7 ms·

Because we need to get off of fossil fuels and wind/solar is intermittent, so it can't provide base load power without huge numbers of batteries or other techno

Because we need to get off of fossil fuels and wind/solar is intermittent, so it can't provide base load power without huge numbers of batteries or other technology that hasn't scaled up yet (e.g. molten salt/flywheels).

thrownaway2424 11y ago
Hydro provides base power. No fancy technologies needed.
- chc 11y ago
  Doesn't hydro require certain preconditions that are not true everywhere?
  - IkmoIkmo 11y ago
    Generally, yes, very much so. Technically, no. Artificial hydro (more commonly known as pumped storage) means you can essentially store energy in gravity, anywhere. i.e. build a container at an elevated position, pump water into it using intermittent energy (e.g. wind at night, excess solar etc), drop water down through a turbine to generate electricity again to provide a low baseload. The reality is that 1) this is hugely expensive and so generally pumped storage is restricted to exploit existing natural resources with lots of elevated mountains between which one can store ridiculous volumes of water rather than build your own giant water container. So generally hydro is limited to existing water resources (e.g. large rivers), or storage resources (e.g. mountains) which are quite limited.
- karlshea 11y ago
  Hydro's problem (along with wind and solar) is transmission requirements. Not everyone lives near a location where hydro is feasible. It's also not particularly environmentally friendly to dam rivers everywhere. Some of the wave-action stuff is interesting, but you've obviously got to be near a large body of water for that to work.
  - thrownaway2424 11y ago
    Hydro doesn't have to be large scale. If you can have small-scale wind and solar, you can have small-scale pumped storage, too.
    - karlshea 11y ago
      Sure, it doesn't have to be large scale. But you brought it up as a replacement for base load nuclear, which small-scale pumped storage isn't going to do.
- sjwright 11y ago
  You want to talk about failure modes? The nuclear "worst case" has nothing on hydro. Hydro power is responsible for the most fatal electricity generation incident ever: Banqiao Dam. It catastrophically failed and killed an estimated 171,000 people. Fukushima was a flea bite by comparison.
  - gus_massa 11y ago
    Link for the lazy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam > According to the Hydrology Department of Henan Province, in the province, approximately 26,000 people died[14] from flooding and another 145,000 died during subsequent epidemics and famine. Video with computer simulation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctPLXim9WG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctPLXim9WG8
  - Turing_Machine 11y ago
    Indeed. Imagine what would happen if the Three Gorges Dam were to fail. There are over 360 million people living downstream of that one.
    - sliverstorm 11y ago
      Christ. That's five percent of the entire world population.
    - sliverstorm 11y ago
      Christ. That's five percent of the entire world population at the mercy of a single dam?
toomuchtodo 11y ago
Why is nuclear power a better option than utility scale battery storage?
- karlshea 11y ago
  Utility-scale battery storage could definitely be an option, but batteries can be pretty nasty themselves. The alternatives like I mentioned (molten salt for solar, etc) need to be scaled up and could provide similar capacity.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
zik 11y ago
The "base load" argument for nuclear isn't really convincing any more now that Iceland and Costa Rica are already using 100% renewable energy sources and several other countries are approaching it rapidly.
- karlshea 11y ago
  Bringing up Iceland as an example is a little disingenuous since the whole island is a volcano so they can use geothermal cheaply. Costa Rica uses its large amount of rainfall and dams to use generate hydro power, and this article discusses a drought they had in the last year that meant they had to fire up the old fossil fuel plants: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/30/truth-behind-costa-rica-renewable-energy-reservoirs-climate-change http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/30/truth-b... So I'd still consider having some base load capacity available fairly important.

thrownaway2424 11y ago

Hydro provides base power. No fancy technologies needed.

chc 11y ago
Doesn't hydro require certain preconditions that are not true everywhere?
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  Generally, yes, very much so. Technically, no. Artificial hydro (more commonly known as pumped storage) means you can essentially store energy in gravity, anywhere. i.e. build a container at an elevated position, pump water into it using intermittent energy (e.g. wind at night, excess solar etc), drop water down through a turbine to generate electricity again to provide a low baseload. The reality is that 1) this is hugely expensive and so generally pumped storage is restricted to exploit existing natural resources with lots of elevated mountains between which one can store ridiculous volumes of water rather than build your own giant water container. So generally hydro is limited to existing water resources (e.g. large rivers), or storage resources (e.g. mountains) which are quite limited.
karlshea 11y ago
Hydro's problem (along with wind and solar) is transmission requirements. Not everyone lives near a location where hydro is feasible. It's also not particularly environmentally friendly to dam rivers everywhere. Some of the wave-action stuff is interesting, but you've obviously got to be near a large body of water for that to work.
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
  Hydro doesn't have to be large scale. If you can have small-scale wind and solar, you can have small-scale pumped storage, too.
  - karlshea 11y ago
    Sure, it doesn't have to be large scale. But you brought it up as a replacement for base load nuclear, which small-scale pumped storage isn't going to do.
sjwright 11y ago
You want to talk about failure modes? The nuclear "worst case" has nothing on hydro. Hydro power is responsible for the most fatal electricity generation incident ever: Banqiao Dam. It catastrophically failed and killed an estimated 171,000 people. Fukushima was a flea bite by comparison.
- gus_massa 11y ago
  Link for the lazy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam > According to the Hydrology Department of Henan Province, in the province, approximately 26,000 people died[14] from flooding and another 145,000 died during subsequent epidemics and famine. Video with computer simulation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctPLXim9WG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctPLXim9WG8
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  Indeed. Imagine what would happen if the Three Gorges Dam were to fail. There are over 360 million people living downstream of that one.
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    Christ. That's five percent of the entire world population.
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    Christ. That's five percent of the entire world population at the mercy of a single dam?

toomuchtodo 11y ago

Why is nuclear power a better option than utility scale battery storage?

karlshea 11y ago
Utility-scale battery storage could definitely be an option, but batteries can be pretty nasty themselves. The alternatives like I mentioned (molten salt for solar, etc) need to be scaled up and could provide similar capacity.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

zik 11y ago

The "base load" argument for nuclear isn't really convincing any more now that Iceland and Costa Rica are already using 100% renewable energy sources and several other countries are approaching it rapidly.

karlshea 11y ago
Bringing up Iceland as an example is a little disingenuous since the whole island is a volcano so they can use geothermal cheaply. Costa Rica uses its large amount of rainfall and dams to use generate hydro power, and this article discusses a drought they had in the last year that meant they had to fire up the old fossil fuel plants: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/30/truth-behind-costa-rica-renewable-energy-reservoirs-climate-change http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/30/truth-b... So I'd still consider having some base load capacity available fairly important.