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Will we look back at today's "go green" initiatives as stupid and inadequate? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 1 year ago by CaspianXI to c/asklemmy

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When I was in elementary school, the cafeteria switched to disposable plastic trays because the paper ones hurt trees. Stupid, I know... but are today's initiatives any better?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Let's take Europe (because I'm familiar with the data in Europe). Much of the continent is very flat. Denmark, Southern Sweden, Netherlands, and Northern Germany, for example, cannot take advantage of hydro storage, and this comprised the largest storage component of the proposed solution.

But an additional effect you have when considering the whole of europe is interconnection. The geographic spread of renewables lowers storage requirements.

We need new battery technologies or other means of economical storage to make such a grid work in Europe. I suspect the numbers are similar in the U.S. Biomass and geothermal help close the gap, but not nearly enough.

The EU will use hydrogen, I am not a huge fan of that but it is what it is...

https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/energy-systems-integration/hydrogen_en

As a sidenote, I don't expect batteries to play a huge role in energy storage. Propably more frequency regulation and peak shifting and basically no long term storage.

But we will see...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

But an additional effect you have when considering the whole of europe is interconnection. The geographic spread of renewables lowers storage requirements.

Yes I reference this when I explain that, "economical line transmission distances cap out at around 500km." In other words, hydro storage can't be utilised all over Europe. Hydro storage in the Alps, for example, cannot power Danish homes.

https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/energy-systems-integration/hydrogen_en

Thanks for the link! I hadn't considered hydrogen as viable yet but technology is improving rapidly. I think the major barrier at present is the conversion loss. Between 60-70% of energy input is lost, but I am optimistic this will improve in time. Further, perhaps at scale, close to areas of high variable energy output, this technology makes sense today.

I agree with you on batteries. Tesla made a huge impact on the world energy market when they proved their battery farm concept in South Australia. It's only used to reduce spot pricing (demand spikes which last milliseconds to minutes), but producers were bilking the public out of millions in those moments, and Tesla significantly cut their profits.