[CogentHedgehog]

Today I learned that Wikipedia and OurWorldInData are "press releases"...

Yes, we get it that you have a wholly irrational dislike of renewable energy and are willing to grasp at straws to argue against it.

> because all those intermittent sources are 30%+ backed by NG generators which can be spun up/down on demand and over the past 15 are super cheap to install

I'm trying to follow what you're arguing here and it makes no sense. You're arguing that the Northwest is simultaneously using almost all renewables and using tons of fossil fuels...? It can't be both.

We'll ignore the fact that according to your link, wind+solar is less than 10% of the electricity generation there, and there's no real evidence of a big investment in either, just the pre-existing hydro power.

[StillBored]

No, I just don't like people who pretend that wind/solar are actually going to solve the CO2 problem by pointing at some future technology or pricing model that is going to save us while stubbornly refusing to accept a 70 year old technology that is actually carbon free.

That is what got us were we are today. Because back in the 1970/80's people argued the exact same thing (no nukes, solar will save us). And what happened? We got more coal plants because they were way cheaper except in the few places that actually built nukes. The same argument happened in the 1990s/2000s and what did we get? A few percent of wind/solar, and a shift to NG due to fracking.

_TODAY_ if you want a competitive solution you build somewhere in the ballpark of 20-70% wind/solar and back it with NG.

Where will that put us in over the next 40 years?

Its going to create even more C02 because power utilization is going up. All that is going to do is slow the rate of increase, which is exactly what the current charts are showing. The rate of wind/solar rollout is barely exceeding the demand curve and in a lot of places its regressing, particularly in places where ancient nuke plants are being replaced by "green" technologies.

Yes, sure wind+NG is better than NG or coal, but its a shit solution. If batteries actually get cheap then we can do 2x wind+battery, but that isn't here today. What we have today are nuke plants, just like we did 40 years ago. If back then instead of waiting for the future to save us we were more pragmatic the ice caps wouldn't be melting.

My personal opinion is that in 40 years what is going to solve this problem is a giant war, because wishing for the future to save us hasn't worked yet.

[CogentHedgehog]

You're trying to argue that the solar market in 2020 looks the same as it did in the 1970s? Seriously? When the cost of solar PV has dropped 70% just in the last decade alone...?

https://www.lazard.com/media/451447/grphx_lcoe-09-09.jpg

I can't even find LCOE figures that far back, but the cost of solar modules in 1975 was just over $100 a watt. Today, a solar panel can cost as little as $0.50/W

Citation: https://news.energysage.com/the-history-and-invention-of-sol...

That's literally a TWO HUNDREDFOLD decrease in price, and modern panels last longer. This is like arguing that computers are useless in 2020 because in the 70s they were not very powerful.

> If batteries actually get cheap then we can do 2x wind+battery, but that isn't here today

Battery storage costs have already dropped 75% over the last 6 years, and we're pretty close to making that possible: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/report-levelize...

In the field, people bidding on energy projects are doing mixed solar+storage and wind+storage at prices comparable to nuclear or lower. Today. With 2020 tech and 2020 pricing, not 2025, not 2030. Granted, these aren't including a lot of storage right now (1-4 hours generally) but as battery prices continue to drop that will increase.

Given how costs are dropping as the technologies scale up, in 2025 people won't even think twice before choosing renewables+storage over nuclear, because it'll be a no-brainer.

> What we have today are nuke plants, just like we did 40 years ago.

Yes, that's the problem. Nuke plants plants have advanced technologically in the last 40 years, but in terms of cost they're actually more expensive because we found more failure modes (and need to prevent them).

And this is disappointing because I worked in nuclear physics for a few years and really wanted to believe that nuclear energy was going to save us... and it catastrophically failed to deliver.