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As far as I know scalable storage for base-load is not a solved problem. Has that changed? Personally I find it hard to believe that we can live on renewabls u

As far as I know scalable storage for base-load is not a solved problem. Has that changed? Personally I find it hard to believe that we can live on renewabls until a european country goes 1 year completely on renewables (I guess Germany is probably the best candidate for that since they are going all-in).

toomuchtodo 8y ago
If batteries and renewables are cheaper than nuclear, how is it not a solved problem? You still need to build the new renewables and the batteries, but it’s cost effective and can be done.
- rurounijones 8y ago
  That is a good point and I don't know enough to answer (if you have any good info sources about this I would appreciate them). Aside from the Tesla battery in Oz (which is more about stabilization rather than primary supply) I don't know of any large-scale battery storage systems. I get the feeling that we are ignoring the scaling part here (We Just have to scale-up). Since the battery systems would need to be big enough to cover dips in renewable output in a worst case scenario (brown-outs / black-outs are not going to be popular). Is there any info on how many / how big / how long to manufacture these batteries and renewables would have to be to cover an example country?
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    You’d need 0.6% of the continental US land mass for solar panels, and 1 mile by 1 mile of batteries to power the entire US off of solar. This doesn’t include tens of thousands of EVs sold each month, which is rapidly increasing the aggregate amount of distributed energy storage available to the grid.
    - kortilla 8y ago
      That’s not right. That’s only about 5 times the size of the gigafactory and there is no way that has nearly the capacity to power the entire US for 9+ hours of continuous darkness. You need to check your math... Unless you meant a cubic mile of batteries, in which case that’s completely unrealistic to manufacture.
- zanny 8y ago
  Because renewables are regional. They make exceedingly good sense in places like the US midwest or most of Europe where you can build solar / wind and have substantial availability. Solar, by contrast, is much less performant if you live somewhere with less sunlight due to any number of reasons - weather, smog, latitude, etc. Same with wind - it only makes sense to build wind where you get the most wind. And the trick with those is that its not a zero sum. Even if solar would be viable somewhere less optimal panels are still going to go where solar is cheapest first. And then you are looking at the costs of transporting that power gradually towards areas of reduced renewables efficiency and/or storing it. To put it even more generally, if the state of Maine were willing to build a fission plant but not buy solar, wind, hydro, etc LET THEM BUILD IT. You can manufacture all the solar panels and windmills you can while also building nuclear plants. The priority has to be shutting down all oil and gas plants as soon as possible by any means available.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    No one is stopping anyone from building modern nuclear reactors except debt markets and utilities. The problem is that no one wants them (compared to other generation technologies). Timoth3y in another thread explains it extensively: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19168057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19168057
    - kortilla 8y ago
      That’s wrong. Debt markets are reflecting the risks of the plants being stopped by orgs like the NRC, etc. The debt markets don’t favor it precisely because so many different parties can block new builds.
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        I disagree with your assertion. It's simply time value of money. As an investor, you don't want to wait decades for a higher risk low return that may never materialize, or the bond defaults entirely because your nuclear plant is shuttered for safety or political reasons. Could government insure the bond? Yes! But then they're subsidizing nuclear when that money could go into renewables and storage.
audunw 8y ago
This touches on an issue, that renewables don't need to be paired with base-load plants (which nuclear has traditionally been), but with load-following and peaker plants. Traditional nuclear power plants are base load plants, but any development in new nuclear plants should focus on designs that are better at load following, in order to complement rather than compete with renewables.
- mcjiggerlog 8y ago
  I agree that we should be investing in R&D, but what renewables have to be paired with is the technology that we have available to us here and now. If you want load-following energy then that means fossil fuel. If you want base-load then you have either fossil fuels or nuclear. If we want to have any chance of meeting our climate goals then it seems like nuclear, optionally paired with renewables, is our only option.

toomuchtodo 8y ago

If batteries and renewables are cheaper than nuclear, how is it not a solved problem? You still need to build the new renewables and the batteries, but it’s cost effective and can be done.

rurounijones 8y ago
That is a good point and I don't know enough to answer (if you have any good info sources about this I would appreciate them). Aside from the Tesla battery in Oz (which is more about stabilization rather than primary supply) I don't know of any large-scale battery storage systems. I get the feeling that we are ignoring the scaling part here (We Just have to scale-up). Since the battery systems would need to be big enough to cover dips in renewable output in a worst case scenario (brown-outs / black-outs are not going to be popular). Is there any info on how many / how big / how long to manufacture these batteries and renewables would have to be to cover an example country?
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  You’d need 0.6% of the continental US land mass for solar panels, and 1 mile by 1 mile of batteries to power the entire US off of solar. This doesn’t include tens of thousands of EVs sold each month, which is rapidly increasing the aggregate amount of distributed energy storage available to the grid.
  - kortilla 8y ago
    That’s not right. That’s only about 5 times the size of the gigafactory and there is no way that has nearly the capacity to power the entire US for 9+ hours of continuous darkness. You need to check your math... Unless you meant a cubic mile of batteries, in which case that’s completely unrealistic to manufacture.
zanny 8y ago
Because renewables are regional. They make exceedingly good sense in places like the US midwest or most of Europe where you can build solar / wind and have substantial availability. Solar, by contrast, is much less performant if you live somewhere with less sunlight due to any number of reasons - weather, smog, latitude, etc. Same with wind - it only makes sense to build wind where you get the most wind. And the trick with those is that its not a zero sum. Even if solar would be viable somewhere less optimal panels are still going to go where solar is cheapest first. And then you are looking at the costs of transporting that power gradually towards areas of reduced renewables efficiency and/or storing it. To put it even more generally, if the state of Maine were willing to build a fission plant but not buy solar, wind, hydro, etc LET THEM BUILD IT. You can manufacture all the solar panels and windmills you can while also building nuclear plants. The priority has to be shutting down all oil and gas plants as soon as possible by any means available.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  No one is stopping anyone from building modern nuclear reactors except debt markets and utilities. The problem is that no one wants them (compared to other generation technologies). Timoth3y in another thread explains it extensively: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19168057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19168057
  - kortilla 8y ago
    That’s wrong. Debt markets are reflecting the risks of the plants being stopped by orgs like the NRC, etc. The debt markets don’t favor it precisely because so many different parties can block new builds.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      I disagree with your assertion. It's simply time value of money. As an investor, you don't want to wait decades for a higher risk low return that may never materialize, or the bond defaults entirely because your nuclear plant is shuttered for safety or political reasons. Could government insure the bond? Yes! But then they're subsidizing nuclear when that money could go into renewables and storage.

audunw 8y ago

This touches on an issue, that renewables don't need to be paired with base-load plants (which nuclear has traditionally been), but with load-following and peaker plants. Traditional nuclear power plants are base load plants, but any development in new nuclear plants should focus on designs that are better at load following, in order to complement rather than compete with renewables.

mcjiggerlog 8y ago
I agree that we should be investing in R&D, but what renewables have to be paired with is the technology that we have available to us here and now. If you want load-following energy then that means fossil fuel. If you want base-load then you have either fossil fuels or nuclear. If we want to have any chance of meeting our climate goals then it seems like nuclear, optionally paired with renewables, is our only option.