Comment by aziaziazi
1 year ago
Not really: batteries and solar need to be replaced more often that coal plant. The current and foreseen material sourcing, production and logistics for solar and batteries rely on a ton of steel which needs… coal! Coal-free steel already exist but is much more expensive, and will very probably remain expensive for a long time.
> Not really: batteries and solar need to be replaced more often that coal plant.
The design lifetimes are on the same order of magnitude, and the components of the coal plant need overhauls/replacement as well. It's not that different.
And notice that the coal plant needs a continuous supply of fuel, whereas battery/solar are one-time costs. That's a big difference anywhere, and any even bigger one in Hawaii where you have to ship the coal in.
>production and logistics for solar and batteries rely on a ton of steel
Totally unlike coal plants, coal mines, and coal shipping.
> Coal-free steel already exist but is much more expensive
If we can't do everything, perfectly, right now, then we should definitely do nothing at all. That's much better, and totally how all technology development works. /sarc
What the "production and logistics for" for coal need? I used to live near a coal power plant, there were several long trains per hour of coal going to that plant. Now I live near a wind farm, and while in construction it had a few semis per hour - maybe as much as trains to the coal plant - but that wind farm is complete and will run for a few more decades with very little traffic, while the coal power plant had that many trains per day every day for all the time it was in operation. (it is now shut down)
The quantity of carbon emitted here matters