this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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It’s hard to say it’s “wasted”. That just means the sun will shine, and the wind will blow, and nobody will use some of the electricity it could generate.
By that metric, almost 100% of wind and solar power is currently “wasted”. By putting up all that capacity, the amount “wasted” goes way down.
And what becomes possible if you have huge amounts of no cost energy available for some of the day/year? Direct carbon capture? Widespread desalination to produce fresh water? These are things that would help a lot, but are currently infeasible for to energy cost. You don’t have to do them 24/7 - just turn them on to soak up the excess grid capacity. If the cost of electricity went way down, I guarantee you somebody would figure out what to do with the power.
I'm talking about "wasted" as in the energy is collected but then not stored or put to use. That's just needless wear and tear on the machinery. If it's not collected in the first place I would just call that untapped.
And extra capacity is never really free. Someone has to invest in the infrastructure and upkeep. It's takes money and effort to get energy to the right place at the right time, such as those carbon capture and desalination plants you seem to suggest will appear out of thin air.