Grid-scale storage is the key. Duke Energy is one of the leaders in this effort, at least among the major utilities [1].
Energy has moved down the priority list of problems.
But no wind power does not work in large scale in a electric system. The problem is that you need to have a lot of extra power and power electronics to stabilize the effect of wind power. It disturbs the frequency of the electricity in the network and you have to balance it with other sources you have complete control over to keep the power stable.
When the Swedish energy department made a study they found that we can't have more than 10 TWh of wind power (7%)[0]. There is one study from one group that says that we can have up to 30 TWh (21%)[2], but if we are realistic it's probably in the middle. This is things my professors in wind power told us, and they really like wind power.
Sorry the sources are in Swedish, but I really advice you to look into the subject before calming that it's all perfect.
[0] http://www.svk.se/siteassets/om-oss/rapporter/20130313-integ...
[1]http://fof.se/tidning/2012/7/tal-elnatet-mer-vindkraft Lennart Söders forskargrupp.
There's actually a single giant windfarm due for completion in 2020 that on its own will provide more than 8%.
There are some reasons to think solar and wind have physical limits and can't provide 100% on their own (or even together) economically just as nuclear on its own doesn't really make economic sense, but there's a long history of groups predicting false limits based on strange assumptions.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/06/07/uk-sets-new-r...
I don't understand how the HN crowd that is usually so pro-environment, is also happy with the tons of wasted energy from crytptocurrency mining.
The societal gain from these technologies is potentially very large and will hopefully realign interests in the direction of saving the environment rather than bailing out businesses.. But the most sane definition of money is actually energy imo
Also comparing the energy cost of printing physical money with mining cryptocurrencies is favorable to CC's iirc.
There's infrastructure costs, but Visa's network doesn't need that much to process a single POST request
Really? Last I checked, taking the averaged of the top 10 most efficient mining setups, BitCoin network was pulling 9GW+.
https://twitter.com/layoric/status/906087502414352384
Another model here showing 18 TWh annual usage, that's still an insane amount of power.
https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
Proof of Work (and BitCoin in particular) is so damaging, really hoping another currency takes over that doesn't use so much power for 4 transactions per second..
Or put differently, it's replacing a system that's O(log n) with respect to energy usage with a system that's O(n²), for questionable benefits.
Iirc that's one of the points of proof-of-stake. PoS is nearly analogous to PoW in its platform implications - potential for centralization due to resource costs and so on - but doesn't rely on burning through processing power to be secured.
[1] http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/
[2] https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-FAQ#doe...
“Bitcoin's electricity consumption as a percentage of the world's electricity consumption 0.09%“
How about Bill Gates and Terrapower trying to build a new generation of nuclear power in China?
https://qz.com/627113/bill-gates-says-china-is-the-best-plac...
I beg to differ - currently just Bitcoin mining uses as much energy as country of Iceland - anything consuming energy on a scale of entire country (even small one yes) is environmentally significant.
> What is particularly unfortunate about Gates’ mistaken rhetoric is that it can disempower people and policymakers and pundits into thinking that individual or even government action is not the central weapon needed to win the climate fight and that our only hope is some long-term deus ex machina strategy to avoid catastrophic warming. Nothing could be worse than leaving people with the impression that humanity’s only hope is future miracles...
> What is particularly ironic about Gates’ mistaken energy-miracle-centered strategy, as I’ll discuss at the end, is that it is the exact opposite of the deployment-driven innovation strategy Gates himself used to make Microsoft a software giant and to make personal computers the “miracle” that Gates calls them today.
Personally, I've found Gates's public pronouncements unhelpful as they've promoted this idea that the current tech is of no use when simple things like replacing coal with natural gas can have large impacts.
Interconnections reduce the effects of renewable variability.
We usually see things coming a long way off. We were burning coal just like wood - and the entire hydrocarbon industry is a big refinement on 'coal fires'.
Nuclear Energy has been vastly understudied in the last 30 years. There are so many opportunities there, and the 'yield' is earth-shaking: 1000 years of electricity.
Yes - I'm aware of the issues, but with the right approach, most of them, possibly all of them can be mitigated.
Just with '1980's tech' - and some institutional responsibility (A big 'ask', I know) - we could wipe out climate change for a hefty, but not unreasonable price tag. (FYI - a huge new component factored into costs is 'insurance' for these plants, which is crazy expensive and hard to assess - in addition to improvements - we can legislate and plan around these things).
At very least - we should be investing in research both in tech, but also in operating modalities. The upside is too great to ignore.
Decentralized energy production means loss of control.
If I could be so bold: every piece of tech in your house depends in some way on military R&D.
Heyzeus - you even owe 'canned food' to Napoleon's supply-chain R&D.
It's a surprisingly long list when you account for actual history, not just the 20th century, which was huge.
There are two reasons for this:
1. The stability of the petrodollar global control grid is based on the centralized production of energy. Any tech that would lead to widespread decentralization is a threat. Power is power.
2. People are too retarded and selfish to be trusted with unlimited energy. They would inevitably split the crust of the earth and kill us all.
So until both of those things change you won't see permanent batteries, cheap hydrogen from water, high efficiency solar, or any of the other energy tech they are sitting on.
