7 ms·

Cost is irrelevant if you can’t store the energy generated. Nuclear is predictable and carbon free. Look at France.

Gwypaas 5y ago
Solar + 4 hours of storage clocking in at $40/MWh in ideal conditions. Substitute for windpower and some worse conditions and nuclear energy still look awful from a cost perspective. https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-than-24gwh-of-batteries-included-in-its-us-solar-plus-storage-pipeline/ https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-...
- criley2 5y ago
  Something about wind and solar isn't working to meet the increasing demands in Germany https://www.dw.com/en/germany-coal-tops-wind-as-primary-electricity-source/a-59168105 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-coal-tops-wind-as-primary-elec... From 2020 to 2021, Coal is up 8%, Wind is down 7%, Solar is down 1%. Non-renewable in total is up 8% and renewable is down 8%. If they can find a battery solution that actually works, then that would be amazing, but existing solutions clearly aren't cutting it. While it might cost more, nuclear power is extremely reliable and offers energy independence, a form of national security that is vital with Russian pipelines strongly influencing the geopolitics of the region. I hope better batteries can offer them the same, because it's sad watching coal expand dramatically.
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    You should look at longer time periods instead of just looking at one year. Year to year variability could be big due to a variety of reasons.
    - criley2 5y ago
      When it comes to consistent power generation, Germans can't just wait until next year. Wind power has it's ups and downs, which is why you need a lot more of it than coal or nuclear to meet the same demand.
- loeg 5y ago
  Correct me if I'm mistaken, but does night time in Germany sometimes exceed four hours?
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    At $40/MWh, you just triple it down and still come out ahead. I doubt that article is correct.
  - dahfizz 5y ago
    Yeah, people really underestimate the scale of the storage problem for solar. Energy usage peaks around 6pm[1], while the amount of energy solar can produce is trending towards zero. Without significant storage capability (i.e. enough to supply ~a days electricity), solar energy has a pretty limited use case in a real-time electric grid. [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915
  - jhgb 5y ago
    Perhaps, but wind power also tends to peak at night.
    - nradov 5y ago
      Wind speeds near the ground peak in the early afternoon. Higher altitude winds peak at night, but you need quite a large turbine to catch those. Sometimes there's no wind for days at a time. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/27/11/jcli-d-13-00286.1.xml https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/27/11/jcli-d...
      - jhgb 5y ago
        Quoting from your link: "It is found that daily extreme wind speeds at 10 m are most likely in the early afternoon, whereas those at 200 m are most likely in between midnight and sunrise" Ground is irrelevant; there's a reason why wind turbines are being put on top of tall towers.
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  The problem is storing enough renewable energy for baseline power for a whole country. Things that work at a small scale don't necessarily work at massive scale.
- incrudible 5y ago
  There is no storage solution. The required amount of batteries would be enormous, well in excess of production capacity. The only feasible solution to even out throths is (natural) gas plants. Neither coal nor nuclear are quickly adjustable in output, when combined with wind/solar they lead to peaks of overproduction. This is the situation in Germany.
KennyBlanken 5y ago
Nuclear is massive-grid-scale base load only in a world that does not need more base load nor massive grid-scale generation. Everything about nuclear is slow, difficult, expensive, dangerous. They are increasingly not handling climate change well. They are decade-scale projects that take a long, long time to become carbon neutral; we cannot wait that long. * Solar and wind are here to stay and they mean we need fast-reacting spare capacity and storage. Nuclear power plants are very slow to react and because they are so monumentally expensive they have to run at as high capacity as possible, as much as possible. They are strictly base load. * Siting a nuclear power plant is very difficult just in terms of geology. Siting a nuclear power plant is very difficult grid-wise as well, because they are only cost-effective at massive scale. Super-high-voltage DC transmission systems can help, but they only tack on more to the project cost. You can't just inject gigawatts of power anywhere you want. And it isn't just injection that is the problem. Nuclear power plants that are not producing power need massive amounts of electricity to get things like cooling pumps running or keep them running until everything is up to temperature and you can get the turbines up to temperature and speed. Then there's the matter of needing sufficient cooling - usually done via river, ocean, or lake. Except climate change and other factors are making those sources of cooling increasingly unreliable (for example: invasive species like zebra mussels have made life hell for a lot of power plants) * Nuclear power plants require lots of highly trained people to design, operate, and maintain. More power plants means more of them. Training them up isn't a short term affair. Solar and wind require far less of all of this. And frankly, I have serious doubts about societal stability in 20-30 years, and nuclear power plants are not even remotely friendly to any sort of societal instability. Not just in terms of security, but upkeep. They have very complex, deep supply chain needs. * Building nuclear power plants from the start of planning to grid synchronization takes a decade or two, and it then takes another decade or so for the plant to become carbon-neutral in part due to the massive amount of concrete they require. Right now, we need to be reducing carbon footprint as much as possible, as fast as possible. Not causing huge increases in carbon footprint that will only balance out well past catastrophic climate conditions. * Nuclear reactor containment vessels can only be constructed by a small handful of facilities and their capacity is very limited, and by and large already spoken for. We can't just wave a wand and start building more reactors tomorrow. Or even in the next several years. * Nuclear waste may be a "solved" problem tech-wise as nuclear power proponents are fond of saying, but reality is that nuclear waste is a huge problem. Even short-term storage is a problem, as demonstrated, again, by Fukashima where fuel cooling ponds caught on fire. Time and time again we demonstrate that we are not responsible enough to handle nuclear power; we've had numerous military nuclear power disasters; the commercial ones haven't stopped, either. A "1st world" country, arguably one of the most technologically advanced ones around, repeatedly bumbled every aspect of Fukashima, starting with the plant's design, its maintenance and procedures, and the response to the incident. What was Japan's excuse? How many Mulligans does nuclear power need? You know what happens when a solar or wind power plant is incompetently designed or run? A bunch of people lose lots of money. You don't end up with thousands of square miles of land uninhabitable. You don't need people with years of training supervising a bunch of solar panels. Maintenance on a wind turbine is a standard-industrial-equipment sort of job, no bunny suits required. You know what happens when a country with solar or wind power has a government that is full of incompetent suit-stuffing chair-warming morons, or gets taken over by a despot dictator, or has an economic collapse? Nothing. If you want to look to the future in power grids, look at the iron chemistry liquid batteries that are non-toxic and almost trivial to deploy at electrical substations. They can provide spare capacity at the neighborhood/regional level while helping balance distribution loads and allow those neighborhoods to continue to function in isolation in the event of transmission grid problems.

Solar + 4 hours of storage clocking in at $40/MWh in ideal conditions. Substitute for windpower and some worse conditions and nuclear energy still look awful from a cost perspective. https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-than-24gwh-of-batteries-included-in-its-us-solar-plus-storage-pipeline/ https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-...

criley2 5y ago
Something about wind and solar isn't working to meet the increasing demands in Germany https://www.dw.com/en/germany-coal-tops-wind-as-primary-electricity-source/a-59168105 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-coal-tops-wind-as-primary-elec... From 2020 to 2021, Coal is up 8%, Wind is down 7%, Solar is down 1%. Non-renewable in total is up 8% and renewable is down 8%. If they can find a battery solution that actually works, then that would be amazing, but existing solutions clearly aren't cutting it. While it might cost more, nuclear power is extremely reliable and offers energy independence, a form of national security that is vital with Russian pipelines strongly influencing the geopolitics of the region. I hope better batteries can offer them the same, because it's sad watching coal expand dramatically.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  You should look at longer time periods instead of just looking at one year. Year to year variability could be big due to a variety of reasons.
  - criley2 5y ago
    When it comes to consistent power generation, Germans can't just wait until next year. Wind power has it's ups and downs, which is why you need a lot more of it than coal or nuclear to meet the same demand.
loeg 5y ago
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but does night time in Germany sometimes exceed four hours?
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  At $40/MWh, you just triple it down and still come out ahead. I doubt that article is correct.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  Yeah, people really underestimate the scale of the storage problem for solar. Energy usage peaks around 6pm[1], while the amount of energy solar can produce is trending towards zero. Without significant storage capability (i.e. enough to supply ~a days electricity), solar energy has a pretty limited use case in a real-time electric grid. [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915
- jhgb 5y ago
  Perhaps, but wind power also tends to peak at night.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Wind speeds near the ground peak in the early afternoon. Higher altitude winds peak at night, but you need quite a large turbine to catch those. Sometimes there's no wind for days at a time. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/27/11/jcli-d-13-00286.1.xml https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/27/11/jcli-d...
    - jhgb 5y ago
      Quoting from your link: "It is found that daily extreme wind speeds at 10 m are most likely in the early afternoon, whereas those at 200 m are most likely in between midnight and sunrise" Ground is irrelevant; there's a reason why wind turbines are being put on top of tall towers.
Mikeb85 5y ago
The problem is storing enough renewable energy for baseline power for a whole country. Things that work at a small scale don't necessarily work at massive scale.
incrudible 5y ago
There is no storage solution. The required amount of batteries would be enormous, well in excess of production capacity. The only feasible solution to even out throths is (natural) gas plants. Neither coal nor nuclear are quickly adjustable in output, when combined with wind/solar they lead to peaks of overproduction. This is the situation in Germany.

KennyBlanken 5y ago

Nuclear is massive-grid-scale base load only in a world that does not need more base load nor massive grid-scale generation. Everything about nuclear is slow, difficult, expensive, dangerous. They are increasingly not handling climate change well. They are decade-scale projects that take a long, long time to become carbon neutral; we cannot wait that long. * Solar and wind are here to stay and they mean we need fast-reacting spare capacity and storage. Nuclear power plants are very slow to react and because they are so monumentally expensive they have to run at as high capacity as possible, as much as possible. They are strictly base load. * Siting a nuclear power plant is very difficult just in terms of geology. Siting a nuclear power plant is very difficult grid-wise as well, because they are only cost-effective at massive scale. Super-high-voltage DC transmission systems can help, but they only tack on more to the project cost. You can't just inject gigawatts of power anywhere you want. And it isn't just injection that is the problem. Nuclear power plants that are not producing power need massive amounts of electricity to get things like cooling pumps running or keep them running until everything is up to temperature and you can get the turbines up to temperature and speed. Then there's the matter of needing sufficient cooling - usually done via river, ocean, or lake. Except climate change and other factors are making those sources of cooling increasingly unreliable (for example: invasive species like zebra mussels have made life hell for a lot of power plants) * Nuclear power plants require lots of highly trained people to design, operate, and maintain. More power plants means more of them. Training them up isn't a short term affair. Solar and wind require far less of all of this. And frankly, I have serious doubts about societal stability in 20-30 years, and nuclear power plants are not even remotely friendly to any sort of societal instability. Not just in terms of security, but upkeep. They have very complex, deep supply chain needs. * Building nuclear power plants from the start of planning to grid synchronization takes a decade or two, and it then takes another decade or so for the plant to become carbon-neutral in part due to the massive amount of concrete they require. Right now, we need to be reducing carbon footprint as much as possible, as fast as possible. Not causing huge increases in carbon footprint that will only balance out well past catastrophic climate conditions. * Nuclear reactor containment vessels can only be constructed by a small handful of facilities and their capacity is very limited, and by and large already spoken for. We can't just wave a wand and start building more reactors tomorrow. Or even in the next several years. * Nuclear waste may be a "solved" problem tech-wise as nuclear power proponents are fond of saying, but reality is that nuclear waste is a huge problem. Even short-term storage is a problem, as demonstrated, again, by Fukashima where fuel cooling ponds caught on fire. Time and time again we demonstrate that we are not responsible enough to handle nuclear power; we've had numerous military nuclear power disasters; the commercial ones haven't stopped, either. A "1st world" country, arguably one of the most technologically advanced ones around, repeatedly bumbled every aspect of Fukashima, starting with the plant's design, its maintenance and procedures, and the response to the incident. What was Japan's excuse? How many Mulligans does nuclear power need? You know what happens when a solar or wind power plant is incompetently designed or run? A bunch of people lose lots of money. You don't end up with thousands of square miles of land uninhabitable. You don't need people with years of training supervising a bunch of solar panels. Maintenance on a wind turbine is a standard-industrial-equipment sort of job, no bunny suits required. You know what happens when a country with solar or wind power has a government that is full of incompetent suit-stuffing chair-warming morons, or gets taken over by a despot dictator, or has an economic collapse? Nothing. If you want to look to the future in power grids, look at the iron chemistry liquid batteries that are non-toxic and almost trivial to deploy at electrical substations. They can provide spare capacity at the neighborhood/regional level while helping balance distribution loads and allow those neighborhoods to continue to function in isolation in the event of transmission grid problems.