danielravennest t1_je6t0ji wrote on March 29, 2023 at 8:40 PM

Reply to comment by Tearakan in U.S. renewable electricity surpassed coal in 2022 by altmorty

> Not this slow plodding shit.

You are not describing reality. Solar energy doubled from 2016 to 2019, and doubled again by 2022. That's not plodding, it is exponential growth.

Since 1992 solar increased by a factor of 10,000. It just took time to get the prices down and production up. Right now, solar manufacturers are building up their supply chain for another doubling of production rate.

Tearakan t1_je6tnil wrote on March 29, 2023 at 8:44 PM

That would've been good 2 decades ago. We can't wait for that now.

Realistically we should be nationalizing most industries, completely shutting down useless ones, removing all non essential travel, ripping up roads and putting in massive rail networks in place with massive increases in nuclear plant construction.

Moving people from suburbs into either high density cities or rural areas used to support said cities, like we had before cheap oil.

And also providing people with the essentials to prevent mass civil unrest.

This is similar levels of effort that WW2 required.

Anything less at this point is just inviting disasters on a scale our species has never seen.

Edit: having renewables are great but they have a limit. They are good auxiliary power but cost compared to battery plants vs nulcear power favors nuclear fission. We can even add in further breeder reactors to get more energy out of previously spent fuel.

Rentun t1_je78ujq wrote on March 29, 2023 at 10:29 PM

Lol ok well good luck with that.

Where are you going to get the political capital to do that?

Close to half this county doesn’t even think climate change is real. The other half mostly will not be willing to significantly disrupt their lives for any reason, climate change or not.

Forcibly relocating people from suburbs? What planet are you living on?

The stuff you’re proposing wouldn’t even fly in China. There’d be a revolution before people accept their lives being so radically altered. How in the hell would that work in any democratic country?

Tearakan t1_je8e639 wrote on March 30, 2023 at 3:51 AM

Yeah we won't. I honestly think most countries will fall to chaos 1st sadly.

Maybe a few billion dying will wake up the remaining people in time.

danielravennest t1_je6zdaf wrote on March 29, 2023 at 9:22 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQzH_j1-FjE

None of that is going to happen. Renewables will take over because the profit motive is the most powerful force in our modern world.

And you are wrong about battery plants. Look up the Moss Landing plant in California. They replaced 5 of 7 natural gas units with two battery farms (one in the turbine hall, and the other in what was the parking lot). The two most efficient NG units were kept as backup/peaker units.