3 ms·

> That baseload myth is dead these days. Batteries are merely one way to store energy but they’re not the only way. How is it a myth? Weather systems are big.

> That baseload myth is dead these days. Batteries are merely one way to store energy but they’re not the only way. How is it a myth? Weather systems are big. it is not unusual for eg. the entirety of North-western Europe to have a calm spell of little to no wind. You need something to keep the lights on when there's no wind, night time etc. That's your base load right there. > And all of this is already working in parts of the world. For example in the EU where all that green and brown energy from Germany is saving Nuclear-Frances ass at the moment and has been every summer and winter for at least the last decade. Pointing to a bunch of german coal plants keeping the lights on is not a great argument. Germany has a very polluting "base load" generation capability in comparison to other countries. imagine how much less carbon they would be emitting right now if they had just kept their nuclear plants going. Renewables cannot get rid of a need for base load generation capability at 100% of demand. Batteries and storage just aren't going to scale up to do that (or even 1% of it) in this century. So the options are - handwave about batteries and pumped storage, ensuring that coal and gas is what actually used to meet base load, or invest in nuclear. If you actually want low carbon electricity generation, nuclear is the only option.

ben_w 4y ago
> it is not unusual for eg. the entirety of North-western Europe to have a calm spell of little to no wind OK, but the EU grid is bigger than that, so the question should be "how common are weather patterns that combine low wind with low sun over the entire continent rather than just a quarter of it?" > Batteries and storage just aren't going to scale up to do that (or even 1% of it) in this century. If cars are electrified, their batteries have enough for grid storage even after losing to much capacity to remain in the vehicles. This isn't a guarantee they will be built, but I think it's likely as people are building battery factories (and mineral mines to supply them) as fast as they're allowed to.
- JetSetWilly 4y ago
  Well, pretty common, as weather systems are typically continental in scale. Even if you built enough wind turbines to satisfy 10000% of EU demand within the EU (which is what you would need to have a shot at this kind of redundancy) the amount of huge HVDC interconnects you would need criss-crossing the continent make it completely impractical.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    x100 over-capacity is at the level where an HVDC global power grid is easily cheaper. Why do you regard HVDC within Europe as impractical? Sure it would take a while, but there's already a grid. This is certainly achievable in my lifetime even without any interesting new tech like better superconductors or automation.
    - JetSetWilly 4y ago
      Building an HVDC grid within Europe to allow local concentrations of renewable generation to be spread about more easily, and to further interlink the EU grid? That makes sense, sure. However for the "renewables can be base load" requirement it is completely impractical because of simple back of the envelope calculations. Suddenly you need multiple TWs of wind generation capability in every spot where it might be windy when calm elsewhere, and you need enough transmission to get TWs of power out from any random location within the EU. This is pipe dream territory.
      - ben_w 4y ago
        The need is 3m^2 cross section of conductor for the entire planet's current electricity usage, which at antipodal scale is 17 years of current global production of copper and aluminium. Production of aluminium is limited by electrical supply, and PV electricity is cheap enough to expand that aluminium supply. A 25% increase in global aluminium supply is significant, but not pipe-dream, and that percentage is sufficient for completing the task before the end of the century. What I don't know is how long such a cable would last, which matters for total lifetime cost. But construction cost at current prices is on the order of a few trillion, which sure, is loads, but that's for a genuinely global infrastructure project that essentially replaces the multi trillion dollar per year fossil electricity industry. Biggest problem is probably the geopolitics.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    Are you just making up numbers? Have you ever done any sailing? I can tell you that weather patterns on with no wind for extended periods of time even over the size of a country are not really happening. People have done studies and the amount of overprovisioning is typically on the order of 5x IIRC without storage. Moreover you need at least 2x overcapacity for nuclear as well.
mrep 4y ago
Your skipping power to gas [0]. At least for the US, how are you going to use nuclear to heat every building in the entire continent 30-100 degrees fahrenheit when a polar vortex hits [1] with nuclear? Nuclear has the opposite problem of wind/solar in that they need to be run at 100% capacity basically all the time because of their absurd building costs and low operating costs. Building enough nuclear to support that load that then sits idle 95% of the year would be absurdly expensive. You could of course then use that idle capacity to make say methane [0] which is what we currently use to heat our homes but then why spend 3x [2] the money to make that storage when you can just use wind/solar to do it? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas [1]: https://mashable.com/article/polar-vortex-2021-cold-temperatures https://mashable.com/article/polar-vortex-2021-cold-temperat... [2 in the US]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#...
- JetSetWilly 4y ago
  But i never said nuclear would have to be used for 100% of power generation. I was taking issue with statements that nuclear should be avoided, and that wind can be used for 100% of power generation - it can't. Nuclear is "base load" through and through. Yes it would be awkward to manage spinning nuclear plants up and down if you were targeting 100%, but France manages pretty well with 70% of energy coming from nuclear so it is an actually existing counterpoint.
  - Krasnol 4y ago
    > but France manages pretty well with 70% of energy coming from nuclear so it is an actually existing counterpoint. How is that embarrassing state "pretty well"? They use dirty power from their neighbours to manage their support holes created through that narrow minded energy infrastructure. Just like every summer, they've been struggling due to too hot rivers and now those "cracks" in those reactors...France has shown that focusing on nuclear is sheer stupidity. Stupidity funded by the French taxpayer btw and it goes only downwards from here since their old fleet is not getting younger and everything they build takes too long and costs too much. https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/nuclear-power-dead-and-alive-sp-proclaims/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/nuclear-po... https://jeromeaparis.substack.com/p/edfs-woes-are-a-bigger-long-term https://jeromeaparis.substack.com/p/edfs-woes-are-a-bigger-l...

ben_w 4y ago

> it is not unusual for eg. the entirety of North-western Europe to have a calm spell of little to no wind OK, but the EU grid is bigger than that, so the question should be "how common are weather patterns that combine low wind with low sun over the entire continent rather than just a quarter of it?" > Batteries and storage just aren't going to scale up to do that (or even 1% of it) in this century. If cars are electrified, their batteries have enough for grid storage even after losing to much capacity to remain in the vehicles. This isn't a guarantee they will be built, but I think it's likely as people are building battery factories (and mineral mines to supply them) as fast as they're allowed to.

JetSetWilly 4y ago
Well, pretty common, as weather systems are typically continental in scale. Even if you built enough wind turbines to satisfy 10000% of EU demand within the EU (which is what you would need to have a shot at this kind of redundancy) the amount of huge HVDC interconnects you would need criss-crossing the continent make it completely impractical.
- ben_w 4y ago
  x100 over-capacity is at the level where an HVDC global power grid is easily cheaper. Why do you regard HVDC within Europe as impractical? Sure it would take a while, but there's already a grid. This is certainly achievable in my lifetime even without any interesting new tech like better superconductors or automation.
  - JetSetWilly 4y ago
    Building an HVDC grid within Europe to allow local concentrations of renewable generation to be spread about more easily, and to further interlink the EU grid? That makes sense, sure. However for the "renewables can be base load" requirement it is completely impractical because of simple back of the envelope calculations. Suddenly you need multiple TWs of wind generation capability in every spot where it might be windy when calm elsewhere, and you need enough transmission to get TWs of power out from any random location within the EU. This is pipe dream territory.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      The need is 3m^2 cross section of conductor for the entire planet's current electricity usage, which at antipodal scale is 17 years of current global production of copper and aluminium. Production of aluminium is limited by electrical supply, and PV electricity is cheap enough to expand that aluminium supply. A 25% increase in global aluminium supply is significant, but not pipe-dream, and that percentage is sufficient for completing the task before the end of the century. What I don't know is how long such a cable would last, which matters for total lifetime cost. But construction cost at current prices is on the order of a few trillion, which sure, is loads, but that's for a genuinely global infrastructure project that essentially replaces the multi trillion dollar per year fossil electricity industry. Biggest problem is probably the geopolitics.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  Are you just making up numbers? Have you ever done any sailing? I can tell you that weather patterns on with no wind for extended periods of time even over the size of a country are not really happening. People have done studies and the amount of overprovisioning is typically on the order of 5x IIRC without storage. Moreover you need at least 2x overcapacity for nuclear as well.

mrep 4y ago

Your skipping power to gas [0]. At least for the US, how are you going to use nuclear to heat every building in the entire continent 30-100 degrees fahrenheit when a polar vortex hits [1] with nuclear? Nuclear has the opposite problem of wind/solar in that they need to be run at 100% capacity basically all the time because of their absurd building costs and low operating costs. Building enough nuclear to support that load that then sits idle 95% of the year would be absurdly expensive. You could of course then use that idle capacity to make say methane [0] which is what we currently use to heat our homes but then why spend 3x [2] the money to make that storage when you can just use wind/solar to do it? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas [1]: https://mashable.com/article/polar-vortex-2021-cold-temperatures https://mashable.com/article/polar-vortex-2021-cold-temperat... [2 in the US]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#...

JetSetWilly 4y ago
But i never said nuclear would have to be used for 100% of power generation. I was taking issue with statements that nuclear should be avoided, and that wind can be used for 100% of power generation - it can't. Nuclear is "base load" through and through. Yes it would be awkward to manage spinning nuclear plants up and down if you were targeting 100%, but France manages pretty well with 70% of energy coming from nuclear so it is an actually existing counterpoint.
- Krasnol 4y ago
  > but France manages pretty well with 70% of energy coming from nuclear so it is an actually existing counterpoint. How is that embarrassing state "pretty well"? They use dirty power from their neighbours to manage their support holes created through that narrow minded energy infrastructure. Just like every summer, they've been struggling due to too hot rivers and now those "cracks" in those reactors...France has shown that focusing on nuclear is sheer stupidity. Stupidity funded by the French taxpayer btw and it goes only downwards from here since their old fleet is not getting younger and everything they build takes too long and costs too much. https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/nuclear-power-dead-and-alive-sp-proclaims/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/nuclear-po... https://jeromeaparis.substack.com/p/edfs-woes-are-a-bigger-long-term https://jeromeaparis.substack.com/p/edfs-woes-are-a-bigger-l...