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> reuse the heat-to-electricity machinery and grid connection of existing coal plants, since that's a good fraction of the capital required. Compare the cost o
by epistasis 5y ago
> reuse the heat-to-electricity machinery and grid connection of existing coal plants, since that's a good fraction of the capital required.
Compare the cost of a coal build to a nuclear build and you will see this is not the case.
Nonetheless, the transmission infrastructure is super valuable, and super expensive, as that is a huge fraction of the cost of electricity in the US, something like 40% on average. Reusing these sites for batteries is probably a good idea.
- ncmncm 5y agoOr other storage: Underground hydrogen. Underground liquified hydrogen. Anhydrous ammonia. Underground heat. Underground compressed air.
- epistasis 5y agoUnderground storage requires specific geography that is unlikely to be near to existing coal burners. Big industry, such as green ammonia production from electrolyzed hydrogen, could be good though. But I bet those will likely be powered by massive amounts of solar plus batteries, as is being planned in places such as Spain right now. For at least the next generation of electrolyzer tech, energy costs will be dwarfed by the capital costs of electrolyzers, and the electrolyzers will need to be run nearly continuously. It remains to be seen if the tech curve of electrolyzers will decrease more quickly than the cost or batteries and solar do.
- parkingrift 5y agoWhy can’t we use enhanced geothermal at these sites?
- ineedasername 5y agoEGS also required highly specific geological conditions, so each site would have to be evaluated for suitability. That's not an argument against considering it, but it does mean that EGS isn't a drop-in replacement for every site. For those where it would work? Sure, let's do it.
- ncmncm 5y agoEGS is a technology related to fracking. It gets a boost from the maturity of fracking itself, but it is also expensive, kind of risky financially -- an expensive hole might need to be abandoned -- and depends on geological details of the site to determine its suitability. The newer technology, what amounts to drilling by vaporizing rock with microwaves, enables drilling to much greater depths quickly and cheaply. Being new, it has not actually been used yet, but once mature should be less dependent on local geology, and not generate (sometimes reasonable) fears of causing damaging earthquakes, and should yield more power from a single borehole than EGS gets from two more costly holes. But there seems to be no prospect of commercial deployment before 2028, and something could go wrong on the way, delaying or even deep-sixing it. EGS, even where it works best, is more costly than solar and wind. Working independently of weather gives it a leg up, but money for it is less available than for those, for now, because we haven't enough of those yet.
- parkingrift 5y agoIs there a reason we can't use abandoned fracking sites? There are thousands of them.
- ncmncm 5y agoYou need two holes. Most have just one. And, they are drilled too shallowly. They need to be deeper.
- ncmncm 5y agoYou build what works best for the site. Anhydrous ammonia tanks can be anywhere, but are most useful near a port where surplus is easily shipped out and fill-in for shortfalls shipped in. Tankage is always cheap. The cost for electrolysers is amortized over not just the time to refill local tankage, but over all the time when surplus power is available, generating direct revenue. The presence of electrolysers makes overbuild of top-line generating capacity an obvious win, because it is always generating income.