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by simion314 1595 days ago
"urope could make much better use of its wind resources if capacity was spread out instead of being concentrated around the North Sea."

It does not claim that wind and solar can replace gas and coal 100% just the super obvious conclusion that we could do more if we invest more in wind turbines and also in the grid (the disadvantage is how you balance the surplus, like companies from country A and B and C have too much electricity most of the time but only 25% could be sold so who gets screwed and has to turn off it's production? If they get screwed then why invest ?
1 comments
natmaka 1594 days ago
Nothing can replace gas 100%. Hyper-nuclearized France always produced (and now produces) between 7% and 12% of their gridpower thanks to fossil fuel (gas/petrol/coal). This is not about 100% but about obtaining a baseload.

"we could do more if we invest more in wind turbines" is not obvious when it comes to continuity of production.

Selling anything (even only 25% of your production) can be a financially wonderful operation if done when many customers need it.

Turning off production is only necessary if you cannot store more of it.

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simion314 1594 days ago
>Turning off production is only necessary if you cannot store more of it.

Storing is not cheap and batteries are also diry. not green. My idea is that we need to work on all in parallel, solar, wind, research better and cleaner batteries, nuclear, fusion, invest in the grid and try to connect over larger distances. There will not be 1 solution that fits every place in the world.

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natmaka 1593 days ago
> Storing is not cheap

True, however energy produced thanks to renewables already costs way less than its nuclear counterpart (and the gap is growing), offering a way to recoup investments (grid, storage...). Bonus: no risk of major accident, no fuel (uranium), no nuclear waster... https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2020

Batteries aren't the sole way to store energy. Dams (potential energy), for example, are another one (already exploited and quite powerful and flexible). There are many other ways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage#Methods

"work on all in parallel" <=> (often massive) investments aiming at designing something isn't recouped as efficiently as possible (less units built). "work on a single one" <=> bumping the probability of failure (all eggs in the same basket) There is a middle ground to find!

"invest in the grid" is of paramount importance. Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_super_grid

"connect over larger distances": indeed, and ways to do it are quickly progressing, as do relevant projects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HVDC_projects

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