Replacing fossil fuels with renewables is altogether more practical and economical than doing so with a combination of new nuclear and renewables. This wasn't true even ten years ago, but the costs of renewables have fallen so fast that it's now the case. At the same time, the supposed "Nuclear Renaissance" was revealed to be an illusion. Nuclear is now a dead technology walking. And renewables (and associated technologies like batteries and electrolyzers) continue to show cost declines at a rate nuclear could only dream of.
BTW, summarize the argument in the video. I don't waste my time watching video links.
If I've misunderstood this somewhere, I would love to learn more.
Going forward, even France is having a very hard time building reactors, and is finding renewables are cheaper. This is one reason why France's nuclear industry is in such trouble.
Germany deliberately pushed renewables in order to send them down their experience curves. This was spectacularly successful, but it has come at a high price to their consumers, who are still paying that down. The rest of us have reaped the benefit of far lower renewable costs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan#/media/File:Ja...
Japan, one of the most technologically developed place in the world, cannot use renewables when they shut down nuclear. Instead they turn back to coal.
I'm not saying renewables are always inferior - e.g., California would be a perfect place for solar. But in every story I've heard of, when nuclear power is turned off fossil fuels pick up the slack.
Also, I always assumed the lower renewable costs have come from economies of scale due mainly to China exploding it's energy production (which renewables makes a decent chunk of)
Also underrepresented are his comments on just how unrealistic the assumptions are in the models calling for temperature reduction, specifically about the implications for reducing our dependency on fossil fuels. Reducing energy consumption (whether through bans or price hikes) has a known humanitarian impact in present terms. The idea that you can convince your poor neighbor that he doesn't really need to eat better or have access to more resources is a tricky problem.
pfdietz, I think the case is made quite plainly in his presentation that renewables cannot catch up to much less displace ("100%") fossil fuels anytime in the near future. If you don't see that in the sum of what he presents in the notes, I'd encourage you to watch the source material to hear him say it, sector by sector. It's full of real data from a guy that's been studying energy use in human civilization for many decades.
This link has some of the same info in PDF form: http://vaclavsmil.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/JPM.2019.pd...
Smil has argued that energy transitions happen only slowly, but I think he's being misled because the current rate of cost decline in renewables is unprecedented in its speed, as is the willingness of increasing numbers of countries to impose CO2 taxes or the equivalent.
And you're right about regulatory pressure being a big motivator.
"There is zero chance of 100% replacement of fossil fuels with renewables. Zero. Without a Thanos solution."
is utter nonsense. I mean, it's as if you're asking me what's wrong with a statement that the Earth is flat.
Developing societies such as Africa, India and China are increasing their consumption for the next few decades at least, radically accelerating the demand for hydrocarbons. India expects a quintupling of coal use in the next 4 decades. Airline miles will quintuple in much shorter period of time (like ten-twenty years). There is no shortage of hydrocarbons to naturally limit these demands. Politically there is no way to restrain newly developing nations. Technologically there is no net-positive energy generation source that competes on a density basis with fossil fuels. Again, the numbers tell the story.
I sincerely appreciate your frustration and hope for something different/better, but you need to come up with contrary data to argue these points. A hope in technical improvements year-over-year is all you've pointed to, and the trendline of capacity and efficiency improvements doesn't back that up. Further cost paid for a solar panel is not a benchmark. Energy intensity of its emplacement to bring it online is what its output needs to be balanced against. Its output, limited by useful life and useful operating hours really hamstrings its total lifecycle cost after the fossil fuel intense journey it takes.
