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40% of electricity may be produced by gas on a given day, but that 40% is being produced mostly at night - which is is not going to be displaced by further inve
by Manuel_D 4y ago
40% of electricity may be produced by gas on a given day, but that 40% is being produced mostly at night - which is is not going to be displaced by further investments in solar. "Base load" isn't a reference to generation, it's a reference to demand. Base load refers to the load during the lowest period of energy demand in a 24 hour period. Unfortunately, load peaks when solar is producing no energy and load at its base when solar is producing the most energy [1]. Without storage, these excesses of solar production when load is at its base cannot be shifted to the time when load is at its peak.
Renewables look great if you just look at generation. But the goal isn't simply to generate clean energy, the goal is to displace fossil fuels. This is why non-intermittent sources like nuclear and hydroelectricity are, contrary to your assertion, far more valuable for decarbonization.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve#/media/File:California_average_hourly_electricity_generation_from_natural_gas,_solar_energy,_and_all_other_sources_in_selected_months_of_2020_(50705225643).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve#/media/File:Califor...
- nine_k 4y agoI live in NYC, and about 50% of energy coming to my apartment comes from nuclear and hydro sources, according to the energy company. But NYC has a few gas-fired peaker plants, and during summer they are fired at the hottest time of the day, when AC load soars. More solar power would certainly help this specific problem. I suppose that somewhere farther from ocean, where day and night temperatures vary more, a solar plant should have an even bigger effect in the summer. (In the winter though the picture changes.)
- Manuel_D 4y agoUnfortunately the solar potential north in New York is pretty bad. It's not just the weather, it's the angle of incidence with the sun. The further away from the equator you go, the less light per square meter of land you get.
- nine_k 4y agoIndeed so! But I suppose there may be enough slanted surfaces facing approximately south. If solar were cheap enough to depoy, it could help. But possibly it may be not, due to labor costs. I still see some (tall, multifamily / office) houses in Brooklyn and even on Manhattan adorning their roofs with solar panels. I know only one house that incorporated them right from the start though, it's on Coney Island, facing the ocean. I think when someone comes up with translucent solar panels which can work as window shades on a skyscraper while looking good from the outside and not requiring a fortune to deploy, that will change the face of metropolises around the globe.
- cedilla 4y agoNew York is at 40°N. It's more southern than most of Europe, where massive amounts of solar power is produced cheaply.
- Manuel_D 4y agoActually, Europe's renewables - besides hydroelectricity - are mostly wind precisely for this reason. Wind is 12% of the EU's electricity generation as compared to 6% for solar [2]. Nuclear power is more than both combined at 25% [3]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_European_Uni... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country 3. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20220111-1 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/d...
- smcl 4y agoJust wanted to say that your responses throughout this thread have been excellent
- Schroedingersat 4y agoEurope's renewables are mostly wind because they have good wind resource and terrible local weather for solar. 40 degrees latitude makes very little difference to output and the 10% CF during mid winter available for fixed utility solar in new york still makes the energy considerably cheaper than nuclear.