this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2025
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subsidize energy storage solutions that aren't as economically profitable as fossil fuels. like thermal batteries, pumped hydro, etc.
most people don't need that much energy during the night, so that is a red herring from the energy companies. the reason why we need this much storage in the first place is because of the infinite growth mindset instead of making industrialists pay for their own shit when they're consuming energy in a race to the bottom. if we banned all the slop products from being made, energy demand would go down exponentially.
in a worst case scenario, we could 100% only rely on renewables and deal with the fact that we'll have power outages during sleeping hours. that pill would be much easier to swallow if everyone is sharing the same burden, like during the lockdowns. and for the disabled people that need electricity to stay alive, give them refurbished EV batteries for free, there's already more of them on the market than we could use in a lifetime. same thing for hospitals and essential institutions
OK, so you don't have fossil-fuel-free solutions, either, and you don't have a reasonable plan to handle night time energy needs. You specifically said that utilizing fossil fuels at all was an issue, including for production of renewable, with the claim about not being able to source a turbine without fossil fuel use. It sounds like you don't understand that "night" happens during normal human waking hours, that there are actual activities and demand for energy specifically at night, and that there is no direct path to a fossil-fuel-free energy solution. I have no idea how subsidizing alternates erases fossil fuels for your idea.
Its the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere and I have 8.5 hours of daylight today. That's about 4 hours of decent solar production without clouds, since the sun is so low. I guess I'll just try sleeping, without electric heat (since CNG is a fossil and solar is dormant), for 14 hours tonight from dusk to dawn (5pm-7am). Wait, solar panels are still using fossil fuels for production, so those are out. Is a wood stove OK? It's renewable, but it's a major CO2 burden, much worse than CNG. Can't mine lithium or nuclear material with the existing industry, all runs on petroleum. I'm not sure if life is worth living, as every waking hour has been spent at work, using the small time frame to try to support myself financially.
This also means no activity can occur at night. No manufacturing? Triple the facility sizes to allow the "night time" morning shift and the "night time" late night shift to operate with the daytime shift. Can't go anywhere, can't entertain myself, can't eat, can't enjoy anything other than lying in the dark, waiting for the sun to come back. That's weird, putting all the overnight demand in the daytime is causing brownouts because we couldn't triple our energy production. But hey, the burden is being shared and we're all miserable for 5 straight months. But the summer will be rad with only demanding 8 hours of dormancy.
Look at the project. It's not a continuous production of CO2. It says this one contains 2,000 tonnes of CO2 and produces 200MWh/day. A CNG power plant is somewhere in the range of 0.5kg CO2/kWh. That's 10,000kg CO2 from CNG for 20MWh, or 10 tonnes. In just 200 days, a CNG plant of the same capacity will produce as much CO2 as this entire facility contains.
Bashing innovative projects like this for being anything less than a time machine to go pure nuclear actively hurts progress. Is that your goal? To maintain the status quo?
let me guess, you live somewhere winter doesn't exist.
Im sure he just uses his environmentaly friendly wood stove....
couldn't be more wrong, also we have this thing called insulation and water tanks. we already use water loop radiators here, there's nothing stopping us from preheating the water to last us through the night. also, wear more layers instead of being a wussy
Unless I'm mistaken, hydronic systems like those USUALLY require a pump to circulate the water.
that is correct and that would unfortunately be a problem if we expect everyone to own a boiler instead of building neighborhood thermal battery/central heating systems. a lot of post-soviet countries had perfectly functioning stations for doing exactly that, but they were torn down during neoliberal reforms instead of converting them to modern standards
Are you saying that if there was a thermal battery in neighborhood you wouldnt need pumps? You know how a fucking thermal battery works? You realize most of the central heating systems you're talking about heated the water by using coal plants to send super heated steam to them right? Where did you think that hot water came from? You're an idiot and people like you are part of the reason this goes so slow.
This is not even close to being a general solution. Lots of places do not have water loop radiators and it is not an easy retrofit at all. Lots of people cannot even afford additional insulation for their domicile. Telling the average person "don't be a wuss" is not a viable strategy to get them on board with supporting green energy.
Also heat pumps are the most efficient form of heating we have. They work best at a constant low/mid level, not completely shutting off for half a day and having to work extra hard to catch up in the morning.
Oh, I understand now, you live in a pretend world of idealistic ignorance. Thats not now ebs and flows of energy demand work. You shouldn't participate in a conversation if you 1. Don't understand realisticly how the subject works 2. Are so biased against the reality of the situation you make completely insane attempts to justify your ideas.