unfortunately renewable energy is not reliable as base load…
unfortunately renewable energy is not reliable as base load energy and often causes increases in coal to backup in case it is not available
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but battery technology is also improving,, it'd be silly to wait until the batteries are good enough and THEN start figuring out solar panels,, we're decreasing the price of both the panels & the batteries & that's going to work out fine,,,, we should start thinking about what the world looks like when there's no more electrical grids & you can put machinery anywhere
Seems like batteries provide some of the solution but they are not there yet, and I've read that the current tech requires more lithium and other rare earth minerals then have currently been discovered.
The easy answer is nuclear power, but for some reason much of the green left is against it including the Germans who are firing up old coal plants to backup their renewable infrastructure and make up for gas shortfalls bc they've been shutting nuclear plants
California is following this same game plan
i think it'd be pretty silly to bet that we can't find some way to turn electricity from a solar panel into some sort of stored chemical energy ,,,,,,,, it's not some impossible technology, it's just somewhat more expensive at the moment than burning coal, which we're counting as free, so not much mystery how the math works out that way,,,,, if we were to say charge for the externalized costs of the coal that'd immediately make various battery technologies cost effective,,,, we just don't feel like transitioning that quickly so we're going to gradually find super cheap batteries
no matter the cost or the subsidies available coal is reliable base load and solar + batteries is not atm. so the cost of switching to renewables is huge in terms of both health and economic literally requiring more pollution due to required backups which end up being coal.
its fine to hope and to work towards some desired future, but right now in practice the costs are catastrophic and if the current path is pursued will require the industrialization of much of western civilization. only nuclear solves the problem, and it is demonized bc some on the malthusian left actually desire de-industrialization and depopulation without regard for the mass human suffering this will cause
what you're saying sounds like outdated right-wing talking points,,, solar panels are pretty cheap lately,,, many places the peak demand is for AC during the middle of the day so solar fits great,,, anyway why wouldn't you want to say encouraging positive things about the idea of just putting some cheap panels & batteries around & having power everywhere, that's going to be great, what's the negative vibes
even if politically you want to invest in centralized power production then why talk about old technologies when we're finally succeeding at fusion,,, that's exciting, no???