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Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

> People on HN hate it when you say we have to change our whole society to deal with this problem.

We obviously don't have to change our whole society to deal with that problem.

1) I've been told that renewable are now grid competitive in cost and the power system is switching over to them naturally.

2) At any point we could go nuclear - even the most pessimistic anti-nuclear activist would have to admit that the risks from nuclear power are localised and that the raw volume of pollution rounds to 0 compared to what we do now.

It would take a couple of breakthroughs in battery technology to solve the transport problem and the whole thing might get solved in the background without much more serious effort. Most people wouldn't even notice.

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You'd be surprised how much anti-nuclear activists would disagree with your second point. I'm sure I know a couple that would rather watch the world burn than vote for someone that will build a single reactor.

I think once an issue like that becomes a left/right black/white thing all logic just goes straight out the window. You can't even say the word nuclear without hearing a cacophony of statements about the price of nuclear vs renewables, as if those claims don't need any actual numbers to go along with them.

When you break it down, for California (a relatively sunny place) it would take more than $3.63 trillion dollars to be 100% renewable.

[1]https://youtu.be/h5cm7HOAqZY?t=709

No it wouldn't. The assumptions made in that video are ridiculous.

You don't need to have storage for all your solar; you turn other sources off when you have excess supply. Or you can switch them off simply by covering them. Batteries are not the only form of storage. Hydro exists and is in use already. You are allowed to import electricity. There are other renewables besides solar and wind. etc etc etc...

I disagree. Assumptions made in the video are realistic. You kinda need battery storage for your solar/wind.

Other sources can be hard/impossible to stop.

Batteries are the only form of storage that's scalable. Hydro exist, but you can't expect to just add another hydroelectric dam, whenever your solar overwhelms your current capacity. Hell even storing gravitational energy probably requires frankly massive amounts of development.

You are allowed to import/export electricity, but the assumption is others will have similar power sources, no? When there is the excess sun in one area, it's either going to be excess in nearby areas (because day happens nearby at the same time). Sure, you want to export to countries without sun, but the loses are probably going to be huge (loses mean infrastructure is stressed additionally).

What other renewable resources?

- Hydro? Destructive for the environment kills migrating fish, ruins ecosystems and not available everywhere.

- Geothermal? Only available at a few places can possibly lead to earthquakes.

- Bioenergy? Causes horrible air pollution.

> I disagree. Assumptions made in the video are realistic.

Nope, they're the opposite of realistic because they disagree with reality.

> You kinda need battery storage for your solar/wind.

You kinda don't. Here in Scotland, we've gone from around 15% renewables in 2007 to 70% in 2017. We closed our last coal station in 2016. Guess how many battery storage facilities we have? None. There are plans to build one in the near future. And yet we have a perfectly fine and consistent electricity supply. When reality disagrees with your theory, it's your theory that's wrong.

The other obvious renewable in California would be tidal.

Oh, and you can get rid of all your hydro when you no longer have any need for water. I swear sometimes people forget what dams are actually used for.

> Nope, they're the opposite of realistic because they disagree with reality.

Or, your premises are different. From what I see Scotland derives like 90% of its power from Wind, which is possible its unique property. Another thing to take into consideration is that California has a larger population than Scotland.

But overall I get what you are saying. I still suspect going 100% renewable won't be feasible for most countries.

1. Take a look at https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=map&solar=false&remote=... -- renewables are certainly not switching over fast enough.

2. Even if nuclear were not controversial, it cannot be deployed quick enough. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080304100413.h... I recall seeing a calculation that it would require us to turn on a new nuclear power plant every day for the next several decades. That's obviously not going to happen, when countries are currently decommissioning nuclear plants.

> the whole thing might get solved in the background without much more serious effort. Most people wouldn't even notice.

Frankly, this is a ridiculous and dangerous assumption. Globally, we have a limited carbon budget remaining in order to prevent catastrophic warming. That means we must be decreasing emissions on the order of at least 10% per year until we're at zero emissions, and then continue taking carbon out of the atmosphere. Such a scale requires massive transformation across all sectors of society.

> I've been told that renewable are now grid competitive in cost and the power system is switching over to them naturally.

These are more lies and half-truths, for the most part. Wind and solar as always quoted on a "nameplate" basis - how much power they can theoretically produce under ideal conditions. But most don't produce anywhere near that, on average, and I suspect that many can't even make their "nameplate" promises either. Add in the fact that they will have to have more traditional power plants as backup for when they fail to produce, and actual costs are easily a multiple of what is currently being quoted, perhaps a relatively high multiple at that.

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