KitemanSA wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 4:51 pm
charliem wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 2:57 pm
For the record, my favorite option would be "everything", with a medium term goal of [mostly] renewables backed by nuclear (and a good pinch of all else kept in standby, at least for a while).
As for “all of the above”, if you have reliable nuclear, why in the world would you want to screw up your grid with UNRELIABLES like W&S???
Economic reasons mostly, mixed with some politics, and a bit of a philosophical position.
Evidently, since we are in Talk-Polywell, my all time favorite energy generation way is fusion. But fusion is not here yet, and even if we see one or two startups reach break-even before 2030, like with any other previous technology this one's going to need time to perfect and deploy.
So, for the medium term, let's say up to 2050, what can we reasonably expect to set up that is both, economically viable, and the least environmentally harmful ?
Solar and Wind are unreliable, but also cheaper. Nuclear is reliable, but more expensive (at least until 4th generation nuclear is operational). So, my position is that, for now, our better option is to mostly keep with what we are doing, but adding some more nuclear to stabilize the system (avoiding overcapacity, the idea is to switch to fusion as soon as possible). That would minimize the average cost per unit of energy produced, while reducing black-out risks.
Then there is the question of politics. Renewables have the potential to reduce energy dependence at the national level for many countries, and when the main hydrocarbon producers are such a nice people as Russia, Venezuela, the Arab countries, etc., independence from them looks very desirable (just ask west Europe).
And not only countries, even at the individual level. I love my two power-packs. Bought the first five years ago (a small 0.6 kWh), and the second last year (2 kWh, the 4 years in between meant this one cost only a little more than the first). In the zone we live in blackouts are common (2, 3, 4 times a year), from a couple minutes to a few hours. When power goes out, of course those packs cannot feed our HVAC, but that's almost the only thing we can't use (heat and kitchen are NG), everything else works (fridge, lights, computers, TV, internet, ...) for 4-5 hours easily, more if we are careful. I know those two power-packs will never pay for themselves, but money is not the only consideration, the independence and safety they offer is valuable too (and outdoors they are really useful).