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And? Solar cannot do it, it's as simple as that, so the cost is irrelevant. > becoming exponentially cheaper "Exponentially" is very unlikely. It may become s

And? Solar cannot do it, it's as simple as that, so the cost is irrelevant. > becoming exponentially cheaper "Exponentially" is very unlikely. It may become somewhat cheaper, at first, if supply increases. Which btw. is also true for nuclear power. But then what? We cannot power the world with solar alone, for the simple reason that we cannot store that much energy during the dark hours. Hydro storage is geographically limited, and batteries, well, let's just say the entire world output of Lithium over the last 3 decades didn't make enough to even store the electricity the US alone requires in a single day. And that is before be electrify further. Yes, we should build more solar. There is no reason to have roofs not covered in panels. But all solar can do, is help. It is not the solution to our energy demands.

jncfhnb 2y ago
> Exponentially" is very unlikely. It may become somewhat cheaper, at first, if supply increases. Which btw. is also true for nuclear power. Not “at first” but demonstrably over time and ongoing. Yes it will cease eventually but it seems like that’s not near. > But then what? We cannot power the world with solar alone, for the simple reason that we cannot store that much energy during the dark hours. Hydro storage is geographically limited, and batteries, well, let's just say the entire world output of Lithium over the last 3 decades didn't make enough to even store the electricity the US alone requires in a single day. And that is before be electrify further. Powering the us on batteries for a full day is not a realistic goal. But batteries are already cost competitive and shuttering gas peaker plants. > Yes, we should build more solar. There is no reason to have roofs not covered in panels. But all solar can do, is help. It is not the solution to our energy demands. Rooftop solar is actually more expensive than nuclear actually. Or at least a year or two ago. If you build a bunch of nuclear you will not be able to compete on price with cheap renewables during the day. But you can’t just turn a nuclear reactor on and off so you’ll have to still generate and operate at a loss. Which means to be profitable you have to raise prices to make up for it in the off hours. Which, in turn, makes you less competitive and makes it more commercially viable for batteries. Tl;dr, market forces will punish you. Renewables and batteries and fossil fuels as backup are the clear winners
- usrbinbash 2y ago
  > But you can’t just turn a nuclear reactor on and off No, but I can regulate its output up and down. You don't have to turn a reactor off entirely, its output can be regulated up and down without shutting down completely. > and makes it more commercially viable for batteries. The problem with batteries isn't commercial viability. The problem is physical availability. There simply isn't enough Li in the world to make Solar as powerful as it would need to be to stem a majority of our energy requirements, and as of now, we don't have another battery technology that would be suitable. At a macro view, the whole thing isn't an economic question. Here are the three facts: 1. We cannot continue with fossil fuel power as we did before (because climate change) 2. Solar isn't up to the task of taking (among other reasons because we don't have the storage required) 3. The worlds energy demands are increasing. Maybe it could be made to grow slower, but reversing it is unlikely So, what options does that leave us with? Wind suffers from similar problems as Solar. Hydro is geographically limited, as is Tidal. Geothermal is likely too weak. Fusion power doesn't exist yet. And as cool as a Dyson-Swarm would be, that's even further away than Fusion. So, what technology remains?
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    1) lithium mining is up 6x since 10 years ago. You shouldn’t assume the average over ten years is a good indicator about capacity to mine. Mining rates are growing quickly. 2) there are competing materials for new battery tech besides lithium 3) battery capacity deployed per year is growing exponentially 4) when you have large over supplies of energy you can pursue hydrogen. Green hydrogen should be at parity with grey hydrogen in less than a decade. Not cost competitive with just using fuels or batteries for utility scale, but slowly getting there. 5) commercial viability absolutely matters. Subsidizing an expensive source of energy rather than building more and more capacity for cheap energy is a bad strategy while using fossil fuels as a crutch in the interim is a bad strategy. Running a nuclear plant at low capacity craters its financial viability.
    - anon84873628 2y ago
      Plus, the new materials for battery tech could be as simple as "molten sand". We've really barely scratched the surface on grid scale storage.

jncfhnb 2y ago

> Exponentially" is very unlikely. It may become somewhat cheaper, at first, if supply increases. Which btw. is also true for nuclear power. Not “at first” but demonstrably over time and ongoing. Yes it will cease eventually but it seems like that’s not near. > But then what? We cannot power the world with solar alone, for the simple reason that we cannot store that much energy during the dark hours. Hydro storage is geographically limited, and batteries, well, let's just say the entire world output of Lithium over the last 3 decades didn't make enough to even store the electricity the US alone requires in a single day. And that is before be electrify further. Powering the us on batteries for a full day is not a realistic goal. But batteries are already cost competitive and shuttering gas peaker plants. > Yes, we should build more solar. There is no reason to have roofs not covered in panels. But all solar can do, is help. It is not the solution to our energy demands. Rooftop solar is actually more expensive than nuclear actually. Or at least a year or two ago. If you build a bunch of nuclear you will not be able to compete on price with cheap renewables during the day. But you can’t just turn a nuclear reactor on and off so you’ll have to still generate and operate at a loss. Which means to be profitable you have to raise prices to make up for it in the off hours. Which, in turn, makes you less competitive and makes it more commercially viable for batteries. Tl;dr, market forces will punish you. Renewables and batteries and fossil fuels as backup are the clear winners

usrbinbash 2y ago
> But you can’t just turn a nuclear reactor on and off No, but I can regulate its output up and down. You don't have to turn a reactor off entirely, its output can be regulated up and down without shutting down completely. > and makes it more commercially viable for batteries. The problem with batteries isn't commercial viability. The problem is physical availability. There simply isn't enough Li in the world to make Solar as powerful as it would need to be to stem a majority of our energy requirements, and as of now, we don't have another battery technology that would be suitable. At a macro view, the whole thing isn't an economic question. Here are the three facts: 1. We cannot continue with fossil fuel power as we did before (because climate change) 2. Solar isn't up to the task of taking (among other reasons because we don't have the storage required) 3. The worlds energy demands are increasing. Maybe it could be made to grow slower, but reversing it is unlikely So, what options does that leave us with? Wind suffers from similar problems as Solar. Hydro is geographically limited, as is Tidal. Geothermal is likely too weak. Fusion power doesn't exist yet. And as cool as a Dyson-Swarm would be, that's even further away than Fusion. So, what technology remains?
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  1) lithium mining is up 6x since 10 years ago. You shouldn’t assume the average over ten years is a good indicator about capacity to mine. Mining rates are growing quickly. 2) there are competing materials for new battery tech besides lithium 3) battery capacity deployed per year is growing exponentially 4) when you have large over supplies of energy you can pursue hydrogen. Green hydrogen should be at parity with grey hydrogen in less than a decade. Not cost competitive with just using fuels or batteries for utility scale, but slowly getting there. 5) commercial viability absolutely matters. Subsidizing an expensive source of energy rather than building more and more capacity for cheap energy is a bad strategy while using fossil fuels as a crutch in the interim is a bad strategy. Running a nuclear plant at low capacity craters its financial viability.
  - anon84873628 2y ago
    Plus, the new materials for battery tech could be as simple as "molten sand". We've really barely scratched the surface on grid scale storage.