3 ms·

There are some processes where equipment lifetime is more determined by total usage than by start-stop cycles. Those processes can more or less seamlessly trans

There are some processes where equipment lifetime is more determined by total usage than by start-stop cycles. Those processes can more or less seamlessly transition to intermittent renewables as long as the time value of money isn't very high. Given persistently low inflation rates despite years of QE, I think we might be there already. EDIT: actually, even if the processes are tolerant of frequent stop-start, the associated labor scheduling may not be. Not knowing when you'll have a shift scheduled sucks for workers. Not knowing if your regularly-scheduled workers will have favorable weather to do useful work when they show up at the plant would suck for employers. Other processes are intolerant of complete shutdown/startup cycles. Modern aluminum smelting is one of them. If everything freezes up in the production cells because of too little power for too long, it causes damage and it takes a long time to start up again. To make aluminum smelting more cycling-tolerant would require rethinking the whole plant design. Even then the cost savings from cheap but non-dispatchable renewables may not be enough to compete with existing plants powered with dispatchable electricity.

xyzzyz 9y ago
> Not knowing when you'll have a shift scheduled sucks for workers. Not knowing if your regularly-scheduled workers will have favorable weather to do useful work when they show up at the plant would suck for employers. I'm not sure if this is such a huge problem. Modern operations require very few human operators, and they do not contribute too much to the actual costs. Worst thing is that you'll just have some people doing nothing waiting for cheaper energy. > If everything freezes up in the production cells because of too little power for too long, it causes damage and it takes a long time to start up again. It takes much less power to keep the aluminum hot than it takes to smelt it, so if power becomes too expensive for smelting, you just use a fraction of it to keep it hot in the cells.

xyzzyz 9y ago

> Not knowing when you'll have a shift scheduled sucks for workers. Not knowing if your regularly-scheduled workers will have favorable weather to do useful work when they show up at the plant would suck for employers. I'm not sure if this is such a huge problem. Modern operations require very few human operators, and they do not contribute too much to the actual costs. Worst thing is that you'll just have some people doing nothing waiting for cheaper energy. > If everything freezes up in the production cells because of too little power for too long, it causes damage and it takes a long time to start up again. It takes much less power to keep the aluminum hot than it takes to smelt it, so if power becomes too expensive for smelting, you just use a fraction of it to keep it hot in the cells.