Comment by idiotsecant
2 days ago
This is literally the problem. Transmission is desperately needed, much more than generation right now. The issue is that it's hard to explain to people why this is, and even when they understand they react like you do.
RENEWABLES NEED TRANSMISSION!!! We need to be building unprecedented Manhattan project levels of transmission, yesterday! But instead we will put some solar panels on a car park and feel like we did our part. Solar is the easy part. Storage and/or transmission is the hard part.
And I'd still much rather pay a utility every month for electricity (and have them be responsible for maintaining and upgrading the infrastructure) than install and maintain my own solar plant on my roof, for the same reasons that I'd rather pay utilities to provide me with water and sewer service than have my own well and septic system.
With sufficiently cheap storage, no transmission is needed. There's a tradeoff, and batteries are rapidly improving.
The only real downside to batteries is the cost. The upsides are vast. Beyond adding feasibility to solar and wind, batteries stabilize the grid. The ability to instantly absorb and output power in response to demand or a lack of demand is incredibly valuable.
I was somewhat gobsmacked when I learned there are electric stoves with integrated batteries (the batteries serving to reduce the maximum current draw for homes wired for limited current.)
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While true, with sufficiently cheap transmission, no storage is needed.
But only the Chinese have either the capability to, or interest in, building a one-square-meter-cross-section aluminium belt around the planet, and that means a geopolitical faff.
> While true, with sufficiently cheap transmission, no storage is needed.
Where "sufficiently cheap" here means "affordable over intercontinental distances".
I believe storage costs are falling faster than transmission costs.
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>With sufficiently cheap storage, no transmission is needed.
This logic eats its own tail. Yes, if battery storage was cheap a lot of things would be monumentally better. It isn't. We need today solutions, not hypothetical ones.
Progress marches on: Chemical Process Produces Critical Battery Metals With No Waste https://spectrum.ieee.org/nmc-battery-aspiring-materials
Energy storage technology is on a roll, and grid storage isn't limited by weight energy density in the same manner as vehicle batteries are.
Is this whole "new set of cables" factored into the CO2 emissions equation? We're undoubtedly going to use massive amounts of energy to mine the metal, melt it into wire, transport it to the site, build the towers, etc. Is that energy "green" ?
> Is that energy "green" ?
Not very, but neither is continuing to use fossil fuels on a huge scale.
So why do it at all if there is no accounting to prove it's green? It's almost as if this movement is a scam. No CO2 equivalent publications on solar, or on recycling. It's just "do what we say or the climate will die". I reject that imperative.
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