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It frustrates me how most analysis of wind and solar cost-effectiveness fail to take into account the need to have tons of backup infrastructure that lays fallo

It frustrates me how most analysis of wind and solar cost-effectiveness fail to take into account the need to have tons of backup infrastructure that lays fallow most of the time. You need to decide between poor grid reliability or drastically increased capital expenditures. Hopefully storage tech will get better and this will cease to be such a problem.

ARandomerDude 6y ago
You're right but you're getting downvoted by people who believe anything Big Green tells them. It's just like Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, etc.: all the suckers bought the religion and won't know they're suckers for 40 years. By that time a new, equally unsuspecting generation will mock us while swallowing the next Big Industry talking points uncritically.
fghorow 6y ago
"...lays fallow most of the time." https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-02/tesla-battery-expanded-as-sa-energy-minister-lauds-benefits/12622382 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-02/tesla-battery-expande...
- mlyle 6y ago
  Batteries solve a different problem. They can smooth over daily shortfalls, but aren't so great when you have a week-long aberration. To fix that, you need significant overprovisioning or alternate means of generation. That is, if you depend upon wind and wind is screwed up for a week... batteries aren't going to let you stretch limited solar all night long.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    > To fix that, you need significant overprovisioning or alternate means of generation. They have alternate means of generation... natural gas. There is a big problem with wells shutting down due to the same extremes which shut down wind. Which has caused shortages of natural gas which is doubly problematic because it's also used extensively for heating. What do you do when your backup power is vulnerable to the same issues as your primary power? It is arguably a fantastic example of where nuclear power excels. Particularly if you had a nuclear plant which ran well below capacity most of the time and ramped up when we have extreme needs.
    - mlyle 6y ago
      > It is arguably a fantastic example of where nuclear power excels. Particularly if you had a nuclear plant which ran well below capacity most of the time and ramped up when we have extreme needs. Right now that's awful, because most of the cost of nuclear plants is the capital costs. Paying a bunch of depreciation on something you don't use 24/7 is dubious. Also nuclear tends not to ramp very quickly. I'm pro-nuclear, but for nighttime base load + power-to-gas and filling other storage in the day.
      - ogre_codes 6y ago
        I should have stuck to my main point which is that they actually did have traditional backup power which is also offline.
    - unreal6 6y ago
      Do such nuclear power plants exist? I was under the impression that they provided consistent, baseline levels of power in most circumstances.
      - ogre_codes 6y ago
        You can definitely ramp up and down power generation at nuclear plants. Whether that makes sense economically is another question.
        mlyle 6y ago
        Nuclear plants are OK at this. The current fleet in North America can ramp at about 5% per minute from 50% to 100%. (Between 50% and less gets very slow). There's also concern that repeated ramping could greatly increase the amount of maintenance required. So, on the same order as a "fast" combined cycle plant and quicker than a older combined cycle ng plant. But.... pretty slow compared to the 4 minutes from 0 to 20% and 4 minutes from 20% to 100% for an open cycle gas turbine, and a fair degree of ability to react to "step" loads. So, if nuclear needed to, it could help out in grid stability operations, but you really need something very fast like hydro or open cycle NG plants (or batteries) to do most of the work.
  - RyanPringnitz 6y ago
    Hydro storage is gaining popularity. During the day, with over-provisioned daytime production, they pump water to higher elevation ponds. At night they let it flow down to the lower elevation ponds. These could still freeze and stop becoming viable sources of energy, but they are a non-lithium source for energy storage. If they could be kept warm enough to flow in these conditions, they could provide generous storage capacity.
    - mlyle 6y ago
      Yup, but most pumped hydro is relatively short term power storage, too. You really want something like power->gas->power to help fill in on the worst couple weeks per year.
- ARandomerDude 6y ago
  This battery is exactly the kind of backup infrastructure the parent was saying we need to account for, and and, to my sibling comment's point, an obvious submarine marketing blurb lazily "reported" by a news outlet.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> "Natural gas rose to a record $600 per million British thermal units in Oklahoma. And as much as half a million barrels a day of oil output in West Texas may be impacted by well shutdowns that began on Thursday because of the extreme cold." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-14/deep-freeze-sends-gas-soaring-to-600-over-the-long-u-s-weekend https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-14/deep-free... Energy planners didn't account for extreme weather, regardless of source.
- tomrod 6y ago
  They do, but they are planning on the common experience of extremes. Texas' weather is colder now than in the past 40 years.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    > Texas' weather is colder now than in the past 40 years. Yes. Thus "Extreme" weather. I was going to suggest it is likely due to climate change, but that is largely conjecture.
    - blake1 6y ago
      There likely is a climate change effect. Polar vortexes have been making deeper incursions into North America because of increased turbulence in the atmosphere, driven by the overall energy level. This about a pot, slowly boiling. As it gets hotter, it swirls more.
      - ogre_codes 6y ago
        Yeah, we've had a couple of major ice storms/ extreme snow here in the past 3 years too. It's a little disturbing when you realize they are hitting us at the expense of the North Pole.
plantain 6y ago
Or you just massively over-provision the renewable infrastructure. South Australia is aiming for 500%. https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-set-sights-on-stunning-new-target-of-500-pct-renewables-97917 https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-set-sights-on-st... The nature of the weather is that it is always windy somewhere - if you have a wide enough grid with enough overbuild, it doesn't have to be a problem. And when there's excess energy, people will find uses for it.

ARandomerDude 6y ago

You're right but you're getting downvoted by people who believe anything Big Green tells them. It's just like Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, etc.: all the suckers bought the religion and won't know they're suckers for 40 years. By that time a new, equally unsuspecting generation will mock us while swallowing the next Big Industry talking points uncritically.

fghorow 6y ago

"...lays fallow most of the time." https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-02/tesla-battery-expanded-as-sa-energy-minister-lauds-benefits/12622382 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-02/tesla-battery-expande...

mlyle 6y ago
Batteries solve a different problem. They can smooth over daily shortfalls, but aren't so great when you have a week-long aberration. To fix that, you need significant overprovisioning or alternate means of generation. That is, if you depend upon wind and wind is screwed up for a week... batteries aren't going to let you stretch limited solar all night long.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > To fix that, you need significant overprovisioning or alternate means of generation. They have alternate means of generation... natural gas. There is a big problem with wells shutting down due to the same extremes which shut down wind. Which has caused shortages of natural gas which is doubly problematic because it's also used extensively for heating. What do you do when your backup power is vulnerable to the same issues as your primary power? It is arguably a fantastic example of where nuclear power excels. Particularly if you had a nuclear plant which ran well below capacity most of the time and ramped up when we have extreme needs.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    > It is arguably a fantastic example of where nuclear power excels. Particularly if you had a nuclear plant which ran well below capacity most of the time and ramped up when we have extreme needs. Right now that's awful, because most of the cost of nuclear plants is the capital costs. Paying a bunch of depreciation on something you don't use 24/7 is dubious. Also nuclear tends not to ramp very quickly. I'm pro-nuclear, but for nighttime base load + power-to-gas and filling other storage in the day.
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      I should have stuck to my main point which is that they actually did have traditional backup power which is also offline.
  - unreal6 6y ago
    Do such nuclear power plants exist? I was under the impression that they provided consistent, baseline levels of power in most circumstances.
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      You can definitely ramp up and down power generation at nuclear plants. Whether that makes sense economically is another question.
      - mlyle 6y ago
        Nuclear plants are OK at this. The current fleet in North America can ramp at about 5% per minute from 50% to 100%. (Between 50% and less gets very slow). There's also concern that repeated ramping could greatly increase the amount of maintenance required. So, on the same order as a "fast" combined cycle plant and quicker than a older combined cycle ng plant. But.... pretty slow compared to the 4 minutes from 0 to 20% and 4 minutes from 20% to 100% for an open cycle gas turbine, and a fair degree of ability to react to "step" loads. So, if nuclear needed to, it could help out in grid stability operations, but you really need something very fast like hydro or open cycle NG plants (or batteries) to do most of the work.
- RyanPringnitz 6y ago
  Hydro storage is gaining popularity. During the day, with over-provisioned daytime production, they pump water to higher elevation ponds. At night they let it flow down to the lower elevation ponds. These could still freeze and stop becoming viable sources of energy, but they are a non-lithium source for energy storage. If they could be kept warm enough to flow in these conditions, they could provide generous storage capacity.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    Yup, but most pumped hydro is relatively short term power storage, too. You really want something like power->gas->power to help fill in on the worst couple weeks per year.
ARandomerDude 6y ago
This battery is exactly the kind of backup infrastructure the parent was saying we need to account for, and and, to my sibling comment's point, an obvious submarine marketing blurb lazily "reported" by a news outlet.

ogre_codes 6y ago

> "Natural gas rose to a record $600 per million British thermal units in Oklahoma. And as much as half a million barrels a day of oil output in West Texas may be impacted by well shutdowns that began on Thursday because of the extreme cold." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-14/deep-freeze-sends-gas-soaring-to-600-over-the-long-u-s-weekend https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-14/deep-free... Energy planners didn't account for extreme weather, regardless of source.

tomrod 6y ago
They do, but they are planning on the common experience of extremes. Texas' weather is colder now than in the past 40 years.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > Texas' weather is colder now than in the past 40 years. Yes. Thus "Extreme" weather. I was going to suggest it is likely due to climate change, but that is largely conjecture.
  - blake1 6y ago
    There likely is a climate change effect. Polar vortexes have been making deeper incursions into North America because of increased turbulence in the atmosphere, driven by the overall energy level. This about a pot, slowly boiling. As it gets hotter, it swirls more.
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      Yeah, we've had a couple of major ice storms/ extreme snow here in the past 3 years too. It's a little disturbing when you realize they are hitting us at the expense of the North Pole.

plantain 6y ago

Or you just massively over-provision the renewable infrastructure. South Australia is aiming for 500%. https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-set-sights-on-stunning-new-target-of-500-pct-renewables-97917 https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-set-sights-on-st... The nature of the weather is that it is always windy somewhere - if you have a wide enough grid with enough overbuild, it doesn't have to be a problem. And when there's excess energy, people will find uses for it.