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Exactly this. And even leaving out deaths and the high long-term environmental uncertainties of nuclear waste storage, solar and wind are already cheaper and wi

by shafyy 5y ago

Exactly this. And even leaving out deaths and the high long-term environmental uncertainties of nuclear waste storage, solar and wind are already cheaper and will continue to get cheaper for the forseeable future. Now, people will say "bUT tHe sUn dOeSn'T sHiNe aT NiGhT", and that's true for the moment. Right now, we cannot shift everything to solar and wind. But if you pay attention to battery development, you don't need to be Einstein to see that pretty soon, we will be able to cost-efficiently store large amounts of energy, distribute it and use it in a way which will solve this intermittency problem. You can look at the data and read more about this here: https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth

zdragnar 5y ago
There's a solar panel field I go by occasionally. Last time I saw them, all the panels were covered in inches of snow. I guess nobody bothered clearing them off since we can have weeks go by without much if any direct sunshine in the winter, and windy days are equally infrequent. I don't know how many batteries it would take to make up for the losses. I suspect we will have gas and nuclear plants for a long while yet.
- shafyy 5y ago
  That's very anecdotal, I'm sure that most solar panels are not usually covered by snow.
  - tomp 5y ago
    You do realize that there exist countries where it snows regularly? When that happens, even if it’s just 1 week/year, you require battery capacity to cover that one week.
    - bryanlarsen 5y ago
      Panels are black, slick, inclined and warmer than ambient. Snow accumulation is generally not a problem.
shafyy 5y ago
Hey, I know that anti-nuclear views are not popular on HN. But instead of downvoting, why not engage with the data and facts that I linked to? If it's because of the funnily capitalized sentence, come on, don't take everything so seriously.
- qwytw 5y ago
  Your link is very light on facts. E.g how much cheaper batteries would need become to be competitive with gas/coal/nuclear and is that even possible with lithium batteries alone?
DrBazza 5y ago
But how many millions of tons of soil do we have to shift to get the lithium for all these millions and millions of batteries, versus a few kilos of uranium? And it's the same with the turbines and all the rare earths that need to be mined to make the current most efficient dynamos. If people want to promote wind turbines and solar, they should at least compare like for like, which includes the costs of digging the materials out of the ground, and the disposal of old panels and turbines, in the same way people say 'but nuclear waste!'.
- shafyy 5y ago
  Yes, I agree that we need to include all costs. But, to my knowledge the costs presented in the link I sent to include all costs, e.g. here for batteries: https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth#batteries-and-electricity-storage-follow-learning-curves-too https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth#batteries...
  - DrBazza 5y ago
    I'm not disagreeing that batteries are cost efficient, just pointing out that batteries aren't (natural) resource efficient.
    - shafyy 5y ago
      Sure, but digging for Uranium isn't a walk in the park, either :-) I'm just pointing to the fact that if the data in the Our World in Data does in fact inclulde these costs for both our cases, then it's still clear that the costs of renewable + battery is cheaper than nuclear and still on a strong downward trend.
carry_bit 5y ago
Meanwhile nuclear plants come with months worth of energy storage, as fuel is storage. For long term (like seasonal) variations in wind/solar output, you're probably not going to be building enough batteries to bridge that gap, so to stick with just wind/solar you would need to either overbuild (perhaps massively) your generation capacity, or build a global grid. A global grid introduces geopolitical risks (your neighbor becomes not-so friendly and cuts the link when you don't have sufficient generation), whereas massive overbuilding would be expensive. Having some nuclear plants may be cheaper route.
tapas73 5y ago
Thanks for the link. Maybe you have data on: - total installed storage capacity as percentage of daily electricity usage (preferably 95th-percentile daily usage). Hopefully this percentage increases every year. - how often should we expect to replace batteries. Wikipedia says 400-1200 cycles. Does this mean that whole world storage capacity must be replaced every 400-1200 days?

by shafyy 5y ago

zdragnar 5y ago

There's a solar panel field I go by occasionally. Last time I saw them, all the panels were covered in inches of snow. I guess nobody bothered clearing them off since we can have weeks go by without much if any direct sunshine in the winter, and windy days are equally infrequent. I don't know how many batteries it would take to make up for the losses. I suspect we will have gas and nuclear plants for a long while yet.

shafyy 5y ago
That's very anecdotal, I'm sure that most solar panels are not usually covered by snow.
- tomp 5y ago
  You do realize that there exist countries where it snows regularly? When that happens, even if it’s just 1 week/year, you require battery capacity to cover that one week.
  - bryanlarsen 5y ago
    Panels are black, slick, inclined and warmer than ambient. Snow accumulation is generally not a problem.

shafyy 5y ago

Hey, I know that anti-nuclear views are not popular on HN. But instead of downvoting, why not engage with the data and facts that I linked to? If it's because of the funnily capitalized sentence, come on, don't take everything so seriously.

qwytw 5y ago
Your link is very light on facts. E.g how much cheaper batteries would need become to be competitive with gas/coal/nuclear and is that even possible with lithium batteries alone?

DrBazza 5y ago

But how many millions of tons of soil do we have to shift to get the lithium for all these millions and millions of batteries, versus a few kilos of uranium? And it's the same with the turbines and all the rare earths that need to be mined to make the current most efficient dynamos. If people want to promote wind turbines and solar, they should at least compare like for like, which includes the costs of digging the materials out of the ground, and the disposal of old panels and turbines, in the same way people say 'but nuclear waste!'.

shafyy 5y ago
Yes, I agree that we need to include all costs. But, to my knowledge the costs presented in the link I sent to include all costs, e.g. here for batteries: https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth#batteries-and-electricity-storage-follow-learning-curves-too https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth#batteries...
- DrBazza 5y ago
  I'm not disagreeing that batteries are cost efficient, just pointing out that batteries aren't (natural) resource efficient.
  - shafyy 5y ago
    Sure, but digging for Uranium isn't a walk in the park, either :-) I'm just pointing to the fact that if the data in the Our World in Data does in fact inclulde these costs for both our cases, then it's still clear that the costs of renewable + battery is cheaper than nuclear and still on a strong downward trend.

carry_bit 5y ago

Meanwhile nuclear plants come with months worth of energy storage, as fuel is storage. For long term (like seasonal) variations in wind/solar output, you're probably not going to be building enough batteries to bridge that gap, so to stick with just wind/solar you would need to either overbuild (perhaps massively) your generation capacity, or build a global grid. A global grid introduces geopolitical risks (your neighbor becomes not-so friendly and cuts the link when you don't have sufficient generation), whereas massive overbuilding would be expensive. Having some nuclear plants may be cheaper route.

tapas73 5y ago

Thanks for the link. Maybe you have data on: - total installed storage capacity as percentage of daily electricity usage (preferably 95th-percentile daily usage). Hopefully this percentage increases every year. - how often should we expect to replace batteries. Wikipedia says 400-1200 cycles. Does this mean that whole world storage capacity must be replaced every 400-1200 days?