16 ms·

The duck in the room – the end of baseload

38 points by guerby 3y ago

KptMarchewa 3y ago
> And their economic model will be shot to pieces if they make no money whatsoever half, or even a quarter of the time. No, they will just earn their maintanence price in the peak demand.
guerby 3y ago
On the same topic a panel discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbzwu7AExZM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbzwu7AExZM "Finland’s Electricity Prices Fall Below Zero"
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  When all the people on the panel were introduced as nuclear experts, I thought this was going to be terrible, but it turned out that only one of them was a paid shill talking nonsense.
  - ftth_finland 3y ago
    Which part in particular was nonsense? I only had time to watch half of it.
    - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
      Guy on right was spending all his time talking down renewables with the standard talking points. The other two were far more realistic with the guy in the center particularly calling out the most egregious nonsense from the man on the right as not being connected to reality.
      - ftth_finland 3y ago
        Can you be more specific? The nuclear guy from Germany didn’t make any particularly wild claims. All the while the renewables guy in the middle from the UK ignored the elephants in the room: - renewables as backed by gas peaking plants - other than hydro, there is no grid storage - hydrogen is difficult
DamonHD 3y ago
Also on the duck: http://www.earth.org.uk/Hey-Siri-Help-Flatten-The-Duck.html http://www.earth.org.uk/Hey-Siri-Help-Flatten-The-Duck.html B^>
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  I thought Apple and Microsoft were already building this into their devices? Is it only available on phones and xboxes? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213323 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213323 https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/01/11/xbox-carbon-aware-console-sustainability https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/01/11/xbox-carbon-aware-con...
7952 3y ago
I wonder if servers could be located close to solar or even attached to individual panels. So that during times of excess you sell cheap computing resources. This could reduce demand on the electricity grid at peak times.
- PaywallBuster 3y ago
  buying the server (capex) is probably the biggest pricing factor since dc cooling has become very efficient also since 99% people are wake up during day time, actually you'd not have "excess" capacity, you'd have more stuff running
  - DamonHD 3y ago
    This is indeed the heart of the matter: humans are diurnal. If we stopped trying to live to an entirely artificial rigid timetable (with some ineffectual fiddling at the edges with daylight saving time) that ignores seasons, weather, etc, solar would be an even better fit to demand.
    - MagnumOpus 3y ago
      … only in places where heating is not the lion’s share of energy demand. Solar is a great fit near the equator or in sunny California where cooling is needed more than heating. It is not great for latitudes north of 45 (much of Europe) where energy needs due to heating increase at night and in winter when solar is not running at capacity…
- DamonHD 3y ago
  When my off-grid system is producing well my Internet router is automatically powered from it, I run more tasks[0] on my off-grid server, charge my phone off-grid, and sometimes run my laptop off-grid. It can be done, but is decidely non-trivial. That's what we have a grid for, with variable per-MWh pricing. [0] https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-site-technicals-46.html#2021-03-19 https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-site-technicals-46.html#202...
- cool_dude85 3y ago
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
I don't really agree with this, though I come to the same conclusion via a different route. Baseload as an abstract concept still makes perfect sense. It is exactly equivalent to a flat reduction in demand. Which is something that would be worth paying for. How much it is worth is the big question. I'd suggest it is worth less than the costs of burning coal or gas as baseload and that therefore those should be used only when necessary and be on standby the rest of the time. I'd also suggest building new nuclear makes little sense as there's little chance of it being economically worthwhile. But, current nuclear that's not got other problems isn't any big drama to integrate with increasing renewables. And I don't think we're quite at the point yet where new build renewables are cheaper than nuclear running costs. If anything it just gets you faster to the point where you have a daily bump of excess solar that can be matched with batteries (grid support or in vehicles). Final shout-out for east-west orientated static solar, which can be used to make the solar curve a bit more of a square wave. They produce less but at times of day when it'll be worth more, once the standard peak is saturated.
- flir 3y ago
  Idle question, following on from your last para: Why aren't sun-tracking solar panels in use at scale? Economically infeasible I assume, but is that because of increased hardware costs, increased maintentance costs, or just because they won't add much extra output?
  - pjc50 3y ago
    > Economically infeasible I assume, but is that because of increased hardware costs Economically infeasible because of decreased hardware costs. Panels are so cheap compared to tracking systems. (Quick envelope calculation: Amazon offered me a 400w panel for £200. Amortize that to about 6h of effective daytime use, that's 21600 seconds or 8kWh/day. 25 year warranty lifetime; derate that by, say, 20% to allow for degradation. 20 years is about 7300 days. That's about 58,400kWh. UK electric costs are all over the place at the moment, but at £0.30 that means .. you're buying £17,520 of electricity for £200.) NOT INCLUDING BALANCE OF SYSTEM COSTS, solar panels are really cheap.
probablypower 3y ago
Unfortunately this is article fails to talk about grid stability, frequency control, inertia, and other important operational factors that keep transmission grids running. The grid the author is imagining would not survive more than an hour.
- DamonHD 3y ago
  The grid that the author describes already IS running from time to time, eg low demand days in sunny parts of Australia. Renewables and storage can provide the aux services needed, and already are on many grids.
  - sofixa 3y ago
    > Renewables and storage can provide the aux services needed, and already are on many grids. Which grids? I wasn't aware of grids powered entirely by renewables with grid scale storage as the backup, that would be pretty cool if true.
    - p_l 3y ago
      There is an island or two in UK that does that, involves signals in homes to disable various kinds of devices to drop usage whenever capacity falters.
    - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
      They weren't talking about supplying energy with batteries. The initial use case for small batteries on grids are providing the grid stability, frequency control, (synthetic) inertia and other important operational factors that the original comment thinks are being ignored. > Unfortunately this is article fails to talk about grid stability, frequency control, inertia, and other important operational factors that keep transmission grids running. This 'value stacking', which the immediate parent called 'aux services' makes them much more valuable to the grid than just their delivery of power would suggest. Though we're now approaching a point in the mass deployment where the batteries have flooded that market on many grids and there's only actual energy storage left for them to do (and maybe avoid some transmission bottlenecks).
watmough 3y ago
Arguably, fusion energy has given us power "too cheap to meter". [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_cheap_to_meter
a_imho 3y ago
To me it reads like the author just handwaves away the problems of solar, the exercise is left to the reader. I also find it contradictory that if we find efficient ways to store/use surplus (solar)energy, why would that make baseload unnecessary instead of profitable? It makes no sense.
- Gwypaas 3y ago
  > why would that make baseload unnecessary instead of profitable It is an argument hinging on cost. The cost for new built renewables are in the range of what existing paid off nuclear and fossil plants cost in operations and maintenance. Try building new ones in that environment.
  - a_imho 3y ago
    To a layperson like me, it is very hard to find the truth what is the true TCO when it comes to power plants, numbers depend on who you ask. E.g factoring in environmental impacts of manufacturing/shipping/fuel/installation, subsidies, how well does calculations generalizes across climates/countries/geography etc. I don't think there is a one size fits all solution, also, having diversity in the energy mix is valuable in itself.
    - Gwypaas 3y ago
      https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-energyplus/ https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-e...
    - ftth_finland 3y ago
      https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ Use that to play with the numbers at different locations.
  - ftth_finland 3y ago
    > It is an argument hinging on cost. Well, if you ignore reliability. To decarbonize without rolling blackouts you need nuclear or storage.
paulsutter 3y ago
Storage is the functional replacement for baseload. Lack of storage was the reason for baseload generation in the first place Japan’s vast hydro storage was actually built to solve the issue of too much nuclear baseload generation at night (to be discharged during the day). Later as Japan added a lot of Photovoltaic after Fukushima, the same hydro storage was doubly useful
ohgodplsno 3y ago
"Technology will save us" is wishful thinking that led to the current global warming situation. It's just a terrible excuse to keep burning gas, emit stupid amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere, or to import your electricity from countries that keep emitting.
- dale_glass 3y ago
  Guess what alternatives to burning gas are? Technology. Solar and wind and storage don't happen by magic.
  - ohgodplsno 3y ago
    Cool. I guess we'll keep emitting 600g eqCO2/kWh burning "green" gas for twenty years while we wait for solar to work at night, wind to blow all the time and storage to catch up, all while emitting massive amounts to build those technologies. We definitely have the time to wait for technology to save us. Fusion is right around the corner too, right?
    - dale_glass 3y ago
      I don't advocate for waiting for it, but for funding it, using it, and building it. Like say, if you want to reduce consumption, that's technology too. LED lighting is pretty new, but far more efficient than incandescent.
- ephbit 3y ago
  Agree. Your thinking appears to align pretty much with the messages of this podcast (not only this episode). In case you don't know it already, you may well find it interesting, never mind the esoteric sounding name: https://thegreatsimplification.libsyn.com/electric-vehicles-arthur-berman-simon-michaux-pedro-prieto-reality-roundtable-01 https://thegreatsimplification.libsyn.com/electric-vehicles-... Degrowth aka massive reduction of consumption of basically everything would be the only solution, but it's not going to happen. The sad part is that all the irrational optimism from the renewable energy proponents/lobby is a significant contributor to preventing more people from realizing this. Which in turn will mostly prevent politics from trying to enact the necessary policies.
KingOfCoders 3y ago
I the near future (20 years) with enough EVs we will have enough storage capacity (All cars in Germany EVs -> 2 days of electrical power storage capacity). Everyone here currently adds local solar panels (which dropped 50% in the last year). Battery packs being no option 4 years ago are now offered for 1kwh household solar panels and dropped in price too (but not 50% yet). We will get one next year to move generated energy into consumption times in the evening (we have no car). (This is all private consumption of course not industrial power usage)
- unglaublich 3y ago
  Industrial power usage should anyway be designed as a function of electricity cost. Old-school always-on use is just not cost efficient (and thus not future proof).
  - pjc50 3y ago
    There are certain use cases which kind of have to be always-on. Big freezers. Aluminium smelters. Venezuela's terribly administered grid shut down power to its aluminium industry. This cannot survive without power to keep the smelters warm; two hours was enough to destroy the industry. https://www.alcircle.com/news/blackout-in-venezuela-brings-down-the-curtain-on-venezuelan-aluminium-sector-with-the-closure-of-the-last-smelters-44439 https://www.alcircle.com/news/blackout-in-venezuela-brings-d...
    - WJW 3y ago
      Interestingly both of the use cases you mentioned are quite amenable to demand response. Big freezers can be set to a few degrees cooler and be switched off during peak electricity demand. In [1] the researchers even call them "ideal candidates for implementing demand response strategies". For aluminium smelters, you are correct in that they can't be turned off entirely (the cryolite will solidify) but it is often possible to reduce energy demand significantly by stopping the electrolysis reaction but still heating the mixture to keep it molten. Then later, when peak demand has passed you can switch on the electrolysis process again. [1] https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1237687 https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1237687
sergioisidoro 3y ago
The author both says that we will find a solution to excess energy (eg. Hydrogen generation), and at the same time says we don't have space for baseload. It feels a bit of cognitive dissonance. I still feel that these articles massively underestimate the amount of energy required in the future, when all fossils (eg. air travel, transportation, industry) will migrate to fully electric. Unless we want to pave every surface with solar, baseload will still be needed...
- magicalhippo 3y ago
  > The author both says that we will find a solution to excess energy (eg. Hydrogen generation), and at the same time says we don't have space for baseload. It feels a bit of cognitive dissonance. The point is that excess energy from solar especially is essentially free, while excess energy from nuclear or other traditional baseload generators is very far from free. > I still feel that these articles massively underestimate the amount of energy required in the future That's certainly an aspect. Here in Norway it increasingly looks like we'll end up with a lack of electricity by 2030 or so[1]. However production is just one aspect, another problem is distribution. Even if we tap into all that wind up north in Norway, for example, most of the consumption is in the south, and there's a huge lack of transmission capacity between the north and south today, with no current plans of building more. [1]: A big factor here is if we want to use our precious "clean" hydro to electrify the oil platforms or not. They need a lot of energy to operate.
  - pjc50 3y ago
    > A big factor here is if we want to use our precious "clean" hydro to electrify the oil platforms or not. Perhaps a much less comfortable question for Norway is when to retire them entirely and leave the oil under the sea. Maybe Norway need to build the Shetland interconnector as well as the 1400MW one that's just opened? Shetland is where all the never-built tidal schemes are always planned for.
    - magicalhippo 3y ago
      > Perhaps a much less comfortable question for Norway is when to retire them entirely and leave the oil under the sea. Oh absolutely. About as easy as stopping a heroin addiction though, I expect. Not only the direct income from them, but about 10% of the non-govt workforce is directly tied to the oil extraction or in supporting roles.
silvestrov 3y ago
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DK-DK2 https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DK-DK2 is good for seeing details for each country (or part of country). I'm not affiliated to the site. There is a lot of different duck patters. For some countries Wind Power has the same duck pattern as solar, for others it's more even. It is also interesting to see how much electricity is imported/exported during the day to other countries. West European countries are definitely not isolated islands.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
I think it should be mandatory to include the actual demand, as well as the net load on duck curve graphs. And while I'm wishing, showing it for each season would be nice too. It would clear up a lot of unnecessary drama caused mostly by poor information design. edit, Wikipedia does okay with it's two graphics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve
- Schroedingersat 3y ago
  Why do that, when you can just present the surplus/deficit coldest-sunniest day in late spring and pretend it is an essential aspect of all renewable generation?
xg15 3y ago
Not a friend of nuclear, but I think OP's first point (duck curve) and second point (no place for baseload) contradict each other somewhat. Or more specifically, why couldn't you convert any baseload plant into a "flexible supply" plant by adding storage? You can interpret the post in two ways: Either, solar capacity will grow to such an extent that eventually it will be enough to cover all demand: Meaning, during summer days, there will be enough supply to cover the immediate demand and fill up storage enough to cover all evenings, nights and winter days. If that were the case then there wouldn't be the need for any power sources except solar and storage and we'd have basically solved energy. Hooray! However, that seems pretty unrealistic. The second interpretation of the article is that solar will grow (and will be able to contribute to storage to some extent) but will not be able to fully cover the dark hours - hence the duck curve. For those times, other energy sources are still needed. However, if there is still a need for other energy sources, then why couldn't baseload plants cover that need? Yes, it's only for a few hours per day (in summer), but then the baseload plant is needed the rest of the time to fill up storage - as solar, by initial assumption, would not be sufficient to do that.
- Gwypaas 3y ago
  > Or more specifically, why couldn't you convert any baseload plant into a "flexible supply" plant by adding storage? Cost. New built nuclear costs $0.12 - 0.2/kWh [1], already completely uncompetitive. Now add storage on top of that. There are ideas with for example salt based heat storage, but they all boil down to added cost on something uncompetitive if it ran at 100% all year around. [1]: https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-energyplus/ https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-e...
  - xg15 3y ago
    Would that still hold if we got serious about phasing out gas-powered plants as well? (As we will probably have to at some time due to co2 emissions)
  - ftth_finland 3y ago
    I could argue that nuclear power isn’t that expensive when I can buy nuclear power at retail for 9 cents per kWh, but that isn’t really an interesting point. I’m more interested in learning where all the storage that’s going to be needed to decarbonize is going to come from. According to Woodmac’s most recent grid storage update, there was only 13.4 GWh of grid storage in the US 2022. Projected growth for the next five years is 10-17 GWh per year with a declining growth trend.
BenoitP 3y ago
I sort of agree with the author's hypotheses, but reach diametrically different conclusions. Price goes to zero at highest solar production within the day, ergo nuclear will suffer from this. Counterpoint: if electricity is sold at spot price, wouldn't it be solar mostly affected by this? If at its best hours price is zero or negative, this means mostly zero profits for solar certainly. Meanwhile nuclear still has nights to get some of the investment back? The awkward thing is: mostly nuclear works. France is doing ok, thank you, has best CO2-impact, with flexible production tech though. But renewables suffer from the presence of nuclear. While mostly renewables suffer from very high storage and flexibility requirements. The author mostly handwaves those away: "I have no doubt that entrepreneurs will find zillions of ways to use energy available". Sure free energy is nice, but that's a problem for solar investors surely (or the taxpayer). But in the end what do we want? Renewables? Or the expectation that renewables reduce CO2? Zero-CO2 can be done with flexible nuclear. ---- More on the prices: * Short term market design (matching demand and production on spot): prices for solar and wind collapses when production is highest * Long term market design (contracts for production at specified times): solar and wind can't predict their production, prices are lower than predictable sources. This means you cannot free-market renewables unless with massive subsidies, or with artificially created market rules (like the current 'merit order' in the EU, which stifles coal and gas but nuclear too in an unfair manner)
- Gwypaas 3y ago
  > This means you cannot free-market renewables unless with massive subsidies, or with artificially created market rules (like the current 'merit order' in the EU, which stifles coal and gas but nuclear too in an unfair manner) There is no merit order in the EU, it is simply marginal price. The marginal cost for an added kWh of solar is zero, for wind it is about zero, only an extra hour of wear, for gas it is quite expensive, nuclear power plants might need to pay for someone to take the energy because they can not ramp fast enough.
  - ftth_finland 3y ago
    > nuclear power plants might need to pay for someone to take the energy because they can not ramp fast enough. Is this generally true? The local Wikipedia says nuclear ramps up or down at 5%/min. This is faster than any other method of generation. When prices recently went negative, it was on the news that they ramped down production at the nuclear power plants.

38 points by guerby 3y ago

> And their economic model will be shot to pieces if they make no money whatsoever half, or even a quarter of the time. No, they will just earn their maintanence price in the peak demand.

guerby 3y ago

On the same topic a panel discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbzwu7AExZM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbzwu7AExZM "Finland’s Electricity Prices Fall Below Zero"

ZeroGravitas 3y ago
When all the people on the panel were introduced as nuclear experts, I thought this was going to be terrible, but it turned out that only one of them was a paid shill talking nonsense.
- ftth_finland 3y ago
  Which part in particular was nonsense? I only had time to watch half of it.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    Guy on right was spending all his time talking down renewables with the standard talking points. The other two were far more realistic with the guy in the center particularly calling out the most egregious nonsense from the man on the right as not being connected to reality.
    - ftth_finland 3y ago
      Can you be more specific? The nuclear guy from Germany didn’t make any particularly wild claims. All the while the renewables guy in the middle from the UK ignored the elephants in the room: - renewables as backed by gas peaking plants - other than hydro, there is no grid storage - hydrogen is difficult

DamonHD 3y ago

Also on the duck: http://www.earth.org.uk/Hey-Siri-Help-Flatten-The-Duck.html http://www.earth.org.uk/Hey-Siri-Help-Flatten-The-Duck.html B^>

ZeroGravitas 3y ago
I thought Apple and Microsoft were already building this into their devices? Is it only available on phones and xboxes? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213323 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213323 https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/01/11/xbox-carbon-aware-console-sustainability https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/01/11/xbox-carbon-aware-con...

7952 3y ago

I wonder if servers could be located close to solar or even attached to individual panels. So that during times of excess you sell cheap computing resources. This could reduce demand on the electricity grid at peak times.

PaywallBuster 3y ago
buying the server (capex) is probably the biggest pricing factor since dc cooling has become very efficient also since 99% people are wake up during day time, actually you'd not have "excess" capacity, you'd have more stuff running
- DamonHD 3y ago
  This is indeed the heart of the matter: humans are diurnal. If we stopped trying to live to an entirely artificial rigid timetable (with some ineffectual fiddling at the edges with daylight saving time) that ignores seasons, weather, etc, solar would be an even better fit to demand.
  - MagnumOpus 3y ago
    … only in places where heating is not the lion’s share of energy demand. Solar is a great fit near the equator or in sunny California where cooling is needed more than heating. It is not great for latitudes north of 45 (much of Europe) where energy needs due to heating increase at night and in winter when solar is not running at capacity…
DamonHD 3y ago
When my off-grid system is producing well my Internet router is automatically powered from it, I run more tasks[0] on my off-grid server, charge my phone off-grid, and sometimes run my laptop off-grid. It can be done, but is decidely non-trivial. That's what we have a grid for, with variable per-MWh pricing. [0] https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-site-technicals-46.html#2021-03-19 https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-site-technicals-46.html#202...
cool_dude85 3y ago

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

I don't really agree with this, though I come to the same conclusion via a different route. Baseload as an abstract concept still makes perfect sense. It is exactly equivalent to a flat reduction in demand. Which is something that would be worth paying for. How much it is worth is the big question. I'd suggest it is worth less than the costs of burning coal or gas as baseload and that therefore those should be used only when necessary and be on standby the rest of the time. I'd also suggest building new nuclear makes little sense as there's little chance of it being economically worthwhile. But, current nuclear that's not got other problems isn't any big drama to integrate with increasing renewables. And I don't think we're quite at the point yet where new build renewables are cheaper than nuclear running costs. If anything it just gets you faster to the point where you have a daily bump of excess solar that can be matched with batteries (grid support or in vehicles). Final shout-out for east-west orientated static solar, which can be used to make the solar curve a bit more of a square wave. They produce less but at times of day when it'll be worth more, once the standard peak is saturated.

flir 3y ago
Idle question, following on from your last para: Why aren't sun-tracking solar panels in use at scale? Economically infeasible I assume, but is that because of increased hardware costs, increased maintentance costs, or just because they won't add much extra output?
- pjc50 3y ago
  > Economically infeasible I assume, but is that because of increased hardware costs Economically infeasible because of decreased hardware costs. Panels are so cheap compared to tracking systems. (Quick envelope calculation: Amazon offered me a 400w panel for £200. Amortize that to about 6h of effective daytime use, that's 21600 seconds or 8kWh/day. 25 year warranty lifetime; derate that by, say, 20% to allow for degradation. 20 years is about 7300 days. That's about 58,400kWh. UK electric costs are all over the place at the moment, but at £0.30 that means .. you're buying £17,520 of electricity for £200.) NOT INCLUDING BALANCE OF SYSTEM COSTS, solar panels are really cheap.

probablypower 3y ago

Unfortunately this is article fails to talk about grid stability, frequency control, inertia, and other important operational factors that keep transmission grids running. The grid the author is imagining would not survive more than an hour.

DamonHD 3y ago
The grid that the author describes already IS running from time to time, eg low demand days in sunny parts of Australia. Renewables and storage can provide the aux services needed, and already are on many grids.
- sofixa 3y ago
  > Renewables and storage can provide the aux services needed, and already are on many grids. Which grids? I wasn't aware of grids powered entirely by renewables with grid scale storage as the backup, that would be pretty cool if true.
  - p_l 3y ago
    There is an island or two in UK that does that, involves signals in homes to disable various kinds of devices to drop usage whenever capacity falters.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    They weren't talking about supplying energy with batteries. The initial use case for small batteries on grids are providing the grid stability, frequency control, (synthetic) inertia and other important operational factors that the original comment thinks are being ignored. > Unfortunately this is article fails to talk about grid stability, frequency control, inertia, and other important operational factors that keep transmission grids running. This 'value stacking', which the immediate parent called 'aux services' makes them much more valuable to the grid than just their delivery of power would suggest. Though we're now approaching a point in the mass deployment where the batteries have flooded that market on many grids and there's only actual energy storage left for them to do (and maybe avoid some transmission bottlenecks).

watmough 3y ago

Arguably, fusion energy has given us power "too cheap to meter". [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_cheap_to_meter

a_imho 3y ago

To me it reads like the author just handwaves away the problems of solar, the exercise is left to the reader. I also find it contradictory that if we find efficient ways to store/use surplus (solar)energy, why would that make baseload unnecessary instead of profitable? It makes no sense.

Gwypaas 3y ago
> why would that make baseload unnecessary instead of profitable It is an argument hinging on cost. The cost for new built renewables are in the range of what existing paid off nuclear and fossil plants cost in operations and maintenance. Try building new ones in that environment.
- a_imho 3y ago
  To a layperson like me, it is very hard to find the truth what is the true TCO when it comes to power plants, numbers depend on who you ask. E.g factoring in environmental impacts of manufacturing/shipping/fuel/installation, subsidies, how well does calculations generalizes across climates/countries/geography etc. I don't think there is a one size fits all solution, also, having diversity in the energy mix is valuable in itself.
  - Gwypaas 3y ago
    https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-energyplus/ https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-e...
  - ftth_finland 3y ago
    https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ Use that to play with the numbers at different locations.
- ftth_finland 3y ago
  > It is an argument hinging on cost. Well, if you ignore reliability. To decarbonize without rolling blackouts you need nuclear or storage.

paulsutter 3y ago

Storage is the functional replacement for baseload. Lack of storage was the reason for baseload generation in the first place Japan’s vast hydro storage was actually built to solve the issue of too much nuclear baseload generation at night (to be discharged during the day). Later as Japan added a lot of Photovoltaic after Fukushima, the same hydro storage was doubly useful

ohgodplsno 3y ago

"Technology will save us" is wishful thinking that led to the current global warming situation. It's just a terrible excuse to keep burning gas, emit stupid amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere, or to import your electricity from countries that keep emitting.

dale_glass 3y ago
Guess what alternatives to burning gas are? Technology. Solar and wind and storage don't happen by magic.
- ohgodplsno 3y ago
  Cool. I guess we'll keep emitting 600g eqCO2/kWh burning "green" gas for twenty years while we wait for solar to work at night, wind to blow all the time and storage to catch up, all while emitting massive amounts to build those technologies. We definitely have the time to wait for technology to save us. Fusion is right around the corner too, right?
  - dale_glass 3y ago
    I don't advocate for waiting for it, but for funding it, using it, and building it. Like say, if you want to reduce consumption, that's technology too. LED lighting is pretty new, but far more efficient than incandescent.
ephbit 3y ago
Agree. Your thinking appears to align pretty much with the messages of this podcast (not only this episode). In case you don't know it already, you may well find it interesting, never mind the esoteric sounding name: https://thegreatsimplification.libsyn.com/electric-vehicles-arthur-berman-simon-michaux-pedro-prieto-reality-roundtable-01 https://thegreatsimplification.libsyn.com/electric-vehicles-... Degrowth aka massive reduction of consumption of basically everything would be the only solution, but it's not going to happen. The sad part is that all the irrational optimism from the renewable energy proponents/lobby is a significant contributor to preventing more people from realizing this. Which in turn will mostly prevent politics from trying to enact the necessary policies.

KingOfCoders 3y ago

I the near future (20 years) with enough EVs we will have enough storage capacity (All cars in Germany EVs -> 2 days of electrical power storage capacity). Everyone here currently adds local solar panels (which dropped 50% in the last year). Battery packs being no option 4 years ago are now offered for 1kwh household solar panels and dropped in price too (but not 50% yet). We will get one next year to move generated energy into consumption times in the evening (we have no car). (This is all private consumption of course not industrial power usage)

unglaublich 3y ago
Industrial power usage should anyway be designed as a function of electricity cost. Old-school always-on use is just not cost efficient (and thus not future proof).
- pjc50 3y ago
  There are certain use cases which kind of have to be always-on. Big freezers. Aluminium smelters. Venezuela's terribly administered grid shut down power to its aluminium industry. This cannot survive without power to keep the smelters warm; two hours was enough to destroy the industry. https://www.alcircle.com/news/blackout-in-venezuela-brings-down-the-curtain-on-venezuelan-aluminium-sector-with-the-closure-of-the-last-smelters-44439 https://www.alcircle.com/news/blackout-in-venezuela-brings-d...
  - WJW 3y ago
    Interestingly both of the use cases you mentioned are quite amenable to demand response. Big freezers can be set to a few degrees cooler and be switched off during peak electricity demand. In [1] the researchers even call them "ideal candidates for implementing demand response strategies". For aluminium smelters, you are correct in that they can't be turned off entirely (the cryolite will solidify) but it is often possible to reduce energy demand significantly by stopping the electrolysis reaction but still heating the mixture to keep it molten. Then later, when peak demand has passed you can switch on the electrolysis process again. [1] https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1237687 https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1237687

sergioisidoro 3y ago

The author both says that we will find a solution to excess energy (eg. Hydrogen generation), and at the same time says we don't have space for baseload. It feels a bit of cognitive dissonance. I still feel that these articles massively underestimate the amount of energy required in the future, when all fossils (eg. air travel, transportation, industry) will migrate to fully electric. Unless we want to pave every surface with solar, baseload will still be needed...

magicalhippo 3y ago
> The author both says that we will find a solution to excess energy (eg. Hydrogen generation), and at the same time says we don't have space for baseload. It feels a bit of cognitive dissonance. The point is that excess energy from solar especially is essentially free, while excess energy from nuclear or other traditional baseload generators is very far from free. > I still feel that these articles massively underestimate the amount of energy required in the future That's certainly an aspect. Here in Norway it increasingly looks like we'll end up with a lack of electricity by 2030 or so[1]. However production is just one aspect, another problem is distribution. Even if we tap into all that wind up north in Norway, for example, most of the consumption is in the south, and there's a huge lack of transmission capacity between the north and south today, with no current plans of building more. [1]: A big factor here is if we want to use our precious "clean" hydro to electrify the oil platforms or not. They need a lot of energy to operate.
- pjc50 3y ago
  > A big factor here is if we want to use our precious "clean" hydro to electrify the oil platforms or not. Perhaps a much less comfortable question for Norway is when to retire them entirely and leave the oil under the sea. Maybe Norway need to build the Shetland interconnector as well as the 1400MW one that's just opened? Shetland is where all the never-built tidal schemes are always planned for.
  - magicalhippo 3y ago
    > Perhaps a much less comfortable question for Norway is when to retire them entirely and leave the oil under the sea. Oh absolutely. About as easy as stopping a heroin addiction though, I expect. Not only the direct income from them, but about 10% of the non-govt workforce is directly tied to the oil extraction or in supporting roles.

silvestrov 3y ago

https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DK-DK2 https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DK-DK2 is good for seeing details for each country (or part of country). I'm not affiliated to the site. There is a lot of different duck patters. For some countries Wind Power has the same duck pattern as solar, for others it's more even. It is also interesting to see how much electricity is imported/exported during the day to other countries. West European countries are definitely not isolated islands.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

I think it should be mandatory to include the actual demand, as well as the net load on duck curve graphs. And while I'm wishing, showing it for each season would be nice too. It would clear up a lot of unnecessary drama caused mostly by poor information design. edit, Wikipedia does okay with it's two graphics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve

Schroedingersat 3y ago
Why do that, when you can just present the surplus/deficit coldest-sunniest day in late spring and pretend it is an essential aspect of all renewable generation?

xg15 3y ago

Not a friend of nuclear, but I think OP's first point (duck curve) and second point (no place for baseload) contradict each other somewhat. Or more specifically, why couldn't you convert any baseload plant into a "flexible supply" plant by adding storage? You can interpret the post in two ways: Either, solar capacity will grow to such an extent that eventually it will be enough to cover all demand: Meaning, during summer days, there will be enough supply to cover the immediate demand and fill up storage enough to cover all evenings, nights and winter days. If that were the case then there wouldn't be the need for any power sources except solar and storage and we'd have basically solved energy. Hooray! However, that seems pretty unrealistic. The second interpretation of the article is that solar will grow (and will be able to contribute to storage to some extent) but will not be able to fully cover the dark hours - hence the duck curve. For those times, other energy sources are still needed. However, if there is still a need for other energy sources, then why couldn't baseload plants cover that need? Yes, it's only for a few hours per day (in summer), but then the baseload plant is needed the rest of the time to fill up storage - as solar, by initial assumption, would not be sufficient to do that.

Gwypaas 3y ago
> Or more specifically, why couldn't you convert any baseload plant into a "flexible supply" plant by adding storage? Cost. New built nuclear costs $0.12 - 0.2/kWh [1], already completely uncompetitive. Now add storage on top of that. There are ideas with for example salt based heat storage, but they all boil down to added cost on something uncompetitive if it ran at 100% all year around. [1]: https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-energyplus/ https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-e...
- xg15 3y ago
  Would that still hold if we got serious about phasing out gas-powered plants as well? (As we will probably have to at some time due to co2 emissions)
- ftth_finland 3y ago
  I could argue that nuclear power isn’t that expensive when I can buy nuclear power at retail for 9 cents per kWh, but that isn’t really an interesting point. I’m more interested in learning where all the storage that’s going to be needed to decarbonize is going to come from. According to Woodmac’s most recent grid storage update, there was only 13.4 GWh of grid storage in the US 2022. Projected growth for the next five years is 10-17 GWh per year with a declining growth trend.

BenoitP 3y ago

I sort of agree with the author's hypotheses, but reach diametrically different conclusions. Price goes to zero at highest solar production within the day, ergo nuclear will suffer from this. Counterpoint: if electricity is sold at spot price, wouldn't it be solar mostly affected by this? If at its best hours price is zero or negative, this means mostly zero profits for solar certainly. Meanwhile nuclear still has nights to get some of the investment back? The awkward thing is: mostly nuclear works. France is doing ok, thank you, has best CO2-impact, with flexible production tech though. But renewables suffer from the presence of nuclear. While mostly renewables suffer from very high storage and flexibility requirements. The author mostly handwaves those away: "I have no doubt that entrepreneurs will find zillions of ways to use energy available". Sure free energy is nice, but that's a problem for solar investors surely (or the taxpayer). But in the end what do we want? Renewables? Or the expectation that renewables reduce CO2? Zero-CO2 can be done with flexible nuclear. ---- More on the prices: * Short term market design (matching demand and production on spot): prices for solar and wind collapses when production is highest * Long term market design (contracts for production at specified times): solar and wind can't predict their production, prices are lower than predictable sources. This means you cannot free-market renewables unless with massive subsidies, or with artificially created market rules (like the current 'merit order' in the EU, which stifles coal and gas but nuclear too in an unfair manner)

Gwypaas 3y ago
> This means you cannot free-market renewables unless with massive subsidies, or with artificially created market rules (like the current 'merit order' in the EU, which stifles coal and gas but nuclear too in an unfair manner) There is no merit order in the EU, it is simply marginal price. The marginal cost for an added kWh of solar is zero, for wind it is about zero, only an extra hour of wear, for gas it is quite expensive, nuclear power plants might need to pay for someone to take the energy because they can not ramp fast enough.
- ftth_finland 3y ago
  > nuclear power plants might need to pay for someone to take the energy because they can not ramp fast enough. Is this generally true? The local Wikipedia says nuclear ramps up or down at 5%/min. This is faster than any other method of generation. When prices recently went negative, it was on the news that they ramped down production at the nuclear power plants.