The degree to which we’ve been blessed with resources and opportunity to do the right thing (and have consistently chosen to do the dumb thing) never fails to amaze me. Infinite power from the sky that’s cheaper than fossil fuels; vast reserves of lithium to help oil-producing nations smoothly transition us away from oil; huge and unusually-enriched Uranium deposits we could use to build power (but instead used to build bombs) etc. It’s easy to see where the Garden of Eden parable came from.
Nah the garden of eden comes from an extinction event where almost all humans were wiped out. The only survivors were trapped in a small piece of fertile land at the equator and everything else was solid ice.
It would be easy to see that garden as a gift from god after you’ve seen everyone else freeze to death. Then you just need a reason to leave e.g overhunting or overpopulation or some dispute.
Then the myth would be that someone living there did something and our group had to leave paradise and go into the thawing wasteland. Pass that on for generation after generation and it becomes metaphorical.
I'd guess the 'Garden of Eden' as referenced in the Abrahamic religious traditions might have been in today's Sahara:
> "Paleoclimate and archaeological evidence tells us that, 11,000-5,000 years ago, the Earth's slow orbital 'wobble' transformed today's Sahara desert to a land covered with vegetation and lakes."
If you're referencing the likely near-extinction of humans ~74,000 years ago, it's not clear anyone in the relatively recent past would have remembered that:
Speculation: The Eden parable came "probably" from the mesopotamic delta which thousand of years ago was in the middle of persian gulf (average depth: 50m) as sea levels were lower and whatever civilization/population was there had to migrate to norther and drier places when sea levels raised (even quickly with waterpulse-1a/b/c)[0]
> > The degree to which we’ve been blessed with resources and opportunity to do the right thing (and have consistently chosen to do the dumb thing) never fails to amaze me
It’s the curse of natural resources.
When you have “the stuff” you feel like you don’t need to talk to others, spending time and human resources on talks and diplomatic relationships.
In the context of global politics, military and intelligence where everyone’s ego is all the way up their ass, not wanting to talk is interpreted as disrespect and hostility. And so tension ensues, add the language barrier, culture barrier etc. and pretty soon you are stuck with the old USvTHEM
Another country similar to that is Venezuela, they too have plenty of fossil fuels and sun and lithium.
Thorium is literally in the ground all around everywhere and incredibly cheap to extract, basically free. And yet we don't use it. If we did, we wouldn't really need that much lithium.
This is a lot like saying, in 1995, that if the internet was going to be a useful thing to society, then everybody would already be using it.
Utilities are slow. And not so bright. They are using old technology that hasn't changed for decades, has reached its peak, and doesn't advance. Utilities are conservative.
If something new comes out and is better, it's going to take them a decade to even realize what's happening. Then it's going to take decades for the old multi-decade existing equipment to age out.
And if the technology is cheaper, there's a very good chance that utilities will heavily resist providing cheaper electricity because in many markets they are regulated monopolies, with a fixed rate of profit. Cheaper energy prices mean less profit.
In reality, solar is cheaper energy today. Providing 99% of our energy by solar, wind, geothermal, and storage is cheaper than our current energy mix in California:
And year after year, solar, wind, and storage get cheaper, and we have not yet reached the inflection point of the logistic curve yet. The genera form of Moore's law is Wright's law, and it applies to renewable energies, and is no longer in effect for fossil fuel tech.
Utilities are huge financial organzations that have to provide secure generation and transportation over decades. Just because solar is cheaper now doesn't mean you can replace everything in just a few years. Also Solar might work great in California but Nebraska not so much.
> Also Solar might work great in California but Nebraska not so much
If you think that solar doesn't work fantastically in Nebraska, then I think you need to reevaluate the data, and start holding your utility to account.
Solar works great in Minnesota, with lower solar resources than Nebraska. The key difference is whether the utility will allow a financially beneficial decision to made, not the fundamental economics of the technology.
Contrast the planned 2023 solar additions in yellow dots on this map:
So while you are right that utilities are slow, which was the main thrust of my original comment, we must also acknowledge the financial incentives of utilities to distort a setup that can not even result be called a market.
Electricity decisions are made based on what the utility perceives will give it the greatest profit, with all their biases, and without regard to what will deliver the best overall cost-optimal solution for reliable power.
The main point is people in Northern lattitudes needs most of their energy in the Winter, especially winter nights. Its a very different problem to Southern states where peak energy use is hot sunny days.
As for distortions the biggest problem with retail users is that panels have changed the market but people still expect to use the old rules. Eg be self sufficient 320 days a year but expect eletricity on demand at the same low rates on the few days they need the grid. That isn't scalable and home solar people are getting an unfair advantage from the system, which is why utilities (rightfully) dont like it.
Seriously, check out where solar is getting installed on that map.
Cold wonders are not a reason to avoid solar. Look at where they are getting installed around the north east and the Great Lakes. They will laugh at your Nebraska winters.
These are mostly generic tax reductions for energy, and would apply equally to solar or any other energy source.
For example in the UK, "fuel and power for domestic use" is subject to the reduced VAT rate of 5%, instead of the standard rate of 20% charged for most items.
This is the kind of thing that gets labelled a "fossil fuel subsidy".
it is a special(well I wish) kind of thinking where EVERYTHING belongs to the government, so the notion that someone gets to keep more of their own produce can only mean subsidy. It is really quite sick when one thinks about it
Correct--while the sun sends an enormous amount of free energy our way, it's maddeningly diffuse and requires enormous investments of energy and materials to capture it in a usable and reliable form. The Wynn in Vegas has a 160 acre solar farm in some of the sunniest land in the country and it provides...almost enough energy to power a single large hotel.
None of this is to say that solar power is bad, just that we should have measured expectations.
Dense is a subjective term, and solar is without a doubt a dense enough energy source.
Compare the amount of land needed to power the US with solar to the amount we use to brew a small amount of ethanol as a minor energy sourced. We can completely power the US with a fraction of the land that we currently use as a subsidy for corn farmers, who grow more corn than we can eat.
While I'm less optimistic than you on solar power, you're absolutely right about ethanol, which is easily one of the worst and most inefficient power sources we could have possibly chosen to invest in. It's a significant indictment of the
US political system that so much money was shoveled into it.
Now include the largest uranium mines like inkai in your area calculation. Or alternatively any recently opened coal mines.
Then include that any solar panels feeding variable load can go wherever (like roofs and parking lots) and take no land but instead enhance the other use.
Then include tilting agrivoltaics (which increases yield for heat sensitive crops and makes animals healthier).
Dedicated utility PV in a good area has a higher area energy density than any scalable power source except gas. Include dual use and it has the lowest land impact worldwide. Specific power is pretty damn good too, about 20W/kg (or 5-8W/kg net, so slightly better than nuclear).
Strategic installation of solar panels certainly helps maximize efficiency, and is in general a great idea, especially in some areas. But to your point about the space taken up by uranium and coal mines, that's only a fair comparison if you also calculate the mines needed for things like lithium, copper, etc. that would all go into a solar-oriented power grid.
It's not because they're no longer needed once the panel is produced. That would be analogous to the sand and copper and steel and indium and cadmium and gadolinium and chromium and zirconium and nickel and silver in the nuclear plant (and fuel cycle). All of which except silver outmass minerals of similar rarity and mining impact in the solar panel (and that is quickly changing). Even then it's questionable because most of the nuclear reactor cannot be recycled, but the solar panel legally must have recycling prepaid in many jurisdictions.
You're welcome to include mining for the entire supply chain of solar and exclude the supply chain of the generator for thermal though, it doesn't change how one sided the land use is in solar's favour.
"No longer needed once the panel is produced"
The land used for the mining isn't land that we're just getting back--given the costs of making it useful again for anything else, space used for a lithium mine is in almost all cases essentially going to be gone for good. This is of course true for other mines as well, but your notion that lithium is an exception is a curious one.
"All of which except silver outmass minerals of similar rarity and mining impact in the solar panel (and that is quickly changing)"
Nuclear reactors require relatively small inputs of these metals compared to the metals used in solar panels, and the huge capital invested in making solar panels less resource-intensive could also be applied to nuclear, if we wanted to do so.
"Even then it's questionable because most of the nuclear reactor cannot be recycled, but the solar panel legally must have recycling prepaid in many jurisdictions."
But again, reactors are small compared to the millions of panels that are necessary to be the equivalent of one plant, and furthermore plenty of those materials can be and are recycled, especially in France (the entire history of the American nuclear energy program have created less waste than solar panels have in just a couple decades). And, again, innovations that make solar panels more recyclable (which we absolutely need because right now they mostly just produce massive amounts of toxic waste) could also be invested in nuclear recycling. I did get a good chuckle out of your vague "many jurisdictions" though.
> The land used for the mining isn't land that we're just getting back--given the costs of making it useful again for anything else, space used for a lithium mine is in almost all cases essentially going to be gone for good. This is of course true for other mines as well, but your notion that lithium is an exception is a curious one.
Solar panels aren't made of lithium.
> Nuclear reactors require relatively small inputs of these metals compared to the metals used in solar panels, and the huge capital invested in making solar panels less resource-intensive could also be applied to nuclear, if we wanted to do so.
[Citation needed] Solar panels don't need tonnes of indium per GW or gadoliunium or an ongoing 100kg of copper per MW per year. Modern panels on a modern racking system have a higher capacity weighted specific power than an EPR and a lower metal fraction. The cells (which are still over 90% silicon) are only about 2% of the total mass of a module and weigh less than the raw uranium for an equal energy output, let alone the rest of the reactor and supply chain.
That last is just more lies. All of the solar panels ever produced could fit in the tailings pit of Husab dug out for a single year of operation. Half of the US dragging their feet doesn't discount the fact that most new PV in the civilized world is recyclable and mandatory to do so.
Do you have anything honest to say or just the same slimy lies?
Solar panels aren't made of lithium, but they are made of a wide variety of other things that have to be mined (which, again, uses up space and has to be taken into consideration), and the batteries which will be necessary to make them a viable part of the total transition to renewables will require massive amounts of it--lithium mining is expected to double in the next few years, and renewables are a major driver of that.
Nuclear reactors use less copper overall than renewable energy sources. (https://help.leonardo-energy.org/hc/en-us/articles/360010919...) Uranium, by the way, is also recycleable--most fissile material can be reused, and the amount of waste produced is tiny.
And yes, the total amount of waste produced by nuclear energy is miniscule, and could fit in a much smaller amount of space than is taken up by solar panel waste, which is well over a quarter of a million metric tons. Both are small compared to, say, coal ash, but solar disposal does have significant costs and can and does produce significant waste.
And one last thing--you're hypersensitive and pathetic. I started this discussion agreeing with your main point and trying to observe something straightforwardly relevant and you've been having a tantrum in response the entire time. Log off.
Again, quantify them rather than vague hand waving. 1kW net of PV module has about 100g of metal in it and lasts 25-50 years. 1kW of fuel rod lasts 3-6 years and requires 130g of enriched uranium, a bunch of rare earths, 2kg of copper and steel for handling and requires extracting 1kg of raw uranium. The amount of lithium 'required' is zero, but if you choose to use LFP for diurnal storage, you need about 1kg. Roll together mining impact for battery, PHES, and solar and you've still not covered the uranium mine, let alone all the steel, extra copper, indium, gadolinium, chromium and so on. Inkai is over 460km^2 with a much larger zone in which the ground is too poisonous to inhabit. If you want to see how much copper is actually needed, maybe rather than using an unsourced article from 2018, look at the most recent IRENA or Frauenhofer PV reports. Racking systems have changed completely, modules are higher power and have less metal, and connection voltages are in the kV range now.
> And yes, the total amount of waste produced by nuclear energy is miniscule, and could fit in a much smaller amount of space than is taken up by solar panel waste, which is well over a quarter of a million metric tons. Both are small compared to, say, coal ash, but solar disposal does have significant costs and can and does produce significant waste.
Again. Compare for me the volume of the tailings pit of a typical open pit uranium mine like Husab with the volume of every solar panel ever produced. A few hundred grams of metal encased in glass for an entire lifetime of energy is not 'significant waste'.
> And one last thing--you're hypersensitive and pathetic. I started this discussion agreeing with your main point and trying to observe something straightforwardly relevant and you've been having a tantrum in response the entire time. Log off.
Projection much? You tried to push lies and propaganda, now you're having a tantrum when challenged. Every topic where nuclear shilling isn't immediately banned is full of the same set of talking points that have been debunked between years and decades ago.
What on earth do you mean by 1kw of fuel rod? Your quantifications make no sense and cite no sources. You're going to need to be more specific than "read the latest reports"; this report (https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Technical-P...) from 2021 for example makes it very clear that copper is not a trivial concern for renewables at all. If you have serious evidence for your unclear and uncited claims of "how much is actually needed", then go right ahead. none of your other numbers are cited either; your assumption of 1kg for lithium battery looks like you just made it up on the spot the way you did with your bizarre earlier falsehood about how much copper a nuclear reactor consumes--and a transition to a renewable-centric energy system will require significant battery storage capacity, so it's not a question that can just be dismissed.
A fuel rod assembly with 500kg of uranium produces about 200,000,000 kwH over its lifetime (https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/magazi...), which comes out to 400k kw per kilogram of uranium, or 400 kw per gram. The amount of rare earths in each solar panel may be relatively low, but it also uses a significant amount of silicon, which as a metalloid has to be mined. Beyond that, none of this even addresses the differences in intensity of production; because nuclear produces its lifetime energy much more quickly than a solar panel does, the relative density of solar that you need in order to provide a comparable level of power over time is considerably unbalanced.
"Again. Compare for me the volume of the tailings pit of a typical open pit uranium mine like Husab with the volume of every solar panel ever produced. A few hundred grams of metal encased in glass for an entire lifetime of energy is not 'significant waste'."
I'm at a loss for how to explain to you that this a fallacy on your part. I'm talking about waste production, and you're trying to compare apples to oranges by bringing up uranium mines instead of comparing waste production of the different methods. That you're so intent on repeating this obvious fallacy suggests to me that it's the best you can do. I'd like to say it doesn't matter, but the anti-rational fanaticism of green energy cultists is going to push the world off a cliff.
You can't even distinguish between energy and power, now you're mixing kw and kWh. A reactor with about 100t of fuel rods produces around 1GW and refuels every 3-6 years. Ergo 100g of refined uranium (plus zirconium and gadolinium, then caesium indium and silver for control rods).
The toxic slurry in a uranium mine is waste from producing energy. It outmasses everything else you are talking about combined by orders of magnitude and is rarely dealt with in any permanent or safe way, see the Indian village of Kadapa or any of the mines in Niger or Uzbekistan for examples.
Then bringing up the most abundant element on earth as if mining it is a relevant impact is another huge stretch. Quartz mining doesn't even need the same grade of sand as concrete. What an utterly intellectually bankrupt claim.
You're the one trying to concern troll over the space and minerals used by PV. Demonstrate that the total land use and mining impact of the entire supply chain is actually higher.
I also note you've cherry picked a report that talks largely about vehicle batteries but tangentially mentions thin film panels (an obsolete technology being abandoned) rather than monocrystalline, and then doesn't quantify it per MW (hint: the numbers in it are nowhere near your claimed 4t/MW). Where is all this copper supposed to be? You're claiming that there's 100kg of copper hiding in this photo https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/wp-content/uploads/201...
You're very narrowly trying to compare SNF with the entire solar module, ignoring the reactor, the upstream fuel supply, the low level waste, and the waste containment. The sheer stupidity of thinking you have a coherent enough lie is mind boggling.
Significantly less, but not debilitatingly less. For a panel in direct sunlight and adjusted to point directly at the sun, the ground value is 1,050 watts per square meter.
