Just Slow Down and Take a Breath

[Eric the Green]

(02-20-2022, 08:24 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-20-2022, 04:02 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-19-2022, 09:35 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-19-2022, 01:30 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-14-2022, 03:14 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: We are stuck with moving about with fossil fuels until we run out of them because fossil fuels are profitable. Profit is the only virtue that our economic system recognizes.When the profit disappears, and only then, does the business die. I could imagine automobiles being driven onto and off carrier cars so that people have short distances (most of the time) for driving. Really, the railroads would have been wise to introduce rental cars at stations so that someone could rent a car at the closest station to one's destination.

One of the supreme ironies of the disruptive protest is that it is the one thing Big Business most hates: a strike.If Corporate America could get away with it, unions would be outlawed so that workers could be 'free' to sign peonage contracts, possibly hereditary.Serfdom, USA!

No, we are not stuck with fossil fuels if in the next 10 years we make a big project of switching to renewables. This begins with passing legislation like Build Back Better, which one fossil fuel state phony-Democratic senator is now blocking. If such an effort is blocked by Republicans and fossil fuel Democrats, then it won't be done. But that will not have happened because fossil fuels are profitable. That will have happened because we were unable to dislodge the profit motive from dominating our politics. It is simply and only a matter of political will, by embracing the law and politics as part of the solution and not allowing profits to be the only dictator of our economy. 

If we don't do this, then the next 2T and 4T will be too late; the tipping points in the Amazon, the Arctic permafrost, the Atlantic ocean current, and others, will tip and it will be too late to change our current course heading us to hothouse Earth within the next 2 centuries. Global warming feedback loops will be impossible to break. We may feel the effects more severely in future turnings tha we do now, but we will also be out of time to reverse course. People are already experiencing unacceptable damages and deaths from the breakdown of our climate. It is a violation of both conscience and self-interest to ignore them.

It is up to the people to realize this and demand and vote for action by voting Democratic and pressuring their leaders to act during the 2020s decade. I wonder how people in the eastern 2/3 of the United States are bearing up, as storm after storm day after day pounds them this Winter already. No-one here should try to argue or avoid facing this issue. Every poster except Classic Xer should be able to understand what's happening.

The 2020s is the last reform era in which action will be possible before the tipping points set in.

I agree, up to a point.  We still have the problem of base load, and that will be even more important in an all-electric world.  Renewables do not operate at all levels at all times, and there is no capacity to build enough energy storage to bridge the gap.  Today's infrastructure does this by design.  In this most selfish of times, it will be impossible to get people to sacrifice their precious convenience for half measures, so the only current base load source will have to be part of the solution, or there will be no solution.  I'm not fond of fission reactors, but they are carbon-free and highly efficient.  Newer designs are much better than the old, and their expected life of 50 years is ideal.  In 50 years, fusion will be perfected, and this issue will just go away.

Batteries to store electricity generated by renewables are being developed and deployed. We don't have to close all nuclear plants, but it is renewables and batteries that are being designed and improved, and it is to that we should look. Nuclear power plants will be very vulnerable in a world full of fires, floods and storms everywhere, and meltdowns can be catastrophic.

It depends on location just how much nuclear is needed. In California is it being phased out and renewable energy buildout is proceeding apace, and we have lots of hydro. Nearby states to CA can receive excess solar from CA which is often happening already, and CA can receive excess hydropower from up north. Other states and nations may need some nuclear to keep the electricity flowing. Some states have lots of hydropower and windpower, and tidal energy has hardly been tapped. In some countries biofuels work well. Countries in more southern latitudes have potentially many times all the solar power they would ever need.

Building new nuclear plants is slow and expensive, while renewables are expanding at a fast pace. Therefore it is the best route to replace fossil fuels now, when this is desparately needed, even if nuclear can be part of the plan too.

No offense here, but you are in my wheelhouse on his topic.  The energy density of batteries is limited by chemistry and physics.  In short, to back up the Western Grid, where you live, and assuming that the backup need is roughly 20% (the rest being renewables) and the batteries as good as they can be, the battery farm would have to be the size of a small city.  Even distributed into smaller battery farms, it's just not practical.

You're right about hydro and geothermal is another fully reliable source.  Note: we're dismantling dams, not building new ones, so that may be limited in scope.  On the cost and scope of nuclear, there have not been new technological advances there in decades.  Why?  Because the regulatory bodies have fallen into the mode of life extension only.  While the NRE vacillates, DoE has been using the e-ARP program to encourage new ideas.  Several companies are ready to build highly safe smaller plants -- many can be built in factories and transported by truck or rail.  Particle bed reactors are particularly desirable.

Yes, we disagree about batteries. They do their job at the site of solar panel utility sites, and as we get back more concentrated solar power (CSP) the salt batteries are even better. Better batteries are being built all the time, for homes and utilities. Tesla is making batteries that store large amounts and are being deployed in Austrailia and elsewhere. Grid management will improve as well. Costs will come down too. 

Given the urgency of ending fossil fuel use, we need to be open to ideas, and despite our differences support every alternative that we can.

It's true I don't expect much more if any from hydro. But we'd better go full blast with renewables, since their cost is down and they are already being built fast, whereas nuclear will take longer and be more expensive. I am not a fan of nuclear, especially if the waste is not recycled; but I am OK, if we must, with keeping many of the ones we have operating, and maybe a few more new ones, but location is a problem. I know about the modular plants; not sure if they are any safer. But nucs have to be built near water, and in California that means on earthquake faults. CA is not the best state for nuclear; we have to support the needed advances in renewables.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/in-boost-...n-the-rise

In Boost for Renewables, Grid-Scale Battery Storage Is on the Rise
Driven by technological advances, facilities are being built with storage systems that can hold enough renewable energy to power hundreds of thousands of homes. The advent of “big battery” technology addresses a key challenge for green energy — the intermittency of wind and solar.

BY CHERYL KATZ • DECEMBER 15, 2020