4 ms·

We need to do all the things: Improve grid interconnections to tolerate more renewables; add storage; overprovision renewables; and add non-polluting base load

by mlyle 5y ago

We need to do all the things: Improve grid interconnections to tolerate more renewables; add storage; overprovision renewables; and add non-polluting base load power that doesn't need storage. Nuclear is the latter. And it's a mistake to think that doing more of one necessarily means doing substantially less of the others. Overnight we burn a lot of natural gas here in California. It's not going to be feasible to build enough wind to meet current demand, and storage doesn't look practical to get the job done either. And nighttime demand can be expected to go up a lot as people buy electric cars.

ncmncm 5y ago
Money is fungible. Each cent spent on X is a cent not spent on Y. Nuke costs are going up, not down. Lately, it is at $billions for zero watts. "Not going to be feasible", and "doesn't look practical" are not based in fact. Storage is not being built out yet because solar watts still displace NG watts, 1:1, and storage cost is falling even faster than solar. But the iron-air battery factories we will need are now under construction.
- mlyle 5y ago
  > Money is fungible. Each cent spent on X is a cent not spent on Y. Money is fungible, but the supply curves for nuclear plants, solar panels, storage, etc, are not flat. Further, as a political reality: the money allocated to renewable subsidies and nuclear subsidies isn't a direct exchange. If you convince governments to subsidize nuclear $20B less, you don't magically get $20B more for renewables. > Nuke costs are going up, not down. Yup, and why is that? Certainly that has something to do with the current regulatory environment and the scale at which nuclear is deployed. I.e. there's no magical way it has gotten "harder" other than us doing it less and losing expertise. > "Not going to be feasible", and "doesn't look practical" are not based in fact. Storage is not being built out yet because solar watts still displace NG watts, 1:1 In summer, we already have wholesale power costs dip negative at midday from time to time. That's going to become more pronounced. And at night, we have about 16GW of natural gas (counting imports) vs. 3GW of wind (counting imports) here in California. Maybe we can triple wind with a massive investment, but IMO that's about the point where we're going to see significantly diminished returns. And this is one of the markets that has most aggressively deployed renewables in the US and has some of the best resources for solar and wind outside of the desert. A few GW more of nuclear in the mix would make a significant difference. All these numbers are about present demand, too. Increased vehicle electrification is going to push up nighttime demand further.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    A few more GW of nuke plants under construction would produce exactly zero actual watts, but would suck up dollars that could otherwise be spent building out wind and solar that would produce immediately. So, that is a strong net negative. If the nukes ever did come online, years on, their power would then be unable to compete on price with wind and storage, costs of which are still plummeting. More likely, they would be cancelled first, and the money, real estate, and concrete wasted. Putting those $billions into offshore wind, HVDC transmission lines, hydrolysis, and underground hydrogen storage would be an overwhelmingly better use. Current NG plants can switch over incrementally to burn H2 as it becomes available.
    - mlyle 5y ago
      > A few more GW of nuke plants under construction would make exactly zero difference, Yes, it takes awhile. This is a problem we should be working on! And "it won't help for awhile" isn't great justification for not doing something forever. > but would suck up dollars that could otherwise be spent building out wind and solar that would produce immediately. Already argued against with no objection by you. > their power would then be unable to compete on price with wind I do not think it is feasible for California to deploy ~6x as much wind as we have now. And we might need significantly more than that (overprovisioning for reliability, increased nighttime demands). > storage Again, we have no clarity that grid-scale storage using batteries is realistic or sustainable, even assuming doing it with new technologies like smelting iron. We simply need to be betting on everything to get through this. Solar-thermal probably doesn't win either, but we should absolutely be doing more of it than we are now. > More likely, they would be cancelled first. Even if one cedes your point, and some capital costs need to get written down, so be it. You still get the power. The operating costs of nuclear are cheap: it's the capital costs that are problematic. France proves the point: the CO2 intensity of energy production in France is significantly lower than neighboring states that have bet heavily on renewables. And this was done with comparatively ancient technology. If France got it done in the past, why can't it be done now?
      - ncmncm 5y ago

by mlyle 5y ago

ncmncm 5y ago

Money is fungible. Each cent spent on X is a cent not spent on Y. Nuke costs are going up, not down. Lately, it is at $billions for zero watts. "Not going to be feasible", and "doesn't look practical" are not based in fact. Storage is not being built out yet because solar watts still displace NG watts, 1:1, and storage cost is falling even faster than solar. But the iron-air battery factories we will need are now under construction.

mlyle 5y ago
> Money is fungible. Each cent spent on X is a cent not spent on Y. Money is fungible, but the supply curves for nuclear plants, solar panels, storage, etc, are not flat. Further, as a political reality: the money allocated to renewable subsidies and nuclear subsidies isn't a direct exchange. If you convince governments to subsidize nuclear $20B less, you don't magically get $20B more for renewables. > Nuke costs are going up, not down. Yup, and why is that? Certainly that has something to do with the current regulatory environment and the scale at which nuclear is deployed. I.e. there's no magical way it has gotten "harder" other than us doing it less and losing expertise. > "Not going to be feasible", and "doesn't look practical" are not based in fact. Storage is not being built out yet because solar watts still displace NG watts, 1:1 In summer, we already have wholesale power costs dip negative at midday from time to time. That's going to become more pronounced. And at night, we have about 16GW of natural gas (counting imports) vs. 3GW of wind (counting imports) here in California. Maybe we can triple wind with a massive investment, but IMO that's about the point where we're going to see significantly diminished returns. And this is one of the markets that has most aggressively deployed renewables in the US and has some of the best resources for solar and wind outside of the desert. A few GW more of nuclear in the mix would make a significant difference. All these numbers are about present demand, too. Increased vehicle electrification is going to push up nighttime demand further.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  A few more GW of nuke plants under construction would produce exactly zero actual watts, but would suck up dollars that could otherwise be spent building out wind and solar that would produce immediately. So, that is a strong net negative. If the nukes ever did come online, years on, their power would then be unable to compete on price with wind and storage, costs of which are still plummeting. More likely, they would be cancelled first, and the money, real estate, and concrete wasted. Putting those $billions into offshore wind, HVDC transmission lines, hydrolysis, and underground hydrogen storage would be an overwhelmingly better use. Current NG plants can switch over incrementally to burn H2 as it becomes available.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    > A few more GW of nuke plants under construction would make exactly zero difference, Yes, it takes awhile. This is a problem we should be working on! And "it won't help for awhile" isn't great justification for not doing something forever. > but would suck up dollars that could otherwise be spent building out wind and solar that would produce immediately. Already argued against with no objection by you. > their power would then be unable to compete on price with wind I do not think it is feasible for California to deploy ~6x as much wind as we have now. And we might need significantly more than that (overprovisioning for reliability, increased nighttime demands). > storage Again, we have no clarity that grid-scale storage using batteries is realistic or sustainable, even assuming doing it with new technologies like smelting iron. We simply need to be betting on everything to get through this. Solar-thermal probably doesn't win either, but we should absolutely be doing more of it than we are now. > More likely, they would be cancelled first. Even if one cedes your point, and some capital costs need to get written down, so be it. You still get the power. The operating costs of nuclear are cheap: it's the capital costs that are problematic. France proves the point: the CO2 intensity of energy production in France is significantly lower than neighboring states that have bet heavily on renewables. And this was done with comparatively ancient technology. If France got it done in the past, why can't it be done now?
    - ncmncm 5y ago