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Comment by 1letterunixname | Hacker News Reader

This is a nonstarter from an insurance perspective. (Ask me how I know.)

For similar pricing, they could deploy renewables and MES or PHS without the risks associated with future radioactive waste transportation and storage and potential for meltdowns. Renewables already meet over 1/3 of world energy needs. It's rapidly becoming a waste of money and a political hot-button to invest in "bridge" energy sources when long-term solutions are viable here and now. It's good news that economic and ethical interests are rapidly aligning.

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Now you've got me wondering, what kind of technical expertise do different insurance companies possess to understand risk in these niche industries? Insuring Viasat's Visasat-3 for example. How do you quote for something like that without just pulling a number out of thin air and hope it doesn't bankrupt them. Do insurers need to sign off on technical specs?

No large industrialized without large hydro resources manages to run on NREs + storage only. France does with nuclear + hydro.

You can compare the energy mix of the countries with accessible data here https://app.electricitymaps.com/map

Even in larger time periods (a year or so), if a country is emotting low co2 (green) then it is either nuclear plus VREs (variable renewable energies) or VRE plus hydro

is nuclear a bridge? Renewables are inconsistent and batteries probably won't be good enough

Then you failed to understand pumped or mechanical energy storage.

Based on my limited current understanding, pumped/mechanical storage is not going to get us to 100% solar/wind. Pumped storage is great, but we need some baseline generation

Strawman: you're conflating and confusing energy storage with generation. They're entirely different. Texas alone deployed multiple multiples of 100's MW solar generation facilities that kept the lights on during the hottest heatwave in a century. Renewables account for 1/3 of all energy produced in the world now. Decarbonization of most major centralized pollution sources is achievable within 15 years.

And wherever there is a hydroelectric generation dam, there is also a "battery" that can run generators in reverse for PES, e.g., it is both generation and storage.

I am not conflating storage with generation. I am saying that mechanical storage is insufficient to fill the dips in renewable generation.

Neither is really efficient

You don't know what you're talking about and provided no evidence. Pumped energy storage goes up to 80%+ efficient and is extremely scalable.

It isn’t extremely scalable. It only works in pretty specific locations.

1/3rd of current energy needs. Come back when you can do 100x that on renewable or more. We aren't going to be able to get by with just current outputs. Several orders of magnitude greater are needed.

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