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Comment by ok_dad | Hacker News Reader

There’s such a thing as energy storage and long distance DC transmission. Why does the old “intermittent power” argument crop up every time when there’s clear engineering solutions to those problems? Next thing you know you’ll be blaming regulations on lack of new nuclear and talking about how we’re running out of lithium, both of which are false arguments as well.

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With those 2 things combined into a solution, you're gambling that we will always have average good wind conditions long enough to keep the grid batteries from going empty. Sadly, under your proposed regime, as time approaches infinity the chance that the grid will run out of power approaches 100%.

If you could avoid straw-manning me about nuclear and lithium in the future that would be super cool. I've played enough factorio to know that green power and batteries are part of the best solution, but you need high energy density generation systems for fast advancement too! If we turn our backs on that tech we know works we will lose future opportunities, or at least delay them

If your local energy storage or grid isn't reliable enough, you can always have a backup diesel generator. Or hydrogen powered generator if you insist this is green. Or some solar cells on your roof. And as much fuel as your risk analysis demands. But the reality is, hospitals can rely on local emergency services for support, and it is likely more cost effective run the risk of spoilage in the rare event of a multi-day power outage than invest in local generation for your refrigeration. My guess would be local equipment failure is more of a risk than a multi-day renewable energy outage, even in latitudes where solar is useless.

It crops up because people give these absurdly misleading cost estimates for adding incremental wind power to the grid. You can’t have wind power without spending money on an equivalent amount of reliable power, and no one wants to include those required costs in their estimates. This tends to dramatically understate the actual economics of wind.

There are plenty of studies of near-100% renewable energy grids and the electricity comes out similar to long-term wholesale trends (pre-Ukraine), even taking storage/transmission into account.

Let’s see one for wind power, then. OP implies wind is an order of magnitude cheaper.

How about this one:

https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/21-U...

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