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It's time we understand that renewables have a poor benefit/cost ratio when you compare it to nuclear. Renewables + batteries will NEVER supply enough energy i
by jokoon 6y ago
It's time we understand that renewables have a poor benefit/cost ratio when you compare it to nuclear.
Renewables + batteries will NEVER supply enough energy in a world that will require more electricity if it uses electric vehicles and move away from fossil fuels. The coal and gaz industry love renewables because you NEED gaz and coal if there's no wind or sun.
Please look at the number.
- pjc50 6y agoThis is not reflected in the actual electricity market prices.
- wtallis 6y agoIt's not clear to me how current market prices contain enough information to support or refute the assertion that renewables won't be able to supply enough for a hypothetical future where fossil fuels are no longer used even for transportation. I think you need to also demonstrate that renewable energy prices can remain low even when required to scale up significantly beyond current levels, and that we won't run out of locations amenable to cheap and easy deployment of wind, solar and hydro power.
- EricE 6y agoDrop the solar subsidies and then let’s talk about “market” prices.
- adrianN 6y agoThere are many solar plants around the world that produce cheap power without subsidies.
- EricE 6y agoYup - but they aren’t everywhere. Power transmission doesn’t happen without loss. One of the many issues with solar that doesn’t get addressed. Don’t get me wrong - I’m a huge proponent of solar when it make sense. I grew up in the Desert Southwest so it can make a lot of sense there in particular. But solar is NOT a replacement for technology like nuclear energy.
- dukeyukey 6y agoMy understanding that is wind/solar are significantly cheaper than nuclear is on a cost basis. The costs required to build and safely dismantle nuclear plants are major cost contributors. The downside of course is lack of baseload, which nuclear can cover quite happily, albeit at a higher cost.
- dimitrios1 6y agoWhich is an unfair point because we have yet to see what costs are associated with safely dismantling and replacing all those miles upon miles of solar panels and wind turbines will be. Nuclear has been deployed on a larger scale for a long time so the costs are known. How many miles of solar panels, wind turbines, and battery backup are needed to produce the same amount of energy as a single nuclear plant? I imagine if you do the math at scale, it turns out to be negligible, if not more expensive for renewables.
- bjourne 6y agoOld wind power plants are often repowered. Wind turbines that have reached their EOL are replaced with newer and more efficient ones, significantly incrasing the output of the plant: > “Repowering is happening and will increase. It’s a great opportunity to get more energy from today’s wind farms. Repowering reduces the number of turbines by a third while tripling the electricity output. And it preserves the existing wind farm sites which often have the best wind conditions. Governments need repowering strategies that set the right framework and ensure efficient permitting procedures for repowering”, says WindEurope CEO Giles Dickson. Most of the material used in wind turbines can be recycled: > Wind turbines are a valuable source of resources which can be reused in the circular economy. 85-90% of a dismantled wind turbine are recycled today, including the towers, foundations, generators and gearboxes. Most of these materials are made up of concrete, steel and cast iron which are easy to recycle and for which there is an active circular economy market in Europe. https://windeurope.org/newsroom/press-releases/what-happens-when-wind-turbines-get-old-new-industry-guidance-document-for-dismantling-and-decommissioning/ https://windeurope.org/newsroom/press-releases/what-happens-...
- dukeyukey 6y ago
- Diederich 6y agoI've been ardently pro nuclear for decades now. > Renewables + batteries will NEVER supply enough energy NEVER is a long, long time. We definitely need nuclear to step in for quite a while, but it's plausible that we can be completely renewable and non-nuclear some time in the future.
- enaaem 6y agoSome time can be a very long time. The goal of the current administration is to be net zero emission by 2050. If after a certain time, let’s say 2025, there are no major break throughs in storage technology, then we have to start building nuclear plants. It’s good that we are preparing for that scenario right now.
- Diederich 6y ago> ... If after a certain time... Why wait? I'm quite aware of the various downsides of nuclear. Yes, it's currently expensive. But one way or another, every functional nuclear power plant displaces several natural gas and coal plants. It's really that simple. If we assume that CH4 and CO2 emissions have a strong chance of being an existential threat to our civilization, then we can make no other option but to embrace nuclear ASAP, even with all of its problems. At the same time, pour funding into research: there's all kinds of fission technologies that show promise in safety, cost and in minimizing byproducts. Even more important, pour funding into batteries and other energy storage technologies. As far as renewables have come, we they have hardly scratched the surface for base load requirements. Except for hydro in some locations.
- enaaem 6y agoThe time is just an example. But I see that you get my point. We need concrete climate goals. We can't wait forever for a breakthrough in storage tech to happen "someday". To meet these climate goals, there has to be a deadline, maybe even tomorrow, where we have to place a bet on nuclear.
- elicash 6y ago
- xroche 6y agoThe other elephants in the room are (1) the material requirements (required metals, plastics, glass, electronics and reinforced concrete) per GWh, and (2) the required space per GWh (less space for buildings, fields or nature). And solar/wind are also "cheap" because they are mostly produced in mainland China, with coal and cheap labor (including "very cheap labor": https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/business/economy/china-solar-companies-forced-labor-xinjiang.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/business/economy/china-so...). Not a very sustainable solution...
- hinkley 6y agoAt this point it seems like, for nuclear to play a big role in the future power mix, someone needs to fund a program to develop carbon neutral concrete that still meets or exceeds the construction parameters for part - or preferably all - of the concrete used in building these plants. Since they use so much of it, that would build up capacity for other uses, and the subsidy doesn't even have to necessarily go straight to nuclear power, which might improve the optics. Here's a discount for specialty concrete that only nuclear plants and hydroelectric dams would be interested in...
- beders 6y agoThat is not true. Not by a long shot. We don't need nuclear at all. https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/CountriesWWS.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/Coun...
- smithza 6y agoI would rather have seen downvoters approach the merits of this claim in comments first. We do not need HN to turn into devolving to ad populum for every contentious topic.
- beders 6y agoI was willing to take the downvote hits. This narrative of "we need a baseload" or "the sun doesn't always shine" is just not countered often enough. WWS would be sufficient for the majority of countries around the world including the US and all it takes is the political will to implement this. Not technology.
- EricE 6y agoWWS doesn’t work without your diverse and distributed sources being interconnected. Which they conveniently hand wave off since that was a subject for another paper. If they had confidence in their ideas, they would at least summarize the findings of that paper that justify their implying the grid as not being an issue in the practicality of their plan. For example: even if the grid is 100% reliable (which - spoiler - it’s not), what are the sizing implications due to transmission loss? How do you get power across continents to have true geographic diversity? This paper presents all upside with no downside? Ha! Again, nice theory in a perfect world. We do not live in a perfect world.
- beders 6y agoThis is an article, not a paper.
- 6y ago
- N1H1L 6y ago> Renewables + batteries will NEVER supply enough energy in a world that will require more electricity if it uses electric vehicles and move away from fossil fuels. The coal and gaz industry love renewables because you NEED gaz and coal if there's no wind or sun. Let's see - the per capita total energy consumption - which includes transportation, industry, agriculture (everything) in the US is 80 MWh yearly[0]. The global population is expected to peak at 10 billion. Assuming the whole world consumes energy like a drunk sailor like the US does (and by the way, BEVs, for example, are twice as energy-efficient per mile than gasoline vehicles [1]) - that comes to 800 PWh. The average solar cell produces 150 watts per square meter[2]. Running at 6 hours per day for a year, thus a square meter produces 0.3285 MWh. Therefore you need 2.4 million sq. km of land to supply the total global energy consumption (where the average consumption is 15 times higher than current consumption) only through solar. How much land is it? Quite a lot - twice that of India, and a quarter of the Sahara desert[3]. But remember this is spread all over the world. As a percentage of the total land area, it's not even a single percent. Agriculture itself consumes 60 times more area than this. However, this is only from solar. The current state-of-the-art offshore turbines produce 15MW peak power already. Such a turbine has a rotor diameter of 236m. The optimal distance between turbines is 10D, where D is the rotor diameter [5]. Thus assuming a 50% capacity factor, an offshore wind farm produces 11.8 kWh per square meter per year. You would also need 12 million such turbines to supply the entire world's energy consumption per year. Assuming we get half of our annual energy consumption from offshore wind, you would need 33 million square kilometers covered in wind turbines. When it comes to areal efficiency wind, it is an order of magnitude worse than solar - however, the advantage is that the area is mostly free. Offshore turbines spaced kilometers apart can coexist easily with shipping lanes, while onshore turbines can and do exist without issues with ranches and farmland. By the way, the US coastline itself is 150,000km [6]. Thus, if you cover the coastline with turbines (only five deep), you can only generate the entire combined US energy demand from offshore wind. And we have not touched on rooftop solar and onshore wind at all. So I fail to see how renewables will NEVER supply enough energy to the world. References: [0] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=85&t=1 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=85&t=1 [1] https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/evtech.shtml#:~:text=EVs%20have%20several%20advantages%20over,to%20power%20at%20the%20wheels https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/evtech.shtml#:~:text=EVs%20h.... [2] https://www.solar-electric.com/learning-center/solar-insolation-maps.html/#:~:text=Modern%20solar%20panels%20are%20around,15%20watts%20per%20square%20foot https://www.solar-electric.com/learning-center/solar-insolat.... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara [4] https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1706915/vestas-launches-new-15mw-offshore-wind-turbine-236-metre-rotor https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1706915/vestas-laun... [5] https://www.pnas.org/content/116/29/14495 https://www.pnas.org/content/116/29/14495 [6] https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/shorelength.html#:~:text=NOAA's%20official%20value%20for%20the,how%20the%20shoreline%20is%20defined https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/shorelength.html#:~:text....