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No country* can produce its electricity only based on renewables. They are not dispatchable and occupy a lot of land. So you need a base. France decided that th

No country* can produce its electricity only based on renewables. They are not dispatchable and occupy a lot of land. So you need a base. France decided that the base would be nuclear and Germany decided it would be fossil fuel. Not sure there is clear a cut argument that one choice is better than the other. As to what happened in France, it is not related to the nuclear technology itself and could have happen to any type of technology. They built all those power plants following the same design at the same time and all failed the same way at the same time. No surprise here. * Or maybe a country with a very small population and a lot of unused land maybe which is a pretty small category.

pfdietz 4y ago
> No country* can produce its electricity only based on renewables What utter bullshit. Most countries could do so.
- pyuser583 4y ago
  Could explain why it’s “bullshit?”
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    The person I was responding to qualified with "* Or maybe a country with a very small population and a lot of unused land maybe which is a pretty small category." But if you actually do the arithmetic, you will find that land constraints are not important for most countries. There's plenty of land for most countries to produce what they need (as long as they don't do something braindead like trying to burn biomass). Put it another way: the value of the energy generated per area of land is much greater than the value produced by other uses of the land, like agriculture or forestry, and no one claims those are infeasible. I believe this wrong belief about renewables not being able to do the job came from the assumption that large amounts of biofuel would be needed (IIRC MacKay's "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air" made this mistake). The efficiency of sunlight => fuel from growth of biomass is very low.
    - epups 4y ago
      I agree land use is not a major consideration here. But what about base load? You cannot guarantee proper weather and we currently don't have anywhere near battery capacity to store energy from renewable sources for a meaningful amount of time. So ultimately yes, you are faced with a choice between hydro, coal/gas and nuclear for that.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        Take the mismatch between solar/wind and demand. Take the Fourier transform of this mismatch. It has components at various frequencies. There are various storage technologies that are best for various frequencies: batteries for high frequences (diurnal or faster); maybe thermal storage for intermediate frequencies (days to weeks); maybe hydrogen for low frequencies (months, yearly, or even longer). If you optimize the system with the right combination of solar/wind (which are typically somewhat anticorrelated, or at least somewhat independent), and various kinds of storage, you can generate an artificial steady output for not that much. See https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ for a web site that generates cost optimal (under various cost assumptions and using historical weather data) solutions to this problem in various places.
        epups 4y ago
        None of these storage technologies are currently being used at scale. Not a single country is relying on batteries or hydrogen to solve the problem I mentioned above.
        pfdietz 4y ago
        Ah, the good old "if it hasn't happened yet, it can't ever happen" argument. Priceless. Remember, we're talking about a claim that renewables are fundamentally blocked from providing the power for the grid in most countries. If you exclude the possibility of additional foreseeable technological development, then nuclear also fails, since existing commercial reactors very quickly exhaust the available economical uranium if they are asked to power the world.
- k8wk1 4y ago
  > What utter bullshit. Most countries could do so. Unfortunately when wishes and hard reality meets for a fight, the reality wins. In this case failure modes of renewable-only policy are not obvious, but this doesn't mean they don't exist. Claiming otherwise is just wishful thinking.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    [flagged]
- zajio1am 4y ago
  Countries with latitude like California (or geography like Austria) could, countries with latitude and geography like Germany could not.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    High latitude countries are the most difficult case, but even there it's possible, with a combination of wind and solar, and hydrogen for seasonal leveling. Germany has plenty of salt formations for hydrogen storage. Places a bit to the east (like Poland) with less wind will have an even harder time. Granted, Germany will be at a competitive disadvantage vs. countries at lower latitude that won't need as much storage. But that's a separate issue. It could mean they won't need as much energy for industry, since their industry will move elsewhere.
    - bongoman37 4y ago
      [dead]
    - zajio1am 4y ago
      Yes, chemical storage is likely the only reasonable way (outside nuclear). Although i would bet more on methane/co2 closed cycle, or ammonia, than on hydrogen. But these are not proven technologies at the grid scale.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        Storage of hydrogen involves components that are all proven. It's just a matter of putting them together. This is the simplest and surest kind of innovation.
k8wk1 4y ago
It's not even that all the nuclear power plants failed. It was a combination of a choice to defer maintenance due to Covid, and also a choice to stop every power plant to address a new possible fault regardless of whether it impacts the specific power plant or not. The latter is a sensible choice given the zero risk tolerance, but it is nevertheless a choice.

pfdietz 4y ago

> No country* can produce its electricity only based on renewables What utter bullshit. Most countries could do so.

pyuser583 4y ago
Could explain why it’s “bullshit?”
- pfdietz 4y ago
  The person I was responding to qualified with "* Or maybe a country with a very small population and a lot of unused land maybe which is a pretty small category." But if you actually do the arithmetic, you will find that land constraints are not important for most countries. There's plenty of land for most countries to produce what they need (as long as they don't do something braindead like trying to burn biomass). Put it another way: the value of the energy generated per area of land is much greater than the value produced by other uses of the land, like agriculture or forestry, and no one claims those are infeasible. I believe this wrong belief about renewables not being able to do the job came from the assumption that large amounts of biofuel would be needed (IIRC MacKay's "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air" made this mistake). The efficiency of sunlight => fuel from growth of biomass is very low.
  - epups 4y ago
    I agree land use is not a major consideration here. But what about base load? You cannot guarantee proper weather and we currently don't have anywhere near battery capacity to store energy from renewable sources for a meaningful amount of time. So ultimately yes, you are faced with a choice between hydro, coal/gas and nuclear for that.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Take the mismatch between solar/wind and demand. Take the Fourier transform of this mismatch. It has components at various frequencies. There are various storage technologies that are best for various frequencies: batteries for high frequences (diurnal or faster); maybe thermal storage for intermediate frequencies (days to weeks); maybe hydrogen for low frequencies (months, yearly, or even longer). If you optimize the system with the right combination of solar/wind (which are typically somewhat anticorrelated, or at least somewhat independent), and various kinds of storage, you can generate an artificial steady output for not that much. See https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ for a web site that generates cost optimal (under various cost assumptions and using historical weather data) solutions to this problem in various places.
      - epups 4y ago
        None of these storage technologies are currently being used at scale. Not a single country is relying on batteries or hydrogen to solve the problem I mentioned above.
        pfdietz 4y ago
        Ah, the good old "if it hasn't happened yet, it can't ever happen" argument. Priceless. Remember, we're talking about a claim that renewables are fundamentally blocked from providing the power for the grid in most countries. If you exclude the possibility of additional foreseeable technological development, then nuclear also fails, since existing commercial reactors very quickly exhaust the available economical uranium if they are asked to power the world.
k8wk1 4y ago
> What utter bullshit. Most countries could do so. Unfortunately when wishes and hard reality meets for a fight, the reality wins. In this case failure modes of renewable-only policy are not obvious, but this doesn't mean they don't exist. Claiming otherwise is just wishful thinking.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  [flagged]
zajio1am 4y ago
Countries with latitude like California (or geography like Austria) could, countries with latitude and geography like Germany could not.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  High latitude countries are the most difficult case, but even there it's possible, with a combination of wind and solar, and hydrogen for seasonal leveling. Germany has plenty of salt formations for hydrogen storage. Places a bit to the east (like Poland) with less wind will have an even harder time. Granted, Germany will be at a competitive disadvantage vs. countries at lower latitude that won't need as much storage. But that's a separate issue. It could mean they won't need as much energy for industry, since their industry will move elsewhere.
  - bongoman37 4y ago
    [dead]
  - zajio1am 4y ago
    Yes, chemical storage is likely the only reasonable way (outside nuclear). Although i would bet more on methane/co2 closed cycle, or ammonia, than on hydrogen. But these are not proven technologies at the grid scale.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Storage of hydrogen involves components that are all proven. It's just a matter of putting them together. This is the simplest and surest kind of innovation.

k8wk1 4y ago

It's not even that all the nuclear power plants failed. It was a combination of a choice to defer maintenance due to Covid, and also a choice to stop every power plant to address a new possible fault regardless of whether it impacts the specific power plant or not. The latter is a sensible choice given the zero risk tolerance, but it is nevertheless a choice.