
The world can transition to 100% clean, renewable energy - epa
http://thesolutionsproject.org/
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paulddraper
Wind and solar make warm-and-fuzzy infographics, but the practical answer for
alternative energy has been known for decades: nuclear.

Currently, there just isn't an economic need to switch off fossil fuels. The
US has an _enormous_ supply of coal. Combine that with fracking oil, and it'll
be a long time before we _really_ need other energy sources. (I'm of course
sidelining environmental concerns. It's economics that drive energy.)

...But once fossil fuels do finally run out in years and years and we have to
finally get serious, we'll choose the obvious solution: one that's compact,
location/weather independent, and sufficiently plentiful.

~~~
danmaz74
> Currently, there just isn't an economic need to switch off fossil fuels

That's if you don't consider externalities - most importantly, CO2 levels and
climate change.

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ChuckMcM
This is the California page:
[http://thesolutionsproject.org/infographic/#ca](http://thesolutionsproject.org/infographic/#ca)
what is missing, there is _zero_ baseline energy generation. That's right, all
wind and solar. The closest that comes to baseband is hydroelectric, which
during drought years like now, would mean powering the state at the detriment
of all sorts of ecosystems.

I get that we can improve our energy options, but you need that base load
covered, and that is either nuclear or fossil fuels at the moment.

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hvidgaard
I don't know if there is enough raw material in the world to produce enough
batteries, but that could theoretically be the answer to baseload. I just
don't think it's feasible.

I've seen hybrid systems sold to homeowners where solar power is used to
charge a battery, and surplus beyond that is used for heating hot water
storage. They're more of less completly independent from the grid, both for
power and heat.

~~~
dmichulke
There is another approximate solution to the baseload and storage problem:

A global power network.

Peak loads would balance themselves approximately with the lack of need of
energy at the opposite side of the earth.

Also, wind and solar energy generation would vary much less on a global scale.

Of course, there are calculations as to why this currently ineffective (AFAIK
mainly loss of energy through transmission) but who knows when the next
superconductor appears that could make it feasible.

Economically, it shouldn't cost much more than an internet.

~~~
ChuckMcM
As long as we have superconductors, but we don't. It is currently impossible
to move a megawatt[1] from Europe to the US over wires. Software has Amdahl's
law, and electricity has Ohm's law. Even the smallest resistance adds up over
distance and that translates into energy lost as heat. Early electrical
engineers will say "But wait, we can raise the voltage, and that will reduce
the current for the same amount of power!" which you can, but there is another
constant, called the dielectric constant which is the point at which a voltage
will "jump the gap" across an insulator to get to the other side. So you can't
raise the voltage high enough in this cable to reduce current without it then
jumping past any insulator you have into the ground.

There are examples of "fixed loss" systems where your loss is independent of
distance, one of those is to use your excess power to make a long chain
hydrocarbon and then transport the hydrocarbon by supertanker and then burn it
to convert it back into electricity. You could also simply charge giant
battery ships which would then head over to the destination and discharge
(this is another electricity -> chemical ... chemical -> electricity
transaction)

[1] I realize that is imprecise, the definition I'm using is put a megawatt of
electrical power "in" (power cables) in Paris and pull a megawatt "out" of the
other end in New York.

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terryf
Sooo, the title says that The _world_ can transition and then the web page
presents a map of the US to click on. Nice.

This reminds me of being on a tour in an old salt mill in Italy and at one
point the guide asking some people where they are from. The answers were:
Spain, France and then "Boston". The guide asked again and then he said,
because obviously that clarifies it: "Boston, Mass".

~~~
ducttapecrown
To be fair, the U.S. is a country on the scale of the E.U., 300 million and
500 million people respectively.

~~~
reustle
Not only population, but also area

US: 300 million people, 3.8 million sq miles

EU: 500 million people, 3.9 million sq miles

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netsharc
Geez, I thought they'd be offering an engineering solution. Nope, just a "Kony
2012" website. "Give us money and /feel/ proud that you're helping!"

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jakozaur
Nice graphic, but not very accurate.

1\. Most of the mentioned energy sources are not provide stable baseline (e.g.
solar, wind). We will need significant amount of storage which is omitted.

2\. Some sources doesn't exist yet at any significant scale (wave devices,
tidal turbine). It may be just more economical to have more solar or wind
thanks to scale effect.

~~~
manicdee
One of the interesting things about wind and solar is that they can output
less than the potential production at will.

So if you have a regular peak demand of 10GW, you provision for 12Gw of
predicted continuous production, then simply turn off the portion of
production that is not required.

This is not possible with steam or gas turbines because they have a huge lead
and lag time to cope with while wind and solar are for all intents and
purposes instantly switchable.

No storage required.

One use for storage storage is when 1kWh of storage becomes cheaper than an
extra kW of production required to meet that 1hr peak. Since wind power is
around 7¢/kWh at the moment, there is not much chance of this happening any
time soon.

A more likely use for storage is to remove dependency on fragile
interconnects. Remote towns can use batteries today to help insulate the
residents from temorary loss of power due to ice, wind, fire, etc damaging
transmission lines and equipment.

~~~
jakozaur
Gas turbines can start quickly and they are frequently used as peaking power
plants:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant)

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Animats
If the US absolutely had to do this, it could. It would mean building a lot of
pumped storage plants, wind farms, solar panel installations, and EHV
transmission lines. But it could be done.

The biggest pumped storage plant in the world is in the US, and it can
generate 3GW at peak. Peak demand for the California ISO is about 40GW.
California would need maybe ten plants of that size. A pumped storage plant
requires two reservoirs with a big height difference, and California has lots
of unused mountains. It doesn't use much water once filled up; the same water
is pumped up and down.

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lutusp
> The world can transition to 100% clean, renewable energy

Yes, at 5-10% of its present population and with a sudden, overwhelming and
universal attack of wisdom about the problems caused by uncontrolled
population growth. Otherwise, this is more eco-fantasy that ignores the
obstacle produced by ... too many people.

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dilemma
How many windmills and solar panels can be built before we run out of their
raw materials?

