Solar now being the cheapest energy source made its rounds on Lemmy some weeks ago, if I remember correctly. I just found this graphic and felt it was worth sharing independently.
this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
995 points (98.6% liked)
Technology
34166 readers
76 users here now
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
No it doesn't. Cheap solar is great but even if it was $0, you'd still need some other tech to provide electricity when the sun is down. So it's either gas, batteries, nuclear, etc. but you can't just use solar alone.
And until batteries get good enough, nuclear is the cleanest option we have.
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/14/1126523766/water-batteries-could-store-solar-and-wind-power-for-when-its-needed
They could. Someday.
Nuclear can, now.
shouldn't we be working towards a better someday than settling for a worse today?
Time is running out on the climate, how many decades can we wait for the "perfect" solution to show up when we have a good enough one right now they can help?
How long will it take for us to get good enough batteries? If it's less than 10 years, then it's less than the time to build a nuclear power plant.
Oh, and the answer may very well be that we already have batteries that are good enough.
Including the time to manufacture and install them at utility scales (we are talking powering an entire nation out of batteries for hours), way more than a decade.
Batteries are already being installed on grids but they can only help so much smooth out power delivery. They are very very far from having the ability to completely take over an entire grid.
Yes, like wind. Which is also much cheaper and cleaner than nuclear.
Germany has tons of solar and winds and yet it is pretty common to have neither (windless nights) at which point the entire grid needs to be powered by non renewables. That's a lot of standby power.
Bro do you know how power storage works