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Because customers want electricity 24 hours/day, 7 days/week and 52 weeks/year. Conversely renewables are intermittent. So the basic solutions are to massively

Because customers want electricity 24 hours/day, 7 days/week and 52 weeks/year. Conversely renewables are intermittent. So the basic solutions are to massively overbuild renewables, to massively increase the capacity of the electric grid--so you can move huge amounts of electricity all around the country, have massive amounts of very expensive electricity storage and/or to have a massive fossil fuel backup system.

fewavewavewa 4y ago
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yodelshady 4y ago
> So the basic solutions are to massively overbuild renewables, And who the fuck is doing that? Because they're not god-damned cheap if you do that! I do not care if you can sell your product for cheap if I have to buy a much more expensive, planet-killing fossil-fuel product to make up for your SLA of "ha ha ha oh my god they think we have an SLA", which is why none of these academic ideas actually fucking include storage or SLAs! And no, cheap storage is not a fucking thing! Someone earlier on HN today was boasting of a solution that cost $800,000 per MWh, and if it exponentially decayed in cost at a rate greater than any industrial improvement ever for the next decade, it would still be more expensive than nuclear! And yes, I'm angry, because empirically, on the very grid I use, that is exactly what has happened. We're paying, not the "extortionate" $100 or so nuclear promised, but over $500, because something needs to keep the lights on at moments not convenient for the intermittence. And I've worked with the industrial consumers of their product, conferences where literally everyone has academic AND industry experience in real engineering, and they're fucking suicidal because of the losses incurred by this shit, Europe-fucking-wide. This is not okay. This is fraud.
- dale_glass 4y ago
  > And who the fuck is doing that? Because they're not god-damned cheap if you do that! Nobody is doing it yet because nobody is even close to having too much solar or wind at this point. But that's still likely cheaper in the end. > And yes, I'm angry, because empirically, on the very grid I use, that is exactly what has happened. We're paying, not the "extortionate" $100 or so nuclear promised, but over $500, because something needs to keep the lights on at moments not convenient for the intermittence. Nuclear promised power too cheap to meter. That's never materialized. Nuclear promises many things, but so far shows no signs of fulfilling them. Eg, Hinkley Point C in the UK is infamous for that it's already economically nonsensical and can only exist because the government guaranteed a subsidy. It's already not competitive with modern renewables. That's unlikely to improve in the future.
  - amw 4y ago
    The problem with "energy too cheap to meter" is that it has to very quickly become "energy too cheap to make a profit from". And that is the _real_ obstacle to prolific nuclear.
    - dale_glass 4y ago
      Nuclear's problem isn't that energy is too cheap, it's that nuclear generated electricity is too expensive in comparison to the competition. That wasn't the original hope -- formerly, they hoped nuclear plants would be cheap and plentiful. My understanding is that "too cheap to meter" just refers to a flat rate -- why bother measuring (especially before modern times, back when that required people visiting meters in person), when you can charge a flat rate? But that clearly was extremely optimistic.
  - fewavewavewa 4y ago
    >Nuclear promises many things, but so far shows no signs of fulfilling them. Last time I checked, France's nuclear power stations were keeping the lights on in Europe while Germany scrambles to start up coal plants.
    - dale_glass 4y ago
      What does that have to do with anything? My argument isn't that nuclear doesn't work as a technology -- it obviously produces power. My argument is that building nuclear is not competitive, and that's why nobody is building any. If you already have a working power plant obviously it can and should be used. Somebody already footed the bill for that one, so that problem is solved for that particular plant. But that has nothing to do with whether building more is a good idea.
      - fewavewavewa 4y ago
        >building nuclear is not competitive It clearly is, if France is selling nuclear power to the rest of Europe.

fewavewavewa 4y ago

yodelshady 4y ago

> So the basic solutions are to massively overbuild renewables, And who the fuck is doing that? Because they're not god-damned cheap if you do that! I do not care if you can sell your product for cheap if I have to buy a much more expensive, planet-killing fossil-fuel product to make up for your SLA of "ha ha ha oh my god they think we have an SLA", which is why none of these academic ideas actually fucking include storage or SLAs! And no, cheap storage is not a fucking thing! Someone earlier on HN today was boasting of a solution that cost $800,000 per MWh, and if it exponentially decayed in cost at a rate greater than any industrial improvement ever for the next decade, it would still be more expensive than nuclear! And yes, I'm angry, because empirically, on the very grid I use, that is exactly what has happened. We're paying, not the "extortionate" $100 or so nuclear promised, but over $500, because something needs to keep the lights on at moments not convenient for the intermittence. And I've worked with the industrial consumers of their product, conferences where literally everyone has academic AND industry experience in real engineering, and they're fucking suicidal because of the losses incurred by this shit, Europe-fucking-wide. This is not okay. This is fraud.

dale_glass 4y ago
> And who the fuck is doing that? Because they're not god-damned cheap if you do that! Nobody is doing it yet because nobody is even close to having too much solar or wind at this point. But that's still likely cheaper in the end. > And yes, I'm angry, because empirically, on the very grid I use, that is exactly what has happened. We're paying, not the "extortionate" $100 or so nuclear promised, but over $500, because something needs to keep the lights on at moments not convenient for the intermittence. Nuclear promised power too cheap to meter. That's never materialized. Nuclear promises many things, but so far shows no signs of fulfilling them. Eg, Hinkley Point C in the UK is infamous for that it's already economically nonsensical and can only exist because the government guaranteed a subsidy. It's already not competitive with modern renewables. That's unlikely to improve in the future.
- amw 4y ago
  The problem with "energy too cheap to meter" is that it has to very quickly become "energy too cheap to make a profit from". And that is the _real_ obstacle to prolific nuclear.
  - dale_glass 4y ago
    Nuclear's problem isn't that energy is too cheap, it's that nuclear generated electricity is too expensive in comparison to the competition. That wasn't the original hope -- formerly, they hoped nuclear plants would be cheap and plentiful. My understanding is that "too cheap to meter" just refers to a flat rate -- why bother measuring (especially before modern times, back when that required people visiting meters in person), when you can charge a flat rate? But that clearly was extremely optimistic.
- fewavewavewa 4y ago
  >Nuclear promises many things, but so far shows no signs of fulfilling them. Last time I checked, France's nuclear power stations were keeping the lights on in Europe while Germany scrambles to start up coal plants.
  - dale_glass 4y ago
    What does that have to do with anything? My argument isn't that nuclear doesn't work as a technology -- it obviously produces power. My argument is that building nuclear is not competitive, and that's why nobody is building any. If you already have a working power plant obviously it can and should be used. Somebody already footed the bill for that one, so that problem is solved for that particular plant. But that has nothing to do with whether building more is a good idea.
    - fewavewavewa 4y ago
      >building nuclear is not competitive It clearly is, if France is selling nuclear power to the rest of Europe.