> batteries that could power entire cities for days or weeks show no sign of materializing any time soon.

This is simply untrue.

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/pges-recording-...

The batteries have already materialized, and once they start installations at scale this will be taking over the energy market. This makes solar/wind viable as a base load power source virtually everywhere in the world. Even in places that get heavy cloud cover such as Northern Europe will start using these solutions at scale within the next few years.

>This is simply untrue.

No. That's the entire problem. There are no batteries that can scale to city needs.

What you're citing is a completely different use case. There is very good case to be made that battery farms can replace gas-burning power ONLY when they are used as a way to quickly scale power production. Battery farms also make sense to even out supply and demand (i.e. serve as a place to dump excess power, or provide stored energy when supply temporarily drops).

ALL new battery projects are around those two use cases. And that's great!! It isn't nothing, and it's a great technology solution for a very real need.

HOWEVER, it's one thing for a battery farm to supply power for seconds or minutes in specific cases, it's another for a battery farm to provide hours or days of constant supply ... every day. Not only is it expensive because you need to over-provision your generation and storage capacity (i.e. in order to provide power for 1 hour at night, you actually need solar to produce 1.5-2 hours of surplus energy). Worse, because wind/solar power generation output is affected by seasons, you'll actually have to over-provision just to match peak seasonal output, meaning that in-season, you invested in infrastructure that's sitting around doing nothing. Then there are also major durability issues. Current battery tech is simply not durable enough and will never be durable enough to solely backup wind and solar in a cost effective way. We're talking about batteries needing to operate for days and weeks when wind and solar output dips (or drops to nothing) at huge scale.

This article goes into some details:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611683/the-25-trillion-re...

This is why no nation is actually replacing any nuclear or fossil-fuel-based power with SOLELY wind/solar+battery solution.

There are other issues that are typically glossed over, such as the fact that solar, wind and battery tech are typically environmentally destructive to make (requiring mining, and complex refining processes), and are very hard and expensive to recycle.

It's possible that some battery-tech breakthrough occurs and changes this (and the article references tech like using surplus power to create molten-salt to use as a storage medium), but the reality is that today, we don't have the technology that is anywhere close to cost-effective, and it isn't clear if there will be one in the next X years.

Passive solar design as a requirement for new construction would help reduce how much energy buildings require. It also makes them more comfortable, not less.

Design cities for pedestrians, bicycles and public transit. This will help reduce heat island effect, thereby reducing the need for AC.

I slept in a tent for nearly six years. I plugged in at the library during the day. I got by on battery power in the evening until I fell asleep.

I'm currently in a hundred year old building with radiant heat and no AC. It has good design that helps keep the building comfortable without a lot of modern amenities we think are required.

I spend a lot of time online. I don't own a TV.

You can have a very modern life on a lot less electricity than many people use.

It's really not a given that we must use high levels of electricity to maintain a high quality of life. The first thing we should do is question such assumptions. The second is start actively challenging them.

This is a problem rooted in culture more than technology.

Doesn’t work unless you live in a place that has no weather (e.g. the Bay Area). People in Minneapolis aren’t going to turn off their heater at night when it’s 30 below 0 because the wind stopped and their battery went dead.

No, not true. Design of this sort used to be the norm. There are variations of it in all climates.

Igloos:

On the outside, temperatures may be as low as −45 °C (−49 °F), but on the inside the temperature may range from −7 °C (19 °F) to 16 °C (61 °F) when warmed by body heat alone.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igloo

I can't readily find a source with details, but traditional desert cities were located on high ground and the streets oriented to catch the winds such that daytime street temperatures were pleasant.

We used to design buildings and cityscapes to work with the local climate. Now, we slap up cardboard boxes, inject insulation and add HVAC systems, counting on technology to keep things comfortable in place of good design. In reality, well designed buildings are more comfortable and probably less likely to suffer from sick building syndrome.

No, igloos were never the norm as far south as Minneapolis because the wide temperature swings make them untenable. Native Americans burned the fuck out of wood for heat and that’s terrible for the environment if we all do it.

>It's really not a given that we must use high levels of electricity to maintain a high quality of life

this is just an intellectual dishonest excuse to ignore nuclear energy

More like first-hand testimony from someone who gave up their car more than a decade ago while working a corporate job.

I'm an environmental studies major whose dream job would be urban planning or similar. I've been looking for real solutions to such problems for a lot of years.

One conclusion I've drawn is that passive solar really needs a lot more attention than it gets. It's an elegant solution with no real downside.

Nuclear has a couple of big downsides. 1. When things go wrong, it's really bad, a la Chernobyl. 2. Even if nothing goes wrong, safely storing the spent fuel is a significant issue and goes on "forevy."

Everyone knows about those two issues. It's precisely why nuclear is controversial.

It's also possible for someone to be pro nuclear power and also pro conservation. There is no need to set this up as an either-or thing. People could be pro passive solar while being pro nuclear power.

I'm not pro nuclear power. I'm also not strongly against it. I'm just trying to let people know that passive solar exists and can play a role in solving these issues.

>You can have a very modern life on a lot less electricity than many people use.

Let me get this straight, The only way to curb emissions is to severely reduce our energy use?

>This is a problem rooted in culture more than technology.

No. This is a problem of people not wanting a subsistence-based lifestyle. Your suggested policies are insane. They are not reasonable, at all. You're talking about replacing all roads and buildings (and cities)? Use non-existent battery technology to power a modern economy?

Internalize the fact that power requirements will keep growing and that expecting people to live in tents is not a reasonable policy.

Even if the culture changes for that were to happen, cities roads anb buildings already exist. You can't replace all buildings and roads in 10 years.