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These things can all be true and yet it is still a good idea to include some nuclear in our energy portfolio for diversification. In particular, my understandin

These things can all be true and yet it is still a good idea to include some nuclear in our energy portfolio for diversification. In particular, my understanding is that economic storage of renewable energy has not yet been solved, so it might be nice to get some nuclear going in case that endeavor doesn’t pan out as optimistically as hoped.

nl 4y ago
Elsewhere on this thread someone posted a great 2019 research article that says: > If other sources meet demand 5% of the time, electricity costs fall and the energy capacity cost target rises to $150/kWh. Battery storage is already well under $150/kWh!
- thrown_22 4y ago
  And yet the more renewable a grid gets the less stable and more expensive it becomes. Funny how that works in reality instead of theory.
  - nl 4y ago
    This isn't true! Here are volume weight prices by time for Australia, which has been doing a transition: https://www.aer.gov.au/wholesale-markets/wholesale-statistics/annual-volume-weighted-average-30-minute-prices-regions https://www.aer.gov.au/wholesale-markets/wholesale-statistic... They increase at less than the rate of inflation!
    - thrown_22 4y ago
      https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-warning-from-australias-power-crisis-green-energy-anthony-albanese-11655659465 https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-warning-from-australias-power... Australia is the poster child of what not to do.
      - nl 4y ago
        (I live in Australia) I'd take that headline with a grain of salt. A lack of investment in power generation because of unclear policy goals by the previous conservative government is the real issue - combined with another odd policy where long term gas supply export contracts meant it was cheaper to turn off gas plants than run them! Basically the previous government wanted someone to build a new coal fired power station(!) but no commercial company wanted to do it and no investors could be found (coal fired stations just cost too much now). The then Prime Minster is famous for bringing a lump of coal into parliament to show how much he loved coal[1]. It's worth noting that no blackouts occurred. Ironically, the state of South Australia also had a conservative government at the time but had a very pro-renewables policy (this is where the first Tesla big battery was) which took power prices from the highest in mainland Australia in 2018 to the lowest wholesale prices[2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea5bOaPkZpc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea5bOaPkZpc [2] https://reneweconomy.com.au/sa-renewables-surge-bringing-down-energy-prices-but-consumers-miss-out/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/sa-renewables-surge-bringing-dow...
- vondro 4y ago
  The problem is scale and availability of materials to make batteries. Right now almost all the batteries are produced for and used in electric cars, however electric cars only make around 10% of all the cars consumed. Now you wanna store enough solar-generated electricity for when the sun doesn't shine, worldwide? My napkin math says that either the price per kWh will go up, or that some poor country with enough lithium will be "politically destabilized" soon.
  - nl 4y ago
    There's plenty of capacity for grid connected batteries. For one thing they can use a bunch of tech that doesn't work well in cars (flow batteries for example). And the price goes down because the primary constraint is production capacity. More demand means more factories mean cheaper prices. See eg the growth in manufacturing capacity in batteries and their price decreasing: If you look at 2008, there was 6GWh of battery manufacturing in the world and 97% of it was in China. In 2019, there was around 365GWh worldwide, split into: China (75%), US (9%), South Korea (7%) Europe (5%) By 2023 we estimate there will be 1,230GWh worldwide: China (65%), Europe (10%), US (10%) and rest of the world (15%). https://www.energy-storage.news/behind-the-numbers-the-rapidly-falling-lcoe-of-battery-storage/ https://www.energy-storage.news/behind-the-numbers-the-rapid...
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    Iron redox flow batteries are made from abundant materials and cost less than lithium batteries. Sodium batteries have many of the upsides of lithium and don't require it (they require some other scarce materials). There are enough empty salt mines and similar to build weeks' worth of storage in CAES for less than the cost of either. But none of these solve the issue of months long weather fluctuations and disasters entirely in regions where pumped hydro isn't viable. For that, grid flexibility (such as variable rate Al production and electrified steel smelting), gas or hybrid heating/cooling, generator backup for essential uses (minimal heating and medical facilities), and methane produced from electricity and biomass is the answer and the only reason it hasn't happened on its own is we don't price in the (absolutely massive) externalities of fossil fuels so they're marginally cheaper. We also need to cut the low hanging fruit that are responsible for most of the emissions either directly or indirectly (poorly insulated, overly large detached homes, cars, and cows).

nl 4y ago

Elsewhere on this thread someone posted a great 2019 research article that says: > If other sources meet demand 5% of the time, electricity costs fall and the energy capacity cost target rises to $150/kWh. Battery storage is already well under $150/kWh!

thrown_22 4y ago
And yet the more renewable a grid gets the less stable and more expensive it becomes. Funny how that works in reality instead of theory.
- nl 4y ago
  This isn't true! Here are volume weight prices by time for Australia, which has been doing a transition: https://www.aer.gov.au/wholesale-markets/wholesale-statistics/annual-volume-weighted-average-30-minute-prices-regions https://www.aer.gov.au/wholesale-markets/wholesale-statistic... They increase at less than the rate of inflation!
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-warning-from-australias-power-crisis-green-energy-anthony-albanese-11655659465 https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-warning-from-australias-power... Australia is the poster child of what not to do.
    - nl 4y ago
      (I live in Australia) I'd take that headline with a grain of salt. A lack of investment in power generation because of unclear policy goals by the previous conservative government is the real issue - combined with another odd policy where long term gas supply export contracts meant it was cheaper to turn off gas plants than run them! Basically the previous government wanted someone to build a new coal fired power station(!) but no commercial company wanted to do it and no investors could be found (coal fired stations just cost too much now). The then Prime Minster is famous for bringing a lump of coal into parliament to show how much he loved coal[1]. It's worth noting that no blackouts occurred. Ironically, the state of South Australia also had a conservative government at the time but had a very pro-renewables policy (this is where the first Tesla big battery was) which took power prices from the highest in mainland Australia in 2018 to the lowest wholesale prices[2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea5bOaPkZpc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea5bOaPkZpc [2] https://reneweconomy.com.au/sa-renewables-surge-bringing-down-energy-prices-but-consumers-miss-out/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/sa-renewables-surge-bringing-dow...
vondro 4y ago
The problem is scale and availability of materials to make batteries. Right now almost all the batteries are produced for and used in electric cars, however electric cars only make around 10% of all the cars consumed. Now you wanna store enough solar-generated electricity for when the sun doesn't shine, worldwide? My napkin math says that either the price per kWh will go up, or that some poor country with enough lithium will be "politically destabilized" soon.
- nl 4y ago
  There's plenty of capacity for grid connected batteries. For one thing they can use a bunch of tech that doesn't work well in cars (flow batteries for example). And the price goes down because the primary constraint is production capacity. More demand means more factories mean cheaper prices. See eg the growth in manufacturing capacity in batteries and their price decreasing: If you look at 2008, there was 6GWh of battery manufacturing in the world and 97% of it was in China. In 2019, there was around 365GWh worldwide, split into: China (75%), US (9%), South Korea (7%) Europe (5%) By 2023 we estimate there will be 1,230GWh worldwide: China (65%), Europe (10%), US (10%) and rest of the world (15%). https://www.energy-storage.news/behind-the-numbers-the-rapidly-falling-lcoe-of-battery-storage/ https://www.energy-storage.news/behind-the-numbers-the-rapid...
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Iron redox flow batteries are made from abundant materials and cost less than lithium batteries. Sodium batteries have many of the upsides of lithium and don't require it (they require some other scarce materials). There are enough empty salt mines and similar to build weeks' worth of storage in CAES for less than the cost of either. But none of these solve the issue of months long weather fluctuations and disasters entirely in regions where pumped hydro isn't viable. For that, grid flexibility (such as variable rate Al production and electrified steel smelting), gas or hybrid heating/cooling, generator backup for essential uses (minimal heating and medical facilities), and methane produced from electricity and biomass is the answer and the only reason it hasn't happened on its own is we don't price in the (absolutely massive) externalities of fossil fuels so they're marginally cheaper. We also need to cut the low hanging fruit that are responsible for most of the emissions either directly or indirectly (poorly insulated, overly large detached homes, cars, and cows).