this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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Green Energy

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Nobody's gonna say it? I have to be the one, really? Fine.

HELL YEAH LETS GO!

We need some good news and to recognize and appreciate it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

LETS F* GOOO 😲😲😲

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

To triple the RE capacity by 2030, we need to double the current speed, or linearly increase the deployment speed until it reach 1.5TW/yr by 2030.

Ambitious but totally feasible.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Optimism is important, just gotta keep pushing

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Weird forecast... Why that sudden jump and then slow down? Looks like an exponential that they extrapolated linearly...

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Because there are a ton of new manufacturing facilities for wind and solar under construction, so you expect to see a sudden jump. The IEA then assumes no further policy changes to cause adoption rates to increase at the same rate as that jump.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I would say it is, because the IEA cannot take the responsibility for it, if it really does grow exponentially.

Like, what if that exponential grow stops for any reason. People are gonna blame the IEA for overestimating our abilities, potentially causing negative side-effects.

So, the IEA tries to "play it safe" with their prognosis.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I would point out that hydropower may be renewable but isn't necessarily environmentally friendly. Especially if you live somewhere with salmon.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Hydropower is one of the most widely available and effective sources of non-fossil fuelled electricity generation. If we're going to have a chance to stop climate change we need to use it to its fullest..

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's super destructive to the ecology of waterways though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Climate change is also super destructive to the ecology of waterways - and also to everything else, so I'm gonna say sacrificing a few fish for the good of the rest of the fish is probably a good idea.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Same issue as nuclear though, building a dam takes years, time we don't really have.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Sure, the best time to start building more hydro/nuclear was 10 years ago, but I'll bet that we will still be using fossil fuels in 10-15 years at this rate, so the second best time to start building is today.

We need to be building all kinds of clean energy production everywhere all at once - we can't afford not to.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Sure, we are terribly behind schedule and will take losses for it (in what form I do not know, but for sure it won't be pretty).

But we need more and more energy and will need more, and even that growth in that graphic is not enough to prevent fossil fuel use from growing. At least until people wisen up that we'll just need to learn to make do with less energy per capita... I'm not convinced that part will ever happen.

Not to mention I'm not sure how much wind and solar you can do at the same time in the world. At some point everyone will need the same materials...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The bulk of what is being installed is solar and wind

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

But only some, as a snack.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

All those dead salmon got to go somewhere.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Well, I believe about half of all species of salmon will be extinct inside the next thirty years owing to temperature increases, so, as someone who likes fishing in my local river, I’ll happily take some dead salmon now for better solar power storage if it helps the odds of keeping about half of them alive. We lose vast amounts of salmon either way, but this way we only lose salmon and a few other types of fish and not, you know, a good chunk of all marine life like we do if we keep on our current rate of transition.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It sounds like you underestimate how important salmon is to a good chunk of all marine life. Particularly orcas.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It sounds like you underestimate just how temputure dependent many types of salmon are and just how short of a time they have left to live in a 2C+ world. Many of their spawning locations are also in areas that are seeing the highest relative temperature change.

aThe point was that climate change is going to kill more salmon and vastly more other types of marine life than a handful of dams, but thouse few dams could have a significant effect on the amount of carbon emitted by the second largest polluter on earth by providing the nighttime energy that is currently done with dozens of brand new natural gas plants. With the way solar in particular is scaling up, dispatchable energy storage is going to be the primary limiting factor on how hot things get, and therefore how many species of salmon are going extinct in our lifetime.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

temputure

Off to a great start.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

With proper midigations it’s fast more eco friendly than the natural gas power plants were still building more of to make up for the fact that solar only ouputs in the day and we can only spin up new lithium mines and battery factories so fast.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Mostly China and India though

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

The two most populated countries in the world are investing heavily into renewables? Sounds good to me.

China and India are dedicated to improving the standard of living of their citizens. Those citizens need energy. The idea that China and India would invest heavily in non-renewable fossil fuels to meet that need - or worse, nuclear - was yet another potential climate nightmare. The fact that they're emphasizing renewable energy sources is one small bright note in the dark clouds ahead of us.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Germany also built a lot of solar energy infrastructure last year, as far as I know. We have a tracker on the news website zeit.de. But wind energy is still behind sadly.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

This doesn't have a section for energy storage, which is exploding right now as well. That's a big part of the story that makes this good news even better.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I mean its about time we do...

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

And 5% of the funds come from Bitcoin :) Why are you guys downvoting the truth? Are you mad?