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Comment by woodandsteel | Hacker News Reader

So what do you think we should be doing? Staying on fossil fuels indefinitely, or moving to renewables more slowly or what.

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You can have natural gas backup generating capacity equal to most demand--but which is used only a few days a year. This 95% Green solution is going to be a lot cheaper and more reliable than a 100% Green solution.

> This 95% Green solution is going to be a lot cheaper and more reliable than a 100% Green solution.

Right now our energy is roughly 5-10% green. Arguing whether green energy should eventually be 95% or 100% is purely pedantic at this point. There is approximately 95% of common ground between green energy purists and pragmatists. Lets get in line.

California's over 40% on solar+hydro+wind+geothermal.

Who downvotes facts?

https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/almanac/electricity_data/total_sys...

Large Hydro 10.68%

Renewables (including geothermal, solar, and wind) 31.36%

Nuclear 9%

"I refuse your reality and substitute my own." - Adam Savage, a man ahead of his time.

Sure, but the problem is most demand occurs when intermittent sources do not produce energy. This plan really aims for about 40% green energy not 95% green energy. Hence why Germany's emissions have remained flat despite large increases in solar and wind generation.

There is no good reason to expect the ¨last 5%¨ of demand will be more economically met by the next generation of nuclear plants - than by the generation of renewable tech which will be developed by the time it is already supplying the other 95% ;)

That's a fair question but is the western world commiting energetic suicide first the solution? The biggest problem for the green revolution type of people to understand is that electricity just doesn't come from the wall, just like the rest of they energy needs. People can't imagine to live in a world where it's not reliable.

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