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> Germany does not have a single wind turbine in a single location. It has vast numbers of them across many locations, many of which are situated in areas with

> Germany does not have a single wind turbine in a single location. It has vast numbers of them across many locations, many of which are situated in areas with near near constant wind. Across the whole portfolio of this production resource there is a certain minimum level of production which is consistently maintained. Yes, but it's a fraction of total output and it's nowhere near enough to supply the actual base load. > Yes, the meaning has spread to demand but the idea that base-load demand must be supplied by 'base-load' power plants such as coal or nuclear is a piece of sophistry that quickly dissolves when it is examined closely. Just one reason being that their supply is not guaranteed (as I have described above). What quickly dissolves into sophistry is the idea that wind energy is remotely comparable to coal or nuclear in terms of supplying base load. Yes, an individual coal plant doesn't have 100% reliability, but it's still massively less volatile than wind. > [1] https://medium.com/@TheAustraliaInstitute/gas-coal-power-has.. https://medium.com/@TheAustraliaInstitute/gas-coal-power-has.... Okay, let's look at Australia: https://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Disappearing-role-of-baseload-power-in-south-australia-copy.jpg https://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Disap... What's that big grey part that is "dispatchable"? It's mostly natural gas, which Australia has plenty of (7% of exports), but Germany would need to import. Australians can pat themselves on the back for not using any more coal in the grid, but they still ship it off (16% of exports) for someone else to burn it.

oska 8y ago
Batteries and pumped hydro can also deliver dispatchable and Australia is embracing and building both. The focus of today's markets is on flexibility and response time of supply, not on lumbering, inflexible baseload. Batteries are the most rapid and flexible, as the big battery constructed in South Australia has amply proved.
- zeroname 8y ago
  Flexibility is not the crucial issue. It's just what that large Tesla battery is good at, which is why everyone highlights it. In terms of capacity, it's next to nothing. No proponent wants to talk about that. If you just look at the graph you'll see that dispatchable makes up almost 100% of base load during significant periods of time. Do the math on how many batteries and how much pumped storage you would need. It's simply not happening without fossils. Australia uses natural gas so it can pull down CO2, but the coal is still exported and burned by someone else. It's a wash. Germany only has coal. If storage was feasible they wouldn't be standing there with their pants down on their CO2 goals. They would've built the best batteries and storage pumps the world knows.

oska 8y ago

Batteries and pumped hydro can also deliver dispatchable and Australia is embracing and building both. The focus of today's markets is on flexibility and response time of supply, not on lumbering, inflexible baseload. Batteries are the most rapid and flexible, as the big battery constructed in South Australia has amply proved.

zeroname 8y ago
Flexibility is not the crucial issue. It's just what that large Tesla battery is good at, which is why everyone highlights it. In terms of capacity, it's next to nothing. No proponent wants to talk about that. If you just look at the graph you'll see that dispatchable makes up almost 100% of base load during significant periods of time. Do the math on how many batteries and how much pumped storage you would need. It's simply not happening without fossils. Australia uses natural gas so it can pull down CO2, but the coal is still exported and burned by someone else. It's a wash. Germany only has coal. If storage was feasible they wouldn't be standing there with their pants down on their CO2 goals. They would've built the best batteries and storage pumps the world knows.