@dstne said in #14:
> Cool, seems like a good option.
It is. It's one of the – if not THE cheapest ways of generating electrical power.
> I just don’t think we should transition primarily to that [...]
Nobody seriously suggests transitioning to solar power exclusively. You need different sources of energy for a reliable and stable electrical grid. In order to avoid the worst effects of anthropogenic climate change, fossil fuels need to be phased out entirely.
That's just the way it is. A nice side effect will be the improvement in air quality that will follow. Fossil fuels are responsible for an awful lot of particulate matter inhaled by humans (barring the occasional volcanic eruption or other local conditions like strong winds picking up dust from a large desert). Burning fossil fuels also emits NOx (nitrogen oxides) which are harmful to human health (asthma, heart disease, diabetes, ...), react with common atmospheric contents to form toxic products like nitroarenes, nitrosamines or nitrate radical. NOx also indirectly (via chemical reactions producing more ozone) exacerbates the greenhouse effect leading to more warming.
There are still plenty of essential applications for oil (medicine, hygiene, cosmetics) but continuing to use it as an energy source is an extremely bad idea.
This means a mix of renewable energies adapted to the local environment (where it's windy use wind turbines, where the sun shines for most of the year use solar energy, where it's mountainous use hydroelectric power, have a lot of volcanoes? use geothermal, ...) and possibly a small amount of nuclear energy (despite being one of the most expensive ways to generate electricity) that can supply the base load until a better option is found. This should be combined with a plethora of energy storage solutions like batteries, pumped-storage hydroelectricity, thermal energy storage from concentrated solar power where economically viable, etc.
That way, daily variations in renewable energy generation (day and night cycle, wind variations) can be managed (just use stored energy when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow).
There's no singular miracle solution that fixes everything, it's a complicated problem and different energy sources make sense for different places (e.g. Iceland would be foolish not to use their geothermal power). Obviously you don't want to lay all of your eggs in one basket.
And that's just electricity generation, heating, transport and construction need to be addressed as well.
> when we have much more efficient methods of farming energy (nuclear, coal, etc.)
Neither of those are more cost efficient than renewables like solar electric and onshore wind. Quite the contrary, coal and especially nuclear are MUCH more expensive than solar power and wind power (both onshore and offshore):
[1]
www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-21/nuclear-energy-most-expensive-csiro-gencost-report-draft/103253678Estimates vary, but to pick a recent example Lazard's 2023 analysis of the levelised cost of electricity determined the following values:
Solar (PV utility): 24-96 US$ per MWh
Wind (onshore): 24-75 US$ per MWh
Wind (offshore): 72-140 US$ per MWh
Nuclear: 140-221 US$ per MWh
Coal: 68-166 US$ per MWh
[2]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_sourcePerhaps you're talking about the thermodynamic concept of an energy conversion efficiency η (commonly denoted by the greek letter eta) instead of cost efficiency. If so, wind power is at η ≤ 59% (maximum of 40-50% reached in practice). Nuclear energy comes in at about η ≤ 30-35%. World average fossil fuel electricity generation power plants had an energy conversion efficiency of η ≈ 33% in 2008. Modern coal power plants can reach up to η ≤ 40-45%, but most existing power plants are in the range of 30-40%. Solar energy varies widely: η ≤ 6–40% (technology-dependent, most commonly 15–20%).
So yeah, solar energy tends to be a bit less efficient in how much energy it actually converts into electrical energy, but you don't need a fuel so who cares? And it's super cost-efficient, remember the 24-96 US$ per MWh compared to 140-221 US$ per MWh for nuclear power plants.
Wind power actually beats nuclear and most existing coal power plants in terms of energy conversion efficiency as well. And it's also cheaper and doesn't require a fuel source. There are modern coal power plants that are more efficient than some less efficient wind turbines, but again, who cares?
> now if you wanted to stop using those methods
We don't want to, but we need to. At least in the case of coal. Nuclear can stay for now, although the OECD's nuclear energy agency estimated in 2016 that nuclear fuel might run out as early as 135 years from 2016 (in the year 2151), assuming a constant fuel consumption at the level of 2014. So clearly you cannot run the world on nuclear energy alone (if you tried, you'd run out of fissile Uranium in less than four decades):
[3]
www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_15004 (page 9)
> then perhaps wind/solar energy would be a good solution, but probably not rn.
It's not only probably but definitely a good idea right now. Anthropogenic climate change has been known since the 1970s, we've already bumbled about for a good 50 years not doing nearly enough to prepare for the future.
