emissions.
|
| Actually not emitting carbon is what some utilities now call
| "real zero". But their commitments to "real zero" are a long ways
| away, and they're just corporate goals & in no way binding.
| berkes wrote:
| This is made worse by the sheer, but actual, complexity that
| surrounds all this. Especially the "scopes1".
|
| So someone buying and selling, say, diesel in solar-powered-
| fuel stations, can still have "net zero" because they
| themselves don't emit, but both the people buying it, and the
| companies producing it, still emit immense amounts of carbon.
|
| Which is then a very easy way to "greenwash" your business. To
| have marketing, that's not even a lie, but still being very
| misleading.
|
| (I used to build accounting software for carbon emission
| accounting, it's way, way more complex that this diesel-
| example)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_accounting#Frameworks_a...
| jgraham wrote:
| Technically the difference between "net zero" and "carbon
| neutral" is supposed to be that "net zero" first eliminates all
| but "residual" emissions, and only then depends on offsets,
| whereas "carbon neutral" is more like what you describe (no
| required emissions cuts; possible to just buy -- often dubious
| -- offsets).
|
| Science Based Targets Initiative for example requires companies
| signing up to their scheme to have credible plans to cut
| emissions by ~50% by 2030 and 90% by 2050 to claim that they're
| aiming for "net zero" [1] (SBTI itself was recently in the news
| because employees felt that recent policy changes leaned too
| heavily on offsetting; I don't really know what the current
| situation there is).
|
| In practice usage of these terms my not be well regulated, so
| it's always worth checking out exactly whose definitions are
| being used.
|
| [1] sciencebasedtargets.org/blog/net-zero-jargon-buster-a-
| guide-to-common-terms
| Loughla wrote:
| When we tried to install solar panels, one of the MANY
| roadblocks our coop put in the way was that we had to opt out
| of additional charges for carbon credits before they would
| begin processing the solar installation.
|
| So because we applied for a solar inspection to have solar
| installed, we were automatically enrolled in a program that
| costs us more money, for their carbon offsets. And they were
| selling it to us as if that's just the same as us installing
| solar panels.
|
| Garbage. And that was just one of about a dozen different
| blocks they have as part of their process.
|
| If I lived somewhere with other utility providers, I would tell
| them to fuck right off.
| MisterDizzy wrote:
| These discussions are starting to worry me. There isn't much
| point to talking about the climate until we can start looking at
| this issue as a matter of "how do we increase human flourishing,"
| which should be a universal goal for all of us.
|
| But instead, we focus on the far less feasible "how can we stop
| people from using so much post-industrial technology?" People
| aren't going to use less energy, especially since radical
| consumption cutbacks of the sort that Europe sometimes attempts
| do seem to reduce the quality of human life, sometimes pretty
| radically. It seems like most people think the priority that
| matters is "doing what's good for the planet" while essentially
| disregarding the effect it has on human beings and their ability
| to survive and thrive.
|
| Unless you want people to die every winter and summer, the goal
| when talking about climate and energy should not be ""save the
| planet, humans are a plague, the planet would be better without
| us!"", it should be to maximize human flourishing. If we can't
| agree that human flourishing is a worthy goal, we have to step
| back, waaay back, and reevaluate why we're even having this
| discussion to begin with.
|
| If we really do think "humans are a plague and the planet would
| be better without us," things might get pretty terrifying pretty
| quickly. Who does that benefit? What is the end goal of that
| mindset?
|
| We can't abide by anti-humanist ways of "solving" problems. If we
| focus on human flourishing, everyone will get closer to what they
| want.
|
| Unless, of course, what they want is to decrease human
| flourishing.
|
| Also, any alternative energy discussion that doesn't include
| nuclear isn't serious about solving the problem, just kneecapping
| current trends in energy production. The case against nuclear is
| mostly ill-informed in my experience. Nuclear, the latest version
| of which is far safer and more feasible, _will_ be the future, it
| 's just a matter of who in the world will get to it first.
| mistermann wrote:
| Sir: surely you aren't suggesting that The Humans are going
| about this whole thing _wrong_ , are you? Because that would be
| crazy.
| hackerlight wrote:
| > But instead, we focus on the far less feasible "how can we
| stop people from using so much post-industrial technology?"
|
| That's a strawman. I assume you're taking about degrowth loons
| on social media. Why would you do that?
|
| In the real world, policymakers and center-left political
| parties (and center-right parties outside of the US) do not
| want people to stop using technology.
|
| What policymakers are trying to do is shift from one technology
| (oil and gas) to another technology (firmed renewables or
| nuclear).
|
| The reason for this is to maximize human flourishing by
| preventing wet bulb temperatures near the equator from becoming
| too large relative to the 31-35 degree survivability limit,
| among other consequences which you can read about elsewhere.
| MisterDizzy wrote:
| There are a lot of assumptions taken for granted in there.
| But sure, less technology is not the real goal, that's not a
| good way to phrase it, good point.
|
| I suppose the better way to say it would be that the goal is
| less energy use and lower quality of life. But the important
| part is that nobody who is pushing that sort of cutback from
| a position of power actually buys what they're selling. They
| just want the lesser people below them to buy it. As for why
| they want that, I'm not sure.
| briantakita wrote:
| > These discussions are starting to worry me. There isn't much
| point to talking about the climate until we can start looking
| at this issue as a matter of "how do we increase human
| flourishing," which should be a universal goal for all of us.
|
| Whatever you do, do not mention that the US Military & MIC is
| the #1 producer of CO2. And do not suggest that we reduce the
| CO2 emissions of the US military & MIC. It will make the people
| here angry. We can tolerate a little bit of talk about private
| jets flying into Davos. With each per capita attendee using the
| CO2 of >1000 people * years. So they can talk about "saving the
| planet". But not too much.
|
| Rules for thee but not for me. Own nothing & be happy. Do not
| forget that.
| MisterDizzy wrote:
| Precisely. The people who tell you that you must radically
| cut back "for the planet" do not believe what they are
| selling, but they do think it would be very good for them if
| you believed it (and it would be).
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Not vital to the larger point but:
|
| > to have any hope of achieving this goal would require the
| addition, every year, of 630 gigawatts of solar photovoltaics and
| 390 GW of wind starting no later than 2030--figures that are
| around four times as great as than any annual tally so far.
|
| But according to Bloomberg:
|
| > developers deployed 444 GW of new PV capacity throughout the
| world in 2023.
|
| So rather than 25% towards the 2030 goal we are 66% there on PV.
|
| Bloomberg continues:
|
| > It says new installations could reach 574 GW this year, 627 GW
| in 2025, and 880 GW in 2030.
|
| So hitting the target 5 years ahead of schedule by this estimate.
| sega_sai wrote:
| It's a really interesting article. It does not really talk about
| Net zero much, but it talks more about reliability of grids that
| are fed by renewables and do not have classical generators.
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