The complete phasing-out of fossil fuels is not realistic, China’s top climate official said, adding that these climate-warming fuels must continue to play a vital role in maintaining global energy security.
The complete phasing-out of fossil fuels is not realistic, China’s top climate official said, adding that these climate-warming fuels must continue to play a vital role in maintaining global energy security.
Right now he is probably right. The current grid storage solutions are usually Lion or LiPho and neither is really cheap enough and the entire power system will scew towards enormous overproduction with less storage as a result. But there are plenty of grid size storage solutions being developed that have the $ per KWH that will make it more viable.
One possibility is that we use all that excess power for carbon capture or hydrogen production so that we can burn CO2 producing fuels or hydrogen when the sun and wind aren’t blowing for days at a time. It’s all viable the pieces exist it’s about building them more than anything.
Nothing is going to change with inaction. We all need to be proactive in this change. Simply stating we cannot, because we have not done enough in the past, should not mean we must carry on in that fashion.
China is still leading in solar, wind, nuclear, and hydro deployment…
I’m sure China would be happy to harness geothermal too, but they don’t really have dense geothermal capacity to exploit.
The best energy storage we have is pumping hydro.
Pump water up a hill when power is cheap, let if flow downhill and spin a flywheel when production drops.
Huge battery banks with limited recharge cycles is stupid when all you need is some water and a high spot to put it.
Isn’t that less efficient because of motor losses, drag, etc? It’s also heavily dependent on geography.