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So since China is halting climate change coordination with the US over Taiwan, what will the impact be on emissions on China's end? My previous estimate is that they'd peak emissions by 2030.
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Aug 5, 2022 23:26
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Grouchio posted:So since China is halting climate change coordination with the US over Taiwan, what will the impact be on emissions on China's end? My previous estimate is that they'd peak emissions by 2030. China halting "climate change coordination" is probably not going to result in them strangling Dolphins out of spite. I assume they'll keep on doing what they're doing but maybe with less impetus on things that are revenue/gdp growth earners until the US offers concessions.
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Aug 5, 2022 23:41
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Ironically reducing trade with China will probably make more of a difference than continuing "coordination" 
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Aug 5, 2022 23:45
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Germany has a moment of clarity: https://www.wsj.com/articles/germany-to-keep-last-three-nuclear-power-plants-running-in-policy-u-turn-11660661914 quote:Germany plans to postpone the closure of the country’s last three nuclear power plants as it braces for a possible shortage of energy this winter after Russia throttled gas supplies to the country, said German government officials. Nuclear energy is too expensive. https://twitter.com/KarelMercx/status/1559490031257108480?s=20&t=rF229amJgps2pLw0-xt_Ww
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Aug 17, 2022 00:40
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Phanatic posted:Germany has a moment of clarity: https://twitter.com/karlmathiesen/status/1559575135262220295?s=21&t=k2oUD09bQIOUtDVi9haBqA Germany government has vehemently denied the content of that wsj article
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Aug 17, 2022 07:13
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Lets deny the german government electricity I say.
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Aug 17, 2022 07:16
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His Divine Shadow posted:Lets deny the german government electricity I say. I have no problem with that. They can reflect on their abject policy failures in the cold dark.
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Aug 17, 2022 08:33
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In other demented EU news, there is a push now for space-based solar, like in Sim City: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/european-space-chief-says-continent-will-lead-in-space-based-solar-power/ It's obviously is a non-starter for many reasons, but at least it isn't nuclear.
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Aug 18, 2022 14:24
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cat botherer posted:In other demented EU news, there is a push now for space-based solar, like in Sim City: Just put the panels on the ground for fucks sake. There's plenty of room for this stuff, even in Europe.
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Aug 18, 2022 16:14
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They're going to want to jump right to fusion. Or just turn disasters off and do arcologies.
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Aug 18, 2022 16:27
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Yeah I don't mind seeing a study that explores the concept but I hope they don't waste time trying to actually do it.
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Aug 18, 2022 16:30
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like it’s such a staggeringly dumb idea for so many reasons. space-rated panels are ungodly more expensive, and it’s all what, to get solar power at night?
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Aug 18, 2022 16:38
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I mean it could be a decent idea, in like what 50 years... maybe if we haven't figured out anything better by then. God I hope there not seriously considering this decade.
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Aug 18, 2022 16:41
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it would be “fine” to do if we had robust space infrastructures to the point of commuting to orbit for a daily job otherwise it’s a comparative non-starter
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Aug 18, 2022 16:42
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Even ignoring all of the economics, there is a big problem in the microwave beaming (aside from another energy-losing step). You can't have 100 MW microwave focused on a small antenna, because the density of the beam would fry any birds or people that hit by it - especially a big deal if it gets off-kilter. So then, your beam needs to have no more than a few watts per square meter - so the land use situation would be just as bad anyway, and its not like you can use people's roofs.
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Aug 18, 2022 16:50
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cat botherer posted:Even ignoring all of the economics, there is a big problem in the microwave beaming (aside from another energy-losing step). You can't have 100 MW microwave focused on a small antenna, because the density of the beam would fry any birds or people that hit by it - especially a big deal if it gets off-kilter. So then, your beam needs to have no more than a few watts per square meter - so the land use situation would be just as bad anyway, and its not like you can use people's roofs. That can't kill more birds than windmills. I say we build it. We can put it in Saxony where it won't do any harm. It's not "pie in the sky", it's "solar panels in the sky" vvv mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Aug 18, 2022 |
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Aug 18, 2022 16:51
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cat botherer posted:In other demented EU news, there is a push now for space-based solar, like in Sim City: I do hope that, since half of those studies are penned by countries that voted to leave, they will get quietly forgotten rather than wasting resources on pie in the sky bullshit.
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Aug 18, 2022 16:52
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cat botherer posted:…and its not like you can use people's roofs. Just call it “Direct Heating” and charge extra. 
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Aug 18, 2022 16:58
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mediaphage posted:like it’s such a staggeringly dumb idea for so many reasons. space-rated panels are ungodly more expensive, and it’s all what, to get solar power at night? More importantly, they would have to launch all of the hardware into space and assemble it and a giant phased array RF antenna while in outer space. It would be a even bigger boondoggle than building a nuclear power plant.
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Aug 18, 2022 17:18
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i think the land use would probably be mitigated by putting something floating in the ocean but then you could just put panels on it!!! they’re already funding the construction of a major solar plant in Morocco with a giant undersea cable to transmit the power to England just loving build more of those I swear to god Aaaaaaaqaaaadpagpwmfjrhdjdwjiwdjiwrn
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Aug 18, 2022 17:26
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silence_kit posted:More importantly, they would have to launch all of the hardware into space and assemble it and a giant phased array RF antenna while in outer space. However building a nuclear power plant is in fact not a boondongle, and is in fact a proven practice that provides considerable benefits; as seen in France and China. mediaphage posted:i think the land use would probably be mitigated by putting something floating in the ocean but then you could just put panels on it!!! Actually could you do the molten salt thing of it being pointed at a giant lake of water or molten salt to convert more safely into energy?
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Aug 18, 2022 17:27
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I thought that North African energy export already fell through. In any event, I think the love for external energy sources that come with sovereign risk will be diminished after the experience of Russia and gas.
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Aug 18, 2022 17:30
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cat botherer posted:Even ignoring all of the economics, there is a big problem in the microwave beaming (aside from another energy-losing step). You can't have 100 MW microwave focused on a small antenna, because the density of the beam would fry any birds or people that hit by it - especially a big deal if it gets off-kilter. So then, your beam needs to have no more than a few watts per square meter - so the land use situation would be just as bad anyway, and its not like you can use people's roofs. The rectenna can be a large open mesh that allows plenty of light through for crops underneath.
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Aug 18, 2022 17:39
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"alright, we're going to build a microwave beam weapon in orbit, any objections?"
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Aug 18, 2022 17:43
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Hi guys, I don't know much about energy tech and have a question. So, slightly relevant to the space solar boondoggle: My understanding is that one of the key barriers/issues with current renewable tech is intermittency, both that the sun doesn't shine at night, and that some places don't get very much sunlight. I remember reading/being told that the key limitation was in battery tech, that if we had better batteries, we could just store all of the energy generated during the day, and use it at night or during dark periods. And then I also feel like I've seen reports about battery tech improving considerably. But it seems like people still feel like we're quite a ways off from being able to get a consistent energy from renewables alone (so we'll have to supplement with gas, nuclear, whatever). So my questions are: what is the current state of energy storage tech? Are there other issues which contribute to the intermittency problem? Do people think we'll ever be able to use solar/wind as a consistent energy source? Thanks in advance.
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Aug 18, 2022 17:57
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My impression is that while batteries are better and cheaper than before, it's not anywhere close to where we'd need. You can get a powerwall for $20k or whatever that might last you a day at home, and there are some "utility scale" battery installations but those can usually cover minutes worth of production, but this gets extrapolated to "storage is solved". I did some quick and dirty calculations with France, basically boosting their solar and wind capacity by like 10x and seeing how much storage they'd need for when it's not sunny & windy. It's at least like 15TWh which seems like a lot to me.  (the data were in 30 minutes so 1/2 of this) Of course non of this would be an issue with space solar
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Aug 18, 2022 18:17
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Given the growth of Ev's I've heard interesting proposals as using them as a big means of storage. I've heard that the Ford lighting can power the average home for three days. Use that as a back up battery. We'll see what happens with storage and if the costs keep declining.In the meantime just build nukes solar wind whatever as fast as possible.
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Aug 18, 2022 18:25
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Orbital solar seems like one of those things that could work if you have poo poo like orbital autonomous construction robots and an orbital economy that brings in raw materials from near Earth objects. At that point you’re basically installing the first billionth of a Dyson sphere. We are obviously not there today but I’m ok with people checking on it every decade or two for the next few hundred years to see if/when it becomes viable.
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Aug 18, 2022 18:26
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The thing about storage isn't just that it's expensive, which it is, because prices are coming down slowly. It's that batteries don't last very long. When you invest in a power plant, it works for 30+ years. Batteries last for 5-10 years (a lot of commerical batteries are rated to last for 7 years, which means a utility would treat that as the lifetime and replace them at that interval), and then they need to be completely replaced. Spending billions of dollars on infrastructure to make intermittent renewables work better might be a worthwhile investment, but spending that same amount every 5-10 years makes it look way, way, way worse than more durable infrastructure. Stuff like pumped hydro lasts a long time, but batteries fundamentally don't scale to the infrastructure level and unless we invent a battery that doesn't chemically degrade over time, they never will.
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Aug 18, 2022 18:45
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Monaghan posted:Given the growth of Ev's I've heard interesting proposals as using them as a big means of storage. I've heard that the Ford lighting can power the average home for three days. Use that as a back up battery. The more realistic version is that you restrict charging of large batteries to times when the local renewables produce lots of power. I know there are people who think we should install batteries so that we can charge our batteries from the batteries, but it is kinda dumb and not sustainable.
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Aug 18, 2022 18:50
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Battery tech has reliably improved in capacity, cost and form factor ever since it was first invented as it is not only the renewable industry that benefits from improved battery tech. However, it has not had and there is no likely expectation that it will have the order of magnitude improvements that are required to make batteries feasible for grid scale storage beyond grid services or minor same day load shifting. A hydro plant will store 100's to 10,000's of TWhrs of power and the biggest batteries today are a few 10's to 100's of MWhrs. The tech to install those 100 MWhrs battery plants has existed for a hundred years but the need has only arisen recently - ie do not mistake the current dramatic rise of grid battery installations as some sort of paradigm shift in battery tech. The TL DR is what fusion is to nuclear fetishists, batteries are to wind/solar fetishists.
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Aug 18, 2022 18:57
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i think it's also worth mentioning that there's a ton of research going into power storage right now that does not rely on anything approaching chemical battery energy storage. i'm frankly very interested in seeing whether some of these thermal battery projects can get going like yea if we have to rely strictly on lithium batteries the solar revolution will never finish, but we won't.
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Aug 18, 2022 19:04
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Good point, there was a sand energy storage in a grain silo project somewhere in Europe recently for thermal storage. I don't think the tech itself will be anything new but maybe with better modelling, accurate placement of them into a grid might make it feasible.
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Aug 18, 2022 19:11
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mediaphage posted:i think it's also worth mentioning that there's a ton of research going into power storage right now that does not rely on anything approaching chemical battery energy storage. i'm frankly very interested in seeing whether some of these thermal battery projects can get going This is all great research that’s worth fully funding but it’s not a given that any of it will pan out to be better than battery storage.
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Aug 18, 2022 19:22
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Thanks to everyone for all the information re: batteries. The other related question I have is, to what extent can the materials used for batteries be re-used/recycled/whatever? Like, when Li batteries "expire" in 5-10 years, do you just have to mine more and more Li if you want to keep using batteries, or is there an efficient way to re-use these materials?
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Aug 18, 2022 19:27
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smug n stuff posted:Thanks to everyone for all the information re: batteries. The other related question I have is, to what extent can the materials used for batteries be re-used/recycled/whatever? Like, when Li batteries "expire" in 5-10 years, do you just have to mine more and more Li if you want to keep using batteries, or is there an efficient way to re-use these materials? There is, but afaik it still is only rarely done because it is cheaper to just occupy a new mine. Actually that is true for most of the rare metals used in electronics.
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Aug 18, 2022 19:30
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A GIANT PARSNIP posted:This is all great research that’s worth fully funding but it’s not a given that any of it will pan out to be better than battery storage. i didn’t say it was a given. but the work that’s been done so far is pretty feasible - and not to say a lot of this is isn’t going to fail, i mean most hw companies do. but theoretically these sorts of approaches could scale much, much better than standard chemical batteries. and a lot of the work is solving bigger scaling issues - they don’t necessarily need to do a lot of fundamental basic chemical research, or at least less of it. anyway while im bullish on non chem energy storage im also interested in non lithium approaches. with as many companies bringing out sodium batteries as seem to be over the next five years, i think they’ll make a difference too.
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Aug 18, 2022 19:43
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SlowBloke posted:I do hope that, since half of those studies are penned by countries that voted to leave, they will get quietly forgotten rather than wasting resources on pie in the sky bullshit. The UK has not left ESA. It is one of the 5 countries, including Canada, that are not members of both organisations. In fact, as the UK budget contribution no longer gets spent on EU-driven stuff like Galileo, ESA is likely to defer to UK priorities somewhat more. Space-based solar seems likely worth investing in on the same basis as fusion, energy storage, thorium reactors, etc. At least one of them is going to need to prove technically feasible to move beyond gas having a role for power generation. Four chances for survival are better than three.
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Aug 18, 2022 19:48
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imo it’s fine to pay a few profs some grants to study it. maybe put a small sat up there and do some mild testing any other funding for it is garbage imo at this point in time
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Aug 18, 2022 20:10
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mobby_6kl posted:That can't kill more birds than windmills. I know this is likely a joke, but it's a pet peeve of mine. Wind turbines are way down on the list behind "literally fossil fuel power plants", "tall buildings", and a million spaces behind "loving cats"
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Aug 19, 2022 01:30
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