4 ms·

> "While in reality renewables are on an exponential cost reduction trajectory " And now we are looking of some development in the future. The usual argument I

by belorn 4y ago

> "While in reality renewables are on an exponential cost reduction trajectory " And now we are looking of some development in the future. The usual argument I keep seeing is that with the exponential cost reduction in solar and green hydrogen we will have in the future a combination that will be cheaper than the nuclear costs of today. A comparison of the current state of nuclear to some future potential solar + storage solution. Maybe we should use the same description for this and call that dishonest comparison? The current state in northern Europe are wind and some solar in combination with large capacity gas (and some coal/oil). This is why Russian gas, oil and coal has such a huge impact of the electricity price in Europe, and why countries are currently setting up plans to disconnect part of the grid if the threat of limited gas supply continues to next winter. The grid is built on renewables when they are available, running around 50% on average in some countries, and for the remaining we burn a lot of fossil fuels. All the waste of those burned fossil fuels are put into the environment for society to address at a later date. Maybe it is time for honesty in energy discussions, and also make intention clears. We should ban fossil fuels from being used in the energy grid, and we should set an date for that ban which corresponds to the common scientific understanding of global warming. We should also take in the data from doctors and health scientists that have first hand experience with fossil fuel pollution. With that, we need to build an energy grid that operates without having fossil fuels to fall back on.

pydry 4y ago
>The usual argument I keep seeing is that with the exponential cost reduction in solar and green hydrogen we will have in the future a combination that will be cheaper than the nuclear costs of today. Thats what its like today. That's probably why the nuclear PR articles almost never try to compare costs or speed of construction with demand shaping + solar + wind + storage. It does not stack up well.
- belorn 4y ago
  The average cost of green hydrogen is 6 euro per kg, putting the price per kw/h around 18 cent. That is about 7 times more than the cost of nuclear per kw/h. No one is burning green hydrogen commercially for grid power, through a lot of people would be happy to pay the average nuclear cost (~3 cent per kw/h) if you want to provide it. Selling green hydrogen for $1 per kg would be very welcome in Europe right now, with a basically bottomless demand if someone would be willing to provide it at current nuclear prices. Demand shaping + solar + wind + storage is not economical viable in Northen Europe, but if you have any evidence to support the opposite then provide them. The fact is, if it was then the crisis that currently exist would not be a crisis, it would be an investment rush. Of course, if you personally want to offer green hydrogen for $1 per kg this winter, and sign a liability contract for supplying the many tons needed, then sure. Lets do it!
  - pydry 4y ago
    "Green hydrogen" is probably the least efficient form of energy storage talked about. The only reason it gets talked about at all is again, PR - because gas companies are keen on extending the life of their rather expensive capital investments. It's currently in the hypothetical stage and, being realistic, the gas companies promoting it probably just want to produce grey hydrogen for use with "green hydrogen" infrastructure and string us along with false hopes that theyll go 100% green soon. Not an unexpected development from the same people who covered up global warming for decades. Pumped storage + (to a lesser extent) grid scale batteries (e.g. in hawaii) are actually real, being used and economic. The lobbying and PR muscle behind each is a bit less though - especially boring old pumped storage. >Demand shaping + solar + wind + storage is not economical viable in Northen Europe It very much is. It's already being done. In fact a lot of that storage in the alps has been used for excess nuclear power from France.
    - belorn 4y ago
      Please provide a link to a pumped storage that buy green wind power when the price is low and sell it when the price is high. I would be nice to have a working example of how much wind they buy and at what price point they sell, and how they managed to finance it (ie, how much subsidies was involved). The cost per kw/h is of particular interest. Grid scale batteries work great when you got 365 charge cycles. Each day it charge, each night it sell and generate profits. Current economics makes it worth having a few hours of capacity, and after a few years of daily charge cycles you got profits. Wind doesn't have day and night cycles like that, but rather have periods lasting weeks or months of either good wind or poor wind. You need capacity to last the whole period, and you get maybe a 10 or so charge cycle each year. > A lot of that storage in the alps has been used for excess nuclear power from France. Since nuclear is presented as being the most expensive method to create energy, if you then store it in pumped hydro and add this additional storage cost, how in the world would that be economical viable? Looking at the European report on energy storage, the answer is that it is not. Pumped storage is not used for that purpose in the alps. It is used to balance the grid when power plants ramp up or down, a role which gas and oil power plants usually do. For this, nuclear energy can be used since the profits are not from buying low and selling high, it is from the utilization of keeping the grid balanced when power plants are ramping up and down. They get paid for the service, which makes the economics of it very different from selling capacity to the market during periods of low wind.
- iso1631 4y ago
  This is the problem with nuclear. It was the answer in the 1990s, but renewables have proven themselves. Now sure, if you could snap your fingers and build a new nuclear plant tomorrow, that would be great. But you can't. By the time a plant breaking ground today starts generating power, it will be too late to make sense.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    And, if you could, it would still be massively more expensive. For the price you get many times as much renewable generation.
    - belorn 4y ago
      The market is free to make their decisions. With a global ban on fossil fuels in the European grid countries should choose for themselves if they want to build multiple cheaper renewables or build more expensive nuclear. Voters will then say theirs. Countries can always trade with each other so that which ever strategy end up as a winner will spread to the others. Everything is a win-win scenario as long fossil fuels stays in the ground.
      - pydry 4y ago
        I think a lot of governments are keen for this not to happen. For nuclear powers, a civilian nuclear industry is a strategic asset that sharply brings down the cost of maintaining nuclear weapons/subs/carriers. This is partly through skills exchange and partly due to the presence of a shared industrial ecosystem. For certain non nuclear powers (sweden, iran, south korea) an overpriced civvie nuclear industry is kind of like buying an option on quickly becoming a nuclear power which theyd like to keep in case of geopolitical emergency. Countries that dont see a necessity for MAD and arent nuclear powers almost universally cant be bothered with the expense and will just build something else. This is why the nuclear industry/the US government are so keen to coopt the green movement to support throwing more subsidies after nuclear plants in the name of solving global warming. Also why theyre so keen to foment a split between the traditionally united antinuclear and green groups.

by belorn 4y ago

pydry 4y ago

>The usual argument I keep seeing is that with the exponential cost reduction in solar and green hydrogen we will have in the future a combination that will be cheaper than the nuclear costs of today. Thats what its like today. That's probably why the nuclear PR articles almost never try to compare costs or speed of construction with demand shaping + solar + wind + storage. It does not stack up well.

belorn 4y ago
The average cost of green hydrogen is 6 euro per kg, putting the price per kw/h around 18 cent. That is about 7 times more than the cost of nuclear per kw/h. No one is burning green hydrogen commercially for grid power, through a lot of people would be happy to pay the average nuclear cost (~3 cent per kw/h) if you want to provide it. Selling green hydrogen for $1 per kg would be very welcome in Europe right now, with a basically bottomless demand if someone would be willing to provide it at current nuclear prices. Demand shaping + solar + wind + storage is not economical viable in Northen Europe, but if you have any evidence to support the opposite then provide them. The fact is, if it was then the crisis that currently exist would not be a crisis, it would be an investment rush. Of course, if you personally want to offer green hydrogen for $1 per kg this winter, and sign a liability contract for supplying the many tons needed, then sure. Lets do it!
- pydry 4y ago
  "Green hydrogen" is probably the least efficient form of energy storage talked about. The only reason it gets talked about at all is again, PR - because gas companies are keen on extending the life of their rather expensive capital investments. It's currently in the hypothetical stage and, being realistic, the gas companies promoting it probably just want to produce grey hydrogen for use with "green hydrogen" infrastructure and string us along with false hopes that theyll go 100% green soon. Not an unexpected development from the same people who covered up global warming for decades. Pumped storage + (to a lesser extent) grid scale batteries (e.g. in hawaii) are actually real, being used and economic. The lobbying and PR muscle behind each is a bit less though - especially boring old pumped storage. >Demand shaping + solar + wind + storage is not economical viable in Northen Europe It very much is. It's already being done. In fact a lot of that storage in the alps has been used for excess nuclear power from France.
  - belorn 4y ago
    Please provide a link to a pumped storage that buy green wind power when the price is low and sell it when the price is high. I would be nice to have a working example of how much wind they buy and at what price point they sell, and how they managed to finance it (ie, how much subsidies was involved). The cost per kw/h is of particular interest. Grid scale batteries work great when you got 365 charge cycles. Each day it charge, each night it sell and generate profits. Current economics makes it worth having a few hours of capacity, and after a few years of daily charge cycles you got profits. Wind doesn't have day and night cycles like that, but rather have periods lasting weeks or months of either good wind or poor wind. You need capacity to last the whole period, and you get maybe a 10 or so charge cycle each year. > A lot of that storage in the alps has been used for excess nuclear power from France. Since nuclear is presented as being the most expensive method to create energy, if you then store it in pumped hydro and add this additional storage cost, how in the world would that be economical viable? Looking at the European report on energy storage, the answer is that it is not. Pumped storage is not used for that purpose in the alps. It is used to balance the grid when power plants ramp up or down, a role which gas and oil power plants usually do. For this, nuclear energy can be used since the profits are not from buying low and selling high, it is from the utilization of keeping the grid balanced when power plants are ramping up and down. They get paid for the service, which makes the economics of it very different from selling capacity to the market during periods of low wind.
iso1631 4y ago
This is the problem with nuclear. It was the answer in the 1990s, but renewables have proven themselves. Now sure, if you could snap your fingers and build a new nuclear plant tomorrow, that would be great. But you can't. By the time a plant breaking ground today starts generating power, it will be too late to make sense.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  And, if you could, it would still be massively more expensive. For the price you get many times as much renewable generation.
  - belorn 4y ago
    The market is free to make their decisions. With a global ban on fossil fuels in the European grid countries should choose for themselves if they want to build multiple cheaper renewables or build more expensive nuclear. Voters will then say theirs. Countries can always trade with each other so that which ever strategy end up as a winner will spread to the others. Everything is a win-win scenario as long fossil fuels stays in the ground.
    - pydry 4y ago
      I think a lot of governments are keen for this not to happen. For nuclear powers, a civilian nuclear industry is a strategic asset that sharply brings down the cost of maintaining nuclear weapons/subs/carriers. This is partly through skills exchange and partly due to the presence of a shared industrial ecosystem. For certain non nuclear powers (sweden, iran, south korea) an overpriced civvie nuclear industry is kind of like buying an option on quickly becoming a nuclear power which theyd like to keep in case of geopolitical emergency. Countries that dont see a necessity for MAD and arent nuclear powers almost universally cant be bothered with the expense and will just build something else. This is why the nuclear industry/the US government are so keen to coopt the green movement to support throwing more subsidies after nuclear plants in the name of solving global warming. Also why theyre so keen to foment a split between the traditionally united antinuclear and green groups.