A reality check on renewables - David MacKay
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited in energy debates for its back-of-envelope scale of the transition and the land and storage limits of wind and solar.
What it is
David MacKay's TEDxWarwick talk uses basic arithmetic to show how much land and energy renewables would need to power a country like the UK. It explains the limits of sustainable options and why they should still be pursued.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 4 different months, 2017 to 2021.
What Hacker News said
Recommends CuriousSkeptic · 2018-12 · on “As oil and gas exports surge, West Texas becomes the world’s “extraction colony””
Well, a bunch of countries have more or less agreed on aiming for no more than 1.5 degrees warmer. IPCC made a report on what that would entail stating basically that even with an overnight abolishment it cannot be reached. But that if we assume it feasible to use afforestation and other techniques to extract CO2 from the atmosphere in the future we might have chance to reach that target for 2100 given we stop using fossil fuels by 2030. Given the scale of the transition necessary, overnight or 11-years is more or less the same time frame Edit: Great TED-talk on the scale of what’s needed [this video]
Recommends CuriousSkeptic · 2019-01 · on “Study tracks dramatic retreat of Canadian glaciers”
On that topic, I found this ted talk on the feasibility of various renewable energy sources quite eye opening [this video]
Recommends neilwilson · 2019-03 · on “Australia has enough solar, wind storage in pipeline to go 100% renewables”
Not everywhere in the world has the land area to do wind and solar. In fact pretty much everywhere other than Russia, Australia, Canada, the US and Brazil. There the energy density per head of population is too high for renewables. Good video by the late David Mackay on that point here. [this video]
Recommends kinjba1 · 2020-08 · on “Air pollution is worse than we thought”
No energy source [that we've discovered so far] is perfect. All have downsides. Sadly, living in denial of that fact is more popular than ever, but that's a separate topic. Here are a couple TED talks showing the downside of renewable energy - such as the enormous land usage and reliable energy storage needed to compete with nuclear or fossil. Why renewables can’t save the planet [LINK] A reality check on renewables [this video]
Cites spodek · 2017-03 · on “Eigg – A small Scottish isle that runs on 90-95% renewable energy”
If you haven't read Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air , by David Mackay, I recommend it. Free download: [LINK] About the author: David MacKay FRS is the Regius Professor of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge and then obtained his PhD in Computation and Neural Systems at the California Institute of Technology. He returned to Cambridge as a Royal Society research fellow at Darwin College. He is internationally known for his research in machine learning, information theory, and communication systems, including the invention of Dasher, a software interface that enables efficient communication in any language with any muscle. He was appointed
Cites ppf · 2019-04 · on “The Biggest Saudi Oil Field Is Fading Faster Than Anyone Guessed”
"Renewable" doesn't mean "free energy". Constructing renewable energy sources (wind, solar, etc) takes more energy than constructing an equivalent non-renewable energy source - this is the EROEI (energy returned on energy invested). There's also space limits - see [this video] What's apparent to me is that we live in a unique era where energy is abundant and cheap, which may never be repeated (unless fusion power is developed).
Cites wiz21c · 2021-03 · on “Why Nuclear Must Be Part Of The Energy Solution (2018)”
What about the resources needed to build the solar and wind infrastructures ? Metal, extraction of that metal, rare earths,... ? I'm all for solar and wind and whatever, but at some point there are some maths to do... [this video]
Cites kinjba11 · 2021-05 · on ““Energy in the Future”: a time capsule of energy concerns from 1953”
Briefly: solar and wind energy requires sun or wind and tons of space relative to fossil/nuclear. Not every place has those. "A reality check on renewables" [this video]