24 ms·

Solar & wind + batteries isn't enough, you also need a stable source of energy to compensate when the production is going down (those are not stable sources), i

Solar & wind + batteries isn't enough, you also need a stable source of energy to compensate when the production is going down (those are not stable sources), if you are a country without good hydro possibilities, your only option for that is nuclear.

Tade0 8y ago
There's natural gas for that. Sure, it's pretty CO2-intensive, but with enough overprovisioning of renewables and some storage it will rarely be used - if at all. Cheaper than having an inflexible nuclear plant.
- jabl 8y ago
  If we're going to have any chance of hitting the 2C climate targets, electricity production must be more or less completely emissions-free by mid-century (preferably ASAP). So, any non-trivial amount of natural gas usage is out. Also, there's the rough rule of thumb saying that when variable sources (like wind or solar) approach a fraction of total generation in the grid equal to the capacity factor of said source, system integration costs start to rise rapidly (because that's, at the latest, the point where you'll start needing large amounts of storage, curtailment, or long-range transmission). Thus, in most grids wind+solar will unlikely see much larger than 50% of total generation without massive extra investment and/or breakthroughs in storage costs. If we're going for lowest-cost deep decarbonization, it looks like the share of nuclear will start to rise when we go deep enough, see e.g. slide 41 in https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Getting_to_Zero.pdf https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Getting...
- nickik 8y ago
  So basically an incredibly complicated solution that barely even solves the problem an requires overlap capacity. And your counter argument is 'nuclear plant' are inflexible? What? Nuclear are not actually inflexible specially new ones compared to those we build 50 years ago. Furthermore nuclear industry has finally again started to innovate and the next generation of reactors will be able to be fully load following. What is actually inflexible is solar and wind, that about the most inflexible technologies that exist.
  - Tade0 8y ago
    Ok, here's another counterargument: nuclear is currently losing in terms of economics with renewables + gas and this problem is only going to get bigger. That ship has sailed already.
    - nickik 8y ago
      Yes renewables get pushed forward to the term of 100s of billions in subsidies globally. Germany is a perfect example, insane amount of money and they are not even close to solving the problem. Nuclear in west fails because of regulatory issue, and this is totally clear if you look at the history of nuclear construction. > That ship has sailed already. That's just a dumb attitude. Gas had many ups and downs. Wind did as well. Even coal. Saying nuclear is dead because currently in the west or the US its not growing as fast is wrong. China will be building 100s of nuclear reactors and they are very interested in starting to sell these globally.
- fabatka 8y ago
  I frequently hear this argument, and my first reaction was to agree with this. However I don't think that creating a flexible grid that can handle the erratic generation and consumption of power is as easy as it sounds. My gut feeling is that the devil is in the details, and it may take much longer than non-experts think (most of who I presume think that simply slapping energy storages to a system with varying input-output rates solves everything). Unfortunately I'm not an expert in this field, and I'm not even sure what the field of engineering is called that deals with large energy grids.

Tade0 8y ago

There's natural gas for that. Sure, it's pretty CO2-intensive, but with enough overprovisioning of renewables and some storage it will rarely be used - if at all. Cheaper than having an inflexible nuclear plant.

jabl 8y ago
If we're going to have any chance of hitting the 2C climate targets, electricity production must be more or less completely emissions-free by mid-century (preferably ASAP). So, any non-trivial amount of natural gas usage is out. Also, there's the rough rule of thumb saying that when variable sources (like wind or solar) approach a fraction of total generation in the grid equal to the capacity factor of said source, system integration costs start to rise rapidly (because that's, at the latest, the point where you'll start needing large amounts of storage, curtailment, or long-range transmission). Thus, in most grids wind+solar will unlikely see much larger than 50% of total generation without massive extra investment and/or breakthroughs in storage costs. If we're going for lowest-cost deep decarbonization, it looks like the share of nuclear will start to rise when we go deep enough, see e.g. slide 41 in https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Getting_to_Zero.pdf https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Getting...
nickik 8y ago
So basically an incredibly complicated solution that barely even solves the problem an requires overlap capacity. And your counter argument is 'nuclear plant' are inflexible? What? Nuclear are not actually inflexible specially new ones compared to those we build 50 years ago. Furthermore nuclear industry has finally again started to innovate and the next generation of reactors will be able to be fully load following. What is actually inflexible is solar and wind, that about the most inflexible technologies that exist.
- Tade0 8y ago
  Ok, here's another counterargument: nuclear is currently losing in terms of economics with renewables + gas and this problem is only going to get bigger. That ship has sailed already.
  - nickik 8y ago
    Yes renewables get pushed forward to the term of 100s of billions in subsidies globally. Germany is a perfect example, insane amount of money and they are not even close to solving the problem. Nuclear in west fails because of regulatory issue, and this is totally clear if you look at the history of nuclear construction. > That ship has sailed already. That's just a dumb attitude. Gas had many ups and downs. Wind did as well. Even coal. Saying nuclear is dead because currently in the west or the US its not growing as fast is wrong. China will be building 100s of nuclear reactors and they are very interested in starting to sell these globally.
fabatka 8y ago
I frequently hear this argument, and my first reaction was to agree with this. However I don't think that creating a flexible grid that can handle the erratic generation and consumption of power is as easy as it sounds. My gut feeling is that the devil is in the details, and it may take much longer than non-experts think (most of who I presume think that simply slapping energy storages to a system with varying input-output rates solves everything). Unfortunately I'm not an expert in this field, and I'm not even sure what the field of engineering is called that deals with large energy grids.