[bit_logic]

We need to stop thinking carbon chemical fuels are the problem. FOSSIL fuels are the problem, not carbon fuels itself.

We should be blanketing every inch of desert with solar. And pair it to use excess energy for carbon fuels synthesis. Reuse all the existing natural gas power plants to run on synthetic carbon fuel. Batteries are not the solution for this. It only fixes the day/night imbalance, but not the seasonal summer/winter imbalance for solar production.

But most importantly, we don't have time. We don't have time to wait for the beautiful, elegant solution of all cars EV, all power storage in batteries, all planes flying on electricity. Perfect is the enemy of good. Look at the arctic and ocean temps, we do not have time. The developing countries will not wait for the perfect nice solar and battery solution. We need to reuse as much of what we have now in a way that will make a difference for carbon output. Again, we do don't have time for the most efficient solution.

What is industry good at? Mass producing a lot of stuff. We can do that now with solar. Stop worrying about matching it to daily power usage. Just pump out those panels and get it installed everywhere. Get the excess into synthetic carbon fuel and we can quickly make a difference in carbon output.

[titzer]

I agree with most of your comment, but this:

> We should be blanketing every inch of desert with solar.

Please god, no. Solar is so much more useful close to where it's consumed, like rooftops and parking lots. Utility-scale solar power projects like this are just more corporate welfare boondoggles.

And I happen to think that maybe humanity should learn how to leave some things alone. Deserts have fragile, intricate ecosystems. This fucks them up. We need to learn to stop fucking things up to gobble up more energy.

[idiotsecant]

I am an electrical engineer that designs control systems for renewable power production for a living.

Curious what makes you think that the overhead and inefficiencies inherent to a million small solar installs is somehow better than a single managed facility benefiting from economy of scale both for maintenance and design.

Additionally, curious how you plan to address the problem of adding additional generation to existing way overloaded distribution systems to accomplish this. If this massive hypothetical solar install is all non-grid tied then fine, I guess, but you're losing a substantial amount of the power that's made that way.

Distribution systems don't come for free and have many of the same problems as 'last mile' internet. Not terribly complex but expensive en masse, particularly in areas that are not densely populated (which is a lot of the US).

There is a reason we spend a lot of money on transmission. Spending a lot of money on distribution helps a very small part of your network. Spending a lot of money on transmission helps a huge part of your network.

[thinkcontext]

> Utility-scale solar power projects like this are just more corporate welfare boondoggles.

Rooftop residential is 2x+ times as expensive as utility scale. Lazard's well regarded annual Levelized Cost of Energy survey puts the range for utility scale at $24 - $96 MWH vs $117 - $282 for residential rooftop.

https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/2023-levelized-cost...

[WaxProlix]

> Utility-scale solar power projects like this are just more corporate welfare boondoggles

Citation strongly needed. Especially in a context where turning sun power into carbon-based fuel wouldn't want to be in a parking lot, but could be near or even colocated with a large solar installation.

[genocidicbunny]

> And I happen to think that maybe humanity should learn how to leave some things alone. Deserts have fragile, intricate ecosystems. This fucks them up. We need to learn to stop fucking things up to gobble up more energy.

A lot of people are responding to your other point about proximity, but I think this is the much more salient one.

Deserts are not dead. They are ecosystems too, and just paving over deserts with solar and wind is going to harm those ecosystems. We spend so much time and effort to elucidate the ecological harm that fossil fuel power generation does but we seem to be content to ignore how much damage solar and wind can do too.

No, this is not an argument against using solar and wind. We absolutely should be. Just...we need to stop ignoring the costs of these methods. There's no free lunch in this world.

[kelnos]

Installing solar on residential and commercial rooftops and parking lots is a fantastically inefficient use of time when compared to building utility-scale solar farms. The per-install fixed costs are a lot larger than you'd expect. Consider that, to reduce my own home's draw on the grid to more or less nothing, I'd have to spend $35k (before government incentives, so more like $23k) on a 4kW solar install plus battery storage. As a part of a utility-scale build-out, that $23k will go a lot farther.

We already have a ton of experience transporting electricity over large distances. Losses are not zero, but are not significant enough to matter (2-3%, usually).

Damage to desert ecosystems is a very important concern. I'm not sure how to solve that. But if an alternative is we fall further behind on saving our planet, the desert ecosystems will suffer there, as well.

Overall, I think we should be doing and encouraging both. Local generation is great, but we still need centralized generation.

[anonuser123456]

>Solar is so much more useful close to where it's consumed, like rooftops and parking lots. Utility-scale solar power projects like this are just more corporate welfare boondoggles.

What is more efficient, a utility with dedicated engineers and technicians who spend their days managing an install or clueless homeowners who can’t even be bothered to clear the leaves off their panels?

Installation and management for large scale commercial companies is _much_ cheaper. Bespoke rooftop installs require way more permit, engineer, contractor overhead. Oh year and don’t forget to upgrade your roof framing and hope your installer doesn’t ruin your waterproof membrane of your roof. Have a clay tile roof? There’s another 5k in broken roof tiles.

Transmission losses are in the noise by comparison.

And when your components go out… a small potato install can basically go pound sand. A friend of mine has been out 18 months b/c LG Chem recalled his battery and hasn’t replaced it! They remotely disabled it, so it can’t be used.

Contrast that with a utility. LG chem would probably have a dedicated field agent to manage bad batteries for a utility scale buyer.

>Deserts have fragile, intricate ecosystems. This fucks them up. We need to learn to stop fucking things up to gobble up more energy.

You know what’s worse for desert eco systems than solar installs? Climate change. Gobbling up 25% of the deserts to prevent the other 75% from becoming totally uninhabitable sounds like a bargain to me.

We need more solar as soon as possible. Messing up the desert to save the artic and permafrost is a winning bet every time.

[baron816]

There are better alternatives than rooftops. Covering canals and reservoirs works well because it also prevents evaporation. Farms and grazing land can also be covered with solar since a lot of plants and animals prefer not to be under direct sunlight all day.

[tspike]

This quote from Wendell Berry often occurs to me in these contexts:

"One possibility is just to tag along with the fantasists in government and industry who would have us believe that we can pursue our ideals of affluence, comfort, mobility, and leisure indefinitely.

This curious faith is predicated on the notion that we will soon develop unlimited new sources of energy: domestic oil fields, shale oil, gasified coal, nuclear power, solar energy, and so on.

This is fantastical because the basic cause of the energy crisis is not scarcity: it is moral ignorance and weakness of character.

We don't know how to use energy or what to use it for.

And we cannot restrain ourselves.

Our time is characterized as much by the abuse and waste of human energy as it is by the abuse and waste of fossil fuel energy."

[walrus01]

Long distance transmission of massive amounts of electricity is a solved problem, it just requires funding and political will to do it. Look at the Pacific DC intertie which takes power from the massive hydroelectric dams associated with the Columbia River down to California.

There is no serious reason why solar power plants in the UT, CA, NV, NM and AZ deserts can't transmit power 1000 to 1500 km to far-away loads.

[specialist]

Surely u/bit_logic's enthusiastic phrasing was aspirational vs literal.

That said, the bottle neck is now expanding and upgrading the grid. u/bit_logic is advocating we continue to build new generators, do not wait for the grid, and use that excess capacity to create green hydrogen. ASAP.

aka known as The Correct Answer™.

Here's an interview with Andrew Wang of ETFuels, who is executing this strategy, with paying customers, today.

"Making shipping fuel with off-grid renewables" [2023/06/28]

https://www.volts.wtf/p/making-shipping-fuel-with-off-grid

https://overcast.fm/+oT_lO0G8Y

[imperfect_light]

The problem is that it's become so difficult to tie into the grid that projects are being cancelled.

There was a NY Times article on this (http://web.archive.org/web/20230226032242/https://www.nytime...) that mentioned that the PJM Interconnection, the biggest US grid, is not even accepting new applications for large projects until 2026.

[pstuart]

Air conditioning is a significant chunk of electricity used, and it would make sense to generate power to run it on site if and when possible.

We should have a national program to create zero-interest loans to incite homeowners and businesses to invest in on-site solar when possible. Make the loan payments managed by the power companies so they get a cut of the action and are incentivized to play along.

That way, you still are paying the power company monthly bills but most of that is paying down a debt that will eventually go away.

[bsder]

> Solar is so much more useful close to where it's consumed, like rooftops and parking lots.

Yes and no.

Yes. In places like Southern California, rooftops and parking lot solar would do a great job of providing power for mid-day consumption.

No. This is far less effective in, say, Seattle or Pittsburgh.

However, HVDC links are really good at moving power over long distances. The US has lots of places that are effectively completely uninhabited and would make really good spots for solar farms if they had an HVDC link.

[ericpauley]

Got numbers to back that up? Intuitively, it is far cheaper to put solar panels on the ground than bespoke micro-installs on every roof.

[KennyBlanken]

Utility/grid scale solar isn't just corporate welfare, it's old thinking regarding centralized production.

The electrical industry fears becoming a mere 'backup' or network instead of generation and supply. Or people disconnecting from the grid entirely, destroying economic viability of the infrastructure. They're pushing laws in various states that make a structure uninhabitable if it doesn't have a grid connection.

The only reason most people need to still be connected to the grid are low solar days and peak usage that the panels alone can't supply.

In 10 years you'll probably be able to have an iron flow battery in your basement or backyard that is completely harmless and can meet peak needs, like running an induction stove or a heat pump.

At that point, why do you need a grid connection? You don't.

[colordrops]

My understanding is that you only need to cover a small percentage of available desert to cover all needs.

[m463]

s/desert/unused land/

That said, 100 sq miles of desert is 10 miles by 10 miles.

also, distribution systems are pretty efficient, and power can be sent from sunny areas to areas with dimmer sun or clouds.

[jrockway]

> Solar is so much more useful close to where it's consumed

I'm not really worried about this. Humanity has already invented the greatest utility-scale battery. Pump water uphill when it's sunny. Let it flow back down, through a turbine, when it's dark out. No lithium needed!

People often talk about the space required for pumped hydro, but it's probably a lot less than all the shopping mall parking lots in America.

[melling]

“But most importantly, we don't have time”

“Look at the arctic and ocean temps, we do not have time.”

“Again, we do don't have time for the most efficient solution.”

Yes, we squandered 45 years not doing obvious things and waiting for the batteries to improve, etc.

However, I sort of take issue with the “it’s too late to do things the right way”

We can stop burning coal. We are all time highs globally.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/12/16/world/coal-use-record-hig...

[megaman821]

Do you have any sources of anyone waiting for grid-scale batteries 45 years ago? Batteries for the grid only started being a thing relatively recently. I am not ready to write them off without giving them more time to figure out scale and economics.

[kelnos]

> We can stop burning coal.

This illustrates that a big part of the problem is political, not economic or technological.

We have the technology and money to get to nearly 100% renewables (we'd likely keep some non-renewable fallbacks in place) in a fairly short time... hell, we could be there already.

But the coal industry is a powerful political lobby -- both the executives and workers who don't want to lose their jobs -- and so coal sticks around.

[kaliszad]

Sorry, no idea why you would undergo the inefficient and complex chemical reactions needed to produce carbon based fuels when there are easier alternatives that you don't have to burn but can use a fuel-cell for. E.g. the sodium cycle. Sodium (Na) can under circumstances outlined in the expired US patent US3730776A react with water (H2O) where there is no flame but instead flow of electrical current. You get a sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution + a lot of energy + oxygen if you do it well, if you do it less well, you also get hydrogen and less energy.

The well known Castner Process can be used to split molten salt NaOH and get sodium, hydrogen and oxygen in the process. That does work under lower temperatures than the electrolysis of NaCl which is more efficient if you only look at this part of the cycle to get sodium. If you use sodium as fuel, the cycle as a whole is important for recycling. Sodium has much higher density than e.g. liquid hydrogen and does not require any cooling or pressure for storage. Also, it melts at about 100°C so you can pump it if you can keep it at about the temperature of boiling water. Yes, NaOH is caustic but neutralizes quickly in the nature which cannot be said for oil spills. You can keep NaOH in normal steel containers. For instance, it is common to use NaOH when cleaning clogged toilets. However you wouldn't pour gasoline down the drain.

You can read more about the sodium fuel cell and the context here: https://orgpad.com/s/5BfLP-cxj-7

[xyzzyz]

> We should be blanketing every inch of desert with solar. And pair it to use excess energy for carbon fuels synthesis.

Is there any EROEI analysis for this approach? Direct air capture of carbon is rather energy intensive, because CO2 concentration in the air is really rather low, whereas making solar panel is very energy expensive. If we can’t get enough useful energy from the panels during their expected lifetime, we shouldn’t be blanketing deserts with those.

Also, blanketing the deserts with panels is difficult due to environmental regulations, read eg. about desert tortoises at Ivanpah, and the cost of their relocation. If we want to use deserts to generate energy, first we need to solve the problem of environmental regulations blocking it.

[Veserv]

The price of a good is almost always higher than the price of the energy invested (usually significantly). Solar panels are used for generating energy. Therefore, if a solar panel is profitable to buy and operate, then it almost certainly generates more energy than it cost to produce.

Solar panels are profitable and are one of the cheapest marginal sources of power in many places. Therefore, solar panels are almost certainly net positive.

Synthetic fuel generation is probably not in the current environment. Storage is not a major problem yet at the current power generation mix. It may become competitive if storage becomes a problem, or if solar drops in price by 66% or more.

[Plasmoid]

Quick napkin math.

Direct air capture is about $300-$600/ton of CO2. The numbers for this are terrible as everyone is posting estimates of what it'll cost by 2030. So let's pick $300/ton of CO2.

If we could convert captured CO2 directly into gasoline, it would have a market price of $170. This is already pretty problematic because I'm ignoring the cost of getting the hydrogen for gasoline, or the fast that 75% of CO2 is useless oxygen.

More realistically, there is $60 worth of gasoline in that ton of CO2. And you still need to pay to get those hydrogen molecules.

[numbsafari]

> solve the problem of environmental regulations blocking it

Or, like, come up with solutions to the environmental externalities posed by blanketing anything with solar panels.

[sn9]

https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2023/01/09/terraform-indu...

[JumpCrisscross]

> Direct air capture of carbon is rather energy intensive

How does it compare to letting plants do the capture?

[TradingPlaces]

There are a range of non-lithium storage technologies that are much more suited to the task. As you say, lithium batteries are only suitable for diurnal mismatch and dealing with curtailment. But there is a lot of investment going into non-lithium batteries, electro-mechanical, etc to solve the bigger issues of seasonal storage and resilience. A lot of people like vanadium flow batteries for their unique properties but that may create a supply chain issue. I also like iron based solutions. But they will take a long time to validate and lithium LFP is ready now.

[pkulak]

> use excess energy for carbon fuels synthesis

Is that a thing? I know you can turn water and electricity into hydrogen, but that's not a carbon fuel.

[Armisael16]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_fuel

[sanderjd]

I'm slightly confused by this so I think I might just be missing a critical piece of the puzzle: Wouldn't natural gas plants burning synthetic carbon fuels still emit some portion of that carbon into the atmosphere?

[bobthepanda]

Synthesis of carbon fuels from what's already in the air is theoretically net-neutral if you use clean energy to do it; you're just taking what's there, and putting back what you took.

The main issue with fossil fuel is that we are burning embodied carbon from millions of years ago, throwing the present system out of whack.

[Manuel_D]

Yes, but it'd be net-zero based on the carbon used to produce the fuel. In theory at least, in practice most synthetic methane has only been produced by scavenging CO2 byproducts from the chemical industry. It's not truly net-zero rather it's releasing CO2 that would have been emitted anyway. CO2 is in too small concentrations in the atmosphere to effectively capture.

[numbers_guy]

In theory the carbon would be sequestrated from the atmosphere. In practice that is very energy intensive.

[JumpCrisscross]

> pair it to use excess energy for carbon fuels synthesis

Is de novo gasoline or diesel synthesis profitable at proximate prices?

[lambdatronics]

Not at the moment. IMO the prospects aren't good, due to the low efficiency (high energy cost) and high equipment cost. There are start-ups working on it (ex: Prometheus Fuels [0], Twelve [1], Synhelion [2], honorable mention to Terraform Industries [3] which is targeting methane).

Everything that can be electrified, will be electrified, because it's more efficient. It seems like shipping & aviation are probably the hold-outs.

I used to think this was the way, especially for balancing the grid, but the more I read [4-7], the more it looks like batteries will be used for fluctuations <1 day, and demand adaptation for longer periods. Some of that adaptive demand may wind up being used for hydrocarbon synthesis, but I don't expect it to compete with fossil fuels for a long time, if ever.

[0] https://prometheusfuels.com/

[1] https://www.twelve.co/

[2] https://synhelion.com/

[3] https://www.terraformindustries.com/

[4] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adapen.2021.100051

[5] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2020.07.007

[6] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2019.11.009

[7] https://www.liebreich.com/the-clean-hydrogen-ladder-now-upda...

[_aavaa_]

Direct air capture + electrolysis for hydrogen is a Rube Goldberg machine with ridiculously low efficiency.

As for profitable, it's perfectly profitable for meeting its goals of predatory delay. The longer fossil fuel companies can string along useful idiots, the longer they can continue being profitable.

[_hypx]

It depends on whether direct air capture of CO₂ can be cost effective. If so, then it can happen. E-fuels will just be renewable energy plus water and air. That is likely to be pretty cheap. If DAC isn't doable, then it probably can't be profitable.

[ant6n]

No. And its a huge waste of energy. E-fuels are more likely a fairy tale you tell people so they won't buy electric cars.

Where I live, the fossil gas industry has been running ads promoting green hydrogen, and of course fossil gas as a clean "bridge technology" to H2. So just keep running that gas heating system, cuz it'll switchover to H2, for sure, at some decade in the future.

[codingdave]

We also need to stop asking if it is profitable to save humanity.

[tonymet]

what about natural habitats ? how are we going to maintain them

[Manuel_D]

What about them?

Climate change prevention should distance itself from the environmental movement in my opinion. Make it clear that we're focused on stopping global warming for the benefit of humanity. Yes, blanketing deserts in solar panels will destroy habitats. Yes, mining lithium is ecologically destructive. And we should cut environmental regulation for both, because the survival of humanity is more important than desert tortises.

[pornel]

I presume that in the desert environments cool shade is a positive thing. Panels will cover only a small fraction of the land anyway.

Even if it's not ideal, we have urgent big problems to solve, and comfort of lizards and thumbleweed is low on the list.

[phkahler]

>> We should be blanketing every inch of desert with solar.

Has anyone solved the water problem? You know, cleaning all those dusty panels.

[ke88y]

https://news.mit.edu/2022/solar-panels-dust-magnets-0311

[ChatGTP]

It's starting to sound like an insurmountable problem to be honest.

[oatmeal1]

Even if we went 100% renewable today we would still be consuming vastly more resources than the earth can handle. The priority should be reducing needless and wasteful consumption. That means getting people out of cars and onto bikes or public transit. That means eliminating land use regulations that create inefficient sprawl.

Of course that won't be the priority for the government though, because there aren't any special interests that can benefit from that. Politicians don't really care about the environment. Don't trust them to spend money fixing the environment.

[JumpCrisscross]

> That means getting people out of cars and onto bikes or public transit. That means eliminating land use regulations that create inefficient sprawl

This is a generational project. We don't have time for it. That doesn't mean we can't do both. But we can't only make the long-term massive-upheaval play. While suggested with good intentions, it's the sort of thing a fossil-fuel lobbyist will latch onto as a stalling tactic.

[manzanarama]

What resoruces are you talking about? Seems like everything can be solved with enough energy and the earth can surely produce enough energy through nuclear.

[nonethewiser]

All sorts of special interests could benefit from that.

[numbers_guy]

> The priority should be reducing needless and wasteful consumption.

In an utopian world I would agree with you. I find consumerism ugly as well. However, without consumerism there is no economic growth. Without growth no capitalism. Without capitalism no democracy and peace. It would completely upend our civilization.

I mean consider how crazy everything goes when we have a small dip in economic markets.

[FollowingTheDao]

> What is industry good at? Mass producing a lot of stuff. We can do that now with solar.

No, we can't. Because the U.S gets the majority of its goods from China [1]. So we have to get China to install all those panels.

[1] https://ustr.gov/countries-regions

We need to consume less. Please start consuming less, ok?

[deadfoxygrandpa]

china is installing all those panels. china's newly installed solar capacity in just 2023 will be twice the entire total solar capacity of the united states. and they operate more offshore wind turbines than the rest of the world combined and are also installing new wind capacity than anyone else by far

[FollowingTheDao]

:_^(