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by zihotki 866 days ago
That doesn't help when you have a big storm, sunless/windless winter or any other combination of factors covering big area. Plus fragility of the supply, limitations of power lines and network, etc. As soon as you add more real life factors it doesn't look that promising. To have a potential doesn't imply to have a feasibility.

I have nothing agains further improving the network and load-balancing it smarter, but it's just in my interest to have some local duplication of energy generation. Or with my heatpump being out of service I may freeze or will have to buy a generator.
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toomuchtodo 866 days ago
I don't disagree, fossil gas generators will be the last fossil generators to go (gas peakers and oil are already uneconomical compared to battery storage [1] [2] [3]). We're just arguing time horizon and deployment trajectories [4]. Certainly, don't tear down efficient fossil gas generators until they're no longer needed, but keep building renewables, storage, and transmission like our lives depend on it, because they do.

[1] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/12/battery-storage-syste...

[2] https://assets.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/documents/resources...

[3] https://www.lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april...

[4] https://electrek.co/2023/11/20/world-may-be-on-track-for-tri...

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toomuchtodo 866 days ago
Citation: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-02-07/the-ga... | https://archive.today/9YQIP ("Bloomberg Opinion: Big Gas Needs to Be a Backup; Instead of a Bridge, Utilities should emphasize their role of keeping the lights on when renewables can’t and pivot away from a reliance on increasing volumes.")
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bryanlarsen 866 days ago
There has never been a one-hour window over the last 30 years where it hasn't been sunny or windy somewhere in Europe.

Obviously having all of Europe's electricity being generated on a single corner of Spain isn't feasible. But nobody is talking about 100% wind & solar. Hydro, storage, geothermal & nuclear can all add diversity and reliability. This can be modelled. We cannot get to 100% reliability but nothing can; local distribution SPOF bottlenecks limit reliability 99.99% regardless. And 99.99% is possible.

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