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My prophecy that solar and renewables will continue to scale is based on their performance to date which is not so much prophecy as standard extrapolation. Your

My prophecy that solar and renewables will continue to scale is based on their performance to date which is not so much prophecy as standard extrapolation. Your proclaimed "serious environmental, regulatory, or economic challenges" are so far entirely mysterious which are just somehow or other likely to "show up". Wouldn't you be more comfortable suggesting things will continue until they level out at some point? (like they did with nuclear) than hoping something huge will "show up" for renewables so that somehow nuclear can catch up. Any time that nuclear might catch up - constant output wont be needed or purchasable at constant price. It will compete with storage and carbon neutral fuels for the high prices and with renewables for the low. Its going to need a massive economic breakthrough, which its already had decades to try and develope. Its not some people not liking nuclear that is its problem, its few people are willing to pay for nuclear. Nuclears land, water, staffing and security costs are not low impact and not cheap which is why its not winning investments now, despite the powerful politics which likes to spend big money on near permanent assignments, and plenty of PR, nobody can justify it. EROI of renewables is fine and continuing to improve. Nuclear's calculations always assume the plants will stay competitive and be run for 40+ years at full capacity (hello renewable competition again). Renewables assume the equipment will not be extended after 20 or cheaply upgraded, but they don't need to fiddle benchmarks they are already far quicker and cheaper to build and run. Fwiw good luck with something showing up.

acidburnNSA 7y ago
Nuclear is very affordable when a standard design is chosen and built multiple times in serial as proven by Korea and France. > EROI of renewables is fine and continuing to improve. That it gets worse as a function of the amount of energy storage fraction is simple to understand. I'd be shocked to read about other studies that suggest EROI with increasing energy storage is actually improving. Can you provide such a reference to your statement? This peer-reviewed journal article linked above has the following abstract: Abstract: A novel methodology is developed to dynamically assess the energy and material investments required over time to achieve the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources in the electricity sector. The obtained results indicate that a fast transition achieving a 100% renewable electric system globally by 2060 consistent with the Green Growth narrative could decrease the EROI of the energy system from current ~12:1 to ~3:1 by the mid-century, stabilizing thereafter at ~5:1. These EROI levels are well below the thresholds identified in the literature required to sustain industrial complex societies. Moreover, this transition could drive a substantial re-materialization of the economy, exacerbating risk availability in the future for some minerals. Hence, the results obtained put into question the consistence and viability of the Green Growth narrative. Keywords: Energy return on energy investment; Transition to renewable energies; Energy trap; Green growth; Integrated assessment modelling Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Carlos de Castro, Luis Javier Miguel González, Dynamic Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROI) and material requirements in scenarios of global transition to renewable energies, Energy Strategy Reviews, Volume 26, 2019, 100399, ISSN 2211-467X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2019.100399.(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X19300926) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2019.100399.(http://www.scienc...

acidburnNSA 7y ago

Nuclear is very affordable when a standard design is chosen and built multiple times in serial as proven by Korea and France. > EROI of renewables is fine and continuing to improve. That it gets worse as a function of the amount of energy storage fraction is simple to understand. I'd be shocked to read about other studies that suggest EROI with increasing energy storage is actually improving. Can you provide such a reference to your statement? This peer-reviewed journal article linked above has the following abstract: Abstract: A novel methodology is developed to dynamically assess the energy and material investments required over time to achieve the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources in the electricity sector. The obtained results indicate that a fast transition achieving a 100% renewable electric system globally by 2060 consistent with the Green Growth narrative could decrease the EROI of the energy system from current ~12:1 to ~3:1 by the mid-century, stabilizing thereafter at ~5:1. These EROI levels are well below the thresholds identified in the literature required to sustain industrial complex societies. Moreover, this transition could drive a substantial re-materialization of the economy, exacerbating risk availability in the future for some minerals. Hence, the results obtained put into question the consistence and viability of the Green Growth narrative. Keywords: Energy return on energy investment; Transition to renewable energies; Energy trap; Green growth; Integrated assessment modelling Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Carlos de Castro, Luis Javier Miguel González, Dynamic Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROI) and material requirements in scenarios of global transition to renewable energies, Energy Strategy Reviews, Volume 26, 2019, 100399, ISSN 2211-467X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2019.100399.(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X19300926) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2019.100399.(http://www.scienc...