4 ms·

> What's the real number the First, we need to understand that the problem is power, not energy, generation and transport. The difference between the two is m

> What's the real number the First, we need to understand that the problem is power, not energy, generation and transport. The difference between the two is massive. Second, we need to understand that we need power over and above the currently installed capacity. This should be self-evident; we consume the power we generate today. We don't have enough excess capacity. I live in California, we have blackouts and the government has asked our insignificant number of EV owners to alter their charging behavior during period of peak demand. We need more power. Third, in the US, we need approximately 1200 GW in new power generation and transport capacity. Of course, this would be distributed non-uniformly according to regional requirements. The grid needs to be able to move this power as well. The current infrastructure cannot. For context, the entire power generation system in the US is good for about 1200 GW today. In other words we, conceptually, need to create a full duplicate of the US power generation and transport system. This isn't trivial. We can't even build a high speed train and now we are talking about doubling our power generation and transport capacity in just a few years. CA wants a major transition to EV's in eight years. This is demented. I don't even want to imagine the power problems and fires we are going to have to live through. > What prevents us replacing the first 30% of fossil fuels in the areas 90% of people live > What prevents another 30% being replaced with wind? Let's start with this: Solar and wind are unreliable. To illustrate, here's an example from about one month ago from my own 13 kW solar array: https://i.imgur.com/A0u4I0R.png https://i.imgur.com/A0u4I0R.png First thing to notice is that the peak is nowhere near 13 kW. In other words, you don't get twelve hours of power at the peak power rating of the panels. The most I have seen is a 10 kW to 11 kW peak for a few minutes around April/May. What are those horrendous dips? Clouds. Yup. Now imagine an entire city relying on this for power? Wind is similar. Here's today so far. It's horrible. Again, clouds. https://i.imgur.com/breTHQd.png https://i.imgur.com/breTHQd.png We actually went from a potential peak of 8 kW down to 0.792 kW around noon. Once again, imagine an entire town with this problem. Batteries? Sure. So, you build one array to supply power during the day. And then a full duplicate of that array to charge the batteries you will need to provide power at night. However, it isn't that simple. If you notice, the power generation output curve is an inverted parabola. The integral of that parabola over time is 2/3 the area of the enclosing constant power rectangle. This means you have to build an array 1.5 times larger in order to fill the voids, store that energy and be able to provide constant power even when the sun is up. If we continue to analyze and compensate for deficiencies and reliability problems, it is very easy to show that a solar system capable of replacing a fossil fuel or nuclear power source has to be built 7 to 15 times larger than the required steady-state output. This includes an absolutely massive amount of batteries, of course. The only real solution I see is a large amount of new nuclear power generation and, yes, some solar and wind. I don't think there's another way to do it. Part of me think that manufacturing, transporting and installing that many panels and batteries is likely to create a far greater ecological disaster than most people imagine. Just a hunch, haven't done the numbers on that one.

hotpotamus 4y ago
> The only real solution I see is a large amount of new nuclear power generation and, yes, some solar and wind. I wonder who would build a nuclear power plant these days? On a forum dedicated to startups, do you see many energy startups? I'm aware of some looking into "elecrofuels" - basically a bet on turning the carbon in the air into conventional(ish) liquid hydrocarbon fuels, which is a bet that fossil fuels will continue to increase in price while solar energy will continue to decrease. But I'm not aware of much going on in commercial nuclear power.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  > On a forum dedicated to startups, do you see many energy startups? To be fair, the IAEA probably isn't a huge fan of plucky startups that want to move fast and break things when the fertile ground for development involves making Pu239 in a reactor class made of explosive molten metal that is on the knife edge between doing nothing at all and melting down vigorously enough that you'd be inclined to call it a bomb rather than a runaway reactor.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
You're just describing capacity factor extremely poorly. I'm very sorry you had wildly unrealistic expectations about your home solar panels, but that doesn't change the fact that a mix of around 50-70% net renewable capacity is cheaper than any other source in raw energy terms without any storage and more competitive for total system cost than a similar carbon reduction via nuclear. > Here's today so far. It's horrible. Again, clouds. > https://i.imgur.com/breTHQd.png https://i.imgur.com/breTHQd.png So you're getting around a 8-10% capacity factor on a cloudy day in winter. Sounds pretty good to me especially if you're somewhere like NY. Using curtailment, medium distance transmission between uncorrelated sources, short term storage and OCGT or CCGT backup can eliminate more carbon more quickly and with fewer resources and less strain on the grid than any other option. Once you've funded the cheap stuff that removes 50-70% of the carbon, then it's time to think about the stuff that costs 10x as much. Before then, moving a dollar from the renewable pile to the nuclear pile is 30kg of carbon left on the table right now to save 3kg later. Additionally both electrolysis and batteries are plummeting in price, and waiting six months, then ordering 100s of megawatts a year of $60/kWh iron or sodium batteries or $300/kW electrolysers is much better than starting a sticker price $5000/kW nuclear project that might be complete for double that in 12 years (and still requires just as much gas backup even then). > The only real solution I see is a large amount of new nuclear power generation and, yes, some solar and wind. I don't think there's another way to do it. Part of me think that manufacturing, transporting and installing that many panels and batteries is likely to create a far greater ecological disaster than most people imagine. Just a hunch, haven't done the numbers on that one. Well please do the math. Then compare it to mining the low grade Uranium ore with lower energy density than oil which will be required for massive nuclear expansion in countries where the mining industry has more power over environmental regulations than the government. PWRs are an important part of the mix, but they're limited to about 1TW before they require technologies to acquire fuel that are not considered safe, have never been commercialised or haven't even left the lab. Additionally compare it to using fossil fuels for an additional 50 years while the required nuclear infrastructure is funded and then built. Also why 1.2TW? That's roughly 4kW per car or more than triple the energy content of every barrel of oil that enters the US (and also triple the net electricity consumption). Surely 'charge the car where it happens to be or convince the owner to charge it on a timer' is an easier problem than spending $12k to $40k per person on redundant capacity.

hotpotamus 4y ago

> The only real solution I see is a large amount of new nuclear power generation and, yes, some solar and wind. I wonder who would build a nuclear power plant these days? On a forum dedicated to startups, do you see many energy startups? I'm aware of some looking into "elecrofuels" - basically a bet on turning the carbon in the air into conventional(ish) liquid hydrocarbon fuels, which is a bet that fossil fuels will continue to increase in price while solar energy will continue to decrease. But I'm not aware of much going on in commercial nuclear power.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
> On a forum dedicated to startups, do you see many energy startups? To be fair, the IAEA probably isn't a huge fan of plucky startups that want to move fast and break things when the fertile ground for development involves making Pu239 in a reactor class made of explosive molten metal that is on the knife edge between doing nothing at all and melting down vigorously enough that you'd be inclined to call it a bomb rather than a runaway reactor.

Schroedingersat 4y ago

You're just describing capacity factor extremely poorly. I'm very sorry you had wildly unrealistic expectations about your home solar panels, but that doesn't change the fact that a mix of around 50-70% net renewable capacity is cheaper than any other source in raw energy terms without any storage and more competitive for total system cost than a similar carbon reduction via nuclear. > Here's today so far. It's horrible. Again, clouds. > https://i.imgur.com/breTHQd.png https://i.imgur.com/breTHQd.png So you're getting around a 8-10% capacity factor on a cloudy day in winter. Sounds pretty good to me especially if you're somewhere like NY. Using curtailment, medium distance transmission between uncorrelated sources, short term storage and OCGT or CCGT backup can eliminate more carbon more quickly and with fewer resources and less strain on the grid than any other option. Once you've funded the cheap stuff that removes 50-70% of the carbon, then it's time to think about the stuff that costs 10x as much. Before then, moving a dollar from the renewable pile to the nuclear pile is 30kg of carbon left on the table right now to save 3kg later. Additionally both electrolysis and batteries are plummeting in price, and waiting six months, then ordering 100s of megawatts a year of $60/kWh iron or sodium batteries or $300/kW electrolysers is much better than starting a sticker price $5000/kW nuclear project that might be complete for double that in 12 years (and still requires just as much gas backup even then). > The only real solution I see is a large amount of new nuclear power generation and, yes, some solar and wind. I don't think there's another way to do it. Part of me think that manufacturing, transporting and installing that many panels and batteries is likely to create a far greater ecological disaster than most people imagine. Just a hunch, haven't done the numbers on that one. Well please do the math. Then compare it to mining the low grade Uranium ore with lower energy density than oil which will be required for massive nuclear expansion in countries where the mining industry has more power over environmental regulations than the government. PWRs are an important part of the mix, but they're limited to about 1TW before they require technologies to acquire fuel that are not considered safe, have never been commercialised or haven't even left the lab. Additionally compare it to using fossil fuels for an additional 50 years while the required nuclear infrastructure is funded and then built. Also why 1.2TW? That's roughly 4kW per car or more than triple the energy content of every barrel of oil that enters the US (and also triple the net electricity consumption). Surely 'charge the car where it happens to be or convince the owner to charge it on a timer' is an easier problem than spending $12k to $40k per person on redundant capacity.