4 ms·

There are lots of proven ways to store energy for fluctuations in load. Hydro storage and battery storage have both been proven at scale and battery storage in

There are lots of proven ways to store energy for fluctuations in load. Hydro storage and battery storage have both been proven at scale and battery storage in particular is dropping in price. Nuclear is very expensive in comparison.

jcun4128 5y ago
The moving mass batteries are interesting
- WJW 5y ago
  Interesting technically but not really economically. Gravity is just not a very strong force compared to chemical bonds so you need humongous amounts of mass and a fairly large height difference to store an equivalent amount of energy as a few containers worth of batteries. There is a reason that even though we've had the technology to make moving mass batteries for decades, the only form of such energy storage in operation today is pumped hydro.
melling 5y ago
20% of electricity in the United States is from nuclear. How many more decades before we can replace that with a renewable option? I’ve watched people like yourself be wrong for 2 decades. I suppose in another 5 decades you might be right. In the meantime, being wrong has a price as greenhouse emissions increase
- grey-area 5y ago
  I'm not sure which point you think you're refuting. Renewable options are here and are being used and grid storage is a solved problem, though with the current balkanised and underfunded state of the US grid it is unsurprising there are significant ongoing problems there caused by lack of long term investment in infrastructure. IMO existing nuclear plants should be kept until they can be replaced easily, and the US may well take decades to do so as they are very slow on the uptake. Other countries are doing a lot better, some have reached 100% power from renewables already for short periods of time and are on track to do it for long periods in the coming decades. Greenhouse emissions are not rising in the US, they are gradually falling as renewable options become cheaper and are built out and EVs spread: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_the_United_States#/media/File:Greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-gas_(2).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_th... I'd expect them to keep falling given transport and electricity generation are the main sources.
  - melling 5y ago
    Greenhouse gases have fallen in the United States because we have closed a lot of coal power plants and replaced them with natural gas. Emissions are increasing globally because we are building a lot of coal plants. The fact remains that we are at least 2 or 3 decades from renewables being able to replace fossil fuels for power generation That’s half a century of waiting
    - grey-area 5y ago
      Not even by your calculations is that half a century of waiting (30 years is not half a century!), but your 'fact' of a 2-3 decade wait are demonstrably wrong and unsupported by the evidence. Why do you insist on attempting to set renewables and nuclear in opposition? Scotland for example recently hit generation of 97% of demand from renewables in the year 2020. As part of a larger grid with appropriate balancing and storage, 100% renewables is absolutely doable, and as part of a grid with some base load generated from nuclear (as the US and UK for example already have and is not going away soon), it's definitely doable right now with sufficient will and resources: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56530424 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56530424 The only reason the US is trailing so far behind other countries is a lack of will to transition off fossil fuels, a chronic lack of investment in infrastructure and a balkanised electricity grid run for profit, all of which is fixable.
- datameta 5y ago
  In 20 years the cost of PV installations has decreased a magnitude. Lithium battery energy density has increased a magnitude while prices have fallen a magnitude. Maybe it's time to shift expectations as to what solar can achieve when properly integrated into the existing energy grid.
- ben_w 5y ago
  > How many more decades before we can replace that with a renewable option? Roughly one. According to Wikipedia, the US added 35 GW of each of PV and wind between 2016 and 2020, and has 95 GW of nuclear. Accounting for capacity factor, the quantity of renewables TWh produced roughly doubled, and is currently 14% vs. 20% for nuclear, but (worldwide at least) renewables are close to an exponential trend. The main constraint the USA should have here is storage and/or long-distance transmission. Such is exponential growth. Though you’re right: needlessly closing nuclear reactors is bad for the environment as the most important problem right now is the CO2. Coal needs to go first, then oil, then natural gas.
wavegeek 5y ago
> lots of proven ways None of which work beyond a few hours. The sheer number of batteries and the amount of pumped hydro needed is phenomenal. As one data point, Elon Musk's much heralded $100m battery in South Australia stores a few seconds of Australia's total energy use. A few tenths of a second for the US. When it is cloudy and there is no wind for a week, renewables are a complete failure. > is dropping in price Batteries have been dropping in price for 140 years. But the best batteries have only been getting better at about 7% per year. Specific technologies have improved faster than this early on in their lives (e.g. LiIon) but during most of this improvement they were far from the best.
FredPret 5y ago
Hydro has significant issues as well. You need a massive flooded area, displacing many people and animals, and you totally disrupt the downstream ecology of the river. (See the Aswan dam) It also doesn’t produce a ton of power. The Three Gorges Dam is a colossal project, displaced literally millions, cost a frightful amount of money, and produces 1% of China’s power. Also, if that thing ever breaks, many millions will die. Should have been a couple of small nuclear plants. Regarding hydro storage, it’s the same exact thing, except now you need two dams, one high and one low. This isn’t a practical solution everywhere, certainly not at a national scale.
- sasfasaf 5y ago
  " and produces 1% of China’s power." It produces 1% of the electricity used by CHINA the premier industrial and most populous country in the world and you dismiss it? Three Gorges was a mistake, but it generates power used by 13 million people. That is a ton of power. Most gas plants are in the 300 MW size, i.e. the 3GD is about 80 of them.
  - FredPret 5y ago
    That China has a lot of consumption is neither here nor there. My point is that they would have to build one hundred of these dams which is clearly totally impractical.
    - sasfasaf 5y ago
      I'm not arguing that 3GD wasn't stupid, just that it generates an insane amount of power. Either way, no more of them will be built - there are not many more gorges like that left.
      - FredPret 5y ago
        That’s my whole point. We can’t power the planet with hydro, nor should we try. We need heavy-duty nuclear plants for base load, solar for daytime peaks, and probably some natural gas here and there

jcun4128 5y ago

The moving mass batteries are interesting

WJW 5y ago
Interesting technically but not really economically. Gravity is just not a very strong force compared to chemical bonds so you need humongous amounts of mass and a fairly large height difference to store an equivalent amount of energy as a few containers worth of batteries. There is a reason that even though we've had the technology to make moving mass batteries for decades, the only form of such energy storage in operation today is pumped hydro.

melling 5y ago

20% of electricity in the United States is from nuclear. How many more decades before we can replace that with a renewable option? I’ve watched people like yourself be wrong for 2 decades. I suppose in another 5 decades you might be right. In the meantime, being wrong has a price as greenhouse emissions increase

grey-area 5y ago
I'm not sure which point you think you're refuting. Renewable options are here and are being used and grid storage is a solved problem, though with the current balkanised and underfunded state of the US grid it is unsurprising there are significant ongoing problems there caused by lack of long term investment in infrastructure. IMO existing nuclear plants should be kept until they can be replaced easily, and the US may well take decades to do so as they are very slow on the uptake. Other countries are doing a lot better, some have reached 100% power from renewables already for short periods of time and are on track to do it for long periods in the coming decades. Greenhouse emissions are not rising in the US, they are gradually falling as renewable options become cheaper and are built out and EVs spread: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_the_United_States#/media/File:Greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-gas_(2).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_th... I'd expect them to keep falling given transport and electricity generation are the main sources.
- melling 5y ago
  Greenhouse gases have fallen in the United States because we have closed a lot of coal power plants and replaced them with natural gas. Emissions are increasing globally because we are building a lot of coal plants. The fact remains that we are at least 2 or 3 decades from renewables being able to replace fossil fuels for power generation That’s half a century of waiting
  - grey-area 5y ago
    Not even by your calculations is that half a century of waiting (30 years is not half a century!), but your 'fact' of a 2-3 decade wait are demonstrably wrong and unsupported by the evidence. Why do you insist on attempting to set renewables and nuclear in opposition? Scotland for example recently hit generation of 97% of demand from renewables in the year 2020. As part of a larger grid with appropriate balancing and storage, 100% renewables is absolutely doable, and as part of a grid with some base load generated from nuclear (as the US and UK for example already have and is not going away soon), it's definitely doable right now with sufficient will and resources: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56530424 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56530424 The only reason the US is trailing so far behind other countries is a lack of will to transition off fossil fuels, a chronic lack of investment in infrastructure and a balkanised electricity grid run for profit, all of which is fixable.
datameta 5y ago
In 20 years the cost of PV installations has decreased a magnitude. Lithium battery energy density has increased a magnitude while prices have fallen a magnitude. Maybe it's time to shift expectations as to what solar can achieve when properly integrated into the existing energy grid.
ben_w 5y ago
> How many more decades before we can replace that with a renewable option? Roughly one. According to Wikipedia, the US added 35 GW of each of PV and wind between 2016 and 2020, and has 95 GW of nuclear. Accounting for capacity factor, the quantity of renewables TWh produced roughly doubled, and is currently 14% vs. 20% for nuclear, but (worldwide at least) renewables are close to an exponential trend. The main constraint the USA should have here is storage and/or long-distance transmission. Such is exponential growth. Though you’re right: needlessly closing nuclear reactors is bad for the environment as the most important problem right now is the CO2. Coal needs to go first, then oil, then natural gas.

wavegeek 5y ago

> lots of proven ways None of which work beyond a few hours. The sheer number of batteries and the amount of pumped hydro needed is phenomenal. As one data point, Elon Musk's much heralded $100m battery in South Australia stores a few seconds of Australia's total energy use. A few tenths of a second for the US. When it is cloudy and there is no wind for a week, renewables are a complete failure. > is dropping in price Batteries have been dropping in price for 140 years. But the best batteries have only been getting better at about 7% per year. Specific technologies have improved faster than this early on in their lives (e.g. LiIon) but during most of this improvement they were far from the best.

FredPret 5y ago

Hydro has significant issues as well. You need a massive flooded area, displacing many people and animals, and you totally disrupt the downstream ecology of the river. (See the Aswan dam) It also doesn’t produce a ton of power. The Three Gorges Dam is a colossal project, displaced literally millions, cost a frightful amount of money, and produces 1% of China’s power. Also, if that thing ever breaks, many millions will die. Should have been a couple of small nuclear plants. Regarding hydro storage, it’s the same exact thing, except now you need two dams, one high and one low. This isn’t a practical solution everywhere, certainly not at a national scale.

sasfasaf 5y ago
" and produces 1% of China’s power." It produces 1% of the electricity used by CHINA the premier industrial and most populous country in the world and you dismiss it? Three Gorges was a mistake, but it generates power used by 13 million people. That is a ton of power. Most gas plants are in the 300 MW size, i.e. the 3GD is about 80 of them.
- FredPret 5y ago
  That China has a lot of consumption is neither here nor there. My point is that they would have to build one hundred of these dams which is clearly totally impractical.
  - sasfasaf 5y ago
    I'm not arguing that 3GD wasn't stupid, just that it generates an insane amount of power. Either way, no more of them will be built - there are not many more gorges like that left.
    - FredPret 5y ago
      That’s my whole point. We can’t power the planet with hydro, nor should we try. We need heavy-duty nuclear plants for base load, solar for daytime peaks, and probably some natural gas here and there