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What if we don't need anything fancy? We can reduce our fossil fuel dependency by more than 90% if we switch to renewables, and just use natural gas plants when

What if we don't need anything fancy? We can reduce our fossil fuel dependency by more than 90% if we switch to renewables, and just use natural gas plants when they don't produce enough energy. No need for any new storage. The current natural gas storage will be many times more than enough. But isn't natural gas bad? Doesn't it mean we still emit CO2? We can offset that with trees. And even if we don't, I don't think there's any climate scientist who will say if you reduce emissions by 100% by 2050 we'll all be fine, but if we reduce by 90% we'll be doomed.

natmaka 4y ago
France is (by far) the world leader when it comes to the fraction of nuclear-produced electricity and always produces around 9% of its electricity thanks to fossil fuel, because building enough reactors to satisfy peaks and to load-follow would be way too expensive (as most would be idling most of the time). 9% of a year is approximately 33 days, therefore we know how to cope with a Dunkelflaut. https://www.statistiques.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/edition-numerique/chiffres-cles-energie-2021/15-electricite https://www.statistiques.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/editi... Moreover a continental mix (wind, solar, geothermal...) reduces intermittency. Wind: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/180592/european-cooperation-could-provide-more-stable/ https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/180592/european-cooperation-... Moreover modern gas turbines are able to burn (up to 100% of) hydrogen, therefore feeding them green hydrogen (obtained during over-production periods) will lower emissions. https://global.kawasaki.com/news_211209-2e.pdf https://global.kawasaki.com/news_211209-2e.pdf https://www.get-h2.de/en/project-lingen/ https://www.get-h2.de/en/project-lingen/ Moreover storage has many gorillas in the room, mainly V2G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid
bequanna 4y ago
Sure. How many natural gas plants do you reckon we will need? Following your idea, it seems like we will need to replace almost all existing base load with a stable options like nat gas. But then why bother investing in these unreliable “sustainable” sources at all? So we can collectively pat ourselves on the back while paying much more for electricity? At some point, perhaps we should start asking why we are replacing base load with intermittent sources when we have no good ways to store energy at scale.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  > How many natural gas plants do you reckon we will need? Many fewer than we already have. Not sure I understand your other questions. What unreliable "sustainable" sources? Why paying much more for electricity?
  - bequanna 4y ago
    Wind and solar are quite unreliable. That's the dirty secret. Wind/Solar might be price competitive at some $/MWh but you need build MUCH more capacity to make up for how unreliable they are. Each utility needs to purchase generation capacity in advance and it has to be enough to cover estimated peak usage. This is a regulatory requirement. I find it interesting that if the utility chooses to reserve wind generation, they can only apply 7% of the nameplate capacity (!) According to that math, if we're going to replace current coal/nuke/nat gas base load with wind and expect some amount of reliability, we will need to build 14x as much capacity. That is just madness. Interestingly, regulated utilities actually LOVE this because they make money for their shareholders by having some capital expenditure base amount. The Public Utilities Commission then allows them to earn some return on that base. I believe the allowed return is usually something like 8-10%. The more they spend on capacity and the less reliable the source is, the more money they make. Pretty perverse incentives, but you're a luddite science denier if you at all question this scheme. SO, if you have to waaaaay over build capacity because your sources are unreliable, the utility has to invest more to build that out. Their return on investment in generation then comes from YOU via much higher rates.
    - credit_guy 4y ago
      > Wind and solar are quite unreliable. That's the dirty secret. It's not a secret, that's what most people say. But is it true? Take a look at the graphs in [1] with monthly electricity generation by source in the US. You will notice that renewable electricity generation is a bit jagged, but not a lot. The ratio between the highs and the lows may be 1.3, but it's certainly not 7 or 15 as you imply. The thing about 7% of the nameplace capacity counting towards peak availability is a red herring. Power companies can keep natural gas plants. Those are very cheap (about $1000/kw of nameplate capacity, on par with solar, but obviously without intermittency issues). They don't need to run them all the time, 5-10% of the time will be enough. Overbuilding renewables by a huge factor to supposedly be allowed to earn 8-10% is a nice conspiracy theory, but assumes they'll find people to sell to at a profit. When you generate many times what people consume, you'll eventually need to pay others to take the electricity from you (yes, negative prices are a thing in the power markets). [1] https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_4.pdf https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_4.pdf

natmaka 4y ago

France is (by far) the world leader when it comes to the fraction of nuclear-produced electricity and always produces around 9% of its electricity thanks to fossil fuel, because building enough reactors to satisfy peaks and to load-follow would be way too expensive (as most would be idling most of the time). 9% of a year is approximately 33 days, therefore we know how to cope with a Dunkelflaut. https://www.statistiques.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/edition-numerique/chiffres-cles-energie-2021/15-electricite https://www.statistiques.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/editi... Moreover a continental mix (wind, solar, geothermal...) reduces intermittency. Wind: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/180592/european-cooperation-could-provide-more-stable/ https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/180592/european-cooperation-... Moreover modern gas turbines are able to burn (up to 100% of) hydrogen, therefore feeding them green hydrogen (obtained during over-production periods) will lower emissions. https://global.kawasaki.com/news_211209-2e.pdf https://global.kawasaki.com/news_211209-2e.pdf https://www.get-h2.de/en/project-lingen/ https://www.get-h2.de/en/project-lingen/ Moreover storage has many gorillas in the room, mainly V2G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid

bequanna 4y ago

Sure. How many natural gas plants do you reckon we will need? Following your idea, it seems like we will need to replace almost all existing base load with a stable options like nat gas. But then why bother investing in these unreliable “sustainable” sources at all? So we can collectively pat ourselves on the back while paying much more for electricity? At some point, perhaps we should start asking why we are replacing base load with intermittent sources when we have no good ways to store energy at scale.

credit_guy 4y ago
> How many natural gas plants do you reckon we will need? Many fewer than we already have. Not sure I understand your other questions. What unreliable "sustainable" sources? Why paying much more for electricity?
- bequanna 4y ago
  Wind and solar are quite unreliable. That's the dirty secret. Wind/Solar might be price competitive at some $/MWh but you need build MUCH more capacity to make up for how unreliable they are. Each utility needs to purchase generation capacity in advance and it has to be enough to cover estimated peak usage. This is a regulatory requirement. I find it interesting that if the utility chooses to reserve wind generation, they can only apply 7% of the nameplate capacity (!) According to that math, if we're going to replace current coal/nuke/nat gas base load with wind and expect some amount of reliability, we will need to build 14x as much capacity. That is just madness. Interestingly, regulated utilities actually LOVE this because they make money for their shareholders by having some capital expenditure base amount. The Public Utilities Commission then allows them to earn some return on that base. I believe the allowed return is usually something like 8-10%. The more they spend on capacity and the less reliable the source is, the more money they make. Pretty perverse incentives, but you're a luddite science denier if you at all question this scheme. SO, if you have to waaaaay over build capacity because your sources are unreliable, the utility has to invest more to build that out. Their return on investment in generation then comes from YOU via much higher rates.
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    > Wind and solar are quite unreliable. That's the dirty secret. It's not a secret, that's what most people say. But is it true? Take a look at the graphs in [1] with monthly electricity generation by source in the US. You will notice that renewable electricity generation is a bit jagged, but not a lot. The ratio between the highs and the lows may be 1.3, but it's certainly not 7 or 15 as you imply. The thing about 7% of the nameplace capacity counting towards peak availability is a red herring. Power companies can keep natural gas plants. Those are very cheap (about $1000/kw of nameplate capacity, on par with solar, but obviously without intermittency issues). They don't need to run them all the time, 5-10% of the time will be enough. Overbuilding renewables by a huge factor to supposedly be allowed to earn 8-10% is a nice conspiracy theory, but assumes they'll find people to sell to at a profit. When you generate many times what people consume, you'll eventually need to pay others to take the electricity from you (yes, negative prices are a thing in the power markets). [1] https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_4.pdf https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_4.pdf