Oh, absolutely. While there’s quite a few things to worry about with nuclear, going to coal instead (which is what happened in many places) is a far more destructive thing.
Solar and batteries are here today. They can be installed today. The only thing missing is the political will to make the fake valuations of the fossil fuel companies, which ignore externalities, diminish.
Id love if world could just ditch the fossil fuels and move to renewals, but it often seems people does not account how hard it is to make nation wide electric grid from wind and solar.
I live in a part of the world where during the winter when the electricity demand is on its highest, there are only few hours of sunlight per day at best.
And wind is wind. There is sometimes too much of it so the windmills are not safe to run and sometimes there are too little to generate enough electricity.
Even if there would be enough wind and solafarms to in theory to run the whole country, we have no real means to tranfer the electricity for long distances and we dont have any way to store the generated electricity long term, so it could be used at the times when farms are not producing enough.
Oil and coal on the other hand are easy to stockpile and transfer if needed and the plants can be build almost anywhere. Also the tech is simple enough, so replacement parts are fairly easy to make, so those can be repaired and jury rigged even if there would be situation where trade would halt. I get why some countries want to make sure they have security of electricity supply.
Hopefully the new generations of solid state batteries will live to the hype and help with the transfer and long term storage problems renevables currently have.
I actually work with batteries in the EU. Which is exactly what solves the problems you’re putting here. Solar and wind can both work with large and small batteries, both in front and behind the meter.
Battery tech is already at the point where it can solve the problem. Yes, it will continue to get cheaper and better, and that’s a good thing - but there’s nothing prevent adoption right now.
we have no real means to tranfer the electricity for long distances
What do you mean? Electric grids and high voltage transmission have been around for over a century.
My knowledge is not really on date but as far as i know we still have no battery system good enough for long term electricity storing and what we are using right now are used for short term energy peaks, not storing the energy in summer so we could use it on the winter.
Yes we have HVDC, but it has its problems when electricity is coming from multiple smaller plants, especially when there production and demand is not even. Basically i mean that if there is side of a country that is not producing anything and if there is a other side that is overproducing, the current system we have, is not able to smooth that out. Granted it is a problem that could be solved with tossing money and engineers at it.
And so do the “avoid nuclear at all costs” people
Oh, absolutely. While there’s quite a few things to worry about with nuclear, going to coal instead (which is what happened in many places) is a far more destructive thing.
Solar and batteries are here today. They can be installed today. The only thing missing is the political will to make the fake valuations of the fossil fuel companies, which ignore externalities, diminish.
Id love if world could just ditch the fossil fuels and move to renewals, but it often seems people does not account how hard it is to make nation wide electric grid from wind and solar.
I live in a part of the world where during the winter when the electricity demand is on its highest, there are only few hours of sunlight per day at best.
And wind is wind. There is sometimes too much of it so the windmills are not safe to run and sometimes there are too little to generate enough electricity.
Even if there would be enough wind and solafarms to in theory to run the whole country, we have no real means to tranfer the electricity for long distances and we dont have any way to store the generated electricity long term, so it could be used at the times when farms are not producing enough.
Oil and coal on the other hand are easy to stockpile and transfer if needed and the plants can be build almost anywhere. Also the tech is simple enough, so replacement parts are fairly easy to make, so those can be repaired and jury rigged even if there would be situation where trade would halt. I get why some countries want to make sure they have security of electricity supply.
Hopefully the new generations of solid state batteries will live to the hype and help with the transfer and long term storage problems renevables currently have.
I actually work with batteries in the EU. Which is exactly what solves the problems you’re putting here. Solar and wind can both work with large and small batteries, both in front and behind the meter.
Battery tech is already at the point where it can solve the problem. Yes, it will continue to get cheaper and better, and that’s a good thing - but there’s nothing prevent adoption right now.
What do you mean? Electric grids and high voltage transmission have been around for over a century.
My knowledge is not really on date but as far as i know we still have no battery system good enough for long term electricity storing and what we are using right now are used for short term energy peaks, not storing the energy in summer so we could use it on the winter.
Yes we have HVDC, but it has its problems when electricity is coming from multiple smaller plants, especially when there production and demand is not even. Basically i mean that if there is side of a country that is not producing anything and if there is a other side that is overproducing, the current system we have, is not able to smooth that out. Granted it is a problem that could be solved with tossing money and engineers at it.