If the addition of renewables leads to an unstable grid, it is irrelevant if the grid is then restarted with the help of renewables.

[1] https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/physicalF... [2] I'm not necessarily blaming the engineers, but the politicians who force those engineers to put square pegs in round holes. For example, I can imagine politicians making a short term decision to skimp on energy storage while increasing renewable penetration. Surely renewable systems must be less reliable without storage given the lack of rotational inertia?

Climate change effects are already being included when calculating wind and wave loading in many codes.

The real issue is that engineering codes use frequentist methods which make it hard to consider uncertainty, which often makes it unclear what the real safety factors are. This issue is being solved by using probabilistic engineering techniques, and in future, more sophisticated causal inference.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40546422

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I understand your sentiment about the opportunity costs for those with computing knowledge, but it wouldn’t be too hard to require teachers to do a basic computing unit at university. In the same way the best mathematicians are not usually school teachers, yet “regular” teachers seem to perform sufficiently.

It is more common in low socio-economic areas but still existing in all classes. Hell, our state treasurer lost his job after hitting multiple cars on his way home. https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/troy-b...

The problem is abuse of the tool, as you describe. In my primary school, we were taught how to use Microsoft Office by using a workbook the computer teacher licensed to the school. We had some of the best computer resources amongst local schools at the time, yet learnt almost nothing about computers. It took me until university to write a line of code.

Imagine using the same logic in the 80s “solar panels produce hardly any power and use lots of fossil fuels for production, why are we wasting resources developing them?”

Or the internet in the 90s “it will have less impact than the fax machine.”

It’s just emotional nonsense. We should support the people working on solutions, not complain from the sidelines.

If the Australian Government held their feet to the fire they would have sequestered the promised amount. However they didn’t, and Chevron has no incentive to fix it properly.

How about we aim for ‘reduce emissions’ or ‘develop solutions’? Or even better ‘stop opposing people who are trying to help’?

All tech starts at small scales. Yours is an absurd rebuttal.

I still think reflexively opposing a potential solution is stupid. Skepticism is healthy, automatic rejection is a waste. I wholeheartedly agree politicians spout a lot of nonsense, and that the solutions are closer than we think, we just need to get the bad policy out of the way.

I don’t understand why people think this is “used” to sell carbon neutral plans: why wouldn’t you count carbon sequestered using CCS? It’s no different to assuming batteries will get a lot cheaper: it’s not a certainty but it’s heading in the right direction.

Let’s put it this way: if we could use CCS to produce carbon neutral power from natural gas, would you reflexively oppose it? Or would you be thankful that we now have another carbon neutral power source?

If you don’t have some measure of cost / benefits / risks, how can you reject a potential solution outright?

The answer is you can’t, so if you are doing so your reflex is based on emotion rather than reason.