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In addition to what you say here, if we're going to actually solve the CO2-emissions problem, we're going to have a HUGE amount of variable load to match with v
by audunw 4y ago
In addition to what you say here, if we're going to actually solve the CO2-emissions problem, we're going to have a HUGE amount of variable load to match with variable production.
We're going to need a massive amount of green hydrogen for trucks, planes, ships, e-fuel, fertilizers, steel, etc. That's going to be fairly easy to balance with the variable output from renewables. The cost of electrolysis is also coming down, so over-capacity on the load side is also viable. It may even be possible to store some of the hydrogen, and feed it back into existing gas peaker plants (expensive, but should only rarely be needed)
People who say we require nuclear (I'm not against it, just skeptical of the claim that we require it, or that it makes economic sense), rarely seems to keep the big picture in mind. CO2-emissions is about far more than electricity production, and most of the required solutions will inherently add energy storage or load balancing capability (since that's part of the reason we use fossil fuels: they help us store energy for when we need it)
- p_l 4y agoThe low capacity factor of wind/solar, especially in less sunny regions (did you know that Boston is way sunnier than considerable portion of Europe?) is a problem. When renewable power + green hydrogen plan starts to require >450 GW capacity installed (in a country with peak power usage of ~45GW for just electricity) and that's the optimistic calculation, things become more problematic. However, electrolysis is a great source of variable load, and changing pricing structure to prioritise dispatchable sources (including renewable+storage mixes operating as virtual power plants) would also change the economics of nuclear power plants without wrecking economics of renewables. Prioritise dispatchable power (buying from NPPs, hydro and renewable+storage VPP) then match the rest of the load with green hydrogen production using electrolysis and push hydrogen into other sections of the economy (metallurgy, vehicles that can't go for batteries, etc.) so that your target is always to overproduce electrical power using hydrogen as sink - is in my opinion a much better setup than backfilling renewables 1:1 with gas turbines, and fixes renewables being "destabilising factor" in energy market.
- trashtester 4y agoThe price of electrolysis may be coming down, but it is still very expensive....