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It’s not just the German greens. Australia’s greens are staunchly anti-nuclear despite it being the only viable solution to the baseload problem, which renewabl
by steve_taylor 5y ago
It’s not just the German greens. Australia’s greens are staunchly anti-nuclear despite it being the only viable solution to the baseload problem, which renewables haven’t yet solved.
- natmaka 5y agoBaseload: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/180592/european-cooperation-could-provide-more-stable/ https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/180592/european-cooperation-...
- pydry 5y ago...other than pumped storage, demand shaping and more grid interconnects.
- p1mrx 5y agoDemand shaping doesn't really solve the energy availability problem; it's "giving up, with computers."
- pydry 5y agoWind and solar solve the availability problem - at a fraction of the cost of nuclear power.
- yellow_postit 5y agoLet’s do both! All the things you listed are exciting advancements but lacking the track record of nuclear.
- tenuousemphasis 5y agoPumped storage isn't a generic solution. You need two huge volume reservoirs with as much vertical separation as possible. That's just not feasible in most places of the world. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/
- bozhark 5y agoWho’s foreign funding the nationalist greens world-wide? Bet it someone with oil money. SA or Ruskies
- lionkor 5y ago
- photochemsyn 5y agoIsn't battery storage the baseload solution for renewable power? And it doesn't have to be lithium batteries, there are cheaper alternatives if you don't need the batteries to be that small.
- hedora 5y agoWith over provisioning of production and storage, and accounting for 10 year storms, etc., nuclear is still cheaper (in countries with reasonable regulatory regimes). Also, this is a war, and the nuclear plants have already been built. (and we only have a year or so left on the climate change clock anyway).
- nradov 5y agoWe won't have enough battery manufacturing capacity to produce a useful amount of base load storage for many years.
- tenuousemphasis 5y agoWe do not have the capability to build enough batteries (chemical or otherwise) to power the grid entirely from renewables. Certainly not the capability to do it for less than the cost of nuclear power.
- akimball 5y agoIt is true that present battery production rates are too low, but the solution to that is simply to increase demand. The lithium constraint will be solved by using sodium or iron batteries, depending on application.
- adrianN 5y agoBattery manufacturing, at least with the chemistries we have available right now, won't scale to the point where we can store several weeks worth of power in the foreseeable future. Afaik Power2Gas is the only currently available technology that can be scaled relatively quickly. Most countries already have the infrastructure for strategic gas reserves.
- rcxdude 5y agoThere's not a 'baseload problem', there's a 'supply meeting demand problem'. And nuclear and renewables are not a good combination to solve that problem, because they don't complement each other at all: what both would need to efficiently supply the grid is either lots of storage or highly dispatchable cheap generation. The former is being developed and the latter exists but is still fossil fuels. The other option is massive overbuilding, which is far more doable with renewables because they're so cheap.