6 ms·

Yea.. it's a pretty long way to go to seamlessly pick up summer and some winter loads, though. Look at the CAISO supply trend on Sep 07 2022: https://www.ca

Yea.. it's a pretty long way to go to seamlessly pick up summer and some winter loads, though. Look at the CAISO supply trend on Sep 07 2022: https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html Similarly, examine it on Feb 07 2022.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Its not clear what you intend us to conclude from that data. I'd conclude that until solar has excesses on the peak demand days that it probably makes financial sense to keep rolling out more solar. And that increase in excess on non-peak days then makes rolling out batteries make financial sense. And then the presence of those batteries makes rolling out even more solar make sense. And indeed that is what is happening.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Right, you only roll out storage as fast as you have overcapacity to charge it from. The amount of storage build-out that justifies, thus far, is easy to accommodate with batteries. Later, as renewables shoulder more of the load, the storage needs to get bigger and you start looking for economies of scale. Ultimately, instead of paying to build out long-term storage, most places will rely on imports of synthesized liquid fuel to burn in peaker plants, from places that produce excess reliably, e.g. tropics, for solar, and reliably windy places. It is always windy somewhere. That synthetic liquid fuel is most likely ammonia. And, while waiting for those to come online and undercut NG, you just continue peaking with NG. Today people are breaking ground for factories to build ammonia synthesis equipment, which will take remarkably long to finish and start producing. Then those need to build enough synthesis equipment to absorb hundreds and thousands of excess GW. And we will have ships to transport it in, tanks to keep it in. All that is a huge job, but it will be done. The stuff that handles an equal amount of petroleum and NG was built and is used, and will wind down and be scrapped.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Provided, of course, civilization doesn't collapse first. If build-out matches predictions, collapse is an easy call. But build-out has been consistently beating predictions.
jokoon 4y ago
Not to mention that a big fraction of those panels are made in china, and panels generally generate much less power after 20 or 30 years. They're also vulnerable to hail, and require a lot of copper wiring. I would buy any stock related to mini nuclear reactors. It seems like a promising solution, since it's faster and simpler to deploy, they can probably be sold to less rich countries, they're probably even safer. I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I wish there was more news about it.
- Brometheus 4y ago
  - benzin 4y ago
    I'm pro-everything. From my flawed knowledge of economic history, energy rules all and is the single best thing to invest in for a country or civilisation's future. [1][2][3][4][5] Any advantages individual technologies have in energy generation, transportation or storage is probably worth exploring. I hope to have more insight in this when I get around to reading Vaclav Smil, or better yet work in the energy industry as it seems to be one of the few industries I've looked at that definitely needs to exist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution [3] https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Hitler-try-to-capture-Moscow-in-1942-but-rather-move-for-Stalingrad https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Hitler-try-to-capture-Moscow... [4] https://www.history.com/news/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harbor https://www.history.com/news/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harb... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
  - WHATDOESIT 4y ago
    These are real issues. Saying nuclear is too hard/too dangerous/too expensive/takes too long is the real FUD, simply because it's a wide range of significantly different technologies each with vastly different properties (whereas solar panels are all pretty similar and the problems are not with one particular kind but external - caused by how the solar panels are used). We need both/all.
fasthands9 4y ago
If I'm reading this chart correctly on 2-07-22 solar production reached a peak of ~11MW and stayed their for about 6 hours. On 9-7-22 solar production reached a peak just under ~13MW and was at that level for about 7/8 hours. To me the average seasonal difference actually seems insignificant in the big picture. If its feasible for solar to power most energy on the summer days then it would be doable to get there for winter days especially since demand on 2-7-22 peaked at about 60% of the peak on 9-7-22. The larger issues seem to be unpredictable off days due to off-season weather (cloud cover or wilfire ash or whatever) and of course storing power at night. But it seems like batteries will improve and running off solar on the day reduces need for natural gas until night.
pjc50 4y ago
That page shows me "-17MW" for solar, so I'm not sure what to make of that?
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  If you visit the link it loads todays info. The poster was intending us to select a specific date on the calendar to get the full days info not just the early morning. Not totally sure why solar would ever be negative, but that's the wider explanation I think. One possibility is that batteries are often colocated with solar, so possibly a solar/battery combination has been misfiled under solar.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

Its not clear what you intend us to conclude from that data. I'd conclude that until solar has excesses on the peak demand days that it probably makes financial sense to keep rolling out more solar. And that increase in excess on non-peak days then makes rolling out batteries make financial sense. And then the presence of those batteries makes rolling out even more solar make sense. And indeed that is what is happening.

ncmncm 4y ago
Right, you only roll out storage as fast as you have overcapacity to charge it from. The amount of storage build-out that justifies, thus far, is easy to accommodate with batteries. Later, as renewables shoulder more of the load, the storage needs to get bigger and you start looking for economies of scale. Ultimately, instead of paying to build out long-term storage, most places will rely on imports of synthesized liquid fuel to burn in peaker plants, from places that produce excess reliably, e.g. tropics, for solar, and reliably windy places. It is always windy somewhere. That synthetic liquid fuel is most likely ammonia. And, while waiting for those to come online and undercut NG, you just continue peaking with NG. Today people are breaking ground for factories to build ammonia synthesis equipment, which will take remarkably long to finish and start producing. Then those need to build enough synthesis equipment to absorb hundreds and thousands of excess GW. And we will have ships to transport it in, tanks to keep it in. All that is a huge job, but it will be done. The stuff that handles an equal amount of petroleum and NG was built and is used, and will wind down and be scrapped.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Provided, of course, civilization doesn't collapse first. If build-out matches predictions, collapse is an easy call. But build-out has been consistently beating predictions.

jokoon 4y ago

Not to mention that a big fraction of those panels are made in china, and panels generally generate much less power after 20 or 30 years. They're also vulnerable to hail, and require a lot of copper wiring. I would buy any stock related to mini nuclear reactors. It seems like a promising solution, since it's faster and simpler to deploy, they can probably be sold to less rich countries, they're probably even safer. I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I wish there was more news about it.

Brometheus 4y ago
- benzin 4y ago
  I'm pro-everything. From my flawed knowledge of economic history, energy rules all and is the single best thing to invest in for a country or civilisation's future. [1][2][3][4][5] Any advantages individual technologies have in energy generation, transportation or storage is probably worth exploring. I hope to have more insight in this when I get around to reading Vaclav Smil, or better yet work in the energy industry as it seems to be one of the few industries I've looked at that definitely needs to exist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution [3] https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Hitler-try-to-capture-Moscow-in-1942-but-rather-move-for-Stalingrad https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Hitler-try-to-capture-Moscow... [4] https://www.history.com/news/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harbor https://www.history.com/news/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harb... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
- WHATDOESIT 4y ago
  These are real issues. Saying nuclear is too hard/too dangerous/too expensive/takes too long is the real FUD, simply because it's a wide range of significantly different technologies each with vastly different properties (whereas solar panels are all pretty similar and the problems are not with one particular kind but external - caused by how the solar panels are used). We need both/all.

fasthands9 4y ago

If I'm reading this chart correctly on 2-07-22 solar production reached a peak of ~11MW and stayed their for about 6 hours. On 9-7-22 solar production reached a peak just under ~13MW and was at that level for about 7/8 hours. To me the average seasonal difference actually seems insignificant in the big picture. If its feasible for solar to power most energy on the summer days then it would be doable to get there for winter days especially since demand on 2-7-22 peaked at about 60% of the peak on 9-7-22. The larger issues seem to be unpredictable off days due to off-season weather (cloud cover or wilfire ash or whatever) and of course storing power at night. But it seems like batteries will improve and running off solar on the day reduces need for natural gas until night.

pjc50 4y ago

That page shows me "-17MW" for solar, so I'm not sure what to make of that?

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
If you visit the link it loads todays info. The poster was intending us to select a specific date on the calendar to get the full days info not just the early morning. Not totally sure why solar would ever be negative, but that's the wider explanation I think. One possibility is that batteries are often colocated with solar, so possibly a solar/battery combination has been misfiled under solar.