Comment by chpatrick
5 hours ago
Hungary is already using that (today we were 90% carbon-free thanks to solar), the problem is what to do when it gets dark.
5 hours ago
Hungary is already using that (today we were 90% carbon-free thanks to solar), the problem is what to do when it gets dark.
Collect solar power in orbit (where sunlight is uninterrupted) and microwave[0] it to earth.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_power_transfer#Microw...
Batteries?
Starting this year, in Romania you cannot put new PV capacity online without the storage for it, is mandatory. Possibly for existing ones, but I am not sure.
They're being installed but it's going to take a while.
Much faster than any nuclear build though.
Mechanical ones so we aren’t left with a waste disaster in 10-20 years?
"the problem is what to do when it gets dark"
Batteries (or pumped storage hydro, which is more like a gravity-driven capacitor)
Hungary is flat as hell, there's nowhere to build enough hydro storage.
But yeah batteries would be nice.
AFAIK the mountains are about as high as Wales? It looks like there's a 600MW storage scheme in the planning stages. That's about a third of the capacity of Wales's largest system (which is the biggest in Europe) and about twice the capacity of the second system.
It's a meaningful contribution I would have thought.
You can do low(er) head pumped hydro storage [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power...