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I don't see why we need this so called baseline. It is an outdated concept pushed by the nuclear industry. We need (i) to harness the cheap energy coming from t

I don't see why we need this so called baseline. It is an outdated concept pushed by the nuclear industry. We need (i) to harness the cheap energy coming from the sun and the wind and (ii) another source of energy to make up shortages when solar and wind are unavailable. The source (ii) should be able to be ramped up and shut down quickly, which is a requirement where nuclear flat out fails. The baseline concept of a power source that is steady and cannot be quickly shut down or ramped up (i.e., nuclear or coal) really does not make sense in a world where you have access to very cheap but somewhat unpredictable sources of energy. Ideally, source (ii) would be electricity storage. This is not available now at the necessary scale (but it is getting closer and closer to reality). So the other alternatives are hydro (ideal if available in your environment, but not always available) and gas. Nuclear doesn't enter into it. Starting up and stopping nuclear reactors is a difficult time consuming process that cannot be done on demand. And yes Gas is falling on its face right now, but that is not due to any fundamental limitations of gas. It is because a lot of the US nat gas is mined and transported in Texas and the Texans did not winterize their equipment. I expect renewables will keep increasing in combination with gas, until power storage becomes available.

lsllc 6y ago
The UK has Dinorwig Power Station which is a pumped storage hydro station to supply spot demand when it's time for tea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station But at the end of the day, it uses more energy than it generates due to the inefficiencies of pumping water up to the top of the mountain (basically, it's playing arbitrage with spot electricity pricing & demand).
- hristov 6y ago
  By hydro i did not mean pumped storage hydro but ordinary dam hydro. It does not technically store energy but it is a very effective on demand power producer because you can turn it on or off at will (provided there is enough water in the reservoir). Also, it is very good for intermittent generation, because when you stop it, you can fill up the water in the reservoir and give yourself potential energy for the next time you start it up. It does in a way store energy, it stores the energy of rivers, not of electricity. Of course whether you can access it depends on your environment. You have to have convenient rivers to dam up, and you have to have no water shortages. In a case of water shortage the decision to let water out or not is usually made based on water needs, not electricity needs.
  - cbmuser 6y ago
    Hydro has very specific geographical requirements and in countries like Germany, all almost all potential for hydro power has already been put to use and yet it provides only a fraction of the electricity generation here. Hydro only plays a large role world-wide in countries with low population densities such as Norway.
  - Dma54rhs 6y ago
    The geographical requirements are way too big for hydro, destroys nature, the possibility of disasters.
cbmuser 6y ago
> I don't see why we need this so called baseline. It is an outdated concept pushed by the nuclear industry. That’s a lie spread by the renewables lobby. Of course, there is always a certain level of electricity generation that is needed as most people like to use their fridges, AC and computers 24/7. And then you have things like traffic infrastructure, hospitals, gas stations which operate 24/7. I don’t know about the US, but in Germany only 25% of the electricity is consumed by private households, 75% by industry, traffic and businesses. The result is that in Germany the demand never goes below 50 GW and normally peaks at around 75-80 GW. The demand function pretty much oscillates like a sine function.
- hristov 6y ago
  What you are saying is true but irrelevant. Yes there is a baseline of demand. But that does not mean that there is a requirement for a similar supply. The demand you described can be supplied by cheap renewables, complemented by gas or hydro as I discussed above.
- hnick 6y ago
  > Of course, there is always a certain level of electricity generation that is needed as most people like to use their fridges, AC and computers 24/7. This is true but let me summarise my understanding which might be incorrect, and is based off this article and similar ones. I'd like to know where it's wrong? https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-10-12/renewable-energy-baseload-power/9033336 https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-10-12/renewable-ene... Basically, there is a minimum amount of power a traditional power plant can generate before needing to turn off, which is slow and costly. "Base load" is this minimum amount that is generated onto the grid and it is priced accordingly at off-peak times so demand will increase and consume it without power stations losing money by burning fuel to waste power, or having to turn off. With renewables in the picture, they eat into this base load demand. Now when demand is lower, renewables might still be outputting power at little to no marginal cost, and homes are not pulling from the grid. The traditional plants are burning fuel but they have to sell it at a loss or dump the power (maybe batteries can help them here). This means that, as we get more and more renewable sources online, traditional plants are actually bad for base load (in the modern use of the term) generation. A lot of the time they can't come online fast enough to fill a slump if renewables drop, which means they are idling and losing money the rest of the time when renewables are flourishing. This means we need rapid response sources, like batteries (seconds) or gas (tens of minutes) rather than the traditional sources (coal) which take hours.

lsllc 6y ago

The UK has Dinorwig Power Station which is a pumped storage hydro station to supply spot demand when it's time for tea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station But at the end of the day, it uses more energy than it generates due to the inefficiencies of pumping water up to the top of the mountain (basically, it's playing arbitrage with spot electricity pricing & demand).

hristov 6y ago
By hydro i did not mean pumped storage hydro but ordinary dam hydro. It does not technically store energy but it is a very effective on demand power producer because you can turn it on or off at will (provided there is enough water in the reservoir). Also, it is very good for intermittent generation, because when you stop it, you can fill up the water in the reservoir and give yourself potential energy for the next time you start it up. It does in a way store energy, it stores the energy of rivers, not of electricity. Of course whether you can access it depends on your environment. You have to have convenient rivers to dam up, and you have to have no water shortages. In a case of water shortage the decision to let water out or not is usually made based on water needs, not electricity needs.
- cbmuser 6y ago
  Hydro has very specific geographical requirements and in countries like Germany, all almost all potential for hydro power has already been put to use and yet it provides only a fraction of the electricity generation here. Hydro only plays a large role world-wide in countries with low population densities such as Norway.
- Dma54rhs 6y ago
  The geographical requirements are way too big for hydro, destroys nature, the possibility of disasters.

cbmuser 6y ago

> I don't see why we need this so called baseline. It is an outdated concept pushed by the nuclear industry. That’s a lie spread by the renewables lobby. Of course, there is always a certain level of electricity generation that is needed as most people like to use their fridges, AC and computers 24/7. And then you have things like traffic infrastructure, hospitals, gas stations which operate 24/7. I don’t know about the US, but in Germany only 25% of the electricity is consumed by private households, 75% by industry, traffic and businesses. The result is that in Germany the demand never goes below 50 GW and normally peaks at around 75-80 GW. The demand function pretty much oscillates like a sine function.

hristov 6y ago
What you are saying is true but irrelevant. Yes there is a baseline of demand. But that does not mean that there is a requirement for a similar supply. The demand you described can be supplied by cheap renewables, complemented by gas or hydro as I discussed above.
hnick 6y ago
> Of course, there is always a certain level of electricity generation that is needed as most people like to use their fridges, AC and computers 24/7. This is true but let me summarise my understanding which might be incorrect, and is based off this article and similar ones. I'd like to know where it's wrong? https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-10-12/renewable-energy-baseload-power/9033336 https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-10-12/renewable-ene... Basically, there is a minimum amount of power a traditional power plant can generate before needing to turn off, which is slow and costly. "Base load" is this minimum amount that is generated onto the grid and it is priced accordingly at off-peak times so demand will increase and consume it without power stations losing money by burning fuel to waste power, or having to turn off. With renewables in the picture, they eat into this base load demand. Now when demand is lower, renewables might still be outputting power at little to no marginal cost, and homes are not pulling from the grid. The traditional plants are burning fuel but they have to sell it at a loss or dump the power (maybe batteries can help them here). This means that, as we get more and more renewable sources online, traditional plants are actually bad for base load (in the modern use of the term) generation. A lot of the time they can't come online fast enough to fill a slump if renewables drop, which means they are idling and losing money the rest of the time when renewables are flourishing. This means we need rapid response sources, like batteries (seconds) or gas (tens of minutes) rather than the traditional sources (coal) which take hours.