5 ms·

> They saw the numbers. You can store electricity from day to night, but not from Summer to Winter. Months-long electricity storage will never make economic sen

> They saw the numbers. You can store electricity from day to night, but not from Summer to Winter. Months-long electricity storage will never make economic sense (or at least not in the next 30 years). where's your crystal ball?

credit_guy 4y ago
It's just math. If you have a storage solution where you can recoup you capital costs by charging every day and selling electricity every night, you will recoup only one hundredth of that if you charge one day and sell 100 days later. Currently the capital costs of batteries add a few cents to the kWh (the average price of 1 kWh in the US in 2021 was 14 cents). If you multiply that number by one hundred, you end up with dollars for kWh, and you can sell that kWh, because nobody will buy it. If you find a storage solution that adds only hundredths of cents to a kWh if sold daily, that would be absolutely fantastic. But no such solution is in sight. The only long term storage solution that has a shadow of a chance to make it is hydrogen. But we are so, so much behind the plan in building green hydrogen production facilities. As for hydrogen liquefaction and shipping, that's just a distant plan.
- tcfhgj 4y ago
  Logical fallacy: Every storage technology is scaled up/down linearly in terms of cost from a daily to monthly or even higher cycle Another thing: Demand based power consumption
  - p1mrx 4y ago
    "Demand based consumption" is a fancy way to say shortage.
    - tcfhgj 4y ago
      No, its not
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
They are correct about this bit, but not the wider conclusion. Months long storage of electricity is uneconomic compared with alternatives. Which is a shame for nuclear, as it would really benefit from it if you could just build enough for the average demand and run then 100% of the time. Instead, flexible demand is much cheaper. So you overbuild the nuclear and modulate the demand for making green hydrogen and ammonia and store that. Much cheaper than long term storage. Note we don't use that to generate electricity, but for chemical feedstocks. Again, cheaper to overgenerate with nuclear. However, now that you have overbuild and responsive demand in the equation there is no advantage of nuclear over renewables, which are much cheaper to build for the same capacity.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  Not all overbuilding is the same. This link [1] shows that solar energy generation is 6 times higher in the summer than in the winter in Germany. The total electricity consumption varies is about 1.5 times higher in the winter than in the summer [2]. In other words, you need to overbuild nuclear by a factor of 1.5, and solar by a factor of 9. [1] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/monthly-generation-of-solar-pv-in-germany https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/monthly-gener... [2] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    You're so confident about nuclear that you feel you need to compare it to purely solar in Germany to make a good case for it? Doesn't this just show that you know it can't compete with solar in equatorial regions or wind in the UK, never mind appropriate combinations of the two across Europe and the rest of the world? And you didn't even compare price. Solar would only need to be 6x cheaper to still win that rigged comparison and provide masses of cheap energy in the summer. It's about 4 or 5x cheaper at the moment and predicted to fall further as it gets rolled out globally at massive scale. And every watt rolled out at the moment can displace coal.
    - credit_guy 4y ago

credit_guy 4y ago

It's just math. If you have a storage solution where you can recoup you capital costs by charging every day and selling electricity every night, you will recoup only one hundredth of that if you charge one day and sell 100 days later. Currently the capital costs of batteries add a few cents to the kWh (the average price of 1 kWh in the US in 2021 was 14 cents). If you multiply that number by one hundred, you end up with dollars for kWh, and you can sell that kWh, because nobody will buy it. If you find a storage solution that adds only hundredths of cents to a kWh if sold daily, that would be absolutely fantastic. But no such solution is in sight. The only long term storage solution that has a shadow of a chance to make it is hydrogen. But we are so, so much behind the plan in building green hydrogen production facilities. As for hydrogen liquefaction and shipping, that's just a distant plan.

tcfhgj 4y ago
Logical fallacy: Every storage technology is scaled up/down linearly in terms of cost from a daily to monthly or even higher cycle Another thing: Demand based power consumption
- p1mrx 4y ago
  "Demand based consumption" is a fancy way to say shortage.
  - tcfhgj 4y ago
    No, its not

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

They are correct about this bit, but not the wider conclusion. Months long storage of electricity is uneconomic compared with alternatives. Which is a shame for nuclear, as it would really benefit from it if you could just build enough for the average demand and run then 100% of the time. Instead, flexible demand is much cheaper. So you overbuild the nuclear and modulate the demand for making green hydrogen and ammonia and store that. Much cheaper than long term storage. Note we don't use that to generate electricity, but for chemical feedstocks. Again, cheaper to overgenerate with nuclear. However, now that you have overbuild and responsive demand in the equation there is no advantage of nuclear over renewables, which are much cheaper to build for the same capacity.

credit_guy 4y ago
Not all overbuilding is the same. This link [1] shows that solar energy generation is 6 times higher in the summer than in the winter in Germany. The total electricity consumption varies is about 1.5 times higher in the winter than in the summer [2]. In other words, you need to overbuild nuclear by a factor of 1.5, and solar by a factor of 9. [1] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/monthly-generation-of-solar-pv-in-germany https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/monthly-gener... [2] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  You're so confident about nuclear that you feel you need to compare it to purely solar in Germany to make a good case for it? Doesn't this just show that you know it can't compete with solar in equatorial regions or wind in the UK, never mind appropriate combinations of the two across Europe and the rest of the world? And you didn't even compare price. Solar would only need to be 6x cheaper to still win that rigged comparison and provide masses of cheap energy in the summer. It's about 4 or 5x cheaper at the moment and predicted to fall further as it gets rolled out globally at massive scale. And every watt rolled out at the moment can displace coal.
  - credit_guy 4y ago