4 ms·

100% of the renewable capacity is backed by the equivalent capacity for natural gas. This is fine it it is intended, and people understand that intermittent re

by reedf1 3y ago

100% of the renewable capacity is backed by the equivalent capacity for natural gas. This is fine it it is intended, and people understand that intermittent renewables are inexorably linked to natural gas. At least for the time being. The alternative is nuclear - which has no such requirement, and is consistent baseline capacity.

rosebay 3y ago
[dead]
konschubert 3y ago
You can make hydrogen and methane from electricity and use that to replenish the gas storage. Gas peaker plants are still required, yes. But they will need to run much less frequently than today.
- zabzonk 3y ago
  > You can make hydrogen and methane from electricity and use that to replenish the gas storage. so, sort of like perpetual motion?
  - signaturefish 3y ago
    No, but I see what you mean. Generating hydrogen and methane using electricity will probably never be that efficient, but if you have spare power then using it to get 60% of its energy back again in the form of future burnables may still be worth it (percentage guessed and probably optimistic).
  - dmbche 3y ago
    No - what is being explained is that you need constant electricity, and wind and solar are not constant, so you need a way to skim the "extra" energy when it's made, and to being it back in the system when there's no wind/sun - by for example using the extra energy to make hydrogen gas and bringing that back in the system at night
    - pydry 3y ago
      People (nuclear advocates usually), like to pretend that the only way to deal with this is an unrealistic number of expensive lithium batteries or fossil fuels but there is also: * Smart meters that charge cars/turn on heat pump storage when electricity is plentiful. Already being done. German aluminum smelting (heavy electricity user) is dialed up and down depending on live electricity prices. * Pumped storage. Coire glass will built soon in the UK - pumping out a max of 1.5GW, snowy 2 in Australia will store 350GWh - at the dirt cheap price of $6 billion. 90% efficient. Published studies confirm that, unlike for dams, the geography for this is very plentiful (contrary to nuclear lobby propaganda which routinely and dishonestly argues the exact opposite). * Hydrogen/windgas - only about 50% efficient round trip but it's easy to store hundreds of GWhs for months, so will be useful to create seasonal storage when, one day (god willing) we get to the point where overbuilt wind and solar manages to supply 100% of current demand and large pumped storage/battery installations are full and we want seasonal storage for the unshiftable demand during the odd windless and dark weeks.
      - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
        And the double irony is that all those things actively help make nuclear grids more efficient and so have been done for decades with nuclear power in France.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        > People (nuclear advocates usually), like to pretend that When is this nonsensical tribalism going to end? Where are all the non-tribal people who are evaluating this stuff on facts and information alone? Why do we hear from the self-disqualifying tribalists? Rant over. You're right - if we all buy cars with giant lithium batteries in then we need to buy fewer non-car lithium batteries. And yes, pumped storage exists, and more will exist, but we have to decide how many point-solutions we need to replace consistent generation. > Hydrogen/windgas - only about 50% efficient round trip Moving electricity (at least in the UK) is only 90% [0] efficient on transmission alone. So, getting the power to the generation, which then becomes hydrogen at 50% capacity, to later burn at a certain efficiency and turn into electricity that gets transmitted at 90% efficiency, feels wrong. Unless your "round trip" figure includes the transmission losses, but then 50% feels too high to be doing that. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/550583/electricity-losses-in-transmission-uk https://www.statista.com/statistics/550583/electricity-losse...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - cinntaile 3y ago
    What's the link with perpetual motion? You would use the excess electricity that is available to do that.
themitigating 3y ago
Why does it have to be the equivalent capacity? Surely not all renewable generation could go down at once? Nuclear reactors can have problems, same with natural gas plants right? But no one suggests or has built a duplicate generation system. Why not?
- trebligdivad 3y ago
  Unfortunately they mostly do for wind - we get still days where instead of the ~20GW peak wind, we get ~1GW for a few days. And the low wind pattern often sits over the whole of NW Europe, so transfer doesn't help as much as people hoped since the whole area is low on wind.
Pxtl 3y ago
Offshore wind tends to be a solid bit more consistent than on-land, and UK uses offshore wind.
Tade0 3y ago
That's great in theory, but in practice Hinkley Point C won't start running until late 2028 according to the most recent estimates.
- Certhas 3y ago
  And its more expensive than estimates for storage+renewables over its intended lifetime. With nuclear you pay extra to have to change the system less...
  - belorn 3y ago
    It is those situation where the government should just get people to bid on supplying a steady amount of non-fossil fuel energy for a given period in the future, and whoever bids lowest wins. If there are companies willing to sign a cheaper contract that provide equal stability of a nuclear power by using a combination of fossil free storage and renewables, they should then do that. The requirements are fairly simple. Provide energy when people want it with the capacity that people require, and supply it as cheap as possible with as little subsidizes as needed. No fossil fuels allowed.
    - Certhas 3y ago
      Agreed. That's the idea behind capacity markets, but the idea to pay people for capacity rather than for energy provided seems to be politically difficult, and (some) economists argue it's not needed.
    - Certhas 3y ago
      P.s.: Here is the European Commission on the use of capacity renumeration: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/markets-and-consumers/capacity-mechanisms_en https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/markets-and-consumers/cap...
ChocBananaChips 3y ago
Do you have sources for any of these claims?

by reedf1 3y ago

rosebay 3y ago

[dead]

konschubert 3y ago

You can make hydrogen and methane from electricity and use that to replenish the gas storage. Gas peaker plants are still required, yes. But they will need to run much less frequently than today.

zabzonk 3y ago
> You can make hydrogen and methane from electricity and use that to replenish the gas storage. so, sort of like perpetual motion?
- signaturefish 3y ago
  No, but I see what you mean. Generating hydrogen and methane using electricity will probably never be that efficient, but if you have spare power then using it to get 60% of its energy back again in the form of future burnables may still be worth it (percentage guessed and probably optimistic).
- dmbche 3y ago
  No - what is being explained is that you need constant electricity, and wind and solar are not constant, so you need a way to skim the "extra" energy when it's made, and to being it back in the system when there's no wind/sun - by for example using the extra energy to make hydrogen gas and bringing that back in the system at night
  - pydry 3y ago
    People (nuclear advocates usually), like to pretend that the only way to deal with this is an unrealistic number of expensive lithium batteries or fossil fuels but there is also: * Smart meters that charge cars/turn on heat pump storage when electricity is plentiful. Already being done. German aluminum smelting (heavy electricity user) is dialed up and down depending on live electricity prices. * Pumped storage. Coire glass will built soon in the UK - pumping out a max of 1.5GW, snowy 2 in Australia will store 350GWh - at the dirt cheap price of $6 billion. 90% efficient. Published studies confirm that, unlike for dams, the geography for this is very plentiful (contrary to nuclear lobby propaganda which routinely and dishonestly argues the exact opposite). * Hydrogen/windgas - only about 50% efficient round trip but it's easy to store hundreds of GWhs for months, so will be useful to create seasonal storage when, one day (god willing) we get to the point where overbuilt wind and solar manages to supply 100% of current demand and large pumped storage/battery installations are full and we want seasonal storage for the unshiftable demand during the odd windless and dark weeks.
    - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
      And the double irony is that all those things actively help make nuclear grids more efficient and so have been done for decades with nuclear power in France.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      > People (nuclear advocates usually), like to pretend that When is this nonsensical tribalism going to end? Where are all the non-tribal people who are evaluating this stuff on facts and information alone? Why do we hear from the self-disqualifying tribalists? Rant over. You're right - if we all buy cars with giant lithium batteries in then we need to buy fewer non-car lithium batteries. And yes, pumped storage exists, and more will exist, but we have to decide how many point-solutions we need to replace consistent generation. > Hydrogen/windgas - only about 50% efficient round trip Moving electricity (at least in the UK) is only 90% [0] efficient on transmission alone. So, getting the power to the generation, which then becomes hydrogen at 50% capacity, to later burn at a certain efficiency and turn into electricity that gets transmitted at 90% efficiency, feels wrong. Unless your "round trip" figure includes the transmission losses, but then 50% feels too high to be doing that. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/550583/electricity-losses-in-transmission-uk https://www.statista.com/statistics/550583/electricity-losse...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- cinntaile 3y ago
  What's the link with perpetual motion? You would use the excess electricity that is available to do that.

themitigating 3y ago

Why does it have to be the equivalent capacity? Surely not all renewable generation could go down at once? Nuclear reactors can have problems, same with natural gas plants right? But no one suggests or has built a duplicate generation system. Why not?

trebligdivad 3y ago
Unfortunately they mostly do for wind - we get still days where instead of the ~20GW peak wind, we get ~1GW for a few days. And the low wind pattern often sits over the whole of NW Europe, so transfer doesn't help as much as people hoped since the whole area is low on wind.

Pxtl 3y ago

Offshore wind tends to be a solid bit more consistent than on-land, and UK uses offshore wind.

Tade0 3y ago

That's great in theory, but in practice Hinkley Point C won't start running until late 2028 according to the most recent estimates.

Certhas 3y ago
And its more expensive than estimates for storage+renewables over its intended lifetime. With nuclear you pay extra to have to change the system less...
- belorn 3y ago
  It is those situation where the government should just get people to bid on supplying a steady amount of non-fossil fuel energy for a given period in the future, and whoever bids lowest wins. If there are companies willing to sign a cheaper contract that provide equal stability of a nuclear power by using a combination of fossil free storage and renewables, they should then do that. The requirements are fairly simple. Provide energy when people want it with the capacity that people require, and supply it as cheap as possible with as little subsidizes as needed. No fossil fuels allowed.
  - Certhas 3y ago
    Agreed. That's the idea behind capacity markets, but the idea to pay people for capacity rather than for energy provided seems to be politically difficult, and (some) economists argue it's not needed.
  - Certhas 3y ago
    P.s.: Here is the European Commission on the use of capacity renumeration: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/markets-and-consumers/capacity-mechanisms_en https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/markets-and-consumers/cap...

ChocBananaChips 3y ago

Do you have sources for any of these claims?