[deepsummer]

> The Atlantic continental shelf isn't correlated with the Baltic.

How do you transmit the power? Do the countries on the Atlantic even want wind power, set up the transmission lines, and pay for it?

> Offshore Dunkelflaute is much shorter than on-shore.

That reduces the storage requirements a bit, but there is not nearly enough offshore. And offshore is expensive. That's why it's getting harder to find investors.

> The required quantities even of batteries is comparable to electrification of road transport.

That doesn't prove it's possible, but makes it even harder to get the required quantities.

> hydro plants come in two flavours that people often mix up: generation, and storage

Hydro requires the right geography. Is there any potential for hydro left in central Europe?

> EU can be converted to around 13 TWh of pumped storage

That would be a good amount of storage. But has this ever been tried? I would guess that's quite dangerous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LseK5gp66u8

[deepsummer]

Max comment nesting reached. Instead of going through your response one by one, let me just say one thing: the premise and promise of the whole energy transition are based on studies that completely underestimated the physical and engineering challenges in practice. That's why we are where we are. Energy costs have gone up; CO2 emissions have not. I wouldn't believe any study before it has been implemented at scale, at least in a region or small country.

[ben_w]

> How do you transmit the power?

The usual way.

> Do the countries on the Atlantic even want wind power, set up the transmission lines, and pay for it?

They can sell the power, you know. This already happens.

> That reduces the storage requirements a bit, but there is not nearly enough offshore.

It more than covers it.

Even a Dunkelflaute period is reduced, not zero, output. Those seas are huge, and the normal wind there is fast; even on a continental-shelf-spanning Dunkelflaute (much rarer than "just Germany and Poland"), the capacity in those waters *even with that reduction* is more than EU demand just by itself, which in practice means "not building as much as possible".

> And offshore is expensive. That's why it's getting harder to find investors.

Compared to onshore wind. But even offshore wind is cheaper than new-build nuclear, coal, and has strong overlap with new CCGT.

Even then, it's not hard to find investors: the US went as far as banning it because the investors were actually happy to invest.

The limitation on investors right now is that we're transitioning faster than any previous energy transition before, while also having other things to also invest in. It's like how big tech in the US is running out of people to get money from to spend on data centres, the limit isn't actually building them, it's how fast they're getting built when your answer to "how many would you like to order?" is "yes".

> That doesn't prove it's possible, but makes it even harder to get the required quantities.

The fact that EVs are for sale, however, does.

> Hydro requires the right geography. Is there any potential for hydro left in central Europe?

I thought you might say something like that, *which is why I literally wrote what I wrote*:

  people often mix up: generation, and storage. Of these, only generation requires an associated upstream supply and watershed; storage can be done with a hole in the ground, of which there are plenty

And then linked you to a document, with a quote from that document, about using coal mines. The document you replied to with doubts, supports the conclusion you've just denied.

Also, I already saw all of Tom Scott's videos when they were new. As per the document:

   Finally, the realisable potential includes projects that are not only technically and economically feasible but also aligned with regulatory, environmental, social and implementation timelines, facilitating their implementation within short to medium time frame.