[supergeek]

Every time I head anti-electrification arguments around EVs, heat pumps, etc. it's usually a complaint about grid capacity. I always shake my head, because building more power lines is relatively easy on the scale of climate tech we need to kick all carbon emissions.

Let's brainstorm how to decarbonize fertilizer, or concrete.

That being said I am really glad to see more grid buildup! Especially as more renewables hit the grid. While locally intermittent, on the scale of the entire country they're fairly reliable and predictable.

[colechristensen]

Indeed, it is an annoying argument that boils down to

"What will we do!? Current supply doesn't meet future demand!"

>That being said I am really glad to see more grid buildup! Especially as more renewables hit the grid. While locally intermittent, on the scale of the entire country they're fairly reliable and predictable.

Here's what's coming that makes people uncomfortable and they don't expect or understand:

Oversupply.

Seasonally, during good weather, during certain times of day, there's just going to be more electricity produced by solar/wind than anybody needs. You don't need to store it or use every bit of it, the grid is going to say no and because they're just solar panels, they are perfectly fine. Solar electricity is so cheap that it just doesn't matter. What customers will end up paying for is capacity instead of usage. Maybe there will be instantaneous pricing that will drop to zero-ish intermittently and consumers and industry will find ways of profiting from that.

But a whole lot of "problems" people complain about with solar are very much reduced if you just have "too many" solar panels. And they're cheap so who cares?

Like what would California do with way too much solar power? Boil water in the cheapest possible infrastructure for desalination, an enormous still. Very energy inefficient, but who cares if you just have the amps to spare?

There are a lot of industrial processes where energy efficiency is a problem and so simple processes are replaced by more efficient complex ones... but if you have free energy building out that simple infrastructure to only run when energy is cheap suddenly makes a lot more sense.

[jujube3]

The "annoying" thing that the naysayers are pointing out is that we are not building enough power generation to support universally switching to electric vehicles. Unfortunately this "annoyance" happens to be true.

Also, California struggles to get new desalination plants through environmental approval. And most industrial processes need continuous power, not just power whenever the weather looks good.

[SoftTalker]

I’d think direct thermal solar would be cheaper for boiling water. Feed the steam to electric generators; the condensate is then your desalinated water.

[doublepg23]

Isn’t something like Bitcoin mining a good candidate for an oversupply of energy?

[akira2501]

> because building more power lines is relatively easy on the scale of climate tech we need to kick all carbon emissions.

Then why have the rates changed so much recently? More importantly if EVs are going to be the thing then home solar should be the way it get the majority of it's power. Why even build the lines? Isn't that just a subsidy?

> Let's brainstorm how to decarbonize fertilizer, or concrete.

I don't think you can. I think you should worry more about how concrete and fertilizer get _distributed_. This is essentially the same dynamic as the home solar problem above.

> on the scale of the entire country they're fairly reliable and predictable.

That's due to the way the grid itself is structure not how any one power source performs. No source of power is particularly reliable and unexpected maintenance intervals always occur. Point here being, if you try to switch a grid that's based on a mix of sources, over to a grid that isn't, you're probably going to end up with a surprising result or two during that misguided process.

[vitus]

>> Let's brainstorm how to decarbonize fertilizer, or concrete.

> I don't think you can. I think you should worry more about how concrete and fertilizer get _distributed_. This is essentially the same dynamic as the home solar problem above.

Isn't the primary source of CO2 from fertilizer production a byproduct of producing hydrogen gas via steam methane reforming?

We can make hydrogen without starting from methane (namely: via electrolysis), but it's not economical in comparison, at this time. (Or clearly able to scale to quite the same degree, for that matter.) But I reject the claim that it's not possible (or, for that matter, that we don't know how to do it). The issue is that the negative externalities from CO2 emissions are not priced in such a way to render existing processes less cost-effective than carbon-free alternatives.

That said, I share some of your skepticism regarding how much we can conceivably decarbonize concrete production.

[thinkcontext]

> home solar should be the way it get the majority of it's power

This would be a bad idea as it costs 3x more than utility scale PV.

[s1artibartfast]

Even if you have rooftop solar, you still need a grid capable of supplying 100% the power because there are cloudy days and long sequences of cloudy days

[onlyrealcuzzo]

> Let's brainstorm how to decarbonize fertilize

Haber-Bosch process with green hydrogen...

[eldaisfish]

the grid capacity that people refer to is distribution grid capacity. The wires running to your home have finite capacity and almost always, not enough for all people to use EVs and heat pumps.