3 ms·

If you take into account load factor, you will need closer to 2,000 such solar plants. And you need far more land too. Also, you’ll end up being most of them in

by _hypx 3y ago

If you take into account load factor, you will need closer to 2,000 such solar plants. And you need far more land too. Also, you’ll end up being most of them in deserts, far away from any human habitations. So you will then build a vast network of power distribution. Now, to be fair, we could do that. It will just need trillions of dollars, and will have its own set of huge complications. It’s mostly just a fantasy that this will be all that much more cheaper.

bottlepalm 3y ago
It is cheaper, and more and more solar, wind, batteries, and hvdc lines are built everyday.
epistasis 3y ago
I'm not quite sure what your 2000 could be referring to. If it's land use, that's off by orders of magnitude. Nuclear at this site: 3100 acres [1], 1/3 of which is a nature preserve, so 2000 acres. It will be 4.5GW at 90% capacity factor, so roughly 500 acres/GW. NREL puts the least land efficient solar PV at 6.1 acres/MW [2], which with a 0.2 capacity factor corresponds to 30500 acres/GW. This is a factor of 61 for land use, which is nowhere near the 2000, but I'm not sure if that's what you were talking about. But land use is not a concern for powering the US by solar. It doesn't take that much land, and even the land it does use is easy to use simultaneously for pretty much anything else. You talk about "trillions of dollars" as if we should be scared of big numbers, but for some reason forget that it would be far more trillions of dollars just to continue with our current system! That's a very biased way to look at things. And if we were to use nuclear instead of fossil fuels like we do now, it would be far more trillions. Seriously, this is just one GW at a cost of $15B. Average US load is ~500GW, but will be much higher in the future after the energy transition. A nuclear grid is easily a $15T prospect! And that's without the absolutely massive amount of storage that nuclear needs in order to deal with load following. [1] https://www.bechtel.com/projects/plant-vogtle-units-3-4/ https://www.bechtel.com/projects/plant-vogtle-units-3-4/ [2] https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/tech-size.html https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/tech-size.html
- _hypx 3y ago
  It comes from 20% capacity factor versus 90% capacity factor. Replacing 500 GW of nuclear will vaguely require 2,000 GW of solar. The problem is you want to build it in the southwest of the US, and has a long ways to go to reach the rest of the US. That will be a challenge. If you think nuclear has a load-following problem, you have no idea how big the problem for solar will be! And cost will go down, not up when we build more. The cost is because we build them so slow and only one at a time. If we built 500 at once, cost per GW will drop dramatic. Anti-nuclear people are just being dishonest about economics. Ultimately, even if we had to spend a few trillion dollars on this, it will still save money in the long run.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    "A few trillion dollars" is enough for a global HVDC grid sufficient for global energy demand (why yes, I did do the maths, it's in an old comment of mine somewhere on here), and you previously gave me a link saying a hydrogen pipe was x10 cheaper, and electrolysis doesn't care if its nuclear or PV, and PV is much cheaper than nuclear per MWh when you don't have to add on the storage which you obviously don't in this scenario because that would be double-counting. And the US already has north-south lines (with a Texas-shaped asterisk), so even without a global grid the "winter?" question is: what's the capacity of those lines and substations, and how much loss are people willing to face when the price at the plant is only 1-2¢/kWh.
    - _hypx 3y ago
      First of all, that is unlikely to ever happen. It is likely geopolitically impossible. But also it is very fragile as you still do not have any real backup power generation. Ultimately, it will make more sense to build system of hydrogen distribution and storage. As you already known, this is 10x cheaper than your HVDC idea.
      - ben_w 3y ago
        > But also it is very fragile as you still do not have any real backup power generation Don't need one. Always light somewhere. Have repeatedly agreed about the political difficulties here since before you created your account.

by _hypx 3y ago

bottlepalm 3y ago

It is cheaper, and more and more solar, wind, batteries, and hvdc lines are built everyday.

epistasis 3y ago

I'm not quite sure what your 2000 could be referring to. If it's land use, that's off by orders of magnitude. Nuclear at this site: 3100 acres [1], 1/3 of which is a nature preserve, so 2000 acres. It will be 4.5GW at 90% capacity factor, so roughly 500 acres/GW. NREL puts the least land efficient solar PV at 6.1 acres/MW [2], which with a 0.2 capacity factor corresponds to 30500 acres/GW. This is a factor of 61 for land use, which is nowhere near the 2000, but I'm not sure if that's what you were talking about. But land use is not a concern for powering the US by solar. It doesn't take that much land, and even the land it does use is easy to use simultaneously for pretty much anything else. You talk about "trillions of dollars" as if we should be scared of big numbers, but for some reason forget that it would be far more trillions of dollars just to continue with our current system! That's a very biased way to look at things. And if we were to use nuclear instead of fossil fuels like we do now, it would be far more trillions. Seriously, this is just one GW at a cost of $15B. Average US load is ~500GW, but will be much higher in the future after the energy transition. A nuclear grid is easily a $15T prospect! And that's without the absolutely massive amount of storage that nuclear needs in order to deal with load following. [1] https://www.bechtel.com/projects/plant-vogtle-units-3-4/ https://www.bechtel.com/projects/plant-vogtle-units-3-4/ [2] https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/tech-size.html https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/tech-size.html

_hypx 3y ago
It comes from 20% capacity factor versus 90% capacity factor. Replacing 500 GW of nuclear will vaguely require 2,000 GW of solar. The problem is you want to build it in the southwest of the US, and has a long ways to go to reach the rest of the US. That will be a challenge. If you think nuclear has a load-following problem, you have no idea how big the problem for solar will be! And cost will go down, not up when we build more. The cost is because we build them so slow and only one at a time. If we built 500 at once, cost per GW will drop dramatic. Anti-nuclear people are just being dishonest about economics. Ultimately, even if we had to spend a few trillion dollars on this, it will still save money in the long run.
- ben_w 3y ago
  "A few trillion dollars" is enough for a global HVDC grid sufficient for global energy demand (why yes, I did do the maths, it's in an old comment of mine somewhere on here), and you previously gave me a link saying a hydrogen pipe was x10 cheaper, and electrolysis doesn't care if its nuclear or PV, and PV is much cheaper than nuclear per MWh when you don't have to add on the storage which you obviously don't in this scenario because that would be double-counting. And the US already has north-south lines (with a Texas-shaped asterisk), so even without a global grid the "winter?" question is: what's the capacity of those lines and substations, and how much loss are people willing to face when the price at the plant is only 1-2¢/kWh.
  - _hypx 3y ago
    First of all, that is unlikely to ever happen. It is likely geopolitically impossible. But also it is very fragile as you still do not have any real backup power generation. Ultimately, it will make more sense to build system of hydrogen distribution and storage. As you already known, this is 10x cheaper than your HVDC idea.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      > But also it is very fragile as you still do not have any real backup power generation Don't need one. Always light somewhere. Have repeatedly agreed about the political difficulties here since before you created your account.