Funnily enough, I came across a real-life example where a guy on youtube said the same thing, but in practice.

https://youtu.be/bXd-aP06lug?t=502

With the price of wood these days it may actually be true.

It's unusual for a professor to be wrong, but here we are.

For everything that is potentially in short supply, there is a substitute, and while it may not be as efficient, it's usually a lot cheaper.

According to Tony Seba solar panels are now becoming so cheap, they can be used as construction material.

Yes, round trip is above 90% for batteries and around 80% for weights for example, and storing energy in batteries is a lot more energy dense than via gravity potential.

Home solar in USA cost several times more than in other countries for some reason. They are probably just charging what the market will bear and profiteering.

Apparently:

> Almost one-third of Australian households have solar panels — the highest rate in the world.7 Feb 2022

> Out of the billions of years that I could be a sentient thing, the thousands of years I could be a human, I wind up in this time?

Well, that is a sign that humanity wont be around for very long. If you look at the graph, you are much more likely to be in the thick part of the graph than the thinner areas in the past when humanity was only a few million people.

If humanity has a great future ahead of them, you would likely have been born when we were trillions, but it seems much more likely that you are born when we are billions, and this is the most humanity will ever achieve.

Geo-engineering - a trillion mirrors in space to deflect the sun, and iron powder in the ocean to stimulate the growth of diatoms, which capture carbon and then sink to the bottom of the ocean, as a form of carbon capture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_mirror_(climate_engineering)

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

AGI will enable technological solutions that is too labour intensive currently e.g. creating solar panels for the cost of the material (basically sand), launch mirrors into space, seed the ocean with iron etc.

All that can be done without international cooperation.

It looks very similar.

Here is a video.

https://youtu.be/t6NoCx_zitM

Is this the same dog they attached a machine gun to?

If you look at the diagram, each big circle is a pad of solar cells, the green is a rigid linkage between each pad, and the purple circles are generators built into the hinges which generate power due to the relative up and down movement of each pad due to waves.

The wave energy generator would have to be a very simple and cheap design, because from what I can see this is a super-simple and cheap design currently.

Actually if they add rigid articulations with generators between each pad in a cluster, they could use the motion of the pads/waves to generate energy, a bit like how these generate energy from the up and down motion of the ocean.

I commented on this device on futurology.

Its a great design - It appears they use plastic tubing and connections, which addresses the corrosion issue, and flexible solar panels lying on a large membrane.

The design appears to be cheap and robust and easy to replicate. It could even be cheaper than mounting them on land (no metal stands for example). By floating and cooling the solar panels with sea water, you can get up to 30% efficiency increases (they promise about 10% improvement).

Pairing them with wind turbines is actually a great idea, as they do not have to anchor them to the ocean floor, and of course they can connect easily to power transmission sources.

Rain probably dissolves the salt.

Here is a video showing the construction.

https://youtu.be/Y-4AtalLGTM

The most interesting bit for me:

> "We need to [eliminate fossil fuel production] really quickly and that would knock out 40 per cent of shipping," said Sandford.

It turns out much of the carbon footprint of shipping is moving fossil fuel around, meaning if we reduce our use of oil and coal for example, then the amount released by shipping will also reduce. With EVs likely replacing ICE cars over the next 20 years much of this will happen automatically.

> Lithium Phosphate Batteries are less energy dense

We are talking about stationary storage, so density does not matter much. If you don't understand this, what else don't you understand?

> No; the components cannot be completely recycled. In fact Lithium is considered non-renewable

Low, WTF?

> The researchers found that batteries they made with their new cathode-recycling technique perform just as well as those with a cathode made from scratch. In fact, batteries with the recycled cathode both last longer and charge faster.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/recycled-lithium-ion-batteries-can-perform-better-than-new-ones/

> The materials do not simple come from all over the world and “mainly Australia and South America” they come mainly from China

Really?

You obviously have a major Dunning-Keurig effect going on, so further conversation with you will only be a waste of time.

Cost is the main issue.

This all obviously depends on your definition of advance.

Lower cost is definitely an advance in my book.

It's very simple - nuclear energy has very long lead times (often a decade), is very expensive, and relies on a stable society for its entire existence, something which Ukraine and USA shows us is not guaranteed.

It's also centralised, vs many renewables which can be generated at home or at the community level.

I'm not a supporter of nuclear energy lol, but those people have advocated for neighbourhood-based pebble-bed reactors lol.

>Denying where we're currently

So this was simply a lie.

> The simple and sad fact is battery technology isn’t improving that much;

I have no idea what you think you are defending. /u/Lord_Snowfall was simply wrong. In every point.

Let me break it down for you:

> Which isn’t an advancement in the technology.

This is a lie, since the fall in storage is largely due to LFP batteries, a new battery technology.

> The simple and sad fact is battery technology isn’t improving that much; and while people like to pretend it’s all renewable batteries aren’t

This is a lie, since the elements in batteries can be completely recycled and re-used. LFP batteries are constantly improving, such that 50% of new teslas are currently powered by them. This is due to improved power density.

> In fact the minerals are quite finite and China is the source for a lot of them.

Another lie. Lithium is abundant, and come from all over the world, mainly Australia and south America, currently, but potentially even USA.

So why are you supporting somewhat so ignorant?

> he is currently right.

Good thing we are in r/futurology, right?

You obviously have your bias but what will you say when batteries are made of salt?

> Just a question, but could the war with Ukraine cause gas prices to go up to such a degree that governments decide to start replacing gas with renewable just because it's too expensive?

It's definitely happening, but not just renewables, but any source (e.g. coal, nuclear)

For consumers, their only choice is home solar, and that is seeing a massive boom.

Overall the war in Ukraine is going to accelerate the move to renewables and heatpumps greatly.

This is mainly because gas has become very, very expensive.

From the article:

> Europe has seen skyrocketing gas prices since the drop in Russian gas exports, with spot prices on the Netherlands-based Title Transfer Facility (TTF) rising to an average €134 ($135.15)/MWh so far this year. Rystad forecasts prices will stabilize at around €31 per MWh by 2030, which puts the LCOE of existing gas-fired plants closer to €150 per MWh.