[jopsen]

Falling back on gas 10-20 times per year sounds very reasonable.

It's not net zero, but nearly zero will probably do fine?

Politicians like to say net zero, but when we are 90% there will we maybe not stop caring and find other more pressing problems?

[tsimionescu]

Net zero is barely enough to help with climate goals, given how late we are. It's not a huge goal, it is the absolute bare minimum to avoid >2 degrees of warming.

[lambdaone]

Achievable near-future net-nearly-zero in the near future is a lot better than waiting longer until we can achieve full net zero. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

The real issue is the cost of keeping gas peaker stations around that are mostly idle and fire up only a few days a year, but that's an economic issue, not an engineering one.

In the longer term, you could even run them off net-zero renewable syngas that you make the rest of the year using low-cost electrical power at peak solar generation times; you only need to store a relatively small amount of it, and old fossil fuel reservoirs are ideal for this.

[jopsen]

Also once we're nearly-net zero, we should focus on airlines, shipping, industry, etc. not the last 5% of electricity.