3 ms·
Even with a few hours of storage, I doubt that solar/battery plant's combined capacity factor will exceed 50%. A well-managed nuclear plant can exceed 90% capa
by offmycloud 3y ago
Even with a few hours of storage, I doubt that solar/battery plant's combined capacity factor will exceed 50%. A well-managed nuclear plant can exceed 90% capacity factor and keeps working even when it is cloudy and raining for a week.
- bottlepalm 3y agoWho cares about capacity factor, just build more than enough solar/wind/battery/hvdc and transport it where needed. Faster, simpler, safer, cheaper.
- evilos 3y agoLet's say it was faster, simpler, safer, cheaper. I find the idea of making your energy systems entirely dependent on weather to be an odd choice when we are expecting global climate change now and in the future. At the very least, it will make forecasting supply more difficult. At worst, what if there are major wind pattern shifts or catastrophic weather events that damage your dispersed energy harvesting machines? A nuclear plant is designed to survive a direct impact from an airliner but a hail storm can ruin a region's rooftop solar panels.
- bottlepalm 3y agoThe key is over a large enough area and with enough integrated storage systems it all averages out. It ends up being a lot more decentralized and resilient.
- evilos 3y agoIt definitely won't be more resilient, that's silly. In no way will a weather based energy system be more resilient than one based on dispatchable energy sources. The best you can hope for is it to be only slightly less reliable. You can never be completely sure you've built enough storage in a certain area since you're relying on historical/statistical phenomenon like weather. And since you'll need a lot more transmission lines to move the energy from your turbines and panels to where people actually live, you're more exposed to failures along those corridors.
- bottlepalm 3y agoLike I said, over a large enough area and with storage, it averages out. The wind will blow, and the shine. More transmission lines allow routing around failure points. Also the 'cloudy day disaster of 2034' sounds a lot better than the 'spent fuel pool disaster of 2034' https://www.science.org/content/article/spent-fuel-fire-us-soil-could-dwarf-impact-fukushima https://www.science.org/content/article/spent-fuel-fire-us-s...
- evilos 3y ago> Like I said, over a large enough area and with storage, it averages out Maybe, it's literally impossible to say. That's terrible design for something as critical as the national grid. People die when the power goes out.
- bottlepalm 3y agoLiterally impossible to look at historical data over an area and calculate the size of system needed for reliable power as well as the amount of storage needed as well? Utilities do that everyday. You should be careful saying something is ‘impossible’, more like you don’t understand.. that’s ok.
- evilos 3y agoPast data does not predict the future, especially since we're expecting changes to the climate remember? Even if you're right "most" of the time, even a tenth of a percent system failure is terrible for something like the grid.
- bottlepalm 3y agoGet a battery for that tenth, or get two. It’s called a safety margin. In engineering it’s not difficult to design for.
- 3y ago
- inglor_cz 3y ago"just build more than enough solar/wind/battery/hvdc and transport it where needed. Faster, simpler, safer, cheaper." Has anyone tried to calculate how much more is "more" and whether it is really faster, simpler, safer, cheaper etc.? At least region by region. One counterexample. At least here in Europe, all plans to build massive solar plants in the Sahara and transmit the energy to Europe are facing the problem that a) it is not exactly fast, given that the Saharan desert is extremely hostile to human life, including that of the necessary workers, and the industrial base is far away, b) it is not that simple, given that distances involved are huge and there is a deep sea in the way, c) it is probably not safe, given that the North African countries are politically unstable and no one wants to be held hostage to yet another dictator threatening your energy supply (one Putin was enough), d) as a result of the previous factors, not cheap either.
- Thlom 3y agoThen you need to factor in the massive grid upgrades in the cost as well. Anyway, nuclear mega projects are probably a thing of the past once mass produced small modular reactors come to market.
- bottlepalm 3y agoYou realize they've been talking about small reactors as right around the corner for 30 years now.. also they have a whole host of complicated problems.