Solar now being the cheapest energy source made its rounds on Lemmy some weeks ago, if I remember correctly. I just found this graphic and felt it was worth sharing independently.
Solar now being the cheapest energy source made its rounds on Lemmy some weeks ago, if I remember correctly. I just found this graphic and felt it was worth sharing independently.
No it doesn’t. Cheap solar is great but even if it was $0, you’d still need some other tech to provide electricity when the sun is down. So it’s either gas, batteries, nuclear, etc. but you can’t just use solar alone.
And until batteries get good enough, nuclear is the cleanest option we have.
How long will it take for us to get good enough batteries? If it’s less than 10 years, then it’s less than the time to build a nuclear power plant.
Oh, and the answer may very well be that we already have batteries that are good enough.
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/14/1126523766/water-batteries-could-store-solar-and-wind-power-for-when-its-needed
Yes, like wind. Which is also much cheaper and cleaner than nuclear.
Germany has tons of solar and winds and yet it is pretty common to have neither (windless nights) at which point the entire grid needs to be powered by non renewables. That’s a lot of standby power.
Bro do you know how power storage works