In another thread
@Bob B posted a video on Tesla's layoffs (thanks Bob! Great video!), at
8:15 Sandy makes the point that newspapers have the slogan
if bleeds it leads and how they love to post apocalyptic crap, all just to make money. It's a point I've made numerous times, all the crap predictions you've heard (e.g., Florida underwater), aren't from scientists... they're from headlines trying to sell papers. But rather than blame the paper, the scientists somehow got blamed. People started to disbelieve what the scientists were actually saying.
In the story of the boy who cried wolf, people ignored the kid just like many deniers today use that as their basis for disbelieving change. But even in that story... the wolf was indeed real.
Solar isn't viable at scale without massive downsides. No, I do not want see open spaces of land used for solar panels at all.
There are no massive downsides AFAIK. Power is power. But, please elaborate if you want to discuss it more.
Do you mean aesthetics? Eyesore of a power plant spewing out irritants and destroying the climate versus the eyesore of panels/wind turbines. Seems like a small penalty and downside to keep the world from going to hell in a handbasket and paying out so much money to fix new problems.
Although, it makes the most sense to distribute panels to rooftops as it minimizes the need for grid infrastructure and you probably already have them or are considering them since you're on these forums, so suspect you came to the same conclusion.
...Solar panels being 22% efficient at this point means that maturation
What? When has efficiency equaled maturity? For example:
The total WTW efficiency of gasoline ICEV ranges between 11-27 %, diesel ICEV ranges from 25 % to 37 % and CNGV ranges from 12 % to 22 %.
ref
Yes, those gasoline cars that have been around for over a 100 years and have the same overall efficiency as a solar panel. Not many people complain that 80% of the gasoline they pay for is converted into heat instead of electricity; probably because they don't know. Worse, the maximum possible efficiency of any combustion engine has a theoretical maximum based on
Carnot's theorem. You just can't increase their efficiency without increasing the operating temperature, you can't significantly increase temperature either as that creates more NOx
.
That said, solar efficiency is increasing. But I doubt we can wait for it.
of the technology will only reduce the impact to the environment. If panels made it to the 50% mark, we could use rooftop systems to power most homes without a need to waste good land.
That's just more bad rhetoric you've been led to believe. See:
The simple truth is there's no reason to waste land with them. Solar and wind can share land with livestock and plants.
But there's also no need. I did the calculations in the thread a while back if you want to review them.... there's more than enough residential and commerical rooftop space to provide all the solar energy needed at the current efficiency. Solar panels are also now cheap enough to be used as fencing and building materials (
ref). If we can figure out how to make the roads out of them then there's nearly 3x the land we need.
Solar is more viable to reduce load to the grid and or provide independence.
Could you explain more? If solar can provide independence it can replace the grid, so seems more than just a load reducer.
Now that solar with battery backup is on par with natural gas (previously the cheapest form of grid power) LCOEs I don't see any need for coal, oil, or gas based electricity. As the plants age out over the next 30 years they can just be decommissioned.
You mentioned you don't want to see huge buildings full of batteries... why would you see them anymore then you already see buildings of noisy stinky powerplants? Batteries are pretty dense storage, smaller than their counterparts. They can also be distributed to sub-grids reducing the the need for grid infrastructure expansion. The really big ones I've seen are in freight shipping containers, but you have to look for them as they are typically tucked out of sight.
...Independence will be a great thing and we should absolutely move toward that.
Sounds like you should be for solar, wind, geothermal.
The profit motive goes down a lot in a market where artificial control is excercised upon fuel consumption, scaling down an operation may mean that it is no longer economically viable.
The LCOEs I posted earlier are unsubsidized costs, both for renewables and fossil fuels. So, even unsubsidized they're cost competitive now.
I don't trust humans to build reactors on fault lines and near coastal areas, I understand the theory and agree that it is theoretically viable, but history human nature and murphy's law tell us that it is unwise. (Edit, I just noticed your tagline)
Thanks! ; -)
The problem I see with nuclear power is that it is expensive and if something does go wrong it makes a big mess. I also see the counterpoint, when something goes wrong it might be the lesser issue (e.g., in the Fukushima Daiichi tidal wave one nuclear worker died from radiation, but 2,313 people died from the tidal wave despite warnings). Although to your point about wasting land, I believe there are still uninhabitable parts of both Fukushima Daiichi and Chernobyl. Possibly we could have robots deploy solar farms there?
... how much better would they be if we focused on the storage issue first?
Not quite sure what you mean? Battery prices have been falling steadily to where they are competitive with the cheapest fossil fuels.
While recent research discoveries might not hit the commercial market until after 2050, there are other solutions such as the sodium battery which are just emerging now in the commercial space that will drive prices down even farther. In 2021 the
DOE set a goal to reduce ESS costs by 90%.
Actually, a lot of them do (although it might be more for image). Bill Gates for example drives an EV and while he has a private jet, he also pay's out ~$7 million annually in CDR to eliminate his carbon footprint (
ref).
It may not be long term, however we cant shut off the supply of prosperity enabling energy that is available now. We can't build alternative systems without energy. If we stop or slow at some point it needs to be planned for.
No one is going to turn off the tap until replacements are in place. But, those making money off the way things are now sure are doing everything they can to slow it down.
The planet will survive a lot of terrible behavior on the part of humans
Meh, the planet will survive until the sun expands in 5 billion years. The planet doesn't care how cold or hot it gets. It doesn't care what humans do or if they even survive.
unlimitedhangout.com
No home made assembled batteries.
