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>Solar and wind meanwhile is beating coal on price even without subsidies. Yeah sure... it doesn't always shine or blow wind. But we have a multitude of storage

>Solar and wind meanwhile is beating coal on price even without subsidies. Yeah sure... it doesn't always shine or blow wind. But we have a multitude of storage solutions: thermal, pumped hydro, flow batteries, gas-to-power and there are many good solutions for adjusting power usage on demand to fit lower production. None of which scale well. I'm kind of baffled by this approach, I would assume that posters here would be hyper sensitive to the ability of technologies to scale and as such would immediately point out the issues here. Solar and Wind prices have dropped substantially, that is true. However just like coal hides and exports it's true costs (carbon emissions and general air population), variable production renewable energy hide their true costs to an energy grid. If renewables are so cheap then why is German and Californian electricity costs so damn high considering their respective investments into them? It's because they're paying more on other parts of their grids to keep everything stable. And those costs only increase as percentage of renewable increases. Choosing a solar plant over a equivalent nuclear because construction costs are 1/5th only to get hit with 10x costs on keeping your grid stable is not a wise decision. >It seems like these nuclear advocates have not even investigated all the storage solutions that exist before going crazy about nuclear power. These solutions will only become more viable as we get a bigger renewable mix, because it will cause the spot price of power to drop really low, making it profitable for companies to buy and store power. And had you really investigated all those different storage solution's you'd see that there aren't panaceas. Quite the opposite. And to suggest that they will become more viable as you get a bigger renewable mix is ludicrous. A bigger renewable mix means that your production is becoming much more variable. Which means you need more and more over capacity storage in order to smooth out greater lows and highs. Worse of all the best and highest efficiency storage solutions, Lithium Ion batteries, are consumables and would need regular replacement.

brianpgordon 7y ago
> If renewables are so cheap then why is German and Californian electricity costs so damn high considering their respective investments into them? It's because they're paying more on other parts of their grids to keep everything stable. I'm not sure that necessarily follows. It seems just as likely, at least in California's case, that high energy prices are due to our stringent emissions standards. If fossil-based power plants are required to invest more in exhaust scrubbing technology or cleaner-burning fuels or more efficient processes to keep the air clean, that raises prices.
audunw 7y ago
> None of which scale well. There is a startup that has developed a battery that was designed from the start to scale as much as possible for grid level storage. http://news.mit.edu/2016/battery-molten-metals-0112 http://news.mit.edu/2016/battery-molten-metals-0112 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiRrvxjrJ1U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiRrvxjrJ1U So far I've seen no reason to think that we won't be able to solve the energy storage challenges over the next 10-20 years. To be clear, I'm talking about smoothing out the power over hours and maybe days. If it's suddenly windless for a couple of weeks for some reason, there's no battery that will cover that. But we could just keep gas power plants around. They're great for that, and running them a few times a year is not gonna make a big dent in emissions. If they're used that rarely, we might even be able to use renewable gas. The other challenge is seasonal variations. But Northern Europe has ways to deal with that. Norway has massive amounts of hydro power, and is building new power lines to help nearby countries. Sweden has built a lot of trash burning facilities that also supply heat to nearby areas. I think I read these run mostly in winter. Not sure what the solution for northern North America is.

brianpgordon 7y ago

> If renewables are so cheap then why is German and Californian electricity costs so damn high considering their respective investments into them? It's because they're paying more on other parts of their grids to keep everything stable. I'm not sure that necessarily follows. It seems just as likely, at least in California's case, that high energy prices are due to our stringent emissions standards. If fossil-based power plants are required to invest more in exhaust scrubbing technology or cleaner-burning fuels or more efficient processes to keep the air clean, that raises prices.

audunw 7y ago

> None of which scale well. There is a startup that has developed a battery that was designed from the start to scale as much as possible for grid level storage. http://news.mit.edu/2016/battery-molten-metals-0112 http://news.mit.edu/2016/battery-molten-metals-0112 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiRrvxjrJ1U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiRrvxjrJ1U So far I've seen no reason to think that we won't be able to solve the energy storage challenges over the next 10-20 years. To be clear, I'm talking about smoothing out the power over hours and maybe days. If it's suddenly windless for a couple of weeks for some reason, there's no battery that will cover that. But we could just keep gas power plants around. They're great for that, and running them a few times a year is not gonna make a big dent in emissions. If they're used that rarely, we might even be able to use renewable gas. The other challenge is seasonal variations. But Northern Europe has ways to deal with that. Norway has massive amounts of hydro power, and is building new power lines to help nearby countries. Sweden has built a lot of trash burning facilities that also supply heat to nearby areas. I think I read these run mostly in winter. Not sure what the solution for northern North America is.