9 ms·

The data behind New York's increasingly dirty electricity peaks

70 points by stevenleeg 5y ago

q1w2 5y ago
> With no more carbon-free energy coming from Indian Point [nuclear plant], we see that natural gas and dual-fuel generation has filled the void and caused our grid to become more reliant on fossil fuels than it was two years ago. For all of the tough talk from New York’s politicians about tackling climate change, this is not the trajectory we should expect. This is the talking point that needs to make the rounds in the media. Shutting down nuclear plants is beyond idiotic. Environmental groups need to do a 180 on nuclear, and politicians supporting this need to lose all "green" support.
zdragnar 5y ago
I appreciate the analysis, though I am not sure that any of the results should surprise anyone. - NY is moving away from nuclear (counted under "clean") - none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output - all peaker plants and less-desirable and so less-fully-maximized sources fall under the dirty category. Sun not providing enough juice? Ramp up nat gas peaker plants No surprises here. We need batteries, more reliable clean base generation if we want to use less dirty peak generation.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  Why are they moving away from nuclear? They have a 100% carbon free target, which doesn't exclude nuclear and they intend to introduce a carbon price, which lets nuclear fight on an even ground with other carbon reduction moves. I guess it just didn't make sense financially?
  - throwaway946513 5y ago
    My knowledge with people in a midwestern 'urban' city tells me it's the NIMBYs who want the trend away from nuclear.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      Surprisingly, a decent chunk of America's nuclear reactors are in the midwest. Illinois and Pennsylvania are by and away the largest producers of nuclear energy in the US, with 11 and 9 reactors respectively.
      - pjlegato 5y ago
        Pennsylvania is not in the Midwest. According to most regionalization schemes, it's in either the Northeast or the Mid-Atlantic region. e.g.: https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/reference/us_regdiv.pdf https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/reference/us...
        ashtonkem 5y ago
        Being from Southern Ohio, I've always considered Pennsylvania to be Midwest. Maybe it's because the cultural difference between Eastern Ohio and Pennsylvania is much less marked than the difference between Southern Ohio and Kentucky.
        xxpor 5y ago
        Western PA is for all intents and purposes.
      - throwaway946513 5y ago
        If only my state would adopt cleaner electricity production more so than having predominant production from coal. There is 1 single small reactor supplying less than 10% of power.
      - selectodude 5y ago
        Nuclear power was invented in Illinois. They got the jump on it and it’s paid dividends for 60 years now.
        ashtonkem 5y ago
        Nuclear reactions were first mastered in Illinois, but arguably Idaho gets credit for the first generation of electricity via nuclear reactor with the 100kW EBR-1 in 1951. Credit for the first grid-tied nuclear power plant goes to the Soviets, with the commissioning of the the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant in 1954. Curiously the latter produced a miniscule amount of power by modern standards, with a mere 5MW of nameplate capacity.
  - cpwright 5y ago
    Cuomo and Riverkeeper entered into a deal with Entergy to shut down Indian Point Energy Center. I am personally disappointed because it provided good jobs in my community and 1/3 of my school district's revenue.
  - philipkglass 5y ago
    New York introduced subsidies to keep nuclear plants operating just a few years ago: "Five states have implemented programs to assist nuclear power plants" https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41534 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41534 It says that some nuclear plants in New York receive subsidies since 2017. I don't know what the New York selection criteria are. Maybe Indian Point just didn't qualify like other plants did, and (regrettably) shut down sooner as a consequence.
    - bobthepanda 5y ago
      Indian Point has always been a political flashpoint because of how close it is to NYC, just 36 miles north and in the middle of the suburban bits of the metro area.
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        >in the middle of the suburban bits of the metro area I.e. the rich people who have the spare fucks to give about this sort of thing. If it were in a crap neighborhood in Newark nobody would care.
  - tristor 5y ago
    > Why are they moving away from nuclear? Because in the US, Twitter determines policy priorities, not science or reason.
    - edmundsauto 5y ago
      The US has been nuclear hesitant since before Twitter was around. Perhaps it's gotten worse, although I think that would be difficult to prove causality.
    - xadhominemx 5y ago
      I think it’s more because, does it make sense to have a nuclear power plant so close to nyc. Even in a moderate fallout incident the city would have to be evacuated.
      - StanislavPetrov 5y ago
        >Even in a moderate fallout incident the city would have to be evacuated. This is exactly the problem when it comes to Indian Point. The only way out of New York is over a few bridges and tunnels. It isn't possible to evacuate even a fraction of the millions of people through a few bridges and tunnels if a radioactive plume is released only 36 miles away. There are arguments to be made for nuclear power, but that we should have one 36 miles from the most populous, densely packed city in the country, which also happens to be an island, is not one of them.
    - klyrs 5y ago
      My understanding of the situation is that it's a generational thing. Millenials and younger see nuclear power as much more appealing than folks over 40. So, not twitter.
      - notreallyserio 5y ago
        It was the opposite in 2012[0] but I haven't found more recent data. (Although their dividing line was 50, not 40). 0: https://news.gallup.com/poll/153452/americans-favor-nuclear-power-year-fukushima.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/153452/americans-favor-nuclear-...
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    It's a mix of economics, technical issues, politcs, and safety concerns. The economics of building or even operating nuclear power plants continues to be unfavourable relative to either wind/solar, or natural gas (for peaking plants). Nuclear has, of course, a smaller carbon footprint than gas, but until that is built into economics (through emissions costs or higher costs for natural gas fuel), that doesn't translate into a financial benefit. Long-term costs of nuclear have been rising whilst those of alternative renewable and low-carbon sources (notably solar and wind) have been falling for well over half a century. If you're hiring^Wbuying based on slope rather than intercept, nuclear is not attractive. Technically, nuclear power is poorly suited to peak-power loads. It doesn't ramp easily or quickly, and performs most economically when operated at constant power outputs. Gas (and hydroelectric or pumped-hydro storage) by contrast can follow demand-side changes rapidly, in a matter of minutes. For pairing with a variable-input solar-and-wind capability, something other than nuclear would be a better supply-side match. Pumped hydro, compressed-air energy storage (CAES), thermal-electric storage (e.g., molton salt), electric battery, load-banking (e.g., as thermal energy) or demand-side shaping (adjusting heavy loads to maximum generation) would be better fits. For now, natural gas turbine peaking plants fit the bill, though those also need phasing out. Politically nuclear power is a challenge for numerous reasons, spanning those I'm raising and with others. The economics make for challenging financing and popularity, with very long lead and pay-off times. Cancellations of plants during construction or operation means that potentially-realised benefits are lost with major costs. In many ways, nuclear solves the wrong power problems (though it does solve the right emissions problem). Nuclear continues to carry risks, and very-long-tailed ones, despite the claims of supporters. Many of those are not technical in nature, but operational, organisational, or reflect global threats outside the purvue of a utility itself. Nuclear plants typically have a paramilitary security presence armed, trained, and authorised to use lethal force. Relative to coal and oil plants, the net safety record is better, but one of the characteristics of nuclear power is the capability for things to go from operating very well to behaving exceeding poorly in a matter of minutes. This has happened repeatedly, across a wide range of designs, despite assertions of safety. Once things go poorly, then tend to remain that way for centuries or millennia. Long-term environmental consequences of fossil fuels notwithstanding, other power options don't have this specific handicap.
- 99_00 5y ago
  Is there a battery technology on the market that can be used at scale or do we need to wait for this to be invented?
  - cbhl 5y ago
    I believe "pumped water" is the currently available battery technology that has the capacities required, but I'm under the impression that it can't scale further (new dams / loss of green space)
    - q1w2 5y ago
      Any form of storage will have poor efficiency compared to primary production, particularly pumped water. We're talking about under 50% efficiency. Moreover, you need an absolute MASSIVE amount of storage to make intermittent sources like solar and wind equivalent to baseload power. In winter months, solar in New York will produce less than 5% what the same facility will produce in the summer. Shorter days, lower sun, snow, leaves, clouds... all contribute to this. One cloudy winter and the entire state would be without power - for weeks. It would be catastrophic. The size of the water reservoir needed to replace plants like Indian Point plant don't exist on the East coast. You would need to flood absolutely massive areas of land. Nuclear isn't an option. It's a necessity.
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        > Any form of storage will have poor efficiency compared to primary production, particularly pumped water. We're talking about under 50% efficiency. I've generally seen pumped-hydro quoted as 80% efficient.
      - Scoundreller 5y ago
        > In winter months, solar in New York will produce less than 5% what the same facility will produce in the summer. From the numbers I’ve seen, on rooftop systems, output is 2x in the 6 best months versus the 6 worst months: https://www.lighthousesolarny.com/blog/2017/february/the-seasonality-of-solar-energy-production/ https://www.lighthousesolarny.com/blog/2017/february/the-sea... But some of this summer production increase is by design: summer power is worth more on the grid, so you over-design to capture more sun in summer (steeper angles, ignorance of winter shadowing, reduced focus on winter cleaning/maintenance) at the cost of winter production. If you were building an off-grid system, the summer/winter discrepancy would be smaller. You might even overbuild for winter production at the cost of summer production.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  > We need batteries, more reliable clean base generation if we want to use less dirty peak generation. Options that are often cheaper than massive batteries and "more reliable clean base generation" by which I assume you mean "build new nuclear". - don't shut down existing nuclear - hydro as implicit or explicit storage - interconnecting regions - better green energy mix - overbuilding green production - geothermal - demand management aka variable pricing
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > - none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output Hydro scales on demand actually, somewhat slowly, but it does. Pumped Hydro in fact turns hydro power into a battery for perfect response vs demand. Nuclear can scale in theory: but its too expensive to scale down. The fuel is _basically_ free, so there's no point ramping nuclear power plants down. You spend all the money on safety / construction, very little on the ongoing costs.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    I think it's somewhat useful to actually list numbers in these discussions. Hydro is great, but it tends to produce quite a bit less power than most people imagine. A lot less once you consider the relative size of not just the dam, but the reservoir behind it as well[0]. The biggest Hydro plant in the US is the Grand Coulee dam in Washington, with a nameplate capacity of 6,809MW. This is pretty impressive, but it's a heck of a lot more than most hydro plants could ever hope to produce. Only one other dam beats out 3,000MW, barely, and most are in the ~2,500 MW range. Overall America has 79GW[1] worth of hydro power capacity. Now ~2,500MW per dam is a lot, but it's actually kind of low compared to nuclear power. America's newest operating power plant, Watts Bar, has a nameplate capacity of 2332MW, which would put it at number 6 in the hydro plants list. And Watts Bar is fairly small compared to most other nuclear power stations around, since it only has two reactors. 6-7GW nuclear power plants are far from unheard of[2], and most of the older French reactors hang out in the 3GW range. In places where hydro fits the geography, it's a great choice. Not without its tradeoffs, but miles better than coal or natural gas. But overall nuclear is still going to beat the pants out of it for versatility, and total generation capacity. 0 - To be fair, this can be a benefit in cases where you need to both generate electricity and store water for later use. 1 - Peak production. Yearly energy measured will be higher, roughly 270TWh, because there are a lot of hours in the year. Still a heck of a lot less than the ~800TWh of nuclear power we were making per year last year. 2 - Japan, China, and South Korea run a total of 5 nuclear plants with >6GW capacity. Japan and South Korea each have a plant with >7GW capacity. South Korea, Ukraine, China, and France run a combined seven reactors with a capacity between 5 and 6GW. The French reactors are interesting because they're all pretty old, from the 1980s, and were built and commissioned on a tight schedule, with an average construction time of 7 years.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  > Sun, wind [have] random output While true, they do correlate to demand. The sun is going to be the strongest when A/C demand is greatest, shaving peak demand. Same with wind: a hot wind in summer will drive A/C demand. Same in winter with winds driving resistive heating or the 1hp load from furnace circulating fans. This falls apart when your system becomes significantly double digit solar/wind, but smaller contributions should pair well with demand. Hydro can be the worst because you get the most supply at spring thaw, but this the 3rd or 4th lowest demand season.
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    You also need power to heat, and there's usually very little sun then... sometimes even no wind. Nuclear and thermal are both slow to ramp up and ramp down, and unusable for short term peaks. Hydro is actually great for that, because you can regulate the power production relatively fast (as long as you have enough water).
    - Scoundreller 5y ago
      > You also need power to heat Most heating in NY will be carbon-based. For now anyway.
  - greenyoda 5y ago
    > The sun is going to be the strongest when A/C demand is greatest Not necessarily. There are lots of hot summer days when the sky is cloudy. Also, there can be direct sunlight heating up NYC while there are clouds over the solar plant, which could be miles away.
    - Scoundreller 5y ago
      A/C isn’t just about resisting ambient temperature, but also solar gain. About the latter, that’s where smart grids come in. Clouds move and it’s incredibly unlikely to be sunny but cloudy a few miles away for an extended period of time. (Obvs don’t build solar where fog sits regularly).
- cesarb 5y ago
  > though I am not sure that any of the results should surprise anyone [...] none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output That does surprise me a lot. Here in Brazil, it's hydro which follows the load. Nuclear has fixed output (always the maximum except when it's offline), non-nuclear thermal is mostly constant (with large changes whenever generators are dispatched on or off), solar and wind do their own thing, and hydro is the one left to fill the gaps between generation and demand. See it for yourself at http://www.ons.org.br/paginas/energia-agora/carga-e-geracao http://www.ons.org.br/paginas/energia-agora/carga-e-geracao (select "SIN" on the first drop-down for the whole country); selecting "Geração Hidráulica" (hydro) on the second drop-down you can see how well the shape of the generation curve matches the shape of the demand curve at the top, while for instance "Geração Térmica" (non-nuclear thermal) is nearly flat.
- Krssst 5y ago
  > none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output Hydro can do load following. Nuclear can too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_following_power_plant#Load_following_power_plants https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_following_power_plant#L...
- blibble 5y ago
  France operates nuclear power stations in load following mode rather successfully
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
The post is at least up front that it's got an agenda that it's setting out to prove. A more standard measure of progress would be carbon intensity (carbon emitted per kWh generated) I have a hunch that it doesn't support this argument as the decision to bucket everything into "clean" or "dirty" is otherwise bizarre. It's also misses things like greater electrification which might be graded poorly on this, e.g. every car running on gas powered electricity is an improvement but will show up here as a bad thing.
- 99_00 5y ago
  >carbon emitted per kWh generated Is it? If an energy source requires natural gas or coal to deal with peaks of increasingly hot days, this doesn't tell the whole story. If we increase solar or wind to be a primary source, then we need to take into account the carbon cost of storage. Since this doesn't exist, it is an unknown. Finally, the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. Carbon emitted per kWh generated assumes it will be operating at 100% over its lifetime. So we will need an over capacity of wind and solar generators. The actual carbon emitted per kWh will be much higher.
  - sleepysysadmin 5y ago
    We will eventually get to a state where solar and wind is all we have/need. The requirement will be gridscale energy storage that contains enough storage for days of operation.
    - _-david-_ 5y ago
      Is "days" actually enough? What happens if there is a drought, clouds and no wind for more than "days"?
    - 99_00 5y ago
      The question is: should we be closing nuclear plants and filling the gap with natural gas and coal before we get there?
jplr8922 5y ago
Note : I am an ex quantitative and algorithmic power trader in the NYISO market I totally agree with the analysis and conclusion of this article. The power grid is is a complex legal, economic and engineering system where our usual political narratives cannot produce a valid analogy for our common understanding. Right now, most green power sources (except non run-of-the-mill hydro) have non-controlable and hardly predictable outputs. Wind is much harder to forecast than temperature, and not every market are equiped to deal with the new variability. This create price distortions and other unintended consequences. Pushing against nuclear when there are still coal power plants running is nonsense, and in my opinion proves that twitter beats sound policy in terms of political priorities. What I do not like in this article is the tendency to regroup all fuels type together and call them 'dirty'. Coal, natural gas and gasoline are not equals, and play different roles in electricity production...
- egberts1 5y ago
  that’s why he focused on carbon outputs.
- 7thaccount 5y ago
  How did you like being a trader?
  - jplr8922 5y ago
    I liked the 'data analysis' part, and 'buidling your own trading software part'. However the work environment was very toxic for me, and it ended in a minor burnout. Now I work as a kind of Product Owner in a startup where I highly respect my boss, and I am super happy about it!
    - 7thaccount 5y ago
      Gotcha. I work in this industry, but not as a trader. I figured it would be pretty rough. I too would also love to build my own software stack from the ground up.
- simonebrunozzi 5y ago
Shalomboy 5y ago
I really don't get the whining about categorizing Natural Gas and Coal as dirty. Hydrocarbons make CO2 as a byproduct of each molecular reaction. That isn't debatable! The thing I do want to debate is the classification of Hydro as Clean Energy. The meager power generation that hydroelectric dams produce isn't nearly enough to offset the environmental damage necessary to produce a hydroelectric reservoir.

70 points by stevenleeg 5y ago

q1w2 5y ago

> With no more carbon-free energy coming from Indian Point [nuclear plant], we see that natural gas and dual-fuel generation has filled the void and caused our grid to become more reliant on fossil fuels than it was two years ago. For all of the tough talk from New York’s politicians about tackling climate change, this is not the trajectory we should expect. This is the talking point that needs to make the rounds in the media. Shutting down nuclear plants is beyond idiotic. Environmental groups need to do a 180 on nuclear, and politicians supporting this need to lose all "green" support.

zdragnar 5y ago

I appreciate the analysis, though I am not sure that any of the results should surprise anyone. - NY is moving away from nuclear (counted under "clean") - none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output - all peaker plants and less-desirable and so less-fully-maximized sources fall under the dirty category. Sun not providing enough juice? Ramp up nat gas peaker plants No surprises here. We need batteries, more reliable clean base generation if we want to use less dirty peak generation.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Why are they moving away from nuclear? They have a 100% carbon free target, which doesn't exclude nuclear and they intend to introduce a carbon price, which lets nuclear fight on an even ground with other carbon reduction moves. I guess it just didn't make sense financially?
- throwaway946513 5y ago
  My knowledge with people in a midwestern 'urban' city tells me it's the NIMBYs who want the trend away from nuclear.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    Surprisingly, a decent chunk of America's nuclear reactors are in the midwest. Illinois and Pennsylvania are by and away the largest producers of nuclear energy in the US, with 11 and 9 reactors respectively.
    - pjlegato 5y ago
      Pennsylvania is not in the Midwest. According to most regionalization schemes, it's in either the Northeast or the Mid-Atlantic region. e.g.: https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/reference/us_regdiv.pdf https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/reference/us...
      - ashtonkem 5y ago
        Being from Southern Ohio, I've always considered Pennsylvania to be Midwest. Maybe it's because the cultural difference between Eastern Ohio and Pennsylvania is much less marked than the difference between Southern Ohio and Kentucky.
      - xxpor 5y ago
        Western PA is for all intents and purposes.
    - throwaway946513 5y ago
      If only my state would adopt cleaner electricity production more so than having predominant production from coal. There is 1 single small reactor supplying less than 10% of power.
    - selectodude 5y ago
      Nuclear power was invented in Illinois. They got the jump on it and it’s paid dividends for 60 years now.
      - ashtonkem 5y ago
        Nuclear reactions were first mastered in Illinois, but arguably Idaho gets credit for the first generation of electricity via nuclear reactor with the 100kW EBR-1 in 1951. Credit for the first grid-tied nuclear power plant goes to the Soviets, with the commissioning of the the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant in 1954. Curiously the latter produced a miniscule amount of power by modern standards, with a mere 5MW of nameplate capacity.
- cpwright 5y ago
  Cuomo and Riverkeeper entered into a deal with Entergy to shut down Indian Point Energy Center. I am personally disappointed because it provided good jobs in my community and 1/3 of my school district's revenue.
- philipkglass 5y ago
  New York introduced subsidies to keep nuclear plants operating just a few years ago: "Five states have implemented programs to assist nuclear power plants" https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41534 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41534 It says that some nuclear plants in New York receive subsidies since 2017. I don't know what the New York selection criteria are. Maybe Indian Point just didn't qualify like other plants did, and (regrettably) shut down sooner as a consequence.
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    Indian Point has always been a political flashpoint because of how close it is to NYC, just 36 miles north and in the middle of the suburban bits of the metro area.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      >in the middle of the suburban bits of the metro area I.e. the rich people who have the spare fucks to give about this sort of thing. If it were in a crap neighborhood in Newark nobody would care.
- tristor 5y ago
  > Why are they moving away from nuclear? Because in the US, Twitter determines policy priorities, not science or reason.
  - edmundsauto 5y ago
    The US has been nuclear hesitant since before Twitter was around. Perhaps it's gotten worse, although I think that would be difficult to prove causality.
  - xadhominemx 5y ago
    I think it’s more because, does it make sense to have a nuclear power plant so close to nyc. Even in a moderate fallout incident the city would have to be evacuated.
    - StanislavPetrov 5y ago
      >Even in a moderate fallout incident the city would have to be evacuated. This is exactly the problem when it comes to Indian Point. The only way out of New York is over a few bridges and tunnels. It isn't possible to evacuate even a fraction of the millions of people through a few bridges and tunnels if a radioactive plume is released only 36 miles away. There are arguments to be made for nuclear power, but that we should have one 36 miles from the most populous, densely packed city in the country, which also happens to be an island, is not one of them.
  - klyrs 5y ago
    My understanding of the situation is that it's a generational thing. Millenials and younger see nuclear power as much more appealing than folks over 40. So, not twitter.
    - notreallyserio 5y ago
      It was the opposite in 2012[0] but I haven't found more recent data. (Although their dividing line was 50, not 40). 0: https://news.gallup.com/poll/153452/americans-favor-nuclear-power-year-fukushima.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/153452/americans-favor-nuclear-...
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  It's a mix of economics, technical issues, politcs, and safety concerns. The economics of building or even operating nuclear power plants continues to be unfavourable relative to either wind/solar, or natural gas (for peaking plants). Nuclear has, of course, a smaller carbon footprint than gas, but until that is built into economics (through emissions costs or higher costs for natural gas fuel), that doesn't translate into a financial benefit. Long-term costs of nuclear have been rising whilst those of alternative renewable and low-carbon sources (notably solar and wind) have been falling for well over half a century. If you're hiring^Wbuying based on slope rather than intercept, nuclear is not attractive. Technically, nuclear power is poorly suited to peak-power loads. It doesn't ramp easily or quickly, and performs most economically when operated at constant power outputs. Gas (and hydroelectric or pumped-hydro storage) by contrast can follow demand-side changes rapidly, in a matter of minutes. For pairing with a variable-input solar-and-wind capability, something other than nuclear would be a better supply-side match. Pumped hydro, compressed-air energy storage (CAES), thermal-electric storage (e.g., molton salt), electric battery, load-banking (e.g., as thermal energy) or demand-side shaping (adjusting heavy loads to maximum generation) would be better fits. For now, natural gas turbine peaking plants fit the bill, though those also need phasing out. Politically nuclear power is a challenge for numerous reasons, spanning those I'm raising and with others. The economics make for challenging financing and popularity, with very long lead and pay-off times. Cancellations of plants during construction or operation means that potentially-realised benefits are lost with major costs. In many ways, nuclear solves the wrong power problems (though it does solve the right emissions problem). Nuclear continues to carry risks, and very-long-tailed ones, despite the claims of supporters. Many of those are not technical in nature, but operational, organisational, or reflect global threats outside the purvue of a utility itself. Nuclear plants typically have a paramilitary security presence armed, trained, and authorised to use lethal force. Relative to coal and oil plants, the net safety record is better, but one of the characteristics of nuclear power is the capability for things to go from operating very well to behaving exceeding poorly in a matter of minutes. This has happened repeatedly, across a wide range of designs, despite assertions of safety. Once things go poorly, then tend to remain that way for centuries or millennia. Long-term environmental consequences of fossil fuels notwithstanding, other power options don't have this specific handicap.
99_00 5y ago
Is there a battery technology on the market that can be used at scale or do we need to wait for this to be invented?
- cbhl 5y ago
  I believe "pumped water" is the currently available battery technology that has the capacities required, but I'm under the impression that it can't scale further (new dams / loss of green space)
  - q1w2 5y ago
    Any form of storage will have poor efficiency compared to primary production, particularly pumped water. We're talking about under 50% efficiency. Moreover, you need an absolute MASSIVE amount of storage to make intermittent sources like solar and wind equivalent to baseload power. In winter months, solar in New York will produce less than 5% what the same facility will produce in the summer. Shorter days, lower sun, snow, leaves, clouds... all contribute to this. One cloudy winter and the entire state would be without power - for weeks. It would be catastrophic. The size of the water reservoir needed to replace plants like Indian Point plant don't exist on the East coast. You would need to flood absolutely massive areas of land. Nuclear isn't an option. It's a necessity.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      > Any form of storage will have poor efficiency compared to primary production, particularly pumped water. We're talking about under 50% efficiency. I've generally seen pumped-hydro quoted as 80% efficient.
    - Scoundreller 5y ago
      > In winter months, solar in New York will produce less than 5% what the same facility will produce in the summer. From the numbers I’ve seen, on rooftop systems, output is 2x in the 6 best months versus the 6 worst months: https://www.lighthousesolarny.com/blog/2017/february/the-seasonality-of-solar-energy-production/ https://www.lighthousesolarny.com/blog/2017/february/the-sea... But some of this summer production increase is by design: summer power is worth more on the grid, so you over-design to capture more sun in summer (steeper angles, ignorance of winter shadowing, reduced focus on winter cleaning/maintenance) at the cost of winter production. If you were building an off-grid system, the summer/winter discrepancy would be smaller. You might even overbuild for winter production at the cost of summer production.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
> We need batteries, more reliable clean base generation if we want to use less dirty peak generation. Options that are often cheaper than massive batteries and "more reliable clean base generation" by which I assume you mean "build new nuclear". - don't shut down existing nuclear - hydro as implicit or explicit storage - interconnecting regions - better green energy mix - overbuilding green production - geothermal - demand management aka variable pricing
dragontamer 5y ago
> - none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output Hydro scales on demand actually, somewhat slowly, but it does. Pumped Hydro in fact turns hydro power into a battery for perfect response vs demand. Nuclear can scale in theory: but its too expensive to scale down. The fuel is _basically_ free, so there's no point ramping nuclear power plants down. You spend all the money on safety / construction, very little on the ongoing costs.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  I think it's somewhat useful to actually list numbers in these discussions. Hydro is great, but it tends to produce quite a bit less power than most people imagine. A lot less once you consider the relative size of not just the dam, but the reservoir behind it as well[0]. The biggest Hydro plant in the US is the Grand Coulee dam in Washington, with a nameplate capacity of 6,809MW. This is pretty impressive, but it's a heck of a lot more than most hydro plants could ever hope to produce. Only one other dam beats out 3,000MW, barely, and most are in the ~2,500 MW range. Overall America has 79GW[1] worth of hydro power capacity. Now ~2,500MW per dam is a lot, but it's actually kind of low compared to nuclear power. America's newest operating power plant, Watts Bar, has a nameplate capacity of 2332MW, which would put it at number 6 in the hydro plants list. And Watts Bar is fairly small compared to most other nuclear power stations around, since it only has two reactors. 6-7GW nuclear power plants are far from unheard of[2], and most of the older French reactors hang out in the 3GW range. In places where hydro fits the geography, it's a great choice. Not without its tradeoffs, but miles better than coal or natural gas. But overall nuclear is still going to beat the pants out of it for versatility, and total generation capacity. 0 - To be fair, this can be a benefit in cases where you need to both generate electricity and store water for later use. 1 - Peak production. Yearly energy measured will be higher, roughly 270TWh, because there are a lot of hours in the year. Still a heck of a lot less than the ~800TWh of nuclear power we were making per year last year. 2 - Japan, China, and South Korea run a total of 5 nuclear plants with >6GW capacity. Japan and South Korea each have a plant with >7GW capacity. South Korea, Ukraine, China, and France run a combined seven reactors with a capacity between 5 and 6GW. The French reactors are interesting because they're all pretty old, from the 1980s, and were built and commissioned on a tight schedule, with an average construction time of 7 years.
Scoundreller 5y ago
> Sun, wind [have] random output While true, they do correlate to demand. The sun is going to be the strongest when A/C demand is greatest, shaving peak demand. Same with wind: a hot wind in summer will drive A/C demand. Same in winter with winds driving resistive heating or the 1hp load from furnace circulating fans. This falls apart when your system becomes significantly double digit solar/wind, but smaller contributions should pair well with demand. Hydro can be the worst because you get the most supply at spring thaw, but this the 3rd or 4th lowest demand season.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  You also need power to heat, and there's usually very little sun then... sometimes even no wind. Nuclear and thermal are both slow to ramp up and ramp down, and unusable for short term peaks. Hydro is actually great for that, because you can regulate the power production relatively fast (as long as you have enough water).
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    > You also need power to heat Most heating in NY will be carbon-based. For now anyway.
- greenyoda 5y ago
  > The sun is going to be the strongest when A/C demand is greatest Not necessarily. There are lots of hot summer days when the sky is cloudy. Also, there can be direct sunlight heating up NYC while there are clouds over the solar plant, which could be miles away.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    A/C isn’t just about resisting ambient temperature, but also solar gain. About the latter, that’s where smart grids come in. Clouds move and it’s incredibly unlikely to be sunny but cloudy a few miles away for an extended period of time. (Obvs don’t build solar where fog sits regularly).
cesarb 5y ago
> though I am not sure that any of the results should surprise anyone [...] none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output That does surprise me a lot. Here in Brazil, it's hydro which follows the load. Nuclear has fixed output (always the maximum except when it's offline), non-nuclear thermal is mostly constant (with large changes whenever generators are dispatched on or off), solar and wind do their own thing, and hydro is the one left to fill the gaps between generation and demand. See it for yourself at http://www.ons.org.br/paginas/energia-agora/carga-e-geracao http://www.ons.org.br/paginas/energia-agora/carga-e-geracao (select "SIN" on the first drop-down for the whole country); selecting "Geração Hidráulica" (hydro) on the second drop-down you can see how well the shape of the generation curve matches the shape of the demand curve at the top, while for instance "Geração Térmica" (non-nuclear thermal) is nearly flat.
Krssst 5y ago
> none of the "clean" sources can easily scale on demand. Sun, wind, hydro and nuclear have either fixed or random output Hydro can do load following. Nuclear can too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_following_power_plant#Load_following_power_plants https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_following_power_plant#L...
blibble 5y ago
France operates nuclear power stations in load following mode rather successfully

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

The post is at least up front that it's got an agenda that it's setting out to prove. A more standard measure of progress would be carbon intensity (carbon emitted per kWh generated) I have a hunch that it doesn't support this argument as the decision to bucket everything into "clean" or "dirty" is otherwise bizarre. It's also misses things like greater electrification which might be graded poorly on this, e.g. every car running on gas powered electricity is an improvement but will show up here as a bad thing.

99_00 5y ago
>carbon emitted per kWh generated Is it? If an energy source requires natural gas or coal to deal with peaks of increasingly hot days, this doesn't tell the whole story. If we increase solar or wind to be a primary source, then we need to take into account the carbon cost of storage. Since this doesn't exist, it is an unknown. Finally, the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. Carbon emitted per kWh generated assumes it will be operating at 100% over its lifetime. So we will need an over capacity of wind and solar generators. The actual carbon emitted per kWh will be much higher.
- sleepysysadmin 5y ago
  We will eventually get to a state where solar and wind is all we have/need. The requirement will be gridscale energy storage that contains enough storage for days of operation.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    Is "days" actually enough? What happens if there is a drought, clouds and no wind for more than "days"?
  - 99_00 5y ago
    The question is: should we be closing nuclear plants and filling the gap with natural gas and coal before we get there?

jplr8922 5y ago

Note : I am an ex quantitative and algorithmic power trader in the NYISO market I totally agree with the analysis and conclusion of this article. The power grid is is a complex legal, economic and engineering system where our usual political narratives cannot produce a valid analogy for our common understanding. Right now, most green power sources (except non run-of-the-mill hydro) have non-controlable and hardly predictable outputs. Wind is much harder to forecast than temperature, and not every market are equiped to deal with the new variability. This create price distortions and other unintended consequences. Pushing against nuclear when there are still coal power plants running is nonsense, and in my opinion proves that twitter beats sound policy in terms of political priorities. What I do not like in this article is the tendency to regroup all fuels type together and call them 'dirty'. Coal, natural gas and gasoline are not equals, and play different roles in electricity production...

egberts1 5y ago
that’s why he focused on carbon outputs.
7thaccount 5y ago
How did you like being a trader?
- jplr8922 5y ago
  I liked the 'data analysis' part, and 'buidling your own trading software part'. However the work environment was very toxic for me, and it ended in a minor burnout. Now I work as a kind of Product Owner in a startup where I highly respect my boss, and I am super happy about it!
  - 7thaccount 5y ago
    Gotcha. I work in this industry, but not as a trader. I figured it would be pretty rough. I too would also love to build my own software stack from the ground up.
simonebrunozzi 5y ago

Shalomboy 5y ago

I really don't get the whining about categorizing Natural Gas and Coal as dirty. Hydrocarbons make CO2 as a byproduct of each molecular reaction. That isn't debatable! The thing I do want to debate is the classification of Hydro as Clean Energy. The meager power generation that hydroelectric dams produce isn't nearly enough to offset the environmental damage necessary to produce a hydroelectric reservoir.