this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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I work in the UK energy sector, and that's definitely not true! About 1/3 of our energy comes from wind which is somewhat but mostly not stored.
Fossil fuels end up doing the work of balancing the grid during times when wind and solar are low. That's not ideal, but a world where fossil fuels are used to balance renewable provision is much better than a world where they're the primary energy source.
We're running out of time to prevent the worst effects of global warming, and any increase in renewables provides some mitigation to the impact. Very few, if any, countries are at the point where current battery tech should stop them increasing their renewables.
That's true, but only as long as your primary source/balancing source are fossil fuels. I can imagine a lot of them being burned during short and cloudy winter days + all nights in this scenario. If we want to avoid CO2 emissions, nuclear pps seems like the best choice today. But then we don't need nearly as much renewables. Tricky situation, even worse for countries without much wind.
Yep, because you are still relaying on fossil fuels and can adjust their output quite dynamically. But the more renewables power you have, the more fossil fuels you'll burn when renewables aren't producing.
Makes sense?
I agree with all of what you said, apart from "without storage renewables aren't that useful".
UK and USA are good comparatives here, where the USA has better nuclear provision, but on average very little renewables (approx 10%). The UK obviously burns more fossil fuels when renewables aren't used, but in spite of this still generates less than 1/3 of the co2 per KW overall as the USA (120g vs 390g).
So storage would be drive that down much further, but even without it, more renewables equals less CO2 overall in pretty much every real world case.
Data sources in CO2 per KW: UK: https://grid.iamkate.com/ USA: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11
Sure, I agree that it helps, but only as long as you are emitting co2 as an alternative. Not sure whether comparison to USA is a good one since they ditched new nuclear plants after Three Mile Island accident. Try comparing against France though - they are the greenest and most reliable energy producer out there (maybe Scandinavian countries are better, but they have excellent predispositions). And then we have Germany, which went diehard renewable with the side effect of becoming one of the biggest European polluter.
Germany definitely has a tonne of renewables, but then is still like 25% coal which is why it has high energy emmisions. It has much cleaner energy than it did before adopting renewables though, so still seems like a reason to think renewables are a positive?
It's 100% untrue that Germany's recent pursuing of renewables is the reason it pollutes so much per KW.
Then France has a similar amount of renewables to the UK but with a much cleaner mix after that (basically more nuclear and less gas).
I'm wondering if I've misunderstood your initial point because I'm not seeing any reason to suggest increasing renewables doesn't reduce emissions? Only that there's more to CO2 per KW than just categorising stuff as "renewable" vs "non-renewable", which I don't think anyone is doubting?
Sorry to go so hard on this, but this stuff really matters. We don't have a lot of time left to reduce the most extreme impacts of global warming, and nobody benefits from muddying the waters on the clear benefits of renewables.
I guess we are stating the same, just from different perspectives. About Germany, you are correct that it isn't just their push towards renewables, it was a combination of ditching nuclear power and going full renewables. The real world outcome was huge pollution. That was indeed reduced by renewables (each year more) but still, it was enormous and it's still pretty huge and will be for a foreseeable future unless they come with enough surplus of renewables and huge energy storage. I don't see the later coming soon, though. The France does it right, they rely on nuclear.
You say (correct me if I'm wrong) that renewables (even without storage) are reducing emissions because they reduce fossil fuels usage, and you are definitely right. I'm saying that that's not enough, we have to ditch fossil fuels entirely and if/when that occurs, renewables without storage are not that useful since we will have to rely on stable non-co2-emission power source - which is only nuclear today.
Hey, it's a healthy debate.
Edit: formatting