7 Years Later, Google Engineers Revise Their Pessimistic Predictions on Climate Change (ieee.org) 186
Seven years ago two Google engineers concluded, after four years of study that "Renewable energy technologies simply won't work; we need a fundamentally different approach." (The authors proposed a R&D portfolio pursuing "disruptive" solutions in hydro, wind, solar photovoltaics, and nuclear power, with one Slashdot reader asking "is nuclear going to be acknowledged as the future of energy production?")
But the two engineers — still at Google — recently announced "we're happy to say that we got a few things wrong. In particular, renewable energy systems have come down in price faster than we expected, and adoption has surged beyond the predictions we cited in 2014."
One of them told IEEE Spectrum "It's stunning how rapidly things have been moving since the first article was published," Experts now have a better understanding of how a variety of technologies could be combined to prevent catastrophic climate change, the coauthors say. Many renewable-energy systems, for example, are already mature and just need to be scaled up. Some innovations need significant development, including new processes to produce steel and concrete, and geoengineering techniques to sequester carbon and temporarily reduce solar radiation. The one commonality among all these promising technologies, they conclude, is that engineers can make a difference on a planetary scale...
Concerned about the pessimistic tone of most climate coverage, the authors argue that wise policies, market pressure, and human creativity can get the job done. "When you put the right incentives in place, you capture the ingenuity of the masses," says Fork. "All of us are smarter than any of us."
The Google engineers acknowledge we've already seen a plunge in battery prices to lows not predicted until 2050. (Along with cheap natural gas prices, this cut America's coal consumption in half, lowering emissions.) And fossil fuel consumption has been reduced thanks to cheaper electric heat pumps and electric cars. Other suggestions from their article include:
But the two engineers — still at Google — recently announced "we're happy to say that we got a few things wrong. In particular, renewable energy systems have come down in price faster than we expected, and adoption has surged beyond the predictions we cited in 2014."
One of them told IEEE Spectrum "It's stunning how rapidly things have been moving since the first article was published," Experts now have a better understanding of how a variety of technologies could be combined to prevent catastrophic climate change, the coauthors say. Many renewable-energy systems, for example, are already mature and just need to be scaled up. Some innovations need significant development, including new processes to produce steel and concrete, and geoengineering techniques to sequester carbon and temporarily reduce solar radiation. The one commonality among all these promising technologies, they conclude, is that engineers can make a difference on a planetary scale...
Concerned about the pessimistic tone of most climate coverage, the authors argue that wise policies, market pressure, and human creativity can get the job done. "When you put the right incentives in place, you capture the ingenuity of the masses," says Fork. "All of us are smarter than any of us."
The Google engineers acknowledge we've already seen a plunge in battery prices to lows not predicted until 2050. (Along with cheap natural gas prices, this cut America's coal consumption in half, lowering emissions.) And fossil fuel consumption has been reduced thanks to cheaper electric heat pumps and electric cars. Other suggestions from their article include:
- Cleaner air travel (including clean hydrogen-powered planes)
- New forms of nuclear power
- Climate policy (including carbon pricing strategies like carbon taxes)
"So, engineers, let's get to work."
It's the free market... (Score:4, Insightful)
... responding to government incentives.
Re:It's the free market... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wind is cheaper than coal even without subsidies, and of course coal is heavily subsidised. Everything is cheaper than nuclear even with the massive subsidies and incentives it gets.
We could be entering an age with plentiful, low cost energy. The promise of nuclear finally realised by renewables.
Re:It's the free market... (Score:4, Interesting)
Wind is cheaper than coal even without subsidies
That is true in Europe, North America, and China.
It is not true in most tropical countries. Tropical countries have weaker winds. Power production is proportional to the cube of the wind speed. Half the wind speed, one eighth the power production.
In India, Indonesia, Africa, etc. new coal plants are under construction. That is where most of the world's new emissions are coming from, and much of it is to power cheap crappy air conditioners.
We need better renewables that will work in the tropics. More efficient air conditioners would also be a big help.
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It is not true in most tropical countries. Tropical countries have weaker winds.
Simple: plain wrong!
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From what I can tell it's plain right. Wind speeds average lower near the equator and top out around 30 or 40 degrees of latitude (especially in the 40s of the southern hemisphere.)
Of course, solar works better near the equator, so it's not a problem for renewables in general, only for wind.
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Not so much weaker winds as "lumpier" winds. Your turbines will love the tradewind seasons when they can crank out fairly constant amounts of power. Then what happens to them when a 230 mph typhoon roars through?
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Hawaii is putting up wind turbines. The wind blows there pretty much constantly.
And along with wind turbines come protests, as always.
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Re: It's the free market... (Score:2)
Heat pumps are probably the way to go. Heat pumps can be used for heating and cooling.
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Wind is infinitely expensive (Score:2, Insightful)
Wind is really during the particular hours of a particular day when the wind speed happens to be just right. Due to the cube power law, there's a fairly narrow band of wind speeds that both a) produce significant power and b) aren't powerful enough to cause the turbine to shut down and go into self-protection mode.
Wind power is infinitely expensive when the wind isn't blowing just right. No matter how much you pay, you aren't going to get power from wind that ain't blowing.
Any other energy source similarly
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Wrong.
The solution is more turbines and a bigger grid.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#... [nullschool.net]
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So the math on a power cable from the Indian Ocean to Los Angeles and get back to us.
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Something wrong with sticking turbines in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans?
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Not really. It takes 10 minutes to 12 hours [eia.gov] to start a natural gas generator and bring it to full capacity, with the more efficient generators taking longer to ramp up than less efficient generators. This means if you rely exclusively upon natural gas for surge capacity, you need to waste a lot of electricity to keep a buffer between supply and demand to prevent blackouts.
Battery storage ramps up inst
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On the ring of fire, there are a few locations where geothermal is available. Use it, in those locations.
Hawaii recently shut down their geothermal plant because of lava flow.
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They probably weren't pessimistic enough.
Even though energy storage capabilities have gone up, the switch away from fossil fuels is going slowly, but worse, we've actually reversed directions because cryptocurrencies have prevented fossil fuel electricity plants from being shutdown and have instead expanded. All the gains made by telling people to switch to CFL and LED bulbs, and save water by using low-flow toilets and showers instead of baths is being completely destroyed by dirty thermal plants that need
Confusion between industry and government (Score:5, Interesting)
They are supposed to do different things.
Not the google's job to worry about climate change. Tangential point of contact in the corporate planning section. Being "smart" enough to work for the google doesn't change that.
It's supposed to be government's job to worry about the long-term future and protecting people's rights, including ye olde rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Climate change fits in.
Where did the confusion arise? I think one side is the worship of efficiency. Yeah, it matters, but efficiency should never be the top priority. On the business side too much efficiency actually blocks innovation and competition, while on the government side, rights such as free speech are intrinsically inefficient. Efficiency keeps becoming a cart in front of the horse.
And love of money, too. But I'm already way too slow, eh? So I'll wrap my initial thoughts...
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Believe it or not, people are allowed to give opinions on topics, not just the Government. I know, shocking idea, but individuals matter. I know you guys all think the Government is the ultimate solution to all problems though, so don't forget to pay your taxes. I'm sure it will be put to great use!
Commission of Ecumenical Translators (Score:2)
I guess members of the Commission of Ecumenical Translators from the Dune Universe are starting to recant?
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Eh? Too long since I read it. Care to clarify? Or ask a specific question? (But I acknowledge I was being terse.)
Dune Universe (Score:3)
Some familiarity with the Dune Universe is part of the culture of geek-dom?
The characters in Dune find spiritual direction and solace, or at least Paul and Jessica did after Baron Harkonnen took Duke Leto prisoner leading to his death, in a document called the Orange Catholic Bible. Of course Dune fandom is trying to read too much meaning into "Orange" let alone "Catholic" or even the word "Bible", but the Orange Catholic Bible was the result -- in this work of science fiction describing human interste
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Thanks for the clarification. You evidently read more into both stories than I did.
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Makes sense for big corporations that are larger than many governments. Climate change is going to affect them, and if they aren't part of the solution they will be part of the problem. More over it's a huge business opportunity.
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That's why I think we should have a pro-freedom tax system, with one of the major objectives to make companies smaller. Certainly not a guarantee that will lead to smaller governments, but I think it's a prerequisite. However there will be a loss of efficiency and smaller piles of profits (even though the total profit might be larger).
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It's supposed to be government's job to worry about the long-term future
The government is re-elected every 2 to 4 years, and few politicians think beyond that. The government is the worst possible institution to depend on for long-term planning.
Re: Confusion between industry and government (Score:3)
Name a better one - real (i.e. already doing better planning) or theory (i.e. should be doing), that is/should feel responsible for everybody, not just "its own".
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Re: Confusion between industry and government (Score:3)
Not the google's job to worry about climate change.
That kind of mentality is the actual problem.
"Not the cow's job to worry about where it shits." - True if we're truly talking about a cow, with limited resources and limites ability to do damage, and otherwise fully evolved to actually not fuck over the environment it lives in.
"Not the caveman's problem to worry about how many bisons he drops down the cliff to have one steak" - true to a very limited extent. He should have known what he was doing, because he had a brain. Didn't turn out well for the caveman
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Not the google's job to worry about climate change.
That's an idiotic thing to say. Everyone who is going to be affected by climate change should be concerned about it, and everyone with agency should be looking for what they are going to do about it because not doing something about a coming problem is fucking stupid — especially when it's abundantly clear that government cannot solve the problem because government is working first and foremost for corporate interests who pay for the passage of laws.
Corporations are the true power behind government, s
Anti-vaxxers? (Score:2)
"All of us are smarter than any of us."
That would be nice.
Re:Anti-vaxxers? (Score:5, Funny)
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Two morons don't make an Einstein.
Clean hydrogen is mythical. (Score:4, Interesting)
Cleaner air travel (including clean hydrogen-powered planes)
The problem with "clean hydrogen" is that it's expensive, specifically it's more expensive than the alternative of just breaking up methane to generate the hydrogen. This means that while 10% of hydrogen may be "clean" (generated via electrolysis) but the rest of it is made from broken up methane. Breaking up that methane creates a reaction which is then harnessed as electricity... to make "clean" hydrogen. In short, clean hydrogen is a myth because businesses are cheapskates and hydrogen is an inefficient medium.
Skeptical? Then you should look up who is pushing for hydrogen powered cars and paying for "opinion pieces" by corporate shills on a regular basis. It's Koch Industries and if you think they are pushing to help the environment then I have a bridge to sell you.
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The one place it might be useful is for long haul air transport. Its not great - the volume energy density of even liquid hydrogen is pretty low, but there are not a lot of good alternatives for carbon free air travel.
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If we had enough solar / wind prime power we could generate hydrogen from electrolysis of water.
If wishes were horse then we'd all ride.
The articles point out just how difficult it would be to produce enough energy from wind and solar, therefore we need to consider other options. Options like nuclear fission for producing the power we need.
The one place it might be useful is for long haul air transport. Its not great - the volume energy density of even liquid hydrogen is pretty low, but there are not a lot of good alternatives for carbon free air travel.
That's right, there are not a lot of good options. The best option is synthesized hydrocarbon fuels.
If we can produce hydrogen with a low carbon energy source then we can produce net carbon zero hydrocarbon fuels. The carbon can come from municipal waste and sewa
Hydrocarbons are the "hydrogen economy" (Score:2)
The problem with "clean hydrogen" is that it's expensive, specifically it's more expensive than the alternative of just breaking up methane to generate the hydrogen.
The real expense of hydrogen is handling it. As a gas it likes to leak through the smallest cracks, often reacting with the container material in destructive ways. Cooling it to a liquid can make it easier to handle in some ways but more problematic in others. Hydrogen is such a bitch to handle that it is losing fans to methane even in the rocket industry.
https://australiascience.tv/wh... [australiascience.tv]
In the future we will not be making hydrogen from methane, but making methane from hydrogen.
If hydrogen is too much tr
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We could do that because it's a chemical reaction but it would be even less efficient than just doing electrolysis using solar panels. What you fail to realize is just how efficient biology really is. Evolution has resulted in biology that only needs a small amount of energy because running out of energy results in death. Honestly, human brains are really amazing because they are huge power hogs (taking 1/3 of our energy!) but growing a much larger amount of gray matter for higher brain functions paid of
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Well that part you are ignoring is that we are electrochemical machines while our computers are purely electric with no intended chemical reactions. Computers being purely electric actually results in far fewer errors, a higher computation rate, and have a much greater longevity. Furthermore, being non-biological enables us to design them to operate in hostile conditions that would even challenge the mighty tardigrade. Digestion is great... but only for electrochemical machines and biochemistry is very s
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Computers being purely electric actually results in far fewer errors, a higher computation rate, and have a much greater longevity.
Estimated CPU life is 20-30 years. That's not a greater longevity.
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Considering the number of computations that are run in that period, it outlasts biology.
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That's moving the goalposts. It does not outlast biology, its operations outnumber biology's processes perhaps. But then, there are still things that even very complex groups of computers can't do as well as a single human, like move around a complex environment.
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We don't just burn the hydrogen. We "burn" the entire hydrocarbon, and get a lot of energy out of breaking the carbon-carbon bonds in it.
As for doing something similar for power generation, it's not terribly efficient compared to what else you can do with a large, fixed building. Growing plants then hauling them to a factory, then grinding them up and generating hydrocarbons from them takes way more energy than just running a solar plant on that same property.
Where synthetic hydrocarbons could come in is
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I think jumping right to Koch is a bit much.
Then you are as dumb as Koch thinks you are. They are specifically banking on people believing the myth that it will be cleanly generated when it's far more cost effective (and scales better) to simply reform natural gas.
https://www.energy.gov/sites/p... [energy.gov]
Currently, 99% of U.S. hydrogen production is sourced from fossil fuels, with 95% from natural gas by SMR and 4% by partial oxidation of natural gas via coal gasification.
Nuclear isn't enough. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with nuclear power is not technology itself but rather all the NIMBY Karens and Flower Power Pals that don't understand the gravity of what we are up against. These idiots will continue to obstruct all nuclear installations as long as possible, even if it only means delaying the project. Even if we manage to get LFTR working, they would still obstruct it because as far as they are concerned, their ignorance is as good as your knowledge. I mean, they even got a fully functional nuclear plant shut down. [eia.gov]
That said, every energy source that doesn't pollute should be pushed forward instead of pinning your hopes on a single technology.
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Re:Nuclear isn't enough. (Score:4, Interesting)
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I would prefer to live next door to a nuclear power plant than a coal (or a greenwashed "biomass") or a gas power plant.
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It's super reliable and cheap.
It might be cheap for you, because it is subsidized.
If you had to pay the true price, it would not be cheap.
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I get all my power from a nearby nuclear plant. Honestly, I don't get why people get all bent out of shape over nuclear. It's super reliable and cheap.
Unfortunately, actual numbers show that nuclear power is not cheap.
You may argue that it could be cheap if it weren't for regulation, And should be cheap because some slashdotters argue the regulations are too burdensome, but the actual costs of building a nuclear power plant today make it economically a bad proposition.
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Nuclear is the most expensive option by far. It is that already when you ignore cost of waste storage, cost of decommissioning and risk-cost. Only somebody truly ignorant or somebody lying would ever claim that nuclear is cheap.
Incidentally, because nuclear is unreliable and inflexible, you will be getting 30% or more of your electricity from other sources. A grid with more than 70% nuclear cannot be made stable and reliable.
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Nuclear is the most expensive option by far. It is that already when you ignore cost of waste storage, cost of decommissioning and risk-cost. Only somebody truly ignorant or somebody lying would ever claim that nuclear is cheap.
Only someone ignorant of the land use problems of wind, water, and sun in nations with high population densities and relatively small total land area would claim nuclear to be the most expensive option. As the best spots for wind and solar are used up, and more land is set aside for energy, the costs will go up. At some point wind and solar costs will reach that of nuclear fission costs. Or rather a combination of rising renewable energy costs and declining nuclear fission costs will mean they meet somew
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Only someone ignorant of the land use problems of wind, water, and sun in nations with high population densities and relatively small total land area would claim nuclear to be the most expensive option.
Only a totally disingenuous douchebag would still claim that solar and wind take up space. They do not. Wind shares space with farms, and uses a negligible percentage of their area. Solar can be built on roofs and over car parks where it uses no space at all. In cases where solar arrays are being built in other places it's because space is plentiful and it's cheaper and easier to build an array. In cases where space is not plentiful, other approaches will be used. Every single argument you have is complete
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The idiot here is you. The problems with nuclear are numerous and will prevent it from making any meaningful contribution it time. This is clear, has been documented numerous times and still you fanatics cry "Nuclear! Nuclear!" like a bunch of demented morons.
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Nobody is against nuclear fusion power, when it exists. But right now, it doesn't. Nobody is making a useful amount of power. And it's going to be quite some time before anyone is making them cost-effective. And even then we may discover some complication which makes them as much of a non-starter as fission plants.
You ranted about how people are anti-nuclear as if it were affecting carbon release today; You literally said "These idiots will continue to obstruct all nuclear installations as long as possible
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let alone more cheaply than solar and/or wind, even when taking into account the cost of building battery-based storage to go with it.
Hold up. Where is the evidence that solar/wind + battery is cheaper? It was my understanding that adding batteries to the mix made it more costly.
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https://science.sciencemag.org... [sciencemag.org]
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Nuclear may not be enough but it is certainly required to be part of meeting our future energy needs.
Let's assume that we never build another civil nuclear power plant on Earth. That still leaves a great many uses in the military. Or off of Earth.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]
I don't understand why people believe that to be a proponent of nuclear power one must oppose all else. Where is this coming from?
The big winners will be those with a high energy return on energy invested.
https://world-nuclear.or [world-nuclear.org]
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Future requirements are less of a concern because we are developing other nuclear technologies. I suspect it will be 50 to 70 years before we'll get nuclear fusion online but I think it will replace many existing systems. Hopefully LFTR gets off the ground in 20 years because we could really use it.
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The problem with nuclear is the technology. We are now 70 years in to civilian nuclear power and it's still got massive problems, safety issues and is uneconomical.
Every few years someone comes along with some amazing new reactor design that can't possibly go wrong and costs a tiny fraction as much to build, and every time they turn out to be wrong. At what point are we going to say that we just can't get it to work and need to move on?
The answer to that question better be "now" or we are going to waste a l
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Every few years someone comes along with some amazing new reactor design that can't possibly go wrong and costs a tiny fraction as much to build, and every time they turn out to be wrong.
You speak as if Small Modular Reactors do not live up to their promise.
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You talk as if there are proven commercial designs in operation today.
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Touche, friend! It is sad that it takes so long to get reactors online but I understand that safety is paramount when dealing with radioactivity.
I'm all in favor of whatever works and nuclear fission doesn't pan out then so be it. Though, I feel people are cutting off their nose to spite their face by delaying any non-polluting project.
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The problems with nuclear power are:
1) It takes 10-20 years to go from receiving all approvals to completion of one power plant.
2) Building a nuclear power plant is an very specialized field that requires an enormous amount of skill, so the knowledge can't be transferred quickly to new people.
3) There's 2 companies on the planet that can build nuclear power plants, with a 3rd that will probably not survive bankruptcy.
The result is even if we go all-in on nuclear power, we can't build the power plants fast e
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I'm hoping that Small Modular Reactors can change that paradigm. If it doesn't then that is sad because that's it's entire purpose.
I'm pro-whatever-works because we need to stop polluting as fast as possible. That said, anyone who has willfully delayed a non-polluting source of energy has cut off their nose to spite their face.
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I'm hoping that Small Modular Reactors can change that paradigm
It's going to take at least 10 years to figure out how to build one. Then it's going to take another 10 years to figure out how to mass-produce them. Then it's going to take another 20 years to scale up production to the scale we need. So the individual plants would be faster to build at the end of all that, but it's still going to be way too long to get there.
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What rubbish!
Simple economics would tell you that the claim that the CO2 production from mining and enriching of nuclear fuel would exceed that of coal to be completely wrong. There are actual statistics on this https://www.world-nuclear.org/... [world-nuclear.org]. (Those figures are from IPCC, so not nuclear industry "shills".)
South Korea can / could build nuclear power plants in 4 years. If climate change is really a crisis / emergency, then any developed country should be able to build nuclear power plants in 10 years whic
Re:Nuclear isn't enough. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nicely summed up. Here are a few more:
- Nuclear cannot be insured. That means insurance companies think it is a really bad risk. Windscale, TMI, Thcernobyl and Fuckushima seem to confirm that.
- Nuclear is only usable for base load, so you have to have at least 30% other electricity to keep the grid stable. Hence nuclear will _not_ solve the problem.
- Nuclear is very bad for base load, because of unreliability, long down-times and a high risk of a SCRAM with no warning whatsoever
- Nuclear cannot deal with really hot weather due to excessive cooling needs
There are more. The only reason this fundamentally defective tech ever got built is because people wanted the bomb.
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Another "meltdown-proof" reactor? What happened to all the others that could not melt down? Oh, right, some of them did. You are a fool if you believe any such claims after all the lies the nuclear industry told so far.
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Nope. It only proved that it didn't melt down under those conditions. It didn't prove that it could never melt down given some kind of equipment problem. If this is the level of thinking that goes into supporting nuclear power it's trivial to see why it is always such a massive, unprofitable (compared to other sources) boondoggle.
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Misleading headline (Score:2)
It should be "7 Years Later, Google Engineers Revise Their Pessimistic Predictions on Renewable Energy and Solving Climate Change"
The headline reads, at first glance, like they were overly pessimistic about how bad climate change was going to be. On the contrary, they seem to be just as concerned about it as ever.
Yeah, they ignored exponential growth (as usual) (Score:2)
As I explained in 2000: https://www.dougengelbart.org/... [dougengelbart.org] ...
"[unrev-II] Singularity in twenty to forty years?"
"My previous posting on "S" curve limitations related to bootstrapping
and evolution might lead you to think I don't believe in "explosive"
exponential growth. Far from it!
Summary: we've got global problems, but they are not what most people
might expect. The following is an essay on this subject.
Powertech -- Twenty years to widespread fuel cells, PV, wind, microturbines,
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Oh yeah, I forgot about the singularity. Haven't heard about it for a while.
So what does EU do (Score:2)
Cleaner air travel (including clean hydrogen-powered planes)
New forms of nuclear power
Climate policy (including carbon pricing strategies like carbon taxes)
EU does taxes and not nuclear.
which is half-0xa55d.
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Which is basically an admission that standard nuclear power is too expensive and has a waste problem and this whole lets recycle the waste mantra is hideously more expensive than even current nuclear energy. I'm not against research but realistically it doesn't look like fission or fusion will ever be cheap. OTOH renewables and energy storage look like they can be very cheap.
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OTOH renewables and energy storage look like they can be very cheap.
Sure, it looks cheap until the land and labor costs are taken into account.
Wind vs. nuclear is discussed here.
http://www.withouthotair.com/c... [withouthotair.com]
I added the bolding below.
Letâ(TM)s imagine generating 22 kWh per day per person of nuclear
power â" equivalent to 55 GW (roughly the same as Franceâ(TM)s nuclear
power), which could be delivered by 55 nuclear power stations, each occu-
pying one square kilometre. Thatâ(TM)s about 0.02% of the area of the country.
Wind farms delivering the same average power would require 500 times as
much land: 10% of the country. If the nuclear power stations were placed
in pairs around the coast (length about 3000 km, at 5 km resolution), then
thereâ(TM)d be two every 100 km. Thus while the area required is modest, the
fraction of coastline gobbled by these power stations would be about 2%
(2 kilometres in every 100).
The "myth" of viable solar power is discussed here:
http://www.withouthotair.com/c... [withouthotair.com]
Fantasy time: solar farming
If a breakthrough of solar technology occurs and the cost of photovoltaics
came down enough that we could deploy panels all over the countryside,
what is the maximum conceivable production? Well, if we covered 5% of
the UK with 10%-efficient panels, weâ(TM)d have
10% Ã-- 100 W/m2 Ã-- 200 m2 per person
â 50 kWh/day/person.
I assumed only 10%-efficient panels, by the way, because I imagine that
solar panels would be mass-produced on such a scale only if they were
very cheap, and itâ(TM)s the lower-efficiency panels that will get cheap first.
The power density (the power per unit area) of such a solar farm would be
10% Ã-- 100 W/m2 = 10 W/m2.
This power density is twice that of the Bavaria Solarpark (figure 6.7).
Could this flood of solar panels co-exist with the army of windmills we
imagined in Chapter 4? Yes, no problem: windmills cast little shadow, and
ground-level solar panels have negligible effect on the wind. How auda-
cious is this plan? The solar power capacity required to deliver this 50 kWh
per day per person in the UK is more than 100 times all the photovoltaics
in the whole world. So should I include the PV farm in my sustainable
production stack? Iâ(TM)m in two minds. At the start of this book I said I
wanted to explore what the laws of physics say about the limits of sus-
tainable energy, assuming money is no object. On those grounds, I should
certainly go ahead, industrialize the countryside, and push the PV farm
onto the stack. At the same time, I want to help people figure out what
we should be doing between now and 2050. And today, electricity from
solar farms would be four times as expensive as the market rate. So I feel
a bit irresponsible as I include this estimate in the sustainable production
stack in figure 6.9 â" paving 5% of the UK with solar panels seems beyond
the bounds of plausibility in so many ways. If we seriously contemplated
doing such a thing, it would quite probably be better to put the panels in
a two-fold sunnier country and send some of the energy home by power
lines.
How far have things gone in improving our solar PV production since the above quotes were written in 2015? Just how fast could we build nuclear power plants?
http://www.withouthotair.com/c... [withouthotair.com]
I heard that nuclear power canâ(TM)t be built at a sufficient rate to
make a useful contribution.
The difficulty of building nuclear power fast has been exaggerated with
the help of a misleading presentation technique I call âoethe magic playing
field.â In this technique, two things appear to be compared, but the basis of
the comparison is switched halfway through. The Guardianâ(TM)s environment
editor, summarizing a report from the Oxford Research Group, wrote âoeFor
nuclear power to make any significant contribution to a reduction in global
carbon emissions in the next two generations, the industry would have to
construct nearly 3000 new reactors â" or about one a week for 60 years. A
civil nuclear construction and supply programme on this scale is a pipe
dream, and completely unfeasible. The highest historic rate is 3.4 new
reactors a year.â 3000 sounds much bigger than 3.4, doesnâ(TM)t it! In this
application of the âoemagic playing fieldâ technique, there is a switch not
only of timescale but also of region. While the first figure (3000 new reactors
over 60 years) is the number required for the whole planet, the second figure
(3.4 new reactors per year) is the maximum rate of building by a single
country (France)!
A more honest presentation would have kept the comparison on a per-
planet basis. France has 59 of the worldâ(TM)s 429 operating nuclear reactors, so
itâ(TM)s plausible that the highest rate of reactor building for the whole planet
was something like ten times Franceâ(TM)s, that is, 34 new reactors per year.
And the required rate (3000 new reactors over 60 years) is 50 new reactors
per year. So the assertion that âoecivil nuclear construction on this scale is
a pipe dream, and completely unfeasibleâ is poppycock. Yes, itâ(TM)s a big
construction rate, but itâ(TM)s in the same ballpark as historical construction
rates.
How reasonable is my assertion that the worldâ(TM)s maximum historical
construction rate must have been about 34 new nuclear reactors per year?
Letâ(TM)s look at the data. Figure 24.14 shows the power of the worldâ(TM)s nuclear
fleet as a function of time, showing only the power stations still operational
in 2007. The rate of new build was biggest in 1984, and had a value of
(drum-roll please...) about 30 GW per year â" about 30 1-GW reactors. So
there!
Solar power is a dead end. Onshore wind can perhaps take a big de
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Facts, just look at the price of actual wind turbines and then look at the cost of new nuclear power stations right now.
Predictions aren't needed because new renewables cost half to a quarter of what new nuclear costs and the price of renewables is dropping fast as it has been doing for the last 3 decades.
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Facts, just look at the price of actual wind turbines and then look at the cost of new nuclear power stations right now.
I am looking at facts. European nations are already running out of places for cheap wind and solar power.
https://www.briefingsforbritai... [briefingsf...tain.co.uk]
Far from falling, the operating costs per MW of new capacity have increased significantly for both onshore and offshore wind farms over the last two decades. In addition, operating costs for existing wind farms tend to grow even more rapidly as they age. The increase for new capacity seems to be due to the shift to sites that are more remote or difficult to service. Much of the increase with age is due to the frequency of equipment failures and the need for preventative maintenance, both of which are strongly associated with the adoption of new generations of larger turbines â" both onshore and offshore.
Predictions aren't needed because new renewables cost half to a quarter of what new nuclear costs and the price of renewables is dropping fast as it has been doing for the last 3 decades.
Predictions are needed because this is a problem that is not yet solved. People in Europe will want to lower CO2 emissions and so need to predict future cost in order to make plans. Also, there are government studies that show costs for renewable energy has increased in the last 2 decades. Subsidies from the government may have reduced the price at the meter but it i
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Here's a more recent source then:
https://www.powermag.com/iea-n... [powermag.com]
In terms of dispatchable power, nuclear will have the lowest-expected costs of all low-carbon options in 2025, the report suggests. Large hydro reservoirs can provide âoea similar contribution,â but they remain âoehighly dependent on the natural endowments of individual countries,â it says. Meanwhile, compared other fossil generation, nuclear plants will likely be more affordable than coal-fired plants, it suggests. And while gas-fired combined cycle gas turbines (CCGTs) are competitive in some regions, âoetheir LCOE very much depend on the prices for natural gas and carbon emissions in individual regions.â
I cite Sustainable Energy - without the hot air because the calculations on energy per area are still relevant today. European nations will need to turn to nuclear fission because they lack enough land area to do otherwise. Without nuclear fission they will have to set aside large portions of their limited land area to energy production. Land used for energy cannot also be used for crops, wildlife preserves, or many other uses. Use of on
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We're so lucky to have Google engineers... (Score:2)
as opposed to actual economists and environmental scientists.
If they spent this much effort on their own services, they might release something more concrete than a temporary beta service.
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What are you talking about? They do release things more permanent than beta. They call those "deprecated".
In order to predict the future (Score:2)
Funny (Score:2)
They were initially correct but have modified their opinion to reflect their inability to understand the root cause. The root cause is that humans have not discovered any method of using or producing "energy" that does not involve the production of "waste heat" which must be discarded somewhere.
Diddling about with the various methods of "producing" energy (which creates more "waste heat") and then "consuming" that energy (which in turn generates more "waste heat") does not address the underlying problem --
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The root cause is that humans have not discovered any method of using or producing "energy" that does not involve the production of "waste heat" which must be discarded somewhere.
There is wind power, which produces a minor localized "warming" effect directly downwind of turbines due to turbulence and decreasing wind speeds, which is rapidly lost in the "noise" of winds. It subtracts much more energy from the wind than it puts into it.
And then there's solar; the waste heat is discarded in space by the sun, radiated in all directions and very little of it reaches here. When it does, it does meaningful work from our viewpoint, which is to say keeping the atmosphere warm enough for us t
Google "research" usually is crap (Score:2)
I have seen a few samples in areas where I have expertise. These things would never have gotten published anywhere worthwhile without the "Google" affiliation. (No, not everybody does blind reviews and some authors and reviewers actively circumvent it where it is being done.)
This fits right in there: Google does some badly researched piece, it gets a lot of attention because of "Google", and look, a few years later it becomes obvious it was pretty much crap. Now I can respect the two guys basically admittin
Weather (Score:2)
If I could afford it, I would love to have a solar roof to help the AC during hot times. And use an electric car for local driving. But these are out of my reach as a retired person on a limited, fixed income. And while I am concerned about what the future will bring for my family, I also recognize that it took a while to push the planet to this state. And have seen modelling that if humanity vanished in an instant, it would still take a long time for the climate to drift back towards what we used to consid
Don't forget the cost of a whole new grid (Score:2)
An energy system running entirely on small renewables is supposed to run on what is breezily promoted as an "Internet of electricity" which is a new grid that can quickly wheel fluctuating power from gusts of wind and sunny afternoons around the continent to the exact places needed. This will require a few teradollars to replace the grid we have now, which is optimized for distribution from a small number of large central sources. Oh, and it won't work without giving the new grid the ability to individually
Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen. (Score:2)
From the fine article:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/ener... [ieee.org]
Hydrogen can play a critical role in a carbon-free energy system, as renewables and nuclear provide a greater share of electricity. Hydrogen can be used as a feedstock to make synthetic fuels that can replace fossil fuels. Hydrogen can also be used directly as a fuel or feedstock to decarbonize industrial processes, requiring some new distribution and industrial infrastructure.
This was not hard to see by anyone paying attention. We will need synthesized fuels to bring transportation to net zero carbon emissions. The fuels would have to be produced with a combination of renewable and nuclear fission energy. From this will come a kind of "hydrogen economy" that so many claimed would come. The hydrogen will largely be produced by nuclear fission power and chemically bound to carbon for the production of hydrocarbon fuels, f
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Every evil in the book that you can think of, there is 10x more of that evil that went into those GREEN energy sources
Vague accusations of ambiguous parties are easy to make. Relevant specifics, much harder.
Try harder.
You must be new (Score:2)
to Slashdot.
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I'm not this guy but if you're making a list of people who say true things please add me to it. Programmers aren't engineers and all of you code monkeys have very little clue about the real costs of things like wind, solar, nuclear, biofuel plants, etc. All you hear is "IT'S GREEN!" and you buy into the lie and promote it and feel really good about yourself
Um, who are you talking to?
Do you know?
Hey man, just a quick FYI:
Post1: all you programmers suck and your butts stick and I hate you!â
Post2: I am n
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It's true: wind turbine blades are made of glass, epoxides and pure evil (it helps the epoxy cure stronger). It's a bad alloying element which embrittles steel and just doesn't work at all as a superplasticiser in concrete, which is why it isn't present to the same degree in normal power stations.