Thread

In Ukraine, distributed renewables foil Russia's assaults

169 points · 195 comments · JumpCrisscross

thelastgallon · 1791106569 · focus · HN ↗
Fossil fuel supply chain makes your country very vulnerable!
<a href="https://github.com/Lkruitwagen/global-fossil-fuel-supply-chain" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Lkruitwagen/global-fossil-fuel-supply-cha...: The resulting complex network has 6.09mn nodes and 15.70mn edges and is implemented in a graph database. With estimates of annual coal, gas, and oil demand in 13,229 global population centres and 8,165 global power stations, we use a minimum-cost flow method to estimate global asset-level energy flows.
If you want to protect your country, here are your options:
1) Invest in nuclear power and nukes (source of Uranium may be a concern). See North Korea vs Iran.
2) Solar on every structure, every vehicle is an EV. This will be the most resilient, distributed grid that can never be disrupted. Node level failures (hail on roof breaks solar) can be easily overcome. EVs are batteries on wheels! They can go charge and come back. Some on this forum may be familiar with Cattle vs Pet, Redundancy, Resiliency, Virtualization (--> Virtual Power Plants), etc -- same concepts, but applied to power generation which is designed as a monolithic circuit switched network. The idea of energy as packets, which can be Store-and-Forward (using batteries) will change everything we know about energy.
1. streetfighter64 · 1791107434 · focus · HN ↗
  > Invest in nuclear power and nukes > See North Korea vs Iran.
  Both countries invested in nukes (it is claimed). Only Iran didn't get there in time, before the US stepped in to stop them (it is claimed). So unless the US lets you, it's probably a bad idea to invest in nukes, no? Or is your point that the US's nuke story was a lie, and that Iran actually should have invested in nukes?
  > Solar on every structure, every vehicle is an EV
  Have you done any calculations as to whether this would actually work? My gut feeling is that even if you put solar panels on literally every structure, you'd be far off from managing to power every vehicle. See if I get around to calculating later, but I at least advise you to do so yourself before making this argument.
  > EVs are batteries on wheels! They can go charge and come back
  Uh... Cars are fuel tanks on wheels...
  1. thelastgallon · 1791107981 · focus · HN ↗
    Sure, do the math and get back.
    First, do the math for millions of acres of Ethanol, a small fraction of fuel additive.
    Using the same acres for solar with be sufficient for the entire energy (all forms of energy) many times over.
    sandworm101 · 1791109083 · focus · HN ↗
    I have done the math, several times. The last time was to plan a hypothetical solar "highway gas station" capable of charging 100 teslas EVs per hour 24/7/365. Assuming flat ground at Vancouver's latitude, it came to a solar farm approaching square kilometers/miles in scale.
    10kwh x 100 x 24 = 24,000kwh Solar panels nominaly produce 1000kwh/m so 24,000m2 of panels... if facing the sun perfectly during normal day/night cycles. But non-equator latitudes need far more land than that because the sun isnt directly overhead, plus winter/rainy days... it is a massive solar farm (and a massive battery) just to replace an average highway gas station.
    Given that any future 2-lane highway might see a couple thousand thousand EVs each hour, each needing charging every couple hundred miles, the number and size of solar charging stations per mile is crazy.
    thelastgallon · 1791112228 · focus · HN ↗
    Don't do the math for homeless people. Most people live in homes. Homes usually have electricity, unless you live in a 4th world country. All buildings have electricity. Just park and plug in.
    You need to go to a gas station BECAUSE there is no supply of gasoline straight to home. Homes have electricity. Even in sub-Saharan Africa, South Sudan, Yemen, remotest village in India. I don't know where you live, but if your home doesn't have electricity, your country has bigger problems to deal with than buying Teslas and DC Fast Chargers.
    jimnotgym · 1791114573 · focus · HN ↗
    Except not every home has a driveway. With on street parking the norm in many places. Trailing a lead to your car on the other side of the road is frowned upon
    thelastgallon · 1791116269 · focus · HN ↗
    Streets have streetlights. Streetlights are on poles. Poles have electricity that lights need. Utility can add chargers. Magically, the problem is solved.
    robocat · 1791118993 · focus · HN ↗
    Streetlights are low power.
    Car chargers are high power.
    For example <a href="https://electricbrighton.com/news/considerations-for-lamp-post-charging-infrastructure-in-brighton-hove" rel="nofollow">https://electricbrighton.com/news/considerations-for-lamp-po... says charging times are 18 hours, which is hardly overnight.
    Plus you couldn't do it anywhere where thieves steal copper. Car charging cables would quickly become a theft target.
    iso1631 · 1791194284 · focus · HN ↗
    I drive 90-130 miles a day and charge every night using the same power my oven pulls. It costs me 3 cents a mile, or equivalent of about $1 a gallon. It takes about 4 or 5 hours.
    > Plus you couldn't do it anywhere where thieves steal copper. Car charging cables would quickly become a theft target.
    Are you from the past? This simply doesn't happen. The reality is millions of people drive electric cars, and while there are some issues - mainly around the minority who don't have their own driveway, and the tiny numbers who drive over 70,000km year, it simply works.
    People certainly steal diesel though.

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