5 ms·

> This isn't going to be cheap. But it is feasible, and if you care about carbon I'm not sure how else you do it. How about we use the carbon free method of ge

> This isn't going to be cheap. But it is feasible, and if you care about carbon I'm not sure how else you do it. How about we use the carbon free method of generating electricity that France has used to generate most of it's electricity for close to half a century? We don't have to wait for a miracle that makes batteries cheaper, we don't have to scale up battery production by several orders of magnitude. If we built ten nuclear plants for every one that exists in the US today, that's enough for 100% carbon free electricity generation. It'd also provide enormous amounts of water if we use the waste heat for desalination. It also wouldn't involves consuming massive areas of land for solar panels. It would only involve technologies that currently exist and that we have decades of experience working with.

jka 6y ago
Your arguments are the most compelling I've seen so far for more nuclear as opposed to renewables. I'm still leaning towards renewables for various reasons, but could be swayed - could you share any more details about where the 12 hour capacity requirement and costs mentioned come from?
- Manfredo_1 6y ago
  12 hours of capacity would still leave 20% of electricity to be fulfilled by fossil fuels. To get to 100% renewable we'd need 3 weeks of storage: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-storage-80-percent-wind-solar/#:~:text=Team-,12%20hours%20of%20energy%20storage%20enough%20for%20U.S.%20to%20run,3%20weeks%20of%20energy%20storage https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
- DoctorOetker 6y ago
  please don't be swayed, he uses lots logical phallusese, in this thread for example: taking the US electric consumption at face value as being the power to be displaced 12 hours. note how this assumes that every joule you consume must have come from the storage system as if there were zero overlap between consumption and demand such that all energy had to pass indirectly through the battery system also note how he typically treats reminders by others as claims of silver bullet panaceas: even if governments had devoted to fully switching to renewables and had solid plans distributed over multiple sources (solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, ...) and over multiple storage systems (synthetic fuel, batteries, flywheels, ...) in a way it sufficed our needs, it's not surprising that pointing at just one energy source or just one storage type, you'd arrive to the conclusion batteries, or solar won't suffice... even though in combination they might.
  - Manfredo_1 6y ago
    > please don't be swayed, he uses lots logical phallusese, in this thread for example: taking the US electric consumption at face value as being the power to be displaced 12 hours. Excellent point: The power that's going to be displaced is during the evening and night, which is when peak energy consumption occurs. The power that's going to be displaced is even greater! > note how this assumes that every joule you consume must have come from the storage system as if there were zero overlap between consumption and demand such that all energy had to pass indirectly through the battery system I do no such thing, not all energy needs to pass through the battery system. Of course daytime energy use can draw on solar panels directly. > also note how he typically treats reminders by others as claims of silver bullet panaceas: even if governments had devoted to fully switching to renewables and had solid plans distributed over multiple sources (solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, ...) and over multiple storage systems (synthetic fuel, batteries, flywheels, ...) in a way it sufficed our needs, it's not surprising that pointing at just one energy source or just one storage type, you'd arrive to the conclusion batteries, or solar won't suffice... even though in combination they might. In combination they might suffice. Do we want to bet averting climate catastrophe on a solution that might work? Or on a solution that does work? We know that nuclear power can power all of a nation's energy demands. We have firsthand examples of this happening. It's not contingent on unproven technologies like synthetic fuels, grid-scale batteries, or massive farms of flywheels.
reitzensteinm 6y ago
You don't need a "miracle". Hornsdale was installed for $500/kWh, which works out to $125/MWh of storage at 4000 cycles. Prices have already decreased by over 30%, so we're probably at $100/MWh today. If you need to store half your generation on a diurnal cycle, add it on to the LCOE of ~$50/MWh for utility scale solar, and you are cost competitive with the LCOE of nuclear today. Lithium battery production is going to skyrocket regardless of whether it's used for grid storage; we're going to need enough for a billion cars over the next decades, even if the world converted to nuclear. Prices will continue to fall just as they have. I am a strong believer that we should have embraced nuclear, given what we know now about climate change. But starting in 2020 with next to nothing, we're just now passing parity where renewables are starting to win, and the gap is going to get larger.
- Manfredo_1 6y ago
  $500 KWh is still much more expensive nuclear. Furthermore competition with electric vehicles isn't going to decrease battery cost, it's going to increase it. More demand for a constrained supply leads to higher prices. Wind is also geographically dependent, not all regions are capable of generating wind power at the same cost as Hornsdale. If your wind averages half the average wind speed you're going to have to build a lot more wind turbines. Nuclear power, on the other hand, is geographically independent in terms of it's output.
  - reitzensteinm 6y ago
    Sorry I forget, what happened to the price of gasoline as it scaled up orders of magnitude?
    - Manfredo_1 6y ago
      The price increased. And this increase occurred over the span of a century, not a decade.
      - reitzensteinm 6y ago
jusssi 6y ago
Sure. Just make sure you don't ask the French to build your plants. It's 2020 now and we're still waiting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Unit_3 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
- Manfredo_1 6y ago
  Cherry-picking an individual plant doesn't change the fact that France produces electricity with much less carbon than most other countries, and often at an even cheaper cost.
  - jusssi 6y ago
    Feel free to cherry-pick a recent success story from Areva / Framatome to counter mine.
    - Manfredo_1 6y ago
      2 EPRs built for $3.25B each: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taishan_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taishan_Nuclear_Power_Plant

jka 6y ago

Your arguments are the most compelling I've seen so far for more nuclear as opposed to renewables. I'm still leaning towards renewables for various reasons, but could be swayed - could you share any more details about where the 12 hour capacity requirement and costs mentioned come from?

Manfredo_1 6y ago
12 hours of capacity would still leave 20% of electricity to be fulfilled by fossil fuels. To get to 100% renewable we'd need 3 weeks of storage: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-storage-80-percent-wind-solar/#:~:text=Team-,12%20hours%20of%20energy%20storage%20enough%20for%20U.S.%20to%20run,3%20weeks%20of%20energy%20storage https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
DoctorOetker 6y ago
please don't be swayed, he uses lots logical phallusese, in this thread for example: taking the US electric consumption at face value as being the power to be displaced 12 hours. note how this assumes that every joule you consume must have come from the storage system as if there were zero overlap between consumption and demand such that all energy had to pass indirectly through the battery system also note how he typically treats reminders by others as claims of silver bullet panaceas: even if governments had devoted to fully switching to renewables and had solid plans distributed over multiple sources (solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, ...) and over multiple storage systems (synthetic fuel, batteries, flywheels, ...) in a way it sufficed our needs, it's not surprising that pointing at just one energy source or just one storage type, you'd arrive to the conclusion batteries, or solar won't suffice... even though in combination they might.
- Manfredo_1 6y ago
  > please don't be swayed, he uses lots logical phallusese, in this thread for example: taking the US electric consumption at face value as being the power to be displaced 12 hours. Excellent point: The power that's going to be displaced is during the evening and night, which is when peak energy consumption occurs. The power that's going to be displaced is even greater! > note how this assumes that every joule you consume must have come from the storage system as if there were zero overlap between consumption and demand such that all energy had to pass indirectly through the battery system I do no such thing, not all energy needs to pass through the battery system. Of course daytime energy use can draw on solar panels directly. > also note how he typically treats reminders by others as claims of silver bullet panaceas: even if governments had devoted to fully switching to renewables and had solid plans distributed over multiple sources (solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, ...) and over multiple storage systems (synthetic fuel, batteries, flywheels, ...) in a way it sufficed our needs, it's not surprising that pointing at just one energy source or just one storage type, you'd arrive to the conclusion batteries, or solar won't suffice... even though in combination they might. In combination they might suffice. Do we want to bet averting climate catastrophe on a solution that might work? Or on a solution that does work? We know that nuclear power can power all of a nation's energy demands. We have firsthand examples of this happening. It's not contingent on unproven technologies like synthetic fuels, grid-scale batteries, or massive farms of flywheels.

reitzensteinm 6y ago

You don't need a "miracle". Hornsdale was installed for $500/kWh, which works out to $125/MWh of storage at 4000 cycles. Prices have already decreased by over 30%, so we're probably at $100/MWh today. If you need to store half your generation on a diurnal cycle, add it on to the LCOE of ~$50/MWh for utility scale solar, and you are cost competitive with the LCOE of nuclear today. Lithium battery production is going to skyrocket regardless of whether it's used for grid storage; we're going to need enough for a billion cars over the next decades, even if the world converted to nuclear. Prices will continue to fall just as they have. I am a strong believer that we should have embraced nuclear, given what we know now about climate change. But starting in 2020 with next to nothing, we're just now passing parity where renewables are starting to win, and the gap is going to get larger.

Manfredo_1 6y ago
$500 KWh is still much more expensive nuclear. Furthermore competition with electric vehicles isn't going to decrease battery cost, it's going to increase it. More demand for a constrained supply leads to higher prices. Wind is also geographically dependent, not all regions are capable of generating wind power at the same cost as Hornsdale. If your wind averages half the average wind speed you're going to have to build a lot more wind turbines. Nuclear power, on the other hand, is geographically independent in terms of it's output.
- reitzensteinm 6y ago
  Sorry I forget, what happened to the price of gasoline as it scaled up orders of magnitude?
  - Manfredo_1 6y ago
    The price increased. And this increase occurred over the span of a century, not a decade.
    - reitzensteinm 6y ago

jusssi 6y ago

Sure. Just make sure you don't ask the French to build your plants. It's 2020 now and we're still waiting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Unit_3 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plan...

Manfredo_1 6y ago
Cherry-picking an individual plant doesn't change the fact that France produces electricity with much less carbon than most other countries, and often at an even cheaper cost.
- jusssi 6y ago
  Feel free to cherry-pick a recent success story from Areva / Framatome to counter mine.
  - Manfredo_1 6y ago
    2 EPRs built for $3.25B each: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taishan_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taishan_Nuclear_Power_Plant