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A reality check on renewables - David MacKay

TED-Ed · 986.5K views · 2013-06-26 · 18:35

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Overview

David MacKay's TEDxWarwick talk uses basic arithmetic to show how much land and energy renewables would need to power a country like the UK. It explains the limits of sustainable options and why they should still be pursued.

On Hacker News

Cited in energy debates for its back-of-envelope scale of the transition and the land and storage limits of wind and solar.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 4 months · HN mentions 2017–2021

Topics

Renewables, batteries & storageClimate policy, solutions & debate
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david mackayrenewablesenergy densityland usesustainable energy

What people said

kinjba1 · 2020-08 · Recommendation

No energy source [that we've discovered so far] is perfect. All have downsides. Sadly, living in denial of that fact is more popular than ever, but that's a separate topic. Here are a couple TED talks showing the downside of renewable energy - such as the enormous land usage and reliable energy storage needed to compete with nuclear or fossil. Why renewables can’t save the planet [LINK] A reality check on renewables [VIDEO]

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neilwilson · 2019-03 · Recommendation

Not everywhere in the world has the land area to do wind and solar. In fact pretty much everywhere other than Russia, Australia, Canada, the US and Brazil. There the energy density per head of population is too high for renewables. Good video by the late David Mackay on that point here. [VIDEO]

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CuriousSkeptic · 2019-01 · Recommendation

On that topic, I found this ted talk on the feasibility of various renewable energy sources quite eye opening [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by TED-Ed, played through YouTube.

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