A reality check on renewables - David MacKay

Why HN readers recommended it

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

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

TED-Ed

Topic

renewable energy limits

Format

talk

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

3

HN mentions in dataset

8

Recommendation years in dataset

2017–2021

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• Well, a bunch of countries have more or less agreed on aiming for no more than 1.5 degrees warmer. IPCC made a report on what that would entail stating basically that even with an overnight abolishment it cannot be reached. But that if we assume …

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

• 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 …