> Sorry, you are conflating my arguments. Being cheap doesn’t solve the availability problem, I never claimed that.
I mean, you kinda did. Quote: "Renewable energy is cheap, so it doesn’t matter if you can’t store it efficiently."
Yes, it does. It does matter that you can't store it efficiently.
> With nuclear you still have a problem of demand above baseline, so you need infrastructure to deal with that.
With renewables you already have the problem with the baseline. I love how you just dismiss this as not being a problem.
> Renewables have the same problem except sometimes the baseline it self drops.
Exactly. In addition to having the problem of demand above baseline, they also have a problem that their baseline is zero.
> The answer is the same you build infrastructure that can handle such drops.
You can't solve a baseline of zero with more infrastructure. What you're basically saying is "every country has to have enough renewables to always be able to cover any amount of demand for any of their neighbours for any length of time." This simply doesn't work, and is not scalable in any shape or form.
Additionally, renewable energy is unbelievably inefficient in comparison, and it's extremely hard to "just" build more infrastructure for it.
The largest offshore windfarm that provides 1.2TW of energy covers an area of 630 square kilometers in the North Sea. That's less than Frances smallest operational nuclear reactor (1.8 TW).
And all of those 630 kilometers? Their baseline is exactly zero (if there's no wind). That nuclear reactor? Its baseline is effectively 1.8 TW 24/7.
I mean, you kinda did. Quote: "Renewable energy is cheap, so it doesn’t matter if you can’t store it efficiently."
Yes, it does. It does matter that you can't store it efficiently.
> With nuclear you still have a problem of demand above baseline, so you need infrastructure to deal with that.
With renewables you already have the problem with the baseline. I love how you just dismiss this as not being a problem.
> Renewables have the same problem except sometimes the baseline it self drops.
Exactly. In addition to having the problem of demand above baseline, they also have a problem that their baseline is zero.
> The answer is the same you build infrastructure that can handle such drops.
You can't solve a baseline of zero with more infrastructure. What you're basically saying is "every country has to have enough renewables to always be able to cover any amount of demand for any of their neighbours for any length of time." This simply doesn't work, and is not scalable in any shape or form.
Additionally, renewable energy is unbelievably inefficient in comparison, and it's extremely hard to "just" build more infrastructure for it.
The largest offshore windfarm that provides 1.2TW of energy covers an area of 630 square kilometers in the North Sea. That's less than Frances smallest operational nuclear reactor (1.8 TW).
And all of those 630 kilometers? Their baseline is exactly zero (if there's no wind). That nuclear reactor? Its baseline is effectively 1.8 TW 24/7.