6 ms·

A mix of sources (e.g. a few solar and wind plants in different locations) overcomes much of the intermittency and storage issues. It usually requires upgrades

A mix of sources (e.g. a few solar and wind plants in different locations) overcomes much of the intermittency and storage issues. It usually requires upgrades to the grid and beyond that just some careful management of the (less regular) intermittency issues (whether storage or alternative sources on demand). One plant should not be judged on its intermittency alone. Its just not how the system works at a connected-grid scale.

fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
Extreme weather events can result in both extreme energy demand and edge cases for intermittent energy production. We can’t just rely on the low probability of our energy sources dropping out at the same time. That’s just begging for a catastrophic black swan event. Heat and cold can kill during a power outage. At least we need massive peaker capacity (with pipes that don’t freeze), and that’s part of the price tag.
- gpm 5y ago
  Extreme weather events tend to cause issues for all kinds of power generation, including the so called non-intermittent ones. For example the extreme (for the location) cold in texas last winter took out nuclear, gas, coal, and wind power. There's nothing special about the "intermittent" ones here. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46836 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46836
  - fastball 5y ago
    I'm not seeing that the nuclear plant shut down due to the cold?
    - Retric 5y ago
      Look at the red line it dips at on the second Monday just like coal and natural gas. The drop wasn’t as severe, but it was significant and lasted several days.
    - gpm 5y ago
      Here's an article on the nuclear plant specifically: https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/how-and-why-a-nuclear-reactor-shut-down-in-texas-cold-snap-when-energy-was-needed-most/ar-BB1dLDPt https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/how-and-why-a-n...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - nightski 5y ago
    Yet somehow in North Dakota where we can see -50F or lower in the winter and over 100F in the summer, our power sources are reliable and stable.
    - gpm 5y ago
      Right, the "for the location" is important here. It's that they weren't prepared for the cold, not that they couldn't be. Likewise we could make power stations that could withstand hurricanes, or earthquakes, or tsunamis, and so on. We don't usually though, it's too expensive (not to defend the decision not to weather proof more in this case, it wasn't really that far outside of the expected operating conditions as I understand the situation).
      - imtringued 5y ago
        Then your nuclear plant gets destroyed by a tsunami and you have created a generation of people who hate nuclear power.
  - Paradigma11 5y ago
    The difference is that winterizing a nuclear power plant is not that hard. Keeping wind turbines going for weeks in a lull seems harder.
bamboozled 5y ago
I was going to say, the answer is obviously a mix of different things, but the discussion sounds similar to when some this is hard to implement at work. I’m not an energy grid expert but I guess it’s hard to have nuclear, gas wind and solar playing together because if it weren’t, people would just get on with it?
godelski 5y ago
Unfortunately wind and solar isn't homogeneously distributed around America nor the globe. The highest capacity, for both, in the US is more central US and not the coasts. This creates a lot of added complexity as those places also tend to be the lowest population density AND a large distance from said population centers. So we can store our storage centers closer to population centers, but we can't generate it close by. We now have lots of transmission losses and opportunities for failures. The problem with all this is that it is exceedingly complicated and most people are trying to simplify the problem. But here even including second order factors doesn't give you good approximations of the solution.
Cybiote 5y ago
Renewables are indeed vital. At the same time, it feels counterproductive that every discussion on nuclear or renewables ends up casting things as an either or proposition. Nuclear as baseload remains very useful. What's more, we don't just seek to replace current capacity but also to quickly increase generation. While costs of transmission infrastructure required for country scale (larger distances for lower correlation) energy dispatch are recognized, its more abstract challenges are less well acknowledged. Dispatch at this level is not just about developments in grid integration or hardware like solid state "transformers", it also has a complex routing coordination aspect requiring research in control and even game theory [1]. A lack in wind and solar can sometimes occur simultaneously. Analysis of German wind turbines data observed that experiencing a stretch of almost a week with generation as low as 10% installed capacity was likely within a given year [2]. Surprising/extreme weather events like Europe's recent "wind drought" are rare but there remains a large amount of uncertainty in how changes in climate will affect the tail of this distribution. Tools such as coordinating distributed generation and improvements in storage tech will surely help smooth generation, nuclear is another powerful tool in that toolbox. [1] https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/63037.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/63037.pdf [2] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab91e9/pdf https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab91e9/... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148120315500 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096014812... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-017-0029-9.epdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-017-0029-9.epdf
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  > Nuclear as baseload remains very useful. What's more, we don't just seek to replace current capacity but also to quickly increase generation. The problem is that Nuclear may not be economical if it is only used when both solar and wind run out. Nuclear has large fixed costs. And almost zero marginal costs. So the average costs -- what needs to be charged in order to avoid bankruptcy, increase as you use it less. That means every solar panel you add makes the nuclear power a bit more expensive. And that incentivizes adding more solar. Up until you drive the nuclear out of business, and then suddenly you don't have reliable power anymore. Then you are faced with a situation of a) only having nuclear power which can provide for all of your needs, in which case adding solar is an unnecessary expense b) only having solar+wind and an unreliable grid, which means you need to add batteries to cover solar+wind. And the price of those batteries may be more than the price of the nuclear plant. c) having nuclear and solar both, with enough subsidies given to the nuclear plant to keep it in business so that the total solution is more costly than just going with nuclear. So yeah, there really is a tension between nuclear and solar. This is not the situation, however, with solar and coal. Because coal plants are damn cheap, and they have higher marginal costs. Thus solar can coexist with coal or with gas much better than with nuclear. Therefore the economics is such that as people promote solar the result is a decrease in nuclear and an increase in coal and gas.

fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago

Extreme weather events can result in both extreme energy demand and edge cases for intermittent energy production. We can’t just rely on the low probability of our energy sources dropping out at the same time. That’s just begging for a catastrophic black swan event. Heat and cold can kill during a power outage. At least we need massive peaker capacity (with pipes that don’t freeze), and that’s part of the price tag.

gpm 5y ago
Extreme weather events tend to cause issues for all kinds of power generation, including the so called non-intermittent ones. For example the extreme (for the location) cold in texas last winter took out nuclear, gas, coal, and wind power. There's nothing special about the "intermittent" ones here. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46836 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46836
- fastball 5y ago
  I'm not seeing that the nuclear plant shut down due to the cold?
  - Retric 5y ago
    Look at the red line it dips at on the second Monday just like coal and natural gas. The drop wasn’t as severe, but it was significant and lasted several days.
  - gpm 5y ago
    Here's an article on the nuclear plant specifically: https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/how-and-why-a-nuclear-reactor-shut-down-in-texas-cold-snap-when-energy-was-needed-most/ar-BB1dLDPt https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/how-and-why-a-n...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- nightski 5y ago
  Yet somehow in North Dakota where we can see -50F or lower in the winter and over 100F in the summer, our power sources are reliable and stable.
  - gpm 5y ago
    Right, the "for the location" is important here. It's that they weren't prepared for the cold, not that they couldn't be. Likewise we could make power stations that could withstand hurricanes, or earthquakes, or tsunamis, and so on. We don't usually though, it's too expensive (not to defend the decision not to weather proof more in this case, it wasn't really that far outside of the expected operating conditions as I understand the situation).
    - imtringued 5y ago
      Then your nuclear plant gets destroyed by a tsunami and you have created a generation of people who hate nuclear power.
- Paradigma11 5y ago
  The difference is that winterizing a nuclear power plant is not that hard. Keeping wind turbines going for weeks in a lull seems harder.

bamboozled 5y ago

I was going to say, the answer is obviously a mix of different things, but the discussion sounds similar to when some this is hard to implement at work. I’m not an energy grid expert but I guess it’s hard to have nuclear, gas wind and solar playing together because if it weren’t, people would just get on with it?

godelski 5y ago

Unfortunately wind and solar isn't homogeneously distributed around America nor the globe. The highest capacity, for both, in the US is more central US and not the coasts. This creates a lot of added complexity as those places also tend to be the lowest population density AND a large distance from said population centers. So we can store our storage centers closer to population centers, but we can't generate it close by. We now have lots of transmission losses and opportunities for failures. The problem with all this is that it is exceedingly complicated and most people are trying to simplify the problem. But here even including second order factors doesn't give you good approximations of the solution.

Cybiote 5y ago

Renewables are indeed vital. At the same time, it feels counterproductive that every discussion on nuclear or renewables ends up casting things as an either or proposition. Nuclear as baseload remains very useful. What's more, we don't just seek to replace current capacity but also to quickly increase generation. While costs of transmission infrastructure required for country scale (larger distances for lower correlation) energy dispatch are recognized, its more abstract challenges are less well acknowledged. Dispatch at this level is not just about developments in grid integration or hardware like solid state "transformers", it also has a complex routing coordination aspect requiring research in control and even game theory [1]. A lack in wind and solar can sometimes occur simultaneously. Analysis of German wind turbines data observed that experiencing a stretch of almost a week with generation as low as 10% installed capacity was likely within a given year [2]. Surprising/extreme weather events like Europe's recent "wind drought" are rare but there remains a large amount of uncertainty in how changes in climate will affect the tail of this distribution. Tools such as coordinating distributed generation and improvements in storage tech will surely help smooth generation, nuclear is another powerful tool in that toolbox. [1] https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/63037.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/63037.pdf [2] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab91e9/pdf https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab91e9/... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148120315500 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096014812... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-017-0029-9.epdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-017-0029-9.epdf

rsj_hn 5y ago
> Nuclear as baseload remains very useful. What's more, we don't just seek to replace current capacity but also to quickly increase generation. The problem is that Nuclear may not be economical if it is only used when both solar and wind run out. Nuclear has large fixed costs. And almost zero marginal costs. So the average costs -- what needs to be charged in order to avoid bankruptcy, increase as you use it less. That means every solar panel you add makes the nuclear power a bit more expensive. And that incentivizes adding more solar. Up until you drive the nuclear out of business, and then suddenly you don't have reliable power anymore. Then you are faced with a situation of a) only having nuclear power which can provide for all of your needs, in which case adding solar is an unnecessary expense b) only having solar+wind and an unreliable grid, which means you need to add batteries to cover solar+wind. And the price of those batteries may be more than the price of the nuclear plant. c) having nuclear and solar both, with enough subsidies given to the nuclear plant to keep it in business so that the total solution is more costly than just going with nuclear. So yeah, there really is a tension between nuclear and solar. This is not the situation, however, with solar and coal. Because coal plants are damn cheap, and they have higher marginal costs. Thus solar can coexist with coal or with gas much better than with nuclear. Therefore the economics is such that as people promote solar the result is a decrease in nuclear and an increase in coal and gas.