4 ms·

Levelized cost of energy doesn't take into account time effects, so is a poor tool to compare nuclear to intermittent energy sources like solar and wind. If you

by zizee 3y ago

Levelized cost of energy doesn't take into account time effects, so is a poor tool to compare nuclear to intermittent energy sources like solar and wind. If you require a 99.99% guaranteed output at all times of the year, solar and wind require a prohibitive amount of storage, and significant over-provisioning. LCOE does not account for this. This is not to say solar and wind + storage are less economical than nuclear. But LCOE is not a good measure of real costs.

wolfram74 3y ago
4-9's of uptime doesn't match my lived experience in the US, that's one days worth of power outage every 10000 days, or about once every ~30 years. 2-9's is closer to what civilians in the US are used. The over provisioning could be considered more of a feature than a bug, offering new economic periods where the marginal energy cost of production go negative at times.
- mlyle 3y ago
  > 2-9's is closer to what civilians in the US are used. ??? Like 4 days of downtime per year? I've had about 1.5 hours of outage this year, which was an outlier (much more outage than normal). 3 9's is typical if you have above-ground utilities. If you have underground utilities, you may be doing far better than this...
  - wolfram74 3y ago
    8 hours a year is pretty close to 3-9's, that's fair.
- zizee 3y ago
  That's fine. 4-9's was just an number I pulled out of my ass, and it wasn't really my point. My point is that when talking about energy sources, LCOE is not a good measure as it doesn't take into account things like reliability over time (whatever your target reliability is). Over-provisioning has a cost. If it is required to achieve characteristics required to do a like-for-like comparison, it should be accounted for. The problem with these Nuclear conversations is that people are pushing their preferred option, always without coming to some sort of agreement on what the requirements are for the power generation option. Without agreeing on what needs to be achieved, everyone talks past each other, arguing with straw-man solutions.
nl 3y ago
In general, long distance transmission across climate zones and across diverse generation types (solar, wind, pumped hydro) along with some limited local storage gives sufficient reliability to meet those requirements. Long distance transmission (1000km+) is surprisingly affordable and widely deployed in eg China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity_transmission_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity... But note that even with significant over provisioning solar and wind is still cheaper than the cheapest nuclear costs if you over-provision in the low cost, high generation areas (another argument for transmission)
- zizee 3y ago
  There is no doubt that a mixture of over provisioning, a mix of energy sources (wind, hydro, solar), mix of storage, an extensive and resilient grid can successfully replace less-intermittent power sources. What I am interested in is what it will cost, and how that compares to nuclear. People from both "sides" always make claims that make their preferred solution look more favorable. The non-nuclear people point at measures like LCOE which are misleading. I'm sure pro-nuclear people are doing the same thing. Personally, I do not have a side, I just want real numbers for replacing coal/gas and getting a similar or better level of grid stability. > But note that even with significant over provisioning solar and wind is still cheaper than the cheapest nuclear costs if you over-provision in the low cost, high generation areas (another argument for transmission) Can you provide some sort of evidence for this claim? How much does a UHV line cost per KM? How much will it take to build out? How much storage is required? How much over-provisioning is required?
  - nl 3y ago
    The numbers are in the OP. Low cost solar with storage is $46/MWh or $24/MWh without storage. Wind is $42/MWh with storage or $24/MWh without. Nuclear low cost is $141/MWh. You can over provision wind (without storage) 5x or 3x with storage and still be cheaper than nuclear. > How much does a UHV line cost per KM? How much will it take to build out? Electrical transmission is historically $41.50/MWh/1000 miles in the US and build costs are $1502/mile. So transmission from Kansas (high wind zone) to California would be around $1.7B.\ to build out. Given the average cost of a nuclear power station is at last $19B[2] it's pretty easy to see how economically far ahead renewables are. > How much storage is required? How much over-provisioning is required? I can't find any useful modelling to on this which is pretty astonishing really. The closest I found was [3] which is German specific, where they find around 8 potential days of every 10 years are below the low wind power events for power from on land wind farms within Germany (so no offshore and no transmission) using 40 years of data. The distribution of these events is more problematic: there was a 4 day lull in 1985, or 10 days with a broader definition of "lull". [1] Table 1 and Table 5 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004221014668 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258900422... [2] https://thebulletin.org/2019/06/why-nuclear-power-plants-cost-so-much-and-what-can-be-done-about-it/ https://thebulletin.org/2019/06/why-nuclear-power-plants-cos... [3] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab91e9 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab91e9

by zizee 3y ago

wolfram74 3y ago

4-9's of uptime doesn't match my lived experience in the US, that's one days worth of power outage every 10000 days, or about once every ~30 years. 2-9's is closer to what civilians in the US are used. The over provisioning could be considered more of a feature than a bug, offering new economic periods where the marginal energy cost of production go negative at times.

mlyle 3y ago
> 2-9's is closer to what civilians in the US are used. ??? Like 4 days of downtime per year? I've had about 1.5 hours of outage this year, which was an outlier (much more outage than normal). 3 9's is typical if you have above-ground utilities. If you have underground utilities, you may be doing far better than this...
- wolfram74 3y ago
  8 hours a year is pretty close to 3-9's, that's fair.
zizee 3y ago
That's fine. 4-9's was just an number I pulled out of my ass, and it wasn't really my point. My point is that when talking about energy sources, LCOE is not a good measure as it doesn't take into account things like reliability over time (whatever your target reliability is). Over-provisioning has a cost. If it is required to achieve characteristics required to do a like-for-like comparison, it should be accounted for. The problem with these Nuclear conversations is that people are pushing their preferred option, always without coming to some sort of agreement on what the requirements are for the power generation option. Without agreeing on what needs to be achieved, everyone talks past each other, arguing with straw-man solutions.

nl 3y ago

In general, long distance transmission across climate zones and across diverse generation types (solar, wind, pumped hydro) along with some limited local storage gives sufficient reliability to meet those requirements. Long distance transmission (1000km+) is surprisingly affordable and widely deployed in eg China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity_transmission_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity... But note that even with significant over provisioning solar and wind is still cheaper than the cheapest nuclear costs if you over-provision in the low cost, high generation areas (another argument for transmission)

zizee 3y ago
There is no doubt that a mixture of over provisioning, a mix of energy sources (wind, hydro, solar), mix of storage, an extensive and resilient grid can successfully replace less-intermittent power sources. What I am interested in is what it will cost, and how that compares to nuclear. People from both "sides" always make claims that make their preferred solution look more favorable. The non-nuclear people point at measures like LCOE which are misleading. I'm sure pro-nuclear people are doing the same thing. Personally, I do not have a side, I just want real numbers for replacing coal/gas and getting a similar or better level of grid stability. > But note that even with significant over provisioning solar and wind is still cheaper than the cheapest nuclear costs if you over-provision in the low cost, high generation areas (another argument for transmission) Can you provide some sort of evidence for this claim? How much does a UHV line cost per KM? How much will it take to build out? How much storage is required? How much over-provisioning is required?
- nl 3y ago
  The numbers are in the OP. Low cost solar with storage is $46/MWh or $24/MWh without storage. Wind is $42/MWh with storage or $24/MWh without. Nuclear low cost is $141/MWh. You can over provision wind (without storage) 5x or 3x with storage and still be cheaper than nuclear. > How much does a UHV line cost per KM? How much will it take to build out? Electrical transmission is historically $41.50/MWh/1000 miles in the US and build costs are $1502/mile. So transmission from Kansas (high wind zone) to California would be around $1.7B.\ to build out. Given the average cost of a nuclear power station is at last $19B[2] it's pretty easy to see how economically far ahead renewables are. > How much storage is required? How much over-provisioning is required? I can't find any useful modelling to on this which is pretty astonishing really. The closest I found was [3] which is German specific, where they find around 8 potential days of every 10 years are below the low wind power events for power from on land wind farms within Germany (so no offshore and no transmission) using 40 years of data. The distribution of these events is more problematic: there was a 4 day lull in 1985, or 10 days with a broader definition of "lull". [1] Table 1 and Table 5 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004221014668 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258900422... [2] https://thebulletin.org/2019/06/why-nuclear-power-plants-cost-so-much-and-what-can-be-done-about-it/ https://thebulletin.org/2019/06/why-nuclear-power-plants-cos... [3] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab91e9 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab91e9