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submitted 11 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

Solar and wind energy could fulfill energy demand 10-fold, Oxford study finds::undefined

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[-] BrightCandle@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

A change in thinking about energy needs to happen to truly understand why Wind and Solar and a bit of storage is enough. You have to accept that at times there will be overproduction of power because storing it to hit exact use capacity isn't cost effective. Some storage makes sense, but its much cheaper to have more capacity.

What I think will happen in the future once we reach the point this is how most energy comes is more people will be on Octopus like smart energy schemes where you might get paid for using electricity and there will be companies that use this to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. We are approaching a world of energy excess but only at certain times and there are opportunities to use that energy for the right reasons to reverse the damage we have done with CO2 emissions.

[-] this_is_router@feddit.de 7 points 11 months ago

if it's to cheap, the market wont be able to profit enough, so I'm pretty sure they will find a way to squeeze us dry anyway

[-] jerome@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

Will solar operate if there's a nuclear winter?

[-] bstix@feddit.dk 25 points 11 months ago

In case of nuclear winter, I don't think renewable energy is going to be the main concern.

However, it is possible to put solar panels on satellites that transmit the energy down to the surface. It's costly and dangerous, but a benefit over surface solar is that the satellites can point at the sun for longer time during days and send the energy to places that are not in the sun, thereby producing solar power 24/7. It's wildly impractical and expensive, but in case of nuclear winter it may be a realistic solution.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power

[-] Psaldorn@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

Wouldn't the dust in the atmosphere also prevent energy transmission just as it does solar?

Wind, still works

[-] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 5 points 11 months ago

You'd use frequencies that can penetrate cloud cover in that case, it wouldn't work otherwise because then it would still be subject to weather.

[-] Psaldorn@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

I don't know for sure but it's particulates that make it a nuclear winter, not just cloud (water) but would also need to penetrate the clouds as well.

It's probably not wise for me to Google "what frequencies of EM can penetrate a nuclear winter clouds" though 🙂

[-] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 2 points 11 months ago

That's actually a pretty good point and I don't know how it would work either. It would definitely interfere with the signal to some extent.

[-] stsquad@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 months ago

Some sort of orbital death beam? I seem to recall a 2000ad story around a space energy beaming facility that goes horribly wrong.

[-] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Oh sure, it sounds extremely dangerous, just like standing too close to a radar will poach your brain. The satellite beaming the energy back would have to stay on target and if it didn't it would need a quick and safe way to shut off. Of course dissipation of excess energy in a ground-based grid is a serious issue, so how you would design a satellite to deal with the sudden stop in energy flow is completely beyond me. Maybe you just write it off and launch another one in that case, and you have a lot of redundant paths rather than one critical one.

[-] Life_Inst_Bad@pricefield.org 8 points 11 months ago

As long as you clean the surface of the Solar pannel from snow I dont see why to shouldn't work. Even on cold and cloudy days our panel works.

[-] Happenchance@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Gonna need a tall ladder.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter

Nuclear winter is a severe and prolonged global climatic cooling effect that is hypothesized[1][2] to occur after widespread firestorms following a large-scale nuclear war.[3] The hypothesis is based on the fact that such fires can inject soot into the stratosphere, where it can block some direct sunlight from reaching the surface of the Earth. It is speculated that the resulting cooling would lead to widespread crop failure and famine.

[-] Diplomjodler@feddit.de 2 points 11 months ago

No, you will be put into the matrix.

[-] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The only thing is that they take up a hell of a lot more space and are a lot more unsightly than "dirty" power plants. Nuclear power is great, the only quandary is what do we do with the spent fuel rods since they're radioactive for about another 10,000 years.

Nuclear meltdowns like what happened at Chernobyl and Fukushima wouldn't happen in the US. The only nuclear accident we've had was Three Mile Island which is nothing compared to the above two. Also terrorists attacking nuclear power plants wouldn't happen either because the walls of pretty much every reactor in the US are like 30 feet thick of reinforced concrete, they can withstand direct hits of a 747 or a missile (my dad worked on the one here in NJ), if an ICBM with a nuclear payload is targeting a nuclear plant, we're already fucked.

[-] asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

IMO wind turbines are beautiful

[-] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

One may look nice, 10 or 20 though? That's pushing it

[-] asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)
[-] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

You know what they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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