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Until we have more renewable generating capacity online, four hours is plenty. As the share of power generation increases, building more storage is favored. Laz
by ncmncm 5y ago
Until we have more renewable generating capacity online, four hours is plenty. As the share of power generation increases, building more storage is favored.
Lazard's figures are (as is proper) for existing storage, not for the much cheaper storage that will be built.
It is generally a mistake to assume people controlling billion-dollar budgets have no idea what they are doing.
- DennisP 5y agoYes, and building more storage raises the cost by quite a lot, as you can see by Lazard's cost figures for storage. Nuclear can easily be competitive in a grid not backed by natural gas, especially if MSR companies like Thorcon are successful in lowering nuclear costs.
- ncmncm 5y agoLazards's cost figures are backward-looking, so not representative. As I already pointed out. Yet, generation + even those figures is still cheaper than building nukes.
- DennisP 5y agoLazard is the one widely cited by renewables advocates attempting to make their case. You're the first person I've seen claim that it overestimates renewable costs. Can you point out where in the Lazard report it describes its methodology in a way that makes clear it doesn't reflect the cost of new renewable projects today? And reference a thorough study that shows lower-than-Lazard average costs for solar+storage today, not in some estimated future, and not with cherry-picked projects in ideal locations? And if that cost includes sufficient collection and storage to get through a windless night, like nuclear can do, that would be nice too.
- jupp0r 5y agoIf PV and storage were that much cheaper, those people controlling billion-dollar budgets would have built that instead of gas plants and this discussion would be moot.
- ncmncm 5y agoAnd now they are building out PV and gearing up to build out storage.
- jupp0r 5y agoAre they? Why haven’t they already? It looks like they are supplementing peak capacity right now with gas plants dynamically reacting to varying demand with storage being oders of magnitude too small.
- ncmncm 5y agoDo you understand the difference between already built-out storage, and preparing to build out storage? If you want to compare like against like, the number of ThorCon reactors deployed is exactly zero (0). Storage is not already built out because it is still obviously better to spend the money building out generating capacity, and will be until its share is much larger. In particular, before storage can be useful, you need enough spare generating capacity to top up your storage while also driving customer load.
- jupp0r 5y agoThe business model for storage is leveraging the difference in prices at different times (of the day mostly). There is already quite a price difference on energy markets and negative prices happen regularly around the world.
- ncmncm 5y agoYou seem to be talking about storage as a separate business. But the major market for storage will be public utilities that also own generating capacity, and sell power principally to end users. After their storage is full, maybe they sell any extra to the grid, or use it to synthesize liquid fuel for sale. Negative prices are a very, very temporary phenomenon. Very soon, all surplus generating capacity will be absorbed producing hydrogen and ammonia for sale into an unlimited market.