Nah, nuclear is far too expensive and the start up time is crazy. Wind and solar can get up and running much quicker, and with actual investments in grid storage battery projects we don't need nuclear for baseload. Plus, multiplestudies have found we can get by just fine with an almost 100% non-nuclear renewable energy mix for our current power needs. Nuclear looks attractive, but the decentralized and cheap nature of wind and solar make them much better options for the real world.
There isn't enough lithium on the planet to run the world on wind and solar with batteries (with current tech). Pumped storage exists, but it's inefficient and requires specific geographic features.
Over 95% of global energy storage is in pumped-hydro facilities. Its storage efficiency is ~70-80%, with some claiming 87%... which isn't hardly 'inefficient' compared to lithium-ion batteries at 80-90% (and for way, way less cycles than a pumped-storage facility).
Batteries are wildly resource and labour expensive, and only marginally more efficient than pumped-hydro storage, which, again, is why it accounts for almost all of global energy storage.
Uranium is finite too , and at the current rate of usage would last for another 200+ years. Transitioning over to primarily nuclear power, and we're looking at a much reduced time frame. We can (hopefully) find lithium in asteroids to supplement our supply. Of course all of this is utopian shit and we probably won't do either, but still.
Regardless, I love the idea of pumped storage. You could basically store all of Chile's power needs in pumped storage because the geography there is perfect for it. But yeah you're right on that it's pretty inefficient.
I really don't like the idea of waiting for better battery technology to save us, but 200 years of uranium seems like a pretty good time frame for developing better batteries.
I mean I'm not going to say "no" if somehow we were able to start pushing on mass nuclear power, but I don't think it's worth the effort and time to invest in when wind and solar are so much cheaper and easier to set up. That's sort of where I'm at.
Energy storage is the issue. You still need to power the hospitals and refrigerators when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. Ideally we'd use less energy, but you still need to have *some* energy all the time. We don't have the battery technology to do that with wind and solar.
Nah, nuclear is far too expensive and the start up time is crazy. Wind and solar can get up and running much quicker, and with actual investments in grid storage battery projects we don't need nuclear for baseload. Plus, multiple studies have found we can get by just fine with an almost 100% non-nuclear renewable energy mix for our current power needs. Nuclear looks attractive, but the decentralized and cheap nature of wind and solar make them much better options for the real world.
There isn't enough lithium on the planet to run the world on wind and solar with batteries (with current tech). Pumped storage exists, but it's inefficient and requires specific geographic features.
Over 95% of global energy storage is in pumped-hydro facilities. Its storage efficiency is ~70-80%, with some claiming 87%... which isn't hardly 'inefficient' compared to lithium-ion batteries at 80-90% (and for way, way less cycles than a pumped-storage facility).
Batteries are wildly resource and labour expensive, and only marginally more efficient than pumped-hydro storage, which, again, is why it accounts for almost all of global energy storage.
Uranium is finite too , and at the current rate of usage would last for another 200+ years. Transitioning over to primarily nuclear power, and we're looking at a much reduced time frame. We can (hopefully) find lithium in asteroids to supplement our supply. Of course all of this is utopian shit and we probably won't do either, but still.
Regardless, I love the idea of pumped storage. You could basically store all of Chile's power needs in pumped storage because the geography there is perfect for it. But yeah you're right on that it's pretty inefficient.
I really don't like the idea of waiting for better battery technology to save us, but 200 years of uranium seems like a pretty good time frame for developing better batteries.
I mean I'm not going to say "no" if somehow we were able to start pushing on mass nuclear power, but I don't think it's worth the effort and time to invest in when wind and solar are so much cheaper and easier to set up. That's sort of where I'm at.
Energy storage is the issue. You still need to power the hospitals and refrigerators when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. Ideally we'd use less energy, but you still need to have *some* energy all the time. We don't have the battery technology to do that with wind and solar.
np. molten salt.
https://newatlas.com/mit-molten-salt-battery-membrane/53085/
So, go almost all the way to building a 4th gen reactor, and repurpose it as a battery?
Sounds... Not bright.
lol