
Are wind and solar and batteries the future for US electricity? - stevemillburg
https://cloverly.com/blog/does-wind-solar-batteries-the-future-for-us-electricity/
======
bifrost
I think we're designing for the wrong thing.

We should have nuclear going at 120% of demand and use the exess power to
support electricity based carbon capture devices.

~~~
nanny
It's too late. Solar and wind have the popularity and the momentum. They won.
The base cost to solar is also much, much cheaper than nuclear, making it
easier to practically implement. And solar/wind is a better long term solution
anyway in that we don't have to worry about waste management, safety,
maintenance, etc. It can also be extremely decentralized.

~~~
maximente
there's no time to ramp up on solar unfortunately. solar requires a massive
amount of area and should ideally also be built for purposes of reuse, as they
do expire and need to be replaced.

there's not enough solar and batteries that exist today to capture the needed
electricity. and we need energy today - not "sort of in the future" \- or else
there are likely to be mass deaths starting in 2050 or so when clean water is
due to become an issue, assuming status quo until then (which is highly
unlikely as well)

~~~
pmoriarty
_" solar requires a massive amount of area"_

The US, for instance, has massive amounts of undeveloped land. The majority of
the population live in cities, which only make up a tiny fraction of the land
mass (as you can see if you've ever flown across the US).

~~~
bifrost
Its undeveloped for a reason, its wildlife habitat. Nuclear needs no such wide
footprint.

------
aksss
In April on phys.org:

"The growing demand for minerals and metals to build the electric vehicles,
solar arrays, wind turbines and other renewable energy infrastructure
necessary to meet the ambitious goals of the Paris Climate Agreement could
outstrip current production rates for key metals by as early as 2022,
according to new research by the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures.

The study, commissioned and funded by U.S. non-profit organisation EarthWorks,
shows that as demand for minerals such as lithium and rare earths skyrockets,
the already significant environmental and human impacts of hardrock mining are
likely to rise steeply as well."

[https://phys.org/news/2019-04-exposes-extent-mineral-
demand-...](https://phys.org/news/2019-04-exposes-extent-mineral-demand-
renewable.html)

More renewable infrastructure = more mining. I don't know if this is an
example of the laws of thermodynamics, but nothing comes for free. I think
it's relevant when comparing turbine, solar array and tide capture equipment
to nuclear. Also relevant to policy decisions about domestic mining -
preventing mining doesn't mean demand drops, it means we source minerals from
other nations that may or may not respect clean and responsible mining
techniques.

Just because we do less fossil fuel extraction doesn't mean we get away from
natural resource development. It's a question of which is preferable, why, and
how to do it in the most responsible fashion; but acknowledging the link
between messy, ground-dwelling resource extraction and our electronics is not
one that captures much public attention today.

And so I think more and more about nuclear power.

~~~
phil248
Yes, but one can make the same argument about nearly anything since nothing
comes in to existence without some set of inputs. It's not some unique
attribute of renewable energy infrastructure that it requires resources to
build. That's just an attribute of anything, be it houses or cars or medical
equipment or toilet paper. There is, however, a unique characteristic of
renewable energy infrastructure that separates it from all the other crap we
build on an global scale, and that is that if we don't built it we are
essentially doomed.

~~~
aksss
Right, that's why I'm suggesting it's an element of comparison between nuclear
and "renewables". I really don't know which has a greater burden of resource
extraction. You need a lot of electronics to build a nuclear plant, but you
need a lot of discrete electronic devices to build wind farms, solar arrays
and the like. That's an interesting question of environmental cost to me, but
either tech there is still resource extraction going on and I just think it's
frequently a missing element of the discussion in the context of environmental
policy. For instance, people protesting the approval of new mining projects in
the US - okay, but where are you going to get the minerals that are in demand?
A place where the regulatory oversight is lessened? Is that really the most
responsible approach to resource development or just a NIMBY attitude?

------
selimthegrim
95% of it according to John Deutch

[https://youtu.be/PA8OzmiP9_4](https://youtu.be/PA8OzmiP9_4)

------
selimthegrim
Nice to see a Birmingham based startup - let’s hope they’re hiring soon!

