6 ms·

can solar run 24/7 factories?? it's not that simple guys

by berto4 5y ago

criddell 5y ago
They understand that.
jotm 5y ago
As I said, batteries of any kind... Nuclear would be better, but that takes time to build.
- exabrial 5y ago
  10000% Nuclear. France just announced a massive Nuclear project, meanwhile in the USA, the NRC bankrupts every project with non-stop delays instead of timely constructive work with designers, builders, and investors.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    When did France announce a massive nuclear project? The last news I heard was that they plan to build a couple of new nuclear power plants, but far from the numbers they'd need to maintain the current capacity as ageing plants go offline in the coming years.
    - Retric 5y ago
      While France is aiming to significantly reduce the number of nuclear power plants they operate, building any nuclear power plants is seen as a good sign by the industry.
    - WillPostForFood 5y ago
      https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/france-macron-nuclear-power.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/france-macro... Is this not a major project? The article is very lacking in details, so it is hard to tell what it amounts to in terms of impact.
      - adrianN 5y ago
        That really depends what "up to" means and how big the "fleet of smaller reactors" is going to be. Announcing up to 14 today is very little when you have over fifty reactors to replace in the next two or three decades when you consider that building a reactor takes around fifteen years. Nuclear energy hopes are pinned on those small reactors, but afaik, none of them are ready for prime time today.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Gwypaas 5y ago
    The nuclear announcement makes nice headlines for nationalistic dreams. What they actually do tells the real story. > France will also increase its solar power capacity tenfold by 2050 to more than 100 gigawatts (GW) and target building 50 offshore wind farms with a combined capacity of at least 40 GW. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/macron-bets-nuclear-carbon-neutrality-push-announces-new-reactors-2022-02-10/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/macron-bets-nuclear-... So they are adding ~10 GW nuclear (6 * 1.6 GW) and at least 140 GW of renewables. Use any capacity factor you want but the numbers speak for themselves. The real reason for this is likely continue have an industrial base for their naval submarine reactors by subsidizing a complementary civilian industry.
    - exabrial 5y ago
      > The real reason for this is likely continue have an industrial base for their naval submarine reactors by subsidizing a complementary civilian industry. Interesting, I've never read about that angle. Nuclear is a great complement to Wind/Solar as it provides a steady base load.
      - Gwypaas 5y ago
        The thing is, they don't complement each other at all. They both compete for the same share of the market: the cheapest most inflexible power generation. Renewables win there and force nuclear plants to be more flexible. Due to the extremely high fixed costs and lower marginal costs of nuclear plants they then have to make the money back in fewer hours, driving cost even higher. The other issue is the costly steam turbine side. The reason gas won over coal is the efficiency and tiny footprint of gas turbines. Tack on a tiny steam side for the last percent of efficiency and you have a CCGT plant. Coal and nuclear share the same steam side, both have been dead ends since the 80s.
        exabrial 5y ago
        That is not true. They do not compete for the some market segment. The problem is most renewables fall off before peak load subsides. That's why cheap energy storage would be a huge boon for transient renewables as they could keep providing energy after the sun is down and the wind has subsided. Take a look here: https://nuclear-power.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Base-Load-Load-Follow-Peak-Load.png https://nuclear-power.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Base-Lo...
adrianN 5y ago
With the help of electrolysis and a gas turbine, it can. The problem is that we don't have enough solar panels and not enough electrolyzers.
- HPsquared 5y ago
  What's the round-trip efficiency of such a system? There are multiple lossy conversions, you'd be doing well to hit 50% if the gas is simply burned to spin a turbine.
  - Joeri 5y ago
    Solar and wind are already far cheaper than gas or nuclear plants, and they’re still getting cheaper while gas and nuclear are getting more expensive (although to be fair, gas has only recently gotten more expensive). In so far that the economics in favor of renewables+storage don’t work out yet factoring in conversion losses, it is all but inevitable that they will. See the LCOE graphs in this article for the trends: https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth
    - The_rationalist 5y ago
      Nuclear is a lot cheaper than solar, it simply depends on the nuclear plant model. Russians are the world leaders regarding nuclear plants time to market and costs (4 years).
      - Joeri 5y ago
        Which would be great if we could invite russia to build nuclear plants in the U.S. and EU. Right now that might not be the best plan. We need a model that is cheap and safe everywhere, in every country, not just in china and russia. Also, I wouldn’t put too much faith into Russian numbers for their nuclear projects. They’ve pretty much got the patent on propaganda.
        5y ago
kitkat_new 5y ago
yes, batteries, power to gas, ... There are many possiblities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage Then there is wind power and other sources such as geothermal energy and Bio-gas Plants, which is are independant of day time. And let's not forget the lower energy demand at night, the possibilities for supply based energy consumption, (green) gas imports from somewhere else.
orthecreedence 5y ago
If you put solar panels on top of your nuclear power plant then yes it works 24/7.
KarlKemp 5y ago
I don’t believe factories here in Germany run 24/7, to be honest. But anyway: wind energy is quite cheap at night.
contingencies 5y ago
Depends on the factory. Most production processes are multi-stage. Most multi-stage processes have differing energy needs across individual unit operations. You could easily schedule low energy, slow processes (testing, drying, settling, cooling, etc.) to evenings to better match power availability. This has the secondary benefit that people prefer to sleep at night. Normally you'd have to redesign the whole factory to facilitate such a process change, however.

can solar run 24/7 factories?? it's not that simple guys

by berto4 5y ago

can solar run 24/7 factories?? it's not that simple guys

criddell 5y ago

They understand that.

jotm 5y ago

As I said, batteries of any kind... Nuclear would be better, but that takes time to build.

exabrial 5y ago
10000% Nuclear. France just announced a massive Nuclear project, meanwhile in the USA, the NRC bankrupts every project with non-stop delays instead of timely constructive work with designers, builders, and investors.
- adrianN 5y ago
  When did France announce a massive nuclear project? The last news I heard was that they plan to build a couple of new nuclear power plants, but far from the numbers they'd need to maintain the current capacity as ageing plants go offline in the coming years.
  - Retric 5y ago
    While France is aiming to significantly reduce the number of nuclear power plants they operate, building any nuclear power plants is seen as a good sign by the industry.
  - WillPostForFood 5y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/france-macron-nuclear-power.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/france-macro... Is this not a major project? The article is very lacking in details, so it is hard to tell what it amounts to in terms of impact.
    - adrianN 5y ago
      That really depends what "up to" means and how big the "fleet of smaller reactors" is going to be. Announcing up to 14 today is very little when you have over fifty reactors to replace in the next two or three decades when you consider that building a reactor takes around fifteen years. Nuclear energy hopes are pinned on those small reactors, but afaik, none of them are ready for prime time today.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Gwypaas 5y ago
  The nuclear announcement makes nice headlines for nationalistic dreams. What they actually do tells the real story. > France will also increase its solar power capacity tenfold by 2050 to more than 100 gigawatts (GW) and target building 50 offshore wind farms with a combined capacity of at least 40 GW. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/macron-bets-nuclear-carbon-neutrality-push-announces-new-reactors-2022-02-10/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/macron-bets-nuclear-... So they are adding ~10 GW nuclear (6 * 1.6 GW) and at least 140 GW of renewables. Use any capacity factor you want but the numbers speak for themselves. The real reason for this is likely continue have an industrial base for their naval submarine reactors by subsidizing a complementary civilian industry.
  - exabrial 5y ago
    > The real reason for this is likely continue have an industrial base for their naval submarine reactors by subsidizing a complementary civilian industry. Interesting, I've never read about that angle. Nuclear is a great complement to Wind/Solar as it provides a steady base load.
    - Gwypaas 5y ago
      The thing is, they don't complement each other at all. They both compete for the same share of the market: the cheapest most inflexible power generation. Renewables win there and force nuclear plants to be more flexible. Due to the extremely high fixed costs and lower marginal costs of nuclear plants they then have to make the money back in fewer hours, driving cost even higher. The other issue is the costly steam turbine side. The reason gas won over coal is the efficiency and tiny footprint of gas turbines. Tack on a tiny steam side for the last percent of efficiency and you have a CCGT plant. Coal and nuclear share the same steam side, both have been dead ends since the 80s.
      - exabrial 5y ago
        That is not true. They do not compete for the some market segment. The problem is most renewables fall off before peak load subsides. That's why cheap energy storage would be a huge boon for transient renewables as they could keep providing energy after the sun is down and the wind has subsided. Take a look here: https://nuclear-power.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Base-Load-Load-Follow-Peak-Load.png https://nuclear-power.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Base-Lo...

adrianN 5y ago

With the help of electrolysis and a gas turbine, it can. The problem is that we don't have enough solar panels and not enough electrolyzers.

HPsquared 5y ago
What's the round-trip efficiency of such a system? There are multiple lossy conversions, you'd be doing well to hit 50% if the gas is simply burned to spin a turbine.
- Joeri 5y ago
  Solar and wind are already far cheaper than gas or nuclear plants, and they’re still getting cheaper while gas and nuclear are getting more expensive (although to be fair, gas has only recently gotten more expensive). In so far that the economics in favor of renewables+storage don’t work out yet factoring in conversion losses, it is all but inevitable that they will. See the LCOE graphs in this article for the trends: https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth
  - The_rationalist 5y ago
    Nuclear is a lot cheaper than solar, it simply depends on the nuclear plant model. Russians are the world leaders regarding nuclear plants time to market and costs (4 years).
    - Joeri 5y ago
      Which would be great if we could invite russia to build nuclear plants in the U.S. and EU. Right now that might not be the best plan. We need a model that is cheap and safe everywhere, in every country, not just in china and russia. Also, I wouldn’t put too much faith into Russian numbers for their nuclear projects. They’ve pretty much got the patent on propaganda.
      - 5y ago

kitkat_new 5y ago

yes, batteries, power to gas, ... There are many possiblities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage Then there is wind power and other sources such as geothermal energy and Bio-gas Plants, which is are independant of day time. And let's not forget the lower energy demand at night, the possibilities for supply based energy consumption, (green) gas imports from somewhere else.

orthecreedence 5y ago

If you put solar panels on top of your nuclear power plant then yes it works 24/7.

KarlKemp 5y ago

I don’t believe factories here in Germany run 24/7, to be honest. But anyway: wind energy is quite cheap at night.

contingencies 5y ago

Depends on the factory. Most production processes are multi-stage. Most multi-stage processes have differing energy needs across individual unit operations. You could easily schedule low energy, slow processes (testing, drying, settling, cooling, etc.) to evenings to better match power availability. This has the secondary benefit that people prefer to sleep at night. Normally you'd have to redesign the whole factory to facilitate such a process change, however.