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You can't replace Nuclear with intermittent energy, they serve different function. So far the cheapest and the largest deployment of green energy has come from

You can't replace Nuclear with intermittent energy, they serve different function. So far the cheapest and the largest deployment of green energy has come from Nuclear and Hydro.

paganel 4y ago
With the mention that Hydro is not at all environmental-friendly, quite the contrary. It helps with decreasing the quantity of CO2 we generate, but in many other aspects is pretty bad (and in many cases an existential threat) when it comes to the local environment.
- cpursley 4y ago
  Yeah, Hydro is terrible for river ecosystems and one of the reasons they started removing them in the Pacific NW (USA) - trout migration.
- timellis-smith 4y ago
  They are pretty major producers of methane https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/nov/06/hydropower-hydroelectricity-methane-clean-climate-change-study https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/nov/06...
- dghughes 4y ago
  Hydro is bad for the environment especially those who live near it. A buildup of methylmercury in sediment is caused by hydro dams. There are lawsuits here in Canada by First Nations who live near dams.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Hydro has been superceded by battery storage and Green Hydrogen production, for economic reasons. Existing ones, particulalry those built for multiple functions (water supply, recreation) still have some use but mostly you just want to be rolling out solar and wind until you run out of fossil fuel generation to displace. Only then do you really need to start comparing whether building storage would cost less than more renewables and interconnects and hydro is unlikely to be the lowest cost option unless you're going to build the dam anyway for other reasons.
  - ftth_finland 4y ago
    “Hydro has been superceded by battery storage and Green Hydrogen production, for economic reasons.” I’d be really, really be interested in primary sources for the above claim.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      It's mostly just costs. See Figure 1.2 Global weighted average LCOEs from newly commissioned, utility-scale renewable power generation technologies, 2010-2021 https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2022/Jul/IRENA_Renewable_Power_Generation_Costs_2021.pdf https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/202... Hydro costs are going up, solar and wind going down. Hydro is still less than fossil fuels, which is great, but that's not the target to beat anymore, and renewables are lower and trending even lower. And that's before the more extreme geographical constraints for siting, with good locations already used, the project sizes and the longer lead times and investment paybacks compared with renewables. But Hydro also has flexibility, which is really useful for balancing renewables and nuclear. It's important to switch existing Hydro into this mode to make the most of it. But again, for new build, since the raw power is more expensive than renewables, the flexibility would need to be cheaper than the equivalent flexibility provided by more renewables plus batteries to win back that lost ground. And it isn't. Same story for pumped storage. Here's a worked example for the Snowy 2 project: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/snowy-2-vs-battery-storage/ https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/snowy-2-vs-battery-stora... The key thing is, energy production is cheap these days. So storing energy has to compete against just building even more production and a small amount of storage. This applies to batteries as much as it does to hydro. But batteries scale down better.
      - ftth_finland 4y ago
        The links provided are neither primary sources nor do they support your original statement. ”The key thing is, energy production is cheap these days.” This is immaterial if cheap energy is unavailable when needed. See: winter (season) “So storing energy has to compete against just building even more production and a small amount of storage.” This is incorrect. More production is useless if the output is zero. Zero times a large number is still zero. Again, see: winter (season) ”This applies to batteries as much as it does to hydro. But batteries scale down better.” The problem with batteries is that they don’t scale up.
pydry 4y ago
Solar and wind is ~4-5x cheaper than equivalent nuclear power. Complementary pumped storage to account for the intermittency is ~2x cheaper than nuclear power. Combined pumped storage+solar+wind ends up being about ~3/4 of the price and being able to do load following. Nuclear power's output stability isnt worthless but it requires some pretty impressive mental calisthenics to convince yourself that it's worth quintupling the price tag when you can just build a battery.
- _-david-_ 4y ago
  How much storage are you going to build? 1 week worth? 2 weeks? A month? What happens when the storage runs out? You don't have that issue with nuclear which justifies the increase in cost.
  - pydry 4y ago
    https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-grid-is-well-within-reach-and-with-little-storage/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g... 7 hours is apparently enough 99% of the time. Overproducing a bit and turning it into windgas would probably work for the rest.
    - fi358 4y ago
      7 hours of storage might work in a country like Australia, but not necessarily in some other countries. For example, in Finland winter is several months long and during that time PV will produce almost no electricity. During winter there may also be relatively long periods with only a little wind.
      - pydry 4y ago
        Finland also has a lot of hydro which countries drenched in sunshine usually do not.
        _-david-_ 4y ago
AdamN 4y ago
Hydro is not green at all. Nuclear is much better for the environment than hydro.
- b112 4y ago
  Hydro is incredibly green, nothing is greener, and statements otherwise, are why people are in this mess.
  - Mrdarknezz 4y ago
    Nope Nuclear is the cleanest form of energy production https://unece.org/sed/documents/2021/10/reports/life-cycle-assessment-electricity-generation-options https://unece.org/sed/documents/2021/10/reports/life-cycle-a...
    - b112 4y ago
      I call your view of this report into question. The hydro section is replete with "Highly variable" as an assessment of impact. One of the largest variables, is "transport of material to remote site"... and if you look at figure 32, this accounts for perhaps 65% of overall "environmental cost", when the bars are averaged. This can drop to almost zero, if you build a dam near a location with preexisting cement plants, or, in an area where you snap build your own cement plant. Even steel transportation ; is it local? Is their train? Is there a waterway, which ships can transport steel to you on? Hydro is so clean, it isn't even funny.
      - Gud 4y ago
        Hydro screws up the local ecosystem. Admittedly cleaner than fossil fuel powered plants, it’s still not great for the environment.
        b112 4y ago
        It doesn't screw up anything. The ecosystem is changed, yet this happens all the time. Rivers naturally shift on their own. In North America, the land is still rebounding from the last ice age. And it's not like the land is rendered hostile to life. A river becomes a lake. And as there are beaver dams which can be seen from space, I'd have to say Beavers impact rivers far more than our measly few hydro dams. It's normal, natural for rivers to be dammed.. it happens in nature all the time, unless you believe beavers are unnatural?

You can't replace Nuclear with intermittent energy, they serve different function. So far the cheapest and the largest deployment of green energy has come from Nuclear and Hydro.

paganel 4y ago

With the mention that Hydro is not at all environmental-friendly, quite the contrary. It helps with decreasing the quantity of CO2 we generate, but in many other aspects is pretty bad (and in many cases an existential threat) when it comes to the local environment.

cpursley 4y ago
Yeah, Hydro is terrible for river ecosystems and one of the reasons they started removing them in the Pacific NW (USA) - trout migration.
timellis-smith 4y ago
They are pretty major producers of methane https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/nov/06/hydropower-hydroelectricity-methane-clean-climate-change-study https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/nov/06...
dghughes 4y ago
Hydro is bad for the environment especially those who live near it. A buildup of methylmercury in sediment is caused by hydro dams. There are lawsuits here in Canada by First Nations who live near dams.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Hydro has been superceded by battery storage and Green Hydrogen production, for economic reasons. Existing ones, particulalry those built for multiple functions (water supply, recreation) still have some use but mostly you just want to be rolling out solar and wind until you run out of fossil fuel generation to displace. Only then do you really need to start comparing whether building storage would cost less than more renewables and interconnects and hydro is unlikely to be the lowest cost option unless you're going to build the dam anyway for other reasons.
- ftth_finland 4y ago
  “Hydro has been superceded by battery storage and Green Hydrogen production, for economic reasons.” I’d be really, really be interested in primary sources for the above claim.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    It's mostly just costs. See Figure 1.2 Global weighted average LCOEs from newly commissioned, utility-scale renewable power generation technologies, 2010-2021 https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2022/Jul/IRENA_Renewable_Power_Generation_Costs_2021.pdf https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/202... Hydro costs are going up, solar and wind going down. Hydro is still less than fossil fuels, which is great, but that's not the target to beat anymore, and renewables are lower and trending even lower. And that's before the more extreme geographical constraints for siting, with good locations already used, the project sizes and the longer lead times and investment paybacks compared with renewables. But Hydro also has flexibility, which is really useful for balancing renewables and nuclear. It's important to switch existing Hydro into this mode to make the most of it. But again, for new build, since the raw power is more expensive than renewables, the flexibility would need to be cheaper than the equivalent flexibility provided by more renewables plus batteries to win back that lost ground. And it isn't. Same story for pumped storage. Here's a worked example for the Snowy 2 project: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/snowy-2-vs-battery-storage/ https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/snowy-2-vs-battery-stora... The key thing is, energy production is cheap these days. So storing energy has to compete against just building even more production and a small amount of storage. This applies to batteries as much as it does to hydro. But batteries scale down better.
    - ftth_finland 4y ago
      The links provided are neither primary sources nor do they support your original statement. ”The key thing is, energy production is cheap these days.” This is immaterial if cheap energy is unavailable when needed. See: winter (season) “So storing energy has to compete against just building even more production and a small amount of storage.” This is incorrect. More production is useless if the output is zero. Zero times a large number is still zero. Again, see: winter (season) ”This applies to batteries as much as it does to hydro. But batteries scale down better.” The problem with batteries is that they don’t scale up.

pydry 4y ago

Solar and wind is ~4-5x cheaper than equivalent nuclear power. Complementary pumped storage to account for the intermittency is ~2x cheaper than nuclear power. Combined pumped storage+solar+wind ends up being about ~3/4 of the price and being able to do load following. Nuclear power's output stability isnt worthless but it requires some pretty impressive mental calisthenics to convince yourself that it's worth quintupling the price tag when you can just build a battery.

_-david-_ 4y ago
How much storage are you going to build? 1 week worth? 2 weeks? A month? What happens when the storage runs out? You don't have that issue with nuclear which justifies the increase in cost.
- pydry 4y ago
  https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-grid-is-well-within-reach-and-with-little-storage/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g... 7 hours is apparently enough 99% of the time. Overproducing a bit and turning it into windgas would probably work for the rest.
  - fi358 4y ago
    7 hours of storage might work in a country like Australia, but not necessarily in some other countries. For example, in Finland winter is several months long and during that time PV will produce almost no electricity. During winter there may also be relatively long periods with only a little wind.
    - pydry 4y ago
      Finland also has a lot of hydro which countries drenched in sunshine usually do not.
      - _-david-_ 4y ago

AdamN 4y ago

Hydro is not green at all. Nuclear is much better for the environment than hydro.

b112 4y ago
Hydro is incredibly green, nothing is greener, and statements otherwise, are why people are in this mess.
- Mrdarknezz 4y ago
  Nope Nuclear is the cleanest form of energy production https://unece.org/sed/documents/2021/10/reports/life-cycle-assessment-electricity-generation-options https://unece.org/sed/documents/2021/10/reports/life-cycle-a...
  - b112 4y ago
    I call your view of this report into question. The hydro section is replete with "Highly variable" as an assessment of impact. One of the largest variables, is "transport of material to remote site"... and if you look at figure 32, this accounts for perhaps 65% of overall "environmental cost", when the bars are averaged. This can drop to almost zero, if you build a dam near a location with preexisting cement plants, or, in an area where you snap build your own cement plant. Even steel transportation ; is it local? Is their train? Is there a waterway, which ships can transport steel to you on? Hydro is so clean, it isn't even funny.
    - Gud 4y ago
      Hydro screws up the local ecosystem. Admittedly cleaner than fossil fuel powered plants, it’s still not great for the environment.
      - b112 4y ago
        It doesn't screw up anything. The ecosystem is changed, yet this happens all the time. Rivers naturally shift on their own. In North America, the land is still rebounding from the last ice age. And it's not like the land is rendered hostile to life. A river becomes a lake. And as there are beaver dams which can be seen from space, I'd have to say Beavers impact rivers far more than our measly few hydro dams. It's normal, natural for rivers to be dammed.. it happens in nature all the time, unless you believe beavers are unnatural?