I’s odd for this to be coming out at a time when the energy grid is greening all over the place.
Coal is quietly vanishing as carbon pricing and the tumbling cost of renewables push it out of the energy mix:
Here’s the situation in the UK:
Even in the notoriously cloudy UK, solar now satisfies around a quarter of electricity demand during the middle of the day: With nuclear providing a steady chunk of the base load, and gas and wind ramping up and down to cover the bulk of the rest of the demand, with hydro available for peaking, including the UK’s idiosyncratic power surges:
(Yes, I have found another reason to post this video. It’s relevant to the thread, dammit)
France is also an interesting case, having committed fully to nuclear back in the 1960s (Relevant quote from de Gaulle at the time- “We have no coal, we have no oil, we have no choice”). There, nuclear makes up about 80% of the supply, with extensive hydropower in the mountainous regions making up the remainder. France also sits at the centre of a network of energy trades with its neighbours, generally exporting when renewables are scarce, and importing or dialling back production when they are plentiful.
As I understand it, the USA is also undergoing a shift away from coal, as fracking has resulted in a glut of cheap natural gas, allowing them to emulate the UK’s 1990s “Dash for Gas”, which is in itself greener than coal (and is also how the UK managed the first part of its reduction in CO2 emissions in the 1990s).
Of course the big issue with renewbles is intermittancy, which can be partially compensated for by distance- as renewable generation is spread across a country, the fact that the local wind turbine isn’t turning right now is less of an issue. In Europe, the existence of extensive energy trading between countries is also a compensating factor here. In addition, there’s a bunch of different approaches that are all going to have to work together to resolve the issues that intermittent renewables bring.
- First is actual storage- There are already a few means of power storage, like the massive pumped storage hydro-power stations that can use surplus energy to fill their tanks when demand is low, and give it back in a rush at peak times, but we’re also going to need all the other ideas, like local battery storage, converting excess power into compressed air or hydrogen at peak times, and taking it back when needed.
- Another is meteorology. Increasingly accurate weather prediction telling us when our peaks and troughs of renewable power generation are going to be is a vital part of short term planning for these peaks and troughs, and balancing energy demand.
- Then you have smart demand management- which is why utilities are increasingly trying to install smart grids everywhere, and get large consumers to work with them to time shift their consumption of power. Two examples that are already happening- refrigeration and water utilities. Refrigeration is energy hungry, but generally, a cold storage warehouse or air conditioning doesn’t need to be running at this exact second, as large thermal masses take time to heat up or cool down, therefore, cooling can be time shifted away from peak energy demand (and conveniently, places that need air conditioning will generally need it on a similar curve to the availability of solar). Water utilities are another big consumer of energy, because water is heavy, and moving, treating and supplying it takes lots of energy. This can be time shifted as well, topping up supplies and running treatment off peak, and allowing gravity to maintain pressure in between.
- Another issue is the electrification of the transport system. If large numbers of electric cars take to the roads, these are collectively a large reservoir of batter backup that the grid will have to charge, so varying the charging rate of cars on slow charge to match renewable output is another way to smooth and match demand
Finally, and most importantly is Investment. Things are improving, but we need a huge investment in upgrading energy grids and new renewable power generation now now now. If we’re going to move society as a whole to renewable power, then we need to move a lot of the industry and transport that relies on carbon fuel to run on electricity, and that means a lot of new capacity is needed. Greening current electricity supply is just step one.
This bears repeating. Once you start looking into them, it’s clear that Deep green blends very quickly into off the deep end, with an almost gleeful fetishisation of suffering and primitivism, a disdain for democracy (because people aren’t going to choose being cold and hungry, so we’re going to have to force them), before rapidly descending into making the human population fit their low-tech carrying capacity for the planet by “any means nessecary”
) or other such processes that can be set up on the grid to take up base load when they have to. Even pumped storage would be a decent fit, though with Lake Erie (as well as Huron and Michigan) at their all-time maximum we’re in a bit of a pinch in Ontario as to where to usefully pump water.
