Would be great to see some robots get made that can much more rapidly install solar in big solar farms. I suppose most of it is mechanized already... but maybe robots could help automate it more.
Nortern Europe? Freezing in the winter (so lots of heating necessitating more electricity), and generally poor weather, plus the daylight hours can be incredibly short.
I'm not sure how solar works in places like this unless you massively overbuild (not exactly appealing, efficient, or environmentally friendly), and/or rely on electricity transported over vast distances (which I understand is not particularly viable).
No. 1-2MV DC transmission lines can move power 3000+ miles at >97% efficiency.
This isn't directed at you, but I'm starting to get super frustrated with this myth that transporting electricity is inefficient. I see it almost everywhere these discussions take place and I don't know why.
I suppose efficiency aside, the next big problem(s) would be of a political nature? Having no control over your power supply (which is hosted in a foreign nation) is quite a big geopolitical risk?
It's very windy here. On the mainland, especially in summer, it might be calmer for days or even weeks so you would need a lot of storage, but you probably can power the UK on wind if that's what you were determined to do, and when it's really blowing (much of the winter) you can export that cheap wind power too, offsetting the price of buying some of say Spain's solar power or France's nukes when the wind is calm.
Most of today so far for example grid wind was steadily about 13GW. Here on the mainland it seems pretty calm, but I guess out in the ocean it is plenty windy enough to turn those blades and make electricity.
But it still doesn't significantly help countries like Belgium or the Netherlands, or even Germany.
I'm actually very interested to see how Germany tried to decarbonise over the next couple of decades, as I think they've managed to get most of the low hanging fruit (for example, from what I've read, I don't think there's really anymore space for them to install offshore turbines without quite significant difficulties).
This simply isn't true outside of artic zones. While it's true the panels become less efficient in a $/kw basis, the cost of panels is already so low that the increase is negligible.
These dark, barren areas also tend to have a surplus of surface area so adding an extra 20-30% in panels to account for the disparity isn't an issue.
Densely populated, so there's not lots of "dark barren" land.
Energy consumption rises considerably in the winter, just as sunlight hours reduce, and the weather gets cloudier.
Even assuming there was lots of free surface area, I would assume that the extra number of panels would far exceed 20-30% when you consider the disparity in energy consumption alongside when it happens (after the sun sets, and before it rises).
The only way it would work is with a very large surplus of panels (quite how large I can only guess, but 20-30% seems incredibly optimistic to me), alongside a very significant storage mechanism. And even then, I'm not sure if that would insure against a severe cold patch coinciding with a few days of cloudly, dark weather.
Solar is still good to have coz the spells of low wind tend to coincide with having lots of sun and coz if youre putting up a roof, the costs of adding some panels up there while youre at it are fairly minimal.
What the UK really needs is to fix its near universally shit insulation, though. In terms of "green" ROI nothing else comes close to making buildings hold more heat.
One side benefit of that is that energy will be free 90% of the time. Great for carbon extraction and desalination.
We need the hydrogen regardless, so its usefulness to store surplus energy besides is a bonus.
I have no idea how this makes electricity from renewables “higher quality”.
This issue comes up all the time in energy analysis where you need to carefully distinguish between "primary" (i.e., before conversion in a heat engine) energy to zero-entropy energy (electrical energy, work).
When people are talking about 1 GW nuclear reactor, they mean that reactor is generating 1 GW of electricity, so that the reactor is in fact >3 GW thermal. Nobody is comparing electricity from renewables to thermal energy from nuclear.
In fact, this actually makes nuclear superior: you can use the waste 2 GW of heat to run district heating in nearby located cities. Pretty popular in Europe, though with coal/gas plants. There is no similar useful byproduct to solar/wind.
Of course the sun does provide direct heat without need to process it through panels. Solar PV and nuke customers both rely on that.
Nuclear isn't cheaper now, and won't be any time soon. If we want more cheap energy then renewables _are_ the right solution, especially in places like the US where land is cheap and there is plenty of sunshine. It makes less sense in Europe, but if the Chinese make substantial advances in nuclear tech then great — we can build new reactors in 10/20 years when they do make economic sense.
If anything, a "higher stage" of civilization would be perfectly sustainable and highly energy efficient.
There's nothing civilized in being a parasitic species.