In remarks tied to the UN week, Trump repeated the argument that Europe—and specifically Germany—turned back to traditional fuels after pursuing renewables, casting it as proof that rapid green transitions don’t work.
. . . what we can say is that it only produces power during the day, and the daytime is generally when power consumption is at its highest (not universally true, particularly in that evening/early nighttime period, but the daytime is a significant spike), so I would think that helps to some degree with the variable power output problem.
There’s another way to model this. We have weather data stretching back a long time. We know when a given region will have sufficient wind and solar. There will be lull where neither are producing enough, but we have a pretty good idea of what that will be based on historical data. Figure out how much storage you need to cover that lull, and double it as a safety factor.
The result from this analysis is a whole lot less storage than is generally assumed. Getting to 95% non-nuclear renewable is relatively easy. It’s much harder to get that last 5%, but as you say, we don’t actually have to go to zero carbon emissions.
Basically, my position is to keep what fission we have. The US produces about 20% of its electricity from fission, and that’s fine. The rest has a clear path forward to drastically cut carbon emissions without a single new fission plant.
Getting to 95% non-nuclear renewable is relatively easy. It’s much harder to get that last 5%, but as you say, we don’t actually have to go to zero carbon emissions.
Yeah, I don’t see why this isn’t a good end goal. 95% non-nuclear renewable, including storage. Supposedly we can do this cheaper than the current grid and with today’s technology.
Would it really be so bad to have natural gas peaker plants for the rest? The problem is it’s not a consistent 5% but that 5% of the year and you can’t really keep up, assuming affordable renewables and storage buildout. Natural gas is good at powering up on demand, instead of wanting to be on continually.
So we’re still emitting carbon, but much much less than today. Maybe we can add it to the pile of things that will be tough to convert, like shipping, aviation, metal refining, plastics
There’s another way to model this. We have weather data stretching back a long time. We know when a given region will have sufficient wind and solar. There will be lull where neither are producing enough, but we have a pretty good idea of what that will be based on historical data. Figure out how much storage you need to cover that lull, and double it as a safety factor.
The result from this analysis is a whole lot less storage than is generally assumed. Getting to 95% non-nuclear renewable is relatively easy. It’s much harder to get that last 5%, but as you say, we don’t actually have to go to zero carbon emissions.
Basically, my position is to keep what fission we have. The US produces about 20% of its electricity from fission, and that’s fine. The rest has a clear path forward to drastically cut carbon emissions without a single new fission plant.
Yeah, I don’t see why this isn’t a good end goal. 95% non-nuclear renewable, including storage. Supposedly we can do this cheaper than the current grid and with today’s technology.
Would it really be so bad to have natural gas peaker plants for the rest? The problem is it’s not a consistent 5% but that 5% of the year and you can’t really keep up, assuming affordable renewables and storage buildout. Natural gas is good at powering up on demand, instead of wanting to be on continually.
So we’re still emitting carbon, but much much less than today. Maybe we can add it to the pile of things that will be tough to convert, like shipping, aviation, metal refining, plastics