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this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2024
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False. Multiple countries are already able to run on 100% renewables for prolonged periods of time. The bigger issue is what to do with excess power. Battery solutions can cover moments where renewables produce a bit less power.
In the summer. In ideal conditions. Lets talk again once you've tried 12 continuous months in the heavily populated northern hemisphere. ๐
We're nowhere near the potential capacity for energy production from renewables, and already we're capable of doing 100% renewable power production.
Potential capacity is really not the issue.
As I said, lets talk once you've managed a full winter. ๐
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable_electricity_production
All the countries that manage 100% renewable power use high levels of hydropower. Which is not an option for many countries and has it's own ecological problems associated with it.
Also, these 100% renewable countries have very little electricity requirements.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php
The United States produces at least produces four million Gigawatt hours of electricity per year. Compare that to some of these "100% renewable" countries.
Sure, most countries that already made it use hydro. But Denmark is already up tp 80% without hydro, and the UK and Germany are already nearly halfway there without any meaningful hydro. And there's still so much solar and wind that can still be installed. They're nowhere near their maximum production capacity yet.
100% from renewables is clearly feasible and achievable. Of course it takes time and investments, but nuclear energy will takre more time and investments to get going again.
Oh noes, facts. The bane of all renewables evangelicals.....
Just wait till you have to tell them they're looking at irrelevant data. Not only are they using specific usecases that are not applicable to a large majority of countries, but they're also using data that doesn't support the long term fossil fuel goals.
Just wait till you tell them how much the electricity requirements will skyrocket once we're transitioning to EV, dropping fossil fuel heating, cooking, cargo trucks switch to EV, etc etc.
Really hope green hydrogen kicks off. Could begin society's efuel saga
Locking hydrogen up in ammonia is what the industry looks to be moving to to avoid the problem you describe.
Also, look up the 7 Hydrogen Hubs in the US as an example of this market getting started. There are no downsides to developing a hydrogen market if we're going to have oodles of excess renewable energy.
I mean, if anything, the fact that the Oil & Gas industry uses hydrogen for refining means that there is a possible, robust market for green hydrogen to get into (don't like this because it means oil is still the focus, when we need to consider green chemistry and stop with oil).
The O&G industry also helped usher in solar PV at an early stage because of the needs of remote power in hazardous environments such as offshore rigs and near potential sources of release like oil tanks (I used to work as an engineer in O&G myself).
There's actually a lot of work by GE and Mitsubishi to start shipping new gas turbines to be capable of firing a non-zero amount of hydrogen in addition to natural gas. I think some plants are even capable of doing 50/50 hydrogen/natural gas, with that former number increasing year over year.
Hydrogen could outstrip conventional fuels someday. The bottleneck has always been supply though.
If renewables are so abundant and cheap, then we'll finally have a reason to deploy hydrogen infrastructure on a massive scale (at least in the US). Hell, you look at the major inverter manufacturers for utility PV like Sungrow, and they have containerized electrolyzers ready for implementation. I haven't done a market survey, but if they're in the game, then so are other players.
If you want to be convinced of the progress of hydrogen, I would look into the project that Sargent & Lundy is working on in Utah. They're planning on using a salt cavern for hydrogen storage, and I believe there is a CCGT onsite as well to make use of the generation.
Hydrogen is even on the minds of offshore wind developers like Siemens.
The substance isn't doomed like others in this thread make it out. There is active interest in the market to develop a supply chain and economy.
Edit: The one thing I don't see a lot of people talk about though is where the raw materials for this hydrogen will come from... Likely groundwater unfortunately. Since groundwater is already a highly sought after resource for consumption and agriculture, I'm not sure if hydrogen in this way will take off. This is why offshore hydrogen seems to be more promising, but as we see with wave and tidal power, the ocean environment just sucks for any commercialization.
It's an uphill battle, but the same can be said for the climate crisis in general. Hope we make enough progress before it's too late.