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Its very tiring that there is always someone here telling us how inexpensive PV and wind are compared to other generation. Which is true per watt, until you try

Its very tiring that there is always someone here telling us how inexpensive PV and wind are compared to other generation. Which is true per watt, until you try to assure that watt is actually available when its needed. So its comparing the costs of two entirely different things, power which can be predicted and produced at a given level, and power which may or may not produce anything over a given time-frame. And so, i might say its a lie... Particularly because the costs associated with making a watt of wind/PV reliable easily adds an order of magnitude in costs, making wind/PV a much worst cost proposition than just about anything else. And its particularly bad in places that don't have existing hydro and nukes because the only realistic way to back it up with today's technology/economy is fossil fuel sources. (aka grid scale batteries capable of multi day power storage simply don't exist, and you can't "overbuild" your way out of the problem.). So its not even carbon free.

coyotespike 3y ago
Let's champion both. Living in Austin, I plan to add solar to my house someday, and I would also love to see us build nuclear power plants. I really cannot understand why people set these things at odds with each other. They are both better than fossil fuels or degrowth.
- derefr 3y ago
  > I really cannot understand why people set these things at odds with each other. They are both better than fossil fuels or degrowth. Mostly because in many places nuclear power is currently politically blocked from any further build-out, if not outright banned. One of the main rhetorical moves that various "green" (i.e. anti-nuclear) lobbies say to justify not building out nuclear power — which regulators seem to have absorbed and now believe — is "for everything we'd use nuclear for, we can just use PV." This statement has a clear refutation: nuclear is base-load + grid-scale, while PV elastic-load + individual-site-scale; so if you need to e.g. double the electrical capacity of a large city in response to population growth, then PV isn't going to work—you want nuclear (or another base-load grid-scale power technology, like hydropower.) But these arguments don't get heard; rather, the regulators say "but we have PV, what's the point in building nuclear rather than just supporting the build-out of more PV?" as a conversation-ending rhetorical statement. In order to convince regulators to allow the build-out of nuclear, there has to be some equally-powerful rhetorical statement that can be used to "reopen the conversation." Which would, intuitively, come in the form of a clear and effective condemnation of PV as a base-load / grid-scale power technology. But if regulators don't understand terms like "base-load" or "grid-scale", then what you end up having to do to get them to stop packing up and shooing you out of the room, is to condemn PV full-stop.
- whitemary 3y ago
  Because financialized/late-stage capitalism makes long-term investments like nuclear power generation financially infeasible, while funneling subsidies to "green energy" solar/wind industries is extremely profitable in the short-term. In other words, the thing that actually works is significantly less likely to happen, and therefore requires far more support.
- pydry 3y ago
  >I really cannot understand why people set these things at odds with each other. Because they compete for investment dollars from the government. Why doesnt the government just fund the cheapest one? Because the nuclear military industrial complex needs a civilian nuclear industry to operate cost effectively.
- loeg 3y ago
  They don't have especially complementary profiles for a generation mix, unfortunately. So at scale it seems like you have to pick one or the other.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    I don't think it makes financial sense to build new nuclear, but solar and nuclear pair reasonably well if you have existing nuclear, at least in areas where air-con is used (demand peaks in summer afternoons). The problem only arises when you don't charge coal and gas plants sufficient carbon/pollution fees, then they can underbid nuclear and drive it out of the market and stop it earning enough overnight. to quote the nuclear industry: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/04/nuclear-power-doesnt-stack-up-without-a-carbon-price-industry-group-says https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/04/nucle... > Nuclear could provide cheap energy but would only be competitive with gas and coal if carbon pollution is priced, nuclear association says
pydry 3y ago
>Its very tiring that there is always someone here telling us how inexpensive PV and wind are compared to other generation. Which is true per watt, until you try to assure that watt is actually available when its needed. It's 5x cheaper per watt. That goes up to 1.5-3x cheaper once you add "when needed". OP already mentioned that it is cheaper with storage. You ignored them. >Particularly because the costs associated with making a watt of wind/PV reliable easily adds an order of magnitude in costs An order of magnitude is absurd.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
The comment you replied to explicitly addressed how to make cheap renewables more available. You might disagree, but acting like they never even mentioned it makes it seem more likely that you're just going on outdated info.
- belorn 3y ago
  The storage in "PV with storage" is most commonly measured in single digit hours of capacity, and is primarily used in locations where the sun is predictable up during the day and has a predictable discharge/charging cycle of 24 hours. One of the biggest upside is that the economics of it is fairly simplistic with 365 cycles each year that produce predictable revenue. There is a second form of storage that is also fairly common, which is storage that exist to balance the grid when different units goes up and down. Those generally have even less capacity and are not intended to operate under long periods. For locations where the first form of PV with storage works, they should really replace everything (with imports handling any exceptional weather events). Storage of this form does however become significant more expensive the further away we get from this optimal weather pattern, and there is a multiple reasons why wind heavy nations can not survive on a few hours of storage. Latitude and seasons can also have a very large impact if a nation where to use this as their only strategy.
skybrian 3y ago
I'm wondering what kinds of reliability we actually need. Residential: it seems like we often accept less reliability? It's common for bad weather like thunderstorms to cause power outages, particularly in rural areas. Lots of places in California will get cut off during high winds. If you need reliability, a battery backup protects you from more outages, including those that take out the grid. In some cases a generator makes sense (such as for a data center), but it's higher maintenance.

coyotespike 3y ago

Let's champion both. Living in Austin, I plan to add solar to my house someday, and I would also love to see us build nuclear power plants. I really cannot understand why people set these things at odds with each other. They are both better than fossil fuels or degrowth.

derefr 3y ago
> I really cannot understand why people set these things at odds with each other. They are both better than fossil fuels or degrowth. Mostly because in many places nuclear power is currently politically blocked from any further build-out, if not outright banned. One of the main rhetorical moves that various "green" (i.e. anti-nuclear) lobbies say to justify not building out nuclear power — which regulators seem to have absorbed and now believe — is "for everything we'd use nuclear for, we can just use PV." This statement has a clear refutation: nuclear is base-load + grid-scale, while PV elastic-load + individual-site-scale; so if you need to e.g. double the electrical capacity of a large city in response to population growth, then PV isn't going to work—you want nuclear (or another base-load grid-scale power technology, like hydropower.) But these arguments don't get heard; rather, the regulators say "but we have PV, what's the point in building nuclear rather than just supporting the build-out of more PV?" as a conversation-ending rhetorical statement. In order to convince regulators to allow the build-out of nuclear, there has to be some equally-powerful rhetorical statement that can be used to "reopen the conversation." Which would, intuitively, come in the form of a clear and effective condemnation of PV as a base-load / grid-scale power technology. But if regulators don't understand terms like "base-load" or "grid-scale", then what you end up having to do to get them to stop packing up and shooing you out of the room, is to condemn PV full-stop.
whitemary 3y ago
Because financialized/late-stage capitalism makes long-term investments like nuclear power generation financially infeasible, while funneling subsidies to "green energy" solar/wind industries is extremely profitable in the short-term. In other words, the thing that actually works is significantly less likely to happen, and therefore requires far more support.
pydry 3y ago
>I really cannot understand why people set these things at odds with each other. Because they compete for investment dollars from the government. Why doesnt the government just fund the cheapest one? Because the nuclear military industrial complex needs a civilian nuclear industry to operate cost effectively.
loeg 3y ago
They don't have especially complementary profiles for a generation mix, unfortunately. So at scale it seems like you have to pick one or the other.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  I don't think it makes financial sense to build new nuclear, but solar and nuclear pair reasonably well if you have existing nuclear, at least in areas where air-con is used (demand peaks in summer afternoons). The problem only arises when you don't charge coal and gas plants sufficient carbon/pollution fees, then they can underbid nuclear and drive it out of the market and stop it earning enough overnight. to quote the nuclear industry: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/04/nuclear-power-doesnt-stack-up-without-a-carbon-price-industry-group-says https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/04/nucle... > Nuclear could provide cheap energy but would only be competitive with gas and coal if carbon pollution is priced, nuclear association says

pydry 3y ago

>Its very tiring that there is always someone here telling us how inexpensive PV and wind are compared to other generation. Which is true per watt, until you try to assure that watt is actually available when its needed. It's 5x cheaper per watt. That goes up to 1.5-3x cheaper once you add "when needed". OP already mentioned that it is cheaper with storage. You ignored them. >Particularly because the costs associated with making a watt of wind/PV reliable easily adds an order of magnitude in costs An order of magnitude is absurd.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

The comment you replied to explicitly addressed how to make cheap renewables more available. You might disagree, but acting like they never even mentioned it makes it seem more likely that you're just going on outdated info.

belorn 3y ago
The storage in "PV with storage" is most commonly measured in single digit hours of capacity, and is primarily used in locations where the sun is predictable up during the day and has a predictable discharge/charging cycle of 24 hours. One of the biggest upside is that the economics of it is fairly simplistic with 365 cycles each year that produce predictable revenue. There is a second form of storage that is also fairly common, which is storage that exist to balance the grid when different units goes up and down. Those generally have even less capacity and are not intended to operate under long periods. For locations where the first form of PV with storage works, they should really replace everything (with imports handling any exceptional weather events). Storage of this form does however become significant more expensive the further away we get from this optimal weather pattern, and there is a multiple reasons why wind heavy nations can not survive on a few hours of storage. Latitude and seasons can also have a very large impact if a nation where to use this as their only strategy.

skybrian 3y ago

I'm wondering what kinds of reliability we actually need. Residential: it seems like we often accept less reliability? It's common for bad weather like thunderstorms to cause power outages, particularly in rural areas. Lots of places in California will get cut off during high winds. If you need reliability, a battery backup protects you from more outages, including those that take out the grid. In some cases a generator makes sense (such as for a data center), but it's higher maintenance.