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Unfortunately people are a bit mislead by the headlines on this, you'll get news saying that on some days renewables became a significant part of the mix (for t
by kokey 8y ago
Unfortunately people are a bit mislead by the headlines on this, you'll get news saying that on some days renewables became a significant part of the mix (for that day), or that renewables are a significant portion of new capacity (since no new gas is installed because the gas generating capacity already exceeds max potential consumption) or that renewables is now a significant portion of all installed capacity (capacity but not generating or being used). The reality is that for what is actually generated and consumed, it's mostly gas. Have a look at this regularly, https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=GB https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem... and you'll see right now as I'm typing it we have 15% nuclear, 10% wind and 49% gas.
Around Europe we can see the countries that have low emissions are either heavy on nuclear or have good access to hydro, or both. The rest that are doing well are on gas. Those who shunned gas and nuclear and went all in with wind and solar are usually amongst the worst. We can expand renewables as much as we like but it's not going to be enough until we have a scalable way of storing the energy generated from it. If we want to reduce gas in order to cut emissions even further, it's going to have to be nuclear. However, if we're talking about the cost of nuclear, the cost of carbon capture and storage of gas generation also becomes an option.
- Reason077 8y ago> "you'll get news saying that on some days renewables became a significant part of the mix (for that day)" Yes, there is significant day-to-day variance in renewables production. But renewables are a very significant and rapidly growing energy source in the UK, reaching 30% of total grid production in 2018, while both gas and coal are in decline. In fact, just wind + solar has already exceeded the combined annual generation from the UK's entire nuclear fleet. And it's likely that in the next 1-2 years, wind alone will exceed nuclear production. Daily variance is also declining over time as the wind turbine fleet becomes more geographically dispersed. It's true that if the UK had never built gas power plants and still relied extensively on coal, then we'd be in a much worse situation. But if we had gone for gas alone, emissions would be far higher than with a gas+renewables mix. And energy security would be worse, leaving the UK vulnerable to fluctuating prices and potential gas shortages and supply interruptions as most natural gas is imported. > "Those who shunned gas and nuclear and went all in with wind and solar are usually amongst the worst." Well, we all know about Germany. The problem here is that not only are they relying on coal, but much of it is actually lignite (brown coal) - the dirtiest form of coal. And much of the reason they are still so dependent on fossil fuels is not because of lack of renewables production, but because of transmission constraints between the north (where most of the wind production is) and the south (where the biggest demand centers are). This issue is being resolved over time. You also seem to be ignoring countries like Denmark, Spain, and Portugal who have very successfully moved to wind and solar and now have very little dependence on coal.
- kokey 8y agoWell, I must admit that I was surprised by that 30% production figure. That came fast, hopefully it's possible to keep up the growth in that.