Re:ThorCon: Cheap, reliable, CO2-free electric power
by ncmncm on Sunday April 10, 2022 @07:34PM
(#30982858)
They will regret building coal plants as the cost of renewables plummets past coal. Then, they will need to convert their coal plants to burn hydrogen or ammonia, or retire them in favor of better methods, after this expensive detour. But the builders of coal plants will have done fine.
"Waste" is a curious concept applied to something with zero marginal cost. If not used to synthesize fuel, the insolation would have been wasted. Instead, it synthesizes useful fuel, that also fuels the ship taking it where it is needed.
Indonesia will be able to build their own solar farms and synthesizers, and end up exporting their excess in the temperate countries' winter, provided they can escape the grip of the oligarchists.
And even the basic infrastructure of the grid that is absolutely required for renewables to be even remotely practical doesn't exist.
Wasting gigantic amounts of energy to produce chemical fuel highly inefficiently with low utility plants, and then transporting them around to then burn them up again highly inefficiently is a terrible plan to power a country of 100s of millions of people.