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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • Another solution would be adding some intelligence to water heaters. Have a temperature control valve on the output where you set the temperature, and program the water heater get to 160-180°F when electricity is cheap. This would be a thermal battery that would easily level out demand for electricity for heating water.

    This has been done for close to a century in wind or run of river hydro heavy countries (as well as some coal ones).

    The water heater has a buffer tank and is attached to a meter that only runs when a signal is sent across the power line. This stores about 20kWh for a 300L tank.

    Modern insulation would allow going up to a few m^3 for a couple weeks’ worth.







  • NO2, methane from byproduct/digestion, soil carbon release from land overuse. Downstream methane release due to nitrate pollution.

    The overwhelming majority of cropland is for “biofuel”, industrial chemicals and animal feed.

    Industrial scale regenerative agriculture has lower yields in the short term, but doesn’t emit NO2 and leave behind a dust bowl (requiring clearing a new forest).

    Eating crops directly rather than feeding cows is far more effective than changing fertilizer source. Eating organic crops uses a small fraction of the crop land that eating beef fed on intensively grown corn does.

    Biointensive methods have many times the yield as industrial agriculture but are very labour intensive – automating them would save a lot more emissions.

    Precision fermentation uses a tiny fraction of the land per unit of protein/nutrients.


  • Droughts could even affect pumped hydro: a much-touted solution to availability problems with wind and solar. For crying out loud, present both sides of the argument fairly! /end rant

    Pumped hydro doesn’t consume nearly as much water as a thermal generator. Especially if you cover the reservoirs. It also gives you an emergency backup.

    Would you prefer:

    Option A where you immediately have no power when the river gets low,

    Or option B where you still have power after the river gets low, but can also choose to give up the ability to have some of your power at the end of a week long cloudy period in exchange for water?


  • 1kg of lithium produces about 10kWh of storage for 15-20 years. 3-12 hours of storage is plenty for a >95% VRE grid.

    1kg of uranium produces about 750W for 6 years.

    There are about 20 million tonnes of conventional lithium economically accessible reserves (and it has only been of economic interest for a short time).

    There are about 10 million tonnes of reasonably assured accessible uranium (not reserves, stuff assumed to exist). It has had many boom/bust cycles of prospecting.

    Lithium batteries are not even being proposed as the main grid storage method.








  • No on all fronts.

    The only reactor designs with any sort of history don’t produce steam at high enough temperature for the sulfur cycle and haber process.

    The steam they do produce costs more per kWh thermal than a kWh electric from renewables with firming so is more economic to produce with a resistor.

    Mirrors exist. Point one at a rock somewhere sunny and you have a source of high temperature heat.

    Direct nitrogen electrolysis is better than all these options. It’s had very little research but the catalysts are much more abundant than hydrogen electrolysers and higher efficiencies are possible.

    Using fertilizer at all has a huge emissions footprint (much bigger than producing it). The correct path here is regenerative agriculture, precision fermentation and reducing the amount of farmland needed by stopping beef. Nitrogen electrolysis is a good bonus on top of this.