3 ms·

100% renewable grids mean that when the Sun doesn't shine and you have no wind, you also have no energy. There will always be a huge need for a stable source of

by epups 4y ago

100% renewable grids mean that when the Sun doesn't shine and you have no wind, you also have no energy. There will always be a huge need for a stable source of energy that is not dependent on any external factors. Today, there is simply no other option but nuclear, and I doubt in the next 10-15 years there will be an alternative as well.

freemint 4y ago
No it doesn't. Also the sun shines 24/7.
- yessirwhatever 4y ago
  "No it doesn't" is not much of an argument, and to quote one of your previous comments "Citations needed.". Battery storage and hydrogen are not much solutions. From the article: > To control these swings and provide reliable power, renewables advocates argue that battery storage and hydrogen can store electricity and dispatch it when solar and wind aren’t producing. Germany’s largest battery storage program is its home storage systems, but years of battery storage installations have barely made an impact on the German grid. The country currently has an estimated 435,000 homes equipped with battery storage systems of various capabilities, and 145,000 home storage systems were installed in 2021. But there are 40 million households in Germany, and home battery storage systems usually last only a few hours, while the grid needs storage that can support variations lasting weeks.
- llampx 4y ago
  Where on Earth does the sun shine 24/7? Aside from maybe the South Pole.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    10-15 years is about the minimum timescale to make a global power grid if there is a sudden increase in political will and global cooperation (yes yes I know), and that kind of grid would always have sunlight somewhere.
anovikov 4y ago
Not really. Easy calculation using historical data on electricity production and consumption reveals that accepting 50% marginal loss factor (that is, level of renewables penetration on which 50% of power produced by the marginal - "last added" unit will be lost because there is no demand when it is produced), 80% of renewables can be provided with no storage and 90%, with quite minimal, easy to achieve storage, with no need for hydrogen. Which seems to be confirmed by recent Germany data when 50% of renewables has been achieved with effectively no storage and under 10% marginal loss rate. If you really want 100% renewables, not 90%, then yes, it becomes tricky, but here hydrogen provides a solution.
- epups 4y ago
  There is no country using hydrogen for large-scale storage of even 1% of their storage needs (maybe 0.01% but I'm being generous). And for batteries it's much less than that. Of course you can use renewables for even 100% of your energy needs on a good day. But you will need either nuclear, hydro, coal or gas if you don't want interruptions.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    "They have not" does not mean "they cannot". Until recently batteries were just way too expensive, yet now we are building the factories to make the batteries as fast as we can. Likewise, we have not generally used hydrogen because it isn't as convenient as methane, but if e.g. you think your major gas supplier is a warmonger and you want to stop any money going their way, hydrogen is really easy to make.
ben_w 4y ago
My personal favourite fantasy solution is to make a global power grid. Technically fine even now, but requires unreasonable optimism about politics, but that would always have sunlight somewhere. That timescale is also enough time for (global) battery production rate to reach multiple TWh of additional capacity each year, which may not seem like enough, but remember batteries only have to fill the gap when there is no wind at night while the hydroelectric reservoirs are low. I'm also expecting some hydrogen in there, not because it's great, but because it's so easy I made some myself when I was single-digit-years-old. If you can make nuclear fast, cheap, and safe, then of course we should go for it, but the current ones, are only safe, as they are slow and expensive to build.

by epups 4y ago

freemint 4y ago

No it doesn't. Also the sun shines 24/7.

yessirwhatever 4y ago
"No it doesn't" is not much of an argument, and to quote one of your previous comments "Citations needed.". Battery storage and hydrogen are not much solutions. From the article: > To control these swings and provide reliable power, renewables advocates argue that battery storage and hydrogen can store electricity and dispatch it when solar and wind aren’t producing. Germany’s largest battery storage program is its home storage systems, but years of battery storage installations have barely made an impact on the German grid. The country currently has an estimated 435,000 homes equipped with battery storage systems of various capabilities, and 145,000 home storage systems were installed in 2021. But there are 40 million households in Germany, and home battery storage systems usually last only a few hours, while the grid needs storage that can support variations lasting weeks.
llampx 4y ago
Where on Earth does the sun shine 24/7? Aside from maybe the South Pole.
- ben_w 4y ago
  10-15 years is about the minimum timescale to make a global power grid if there is a sudden increase in political will and global cooperation (yes yes I know), and that kind of grid would always have sunlight somewhere.

anovikov 4y ago

Not really. Easy calculation using historical data on electricity production and consumption reveals that accepting 50% marginal loss factor (that is, level of renewables penetration on which 50% of power produced by the marginal - "last added" unit will be lost because there is no demand when it is produced), 80% of renewables can be provided with no storage and 90%, with quite minimal, easy to achieve storage, with no need for hydrogen. Which seems to be confirmed by recent Germany data when 50% of renewables has been achieved with effectively no storage and under 10% marginal loss rate. If you really want 100% renewables, not 90%, then yes, it becomes tricky, but here hydrogen provides a solution.

epups 4y ago
There is no country using hydrogen for large-scale storage of even 1% of their storage needs (maybe 0.01% but I'm being generous). And for batteries it's much less than that. Of course you can use renewables for even 100% of your energy needs on a good day. But you will need either nuclear, hydro, coal or gas if you don't want interruptions.
- ben_w 4y ago
  "They have not" does not mean "they cannot". Until recently batteries were just way too expensive, yet now we are building the factories to make the batteries as fast as we can. Likewise, we have not generally used hydrogen because it isn't as convenient as methane, but if e.g. you think your major gas supplier is a warmonger and you want to stop any money going their way, hydrogen is really easy to make.

ben_w 4y ago

My personal favourite fantasy solution is to make a global power grid. Technically fine even now, but requires unreasonable optimism about politics, but that would always have sunlight somewhere. That timescale is also enough time for (global) battery production rate to reach multiple TWh of additional capacity each year, which may not seem like enough, but remember batteries only have to fill the gap when there is no wind at night while the hydroelectric reservoirs are low. I'm also expecting some hydrogen in there, not because it's great, but because it's so easy I made some myself when I was single-digit-years-old. If you can make nuclear fast, cheap, and safe, then of course we should go for it, but the current ones, are only safe, as they are slow and expensive to build.