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Nuclear power is well-known to be bad at reacting to fluctuations in demand, making it the worst option to offset wind and solar power. An to answer your quest

Nuclear power is well-known to be bad at reacting to fluctuations in demand, making it the worst option to offset wind and solar power. An to answer your question, let me quote the first sentence of the article: Germany can shift its entire electricity system onto solar, wind and batteries by 2030 for less than 1% of its GDP.

marsven_422 4y ago
Mistletoe 4y ago
What kind of batteries? And that’s not rhetorical I just want to hear about large neat batteries.
- krastanov 4y ago
  Pumped water storage as we have had for about a hundred years now. I imagine something like this as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Megapack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Megapack (but my understanding is that there are many other battery technologies in development that work too, e.g. older chemistries and/or mechanical/gravity/heat batteries)
  - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    > Pumped water storage as we have had for about a hundred years now. Won't happen all geographically advantageous places are already taken.
- runarberg 4y ago
  Pumped hydro is the obvious answer here, and today accounts for by far the majority of stored renewable electricity. There are geographies in Germany (natural and artificial) that can easily accommodate a lot more pumped hydro. Second option (and also a boring one) is distributed home storage using traditional led-acid or lithium-ion batteries. This is already rolled out and can be increased to scale pretty easily. A more exciting answer is liquid metal (or molten salt) batteries that works as large scale grid storage by heating the batteries elements (Calcium and Antimony) to very high temperature that keeps them separated while charged slowly mixing into a new liquid alloy as it discharges. You can read more about the technology here https://ambri.com/technology/ https://ambri.com/technology/ However I think before 2035 this will at best be a distant third from the two (boring) storage options above.
otabdeveloper4 4y ago
"Batteries" is not an energy source.
- jenscow 4y ago
  Until it's not windy or sunny
  - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    With this logic, hydrogen is energy source then.
    - runarberg 4y ago
      But with the other logic, oil is not an energy source either, it is rather an energy storage that just so happened to store energy created by the sun millions of years ago. I think it is OK to be loose on the technicalities in this instance, we all know what was meant.
- ben_w 4y ago
  They don't need to be, they only need to be a way to get energy from when/where it's made to when/where it's needed. Batteries are fine for shifting the "when", just like power lines are fine for shifting the "where".
cm2187 4y ago
Well-known? French nuclear reactors are doing load following every day. What nuclear energy is bad at is as a backup for renewable energy when there is no wind. Because nuclear costs the same whether you use it or not, so you pay for an energy source you don't use most of the time so that you can use wind instead. If you use nuclear, scrap wind.
- howlin 4y ago
  Nuclear should be heavily subsidized regardless. Whenever they aren't needed for immediate demand, these power plants can be put to use for so many other tasks: desalination of water, energy storage in terms of hydroelectric pumping, direct carbon capture. Chemical fuel creation (hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, methane, etc). If we want to unscrew ourselves of the ticking time bomb we set, we need all the "clean" energy we can get, and then some. Nuclear is potentially an existential requirement to the mix.
retrac 4y ago
Synthesize and bottle carbon-neutral fuels like hydrogen or methanol with surplus off-peak nuclear power. Use fuels for peak on-demand electric, transport, etc.; methanol burns in standard internal combustion engines. Solves both the variable output and battery problem. Cost isn't too pleasant, but it scales and all the tech for this cycle exists now.

marsven_422 4y ago

Mistletoe 4y ago

What kind of batteries? And that’s not rhetorical I just want to hear about large neat batteries.

krastanov 4y ago
Pumped water storage as we have had for about a hundred years now. I imagine something like this as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Megapack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Megapack (but my understanding is that there are many other battery technologies in development that work too, e.g. older chemistries and/or mechanical/gravity/heat batteries)
- TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
  > Pumped water storage as we have had for about a hundred years now. Won't happen all geographically advantageous places are already taken.
runarberg 4y ago
Pumped hydro is the obvious answer here, and today accounts for by far the majority of stored renewable electricity. There are geographies in Germany (natural and artificial) that can easily accommodate a lot more pumped hydro. Second option (and also a boring one) is distributed home storage using traditional led-acid or lithium-ion batteries. This is already rolled out and can be increased to scale pretty easily. A more exciting answer is liquid metal (or molten salt) batteries that works as large scale grid storage by heating the batteries elements (Calcium and Antimony) to very high temperature that keeps them separated while charged slowly mixing into a new liquid alloy as it discharges. You can read more about the technology here https://ambri.com/technology/ https://ambri.com/technology/ However I think before 2035 this will at best be a distant third from the two (boring) storage options above.

otabdeveloper4 4y ago

"Batteries" is not an energy source.

jenscow 4y ago
Until it's not windy or sunny
- TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
  With this logic, hydrogen is energy source then.
  - runarberg 4y ago
    But with the other logic, oil is not an energy source either, it is rather an energy storage that just so happened to store energy created by the sun millions of years ago. I think it is OK to be loose on the technicalities in this instance, we all know what was meant.
ben_w 4y ago
They don't need to be, they only need to be a way to get energy from when/where it's made to when/where it's needed. Batteries are fine for shifting the "when", just like power lines are fine for shifting the "where".

cm2187 4y ago

Well-known? French nuclear reactors are doing load following every day. What nuclear energy is bad at is as a backup for renewable energy when there is no wind. Because nuclear costs the same whether you use it or not, so you pay for an energy source you don't use most of the time so that you can use wind instead. If you use nuclear, scrap wind.

howlin 4y ago
Nuclear should be heavily subsidized regardless. Whenever they aren't needed for immediate demand, these power plants can be put to use for so many other tasks: desalination of water, energy storage in terms of hydroelectric pumping, direct carbon capture. Chemical fuel creation (hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, methane, etc). If we want to unscrew ourselves of the ticking time bomb we set, we need all the "clean" energy we can get, and then some. Nuclear is potentially an existential requirement to the mix.

retrac 4y ago

Synthesize and bottle carbon-neutral fuels like hydrogen or methanol with surplus off-peak nuclear power. Use fuels for peak on-demand electric, transport, etc.; methanol burns in standard internal combustion engines. Solves both the variable output and battery problem. Cost isn't too pleasant, but it scales and all the tech for this cycle exists now.