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You can build solar or wind plus some energy storage or long distance transmission to even it out for less than the price of nuclear and with income beginning q
by eloff 4y ago
You can build solar or wind plus some energy storage or long distance transmission to even it out for less than the price of nuclear and with income beginning quickly, not after 10 years. By the time nuclear projects started now complete, solar and wind will be mopping the floor with them ROI wise. Far from being a lie, we're in danger of them becoming the only game in town, for better or worse. Nuclear had so much potential, but we stopped investing and stopped innovating and it's unclear if it can ever catch up again. For our sakes, I hope so. More options are better.
- stjohnswarts 4y agoAs long as you build 5-10x redundancy for solar/wind I don't see it, solar and wind are all over the place between the peak and valley outputs. Unless we find a "battery" storage technology that can smooth it out over say a couple of weeks, I don't think countries are going to go for it as the only grid power source. We have nuclear now, and climate change is a huge deal to solve, possibly end of human civilization huge. Note I didn't say solar and wind wouldn't be part of the mix,but as the sole source, it's not going to happen with a 10X or better leap in battery technology (energy density)
- psadri 4y agoHow about using solar/wind to synthesis hydrocarbon fuels and use that as the storage medium?
- kelseyfrog 4y agoWhere does your 5x-10x number come from? I sense that it's a guess, but the cool thing about stats is that we can actually find a redundancy ratio for a given probability of shortage.
- anton96 4y agoBecause at best, Renewables run at 20% percent of their installed capacity comparing to more 80% for nuclear.
- kolinko 4y agoYou are confusing efficiency with some other metrics. Solar is 20%, but there is no point comparing it to efficiency of gas or nuclear - it's apples to oranges.
- anton96 4y agoIt totally makes sense because you always compare price of installation against a certain installed capacity in TW. I was not speaking of the efficiency of transforming 20% of the sun energy into electricity.
- kolinko 4y agoSo what that 20% means in case of solar? Utilisation factor also doesn’t make sense - what matters is how many GWh you van get per dollar of installation, but you don’t measure this in %.
- macspoofing 4y ago>By the time nuclear projects started now complete, solar and wind will be mopping the floor with them ROI wise. Yes, it will take decades to restart large scale nuclear projects. So we lost more than 50 years. With Solar/Wind it's not a question of cost or ROI. Solar/wind, as an intermittent and diffuse energy source, CANNOT power a modern economy. It needs base-load.
- dontreact 4y agoWhat about if storage improves? Can't that smooth out the intermittent nature and provide for the base load?
- pclmulqdq 4y agoStorage needs to improve by a few orders of magnitude to make that possible, and it's not clear that we even know what storage technology to use.
- govg 4y agoTo be very honest, I feel like the car culture in the US gives every household a potential large battery to sustain their house with. In a future where every car is an EV, every American house has two giant batteries, if not more, hooked up to it all night.
- mcone 4y agoBut what happens in the morning when people wake up to an empty car battery and they need to drive to work?
- govg 4y agoA) How much electricity do you think is consumed at night? ( US average daily consumption is 30 KWh) B) How much electricity do you think can be stored in a car battery? (Tesla batteries are >= 50 KWh ) C) What happens to existing sources of renewable power that will continue to operate at night? ( They can still provide a baseload that accounts for any shortfalls )