@martin you seem very certain, as if we could not, say grossly over provision green + batteries, and shut down some industrial processes for the tiny fraction of time when still+dark is too long.

@infobeautiful

Herbicides, pesticides, fertilizer and soil compaction, as well as erosion from modern farming have obliterated 40% of the world’s carbon and hydrological capacity as well as it’s fertility.

Industrial Farms are a biological waste land of toxic chemicals, fossil fuel emissions, herbicides, fungicides and pesticides.

All this to make corporations massively wealthier, while destroying the product, actual productive capacity of the land to sustain both the our climate and us

@GhostOnTheHalfShell @infobeautiful https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

@bhasic @infobeautiful

Would be a great start, the thing we need to remember is that up to 10 fossil fuel calories we used to bring a single food calorie to table. There is something very, very wrong about crops made from oil.

We could add on all the food ways that goes on in the 1300 miles at most food travels before reaching that final destination and what that means for recycling all the table scraps and all the other things that are the consequence of eating food.

@bhasic @infobeautiful

If we could recycle all the organic stuff, they keep it separated from all the toxic produced with today’s economy, and have all of that go back into use for growing food we wouldn’t really need fertilizer

@bhasic @infobeautiful

Animals and farms used to go together and chickens and ducks and geese and cows and pigs. All played their part in farms used to raise multiple things. The factory farms, all kinds both animal and vegetable really are more fossil fuel than they are the natural world.

@martin At the scale of the US, we never get nationwide overcast, nor nationwide lack of wind. We DO need to overprovision both batteries and wind, and distribute that overprovision across the country, and connect it nationwide so that power can be sent from sunny places to overcast places when that occurs.

Putting "Do the math" in bold face is not a proof. If you think it's that obvious, the proof should be easy.

@martin We an also rearrange our consumption so that loads are curtailed when the weather is unfavorable. Assuming we electrify processes that are currently done with fossil fuel, those will be large loads, and shutting them down for the duration of the worst 1% supply shortages will reduce the energy storage needed -- and only idles the industrial process 1% of the time, not a large loss in production.

@martin Looking at the wikipedia page: "Events that last more than two days over most of Europe happen about once every five years." And most of them are 24 hours. If the day/night ratio is a cloudless 12:12 and load is Y watts, then solar capacity needs to be 2Y , and battery capacity needs to be 12Ywatt-hours. Away from the equator, say worst is 6:18 then solar needs to be 4Y, and 18Y watt-hours of storage. If, rarely, an entire day's production is missed, then 42Y storage,

The world’s solar capacity reached 1,419 gigawatts in 2023, way beyond any predictions. 1 gigawatt = power for a medium sized city

@martin but not much more solar because the 24-hour surplus can be accumulated over several days. Obviously the batteries will cost more, but the larger amount of storage allows gentler charge+discharge and provides more opportunities for load management -- the batteries will have a longer service life.

I'm not seeing a proof of impossibility here, and batteries are still improving.

The world’s solar capacity reached 1,419 gigawatts in 2023, way beyond any predictions. 1 gigawatt = power for a medium sized city

@martin the wikipedia article that YOU put up there said multiday events are very rare, once per 5 years. Not 30 days. The US already has things like the Pacific Intertie, connecting Washington State to southern California on the west coast -- and this was done, for hydropower, so it was already judged to be worth it.

You need to quantify. "Astronomical" is not a number. The things I expect will be electrified in the future include steel, concrete, ammonia, and fresh water production.

over most of Europe

@GhostOnTheHalfShell @infobeautiful https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

https://ourworldindata.org/less-meat-or-sustainable-meat