Nebraskan_Sad_Boi t1_iw62945 wrote on November 13, 2022 at 5:57 AM

We need a faster solution at scale, there are two main things we can do to feed the energy requirements of homes.

Nuclear power. You will not find a low footprint technology that can scale to the requires power levels other than nuclear. Solar and wind will require massive amounts of batteries or other storage devices to work, and there won't be enough lithium to power every single country once everyone modernizes. Nuclear, probably thorium and hopefully fusion will be the holy grail for industrial power grids.
City redesign. Our cities, specifically American and Canadian ones are incredibly inefficient and produce carbon like sin. By creating more walkable and dense cities we could alleviate a portion of carbon emmisions by supporting public transport, removing the need for POVs, and by having more efficient cooling and heating in dense cities. Of course, the big ticket items are going to be corporations and grid energy producers, which is why nuclear is such a good option.

Don't get me wrong, renewable energy sources will most definitely have their place in the future, I just truly think the need for a dense energy source will never change.

Surur t1_iw6u0bh wrote on November 13, 2022 at 12:06 PM

> Solar and wind will require massive amounts of batteries or other storage devices to work, and there won't be enough lithium to power every single country once everyone modernizes.

We can just use sodium batteries.

> City redesign.

You don't think re-designing fully cities is not going to release a lot of carbon and take forever? This article shows living in denser housing is a mistake, as it reduces your access to solar and EV benefits.

Nebraskan_Sad_Boi t1_iw7ax92 wrote on November 13, 2022 at 2:50 PM

Sodium batteries have a lower energy density, and degrade faster than lithium for the same voltage. They are also not ready for retail markets nor mass production, as the tech isn't ready yet. In these critical next 20 years, we don't want to be waiting for new battery tech to be ready for commercial use.

City redesign can start right now. Every year we build tens of thousands of detached single family homes in suburban formats. Suburbs are absolutely terrible for the environment, with individuals who live there producing twice the average carbon a year, whereas a person living in a dense city uses about 50% less.

Removing gas engines and replacing them with EVs isn't the solution, the solution is to remove the need for a car at all. We now know tires produce significant pollution themselves, in 2017 the manufacturing alone (US only) produced 3.5 million metric tons of Co2, roughly equivalent to the Congos entire footprint. They are also the second largest polluter of microplastics, a substance whose long term effects we know little about, but there is correlation to a decreasing fertility rate, at least in men.

So how about instead of building sprawling cities that rely on cars, we build them so people can walk, bike, or take a train or bus to significantly reduce their footprint.

>You don't think re-designing fully cities is not going to release a lot of carbon and take forever?

How much carbon will be released every year strip mining the lithium and sodium out of the ground, or how much to remove sodium from sea water? How long will it take to power the entire planet with total renewables, will this be soon enough to make an impact? We have nuclear now, we have fully functional and super carbon efficient transportation now. Why wait another 20 years for a problem we can work against now?

Surur t1_iw7izsa wrote on November 13, 2022 at 3:49 PM

> How much carbon will be released every year .... to remove sodium from sea water?

If this is the quality of your argument, I just don't know lol.

Firstly,

> Sodium batteries have a lower energy density, and degrade faster than lithium for the same voltage. They are also not ready for retail markets nor mass production, as the tech isn't ready yet.

Sodium batteries are already on sale, and CATL, one of the largest battery manufacturers, are putting them in production for cars next year. In the mean time they are perfectly fine for stationary applications.

>> Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. plans to start mass production of its sodium-ion batteries next year, according to an exchange filing. https://www.caixinglobal.com/2022-10-25/catl-aims-to-mass-produce-sodium-ion-batteries-in-2023-101955814.html

Secondly:

> Suburbs are absolutely terrible for the environment, with individuals who live there producing twice the average carbon a year, whereas a person living in a dense city uses about 50% less.

Apparently its closer to 25% less which is not a massive amount, and can be easily cancelled out by adding solar to your home.

It's as if you did not read the article for the thread. People who live in suburbs will have easy access to home solar, which means their carbon footprint will be lower than people in dense housing. They will also have easier access to EVs as they will have off-street parking for charging. They will be earlier adopters of EVs and solar for that reason, which will mean their carbon footprint will drop a lot faster than inner city dwellers.

> Removing gas engines and replacing them with EVs isn't the solution, the solution is to remove the need for a car at all. We now know tires produce significant pollution themselves, in 2017 the manufacturing alone (US only) produced 3.5 million metric tons of Co2, roughly equivalent to the Congos entire footprint. They are also the second largest polluter of microplastics, a substance whose long term effects we know little about, but there is correlation to a decreasing fertility rate, at least in men.

I am sure you are a proponent of active travel. Do you have any idea how much rubber is released from the soles of shoes? 300 million shoes are discarded in USA each year, and if people walk much more than number will double or triple, releasing huge amounts of micro-particles into the air and microplastics into the environment as they decompose.

> So how about instead of building sprawling cities that rely on cars, we build them so people can walk, bike, or take a train or bus to significantly reduce their footprint.

How about instead of building dense housing, we aim for energy independence and a low carbon footprint.

> How much carbon will be released every year strip mining the lithium and sodium out of the ground, or how much to remove sodium from sea water? How long will it take to power the entire planet with total renewables, will this be soon enough to make an impact? We have nuclear now, we have fully functional and super carbon efficient transportation now. Why wait another 20 years for a problem we can work against now?

This whole paragraph is nonsense really. These are not hypothetical questions. We know the carbon payback time for large evs is a year or two of driving. We know we are making massive progress with switching to renewables. We know that nuclear has stalled due to expense and other risks.

In short, the world is on the right track - get on the winning side.