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It is striking to see real life examples of countries achieving high rates of renewable energy production with large amounts of pumped storage and without nucle

by pydry 3y ago

It is striking to see real life examples of countries achieving high rates of renewable energy production with large amounts of pumped storage and without nuclear power.

troupo 3y ago
Right now, when it's a calm night, Portugal imports 18% of electricity from Spain which at this moment produces most energy from oil and nuclear. You cannot have a proper good faith discussion about renewables without nuclear and fossil fuels.
- onethought 3y ago
  Yes you can. The good faith question to ask is: is the cost of nuclear higher than renewable +storage? I don’t know the answer, but renewable +storage is trending down. Nuclear is up. So at some point (which may have already happened) nuclear is just going to be a bad faith argument.
  - troupo 3y ago
    > So at some point (which may have already happened) nuclear is just going to be a bad faith argument. When nuclear (and other forms of fuel) stop providing base loads when main types of renewables don't work (aka a night with no wind), then this will have happened.
    - onethought 3y ago
      Storage can handle the base load. If the sun doesn’t rise one day… we have bigger problems.
      - littlestymaar 3y ago
        Still not having heard of clouds, eh?
        onethought 3y ago
        you know solar still works even through clouds right?
        littlestymaar 3y ago
        Sure they “work” if you don't expect them to actually produce power…
        onethought 3y ago
        No, they work anywhere from 80 to 20% efficiency depending on the density of the cloud. But the vast majority of cloud cover is obviously the less dense kind (dense kind falls out of the sky). So you could say 60% efficiency on a typical overcast day.
        littlestymaar 3y ago
        I mean, why to even bother with facts when you can pull numbers from your b*tt… In most countries, during most seasons and on most hours of the day you don't even get 80% efficiency on a sunny day! Heck, even in the most sunny deserts, the average daytime efficiency of a solar panel is barely 60%… But yeah sure in fantasy land solar panels give you a daily average 80% efficiency on a cloudy day…
        onethought 3y ago
        I think you are only referring to Europe when you say most countries. 80% efficiency is very common. In most countries near equator and south of the equator, and United States. And I said 60% average on a cloudy day.
        littlestymaar 3y ago
        > And I said 60% average on a cloudy day. If you live in fantasyland where the “average on a cloudy day” is in fact the the value that exists in the Mojave desert, then sure…
- MarkMarine 3y ago
  Sure you can. Personally, I view the fossil fuel plants differently than nuclear, I would much prefer that the majority of steady state power generation was nuclear, but that does present quite a target and threat to the rest of the world during a time of war. I don’t have all the answers here, just wanted to start with my thinking. Getting away from fossil fuels is not a pie in the sky proposal these days. You could look at the success of the lithium storage battery in Australia, previously serviced by fossil fuel peaker plants. There is pumped hydro, and all manner of other non-chemical storage that is possible. There are certainly a range of options that are 100% renewable with storage, but at this moment don’t compete on price with natural gas or even coal if you only factor the cost of the input to the system. Can we agree on that? I would say the inexpensive nature of fossil fuels ignores the total cost of the fuel. We’re basically setting up future generations for a complicated terraforming process to recover the atmosphere to something that supports our farming needs and temperature needs to support life, not just our own but the natural world we rely on. This cost might not factor in to the per/MW cost of coal or NG, but it should. This is factored into nuclear (waste storage) so to ignore its cost for fossil fuels is disingenuous.
  - troupo 3y ago
    > I would say the inexpensive nature of fossil fuels ignores the total cost of the fuel. So do most calculations of renewables. Most of them don't ask how much it costs to build enough storage for the energy, or how much terraforming needs to be dun for pumped hydro storage, or how much we need to overbuild (and most renewables take up a lot of land) etc. > This is factored into nuclear (waste storage) so to ignore its cost for fossil fuels is disingenuous. That I definitely agree with.
- pydry 3y ago
  Spain produces more from renewable energy (14%) than it does from nuclear energy (12%): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Spain
  - troupo 3y ago
    Except at night. According to [1] at 6:00 this morning Spain was producing its electricity from: - 42% gas - 26% nuclear - 20% wind - 4.4% hydro - 0.5% solar - "negative" from hydro storage (as it was depleted by this time, and was being filled back up) And Spain only has 7GW of nuclear installed, so it's not difficult to surpass that https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/ES https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/ES

by pydry 3y ago

It is striking to see real life examples of countries achieving high rates of renewable energy production with large amounts of pumped storage and without nuclear power.

troupo 3y ago

Right now, when it's a calm night, Portugal imports 18% of electricity from Spain which at this moment produces most energy from oil and nuclear. You cannot have a proper good faith discussion about renewables without nuclear and fossil fuels.

onethought 3y ago
Yes you can. The good faith question to ask is: is the cost of nuclear higher than renewable +storage? I don’t know the answer, but renewable +storage is trending down. Nuclear is up. So at some point (which may have already happened) nuclear is just going to be a bad faith argument.
- troupo 3y ago
  > So at some point (which may have already happened) nuclear is just going to be a bad faith argument. When nuclear (and other forms of fuel) stop providing base loads when main types of renewables don't work (aka a night with no wind), then this will have happened.
  - onethought 3y ago
    Storage can handle the base load. If the sun doesn’t rise one day… we have bigger problems.
    - littlestymaar 3y ago
      Still not having heard of clouds, eh?
      - onethought 3y ago
        you know solar still works even through clouds right?
        littlestymaar 3y ago
        Sure they “work” if you don't expect them to actually produce power…
        onethought 3y ago
        No, they work anywhere from 80 to 20% efficiency depending on the density of the cloud. But the vast majority of cloud cover is obviously the less dense kind (dense kind falls out of the sky). So you could say 60% efficiency on a typical overcast day.
        littlestymaar 3y ago
        I mean, why to even bother with facts when you can pull numbers from your b*tt… In most countries, during most seasons and on most hours of the day you don't even get 80% efficiency on a sunny day! Heck, even in the most sunny deserts, the average daytime efficiency of a solar panel is barely 60%… But yeah sure in fantasy land solar panels give you a daily average 80% efficiency on a cloudy day…
        onethought 3y ago
        I think you are only referring to Europe when you say most countries. 80% efficiency is very common. In most countries near equator and south of the equator, and United States. And I said 60% average on a cloudy day.
        littlestymaar 3y ago
        > And I said 60% average on a cloudy day. If you live in fantasyland where the “average on a cloudy day” is in fact the the value that exists in the Mojave desert, then sure…
MarkMarine 3y ago
Sure you can. Personally, I view the fossil fuel plants differently than nuclear, I would much prefer that the majority of steady state power generation was nuclear, but that does present quite a target and threat to the rest of the world during a time of war. I don’t have all the answers here, just wanted to start with my thinking. Getting away from fossil fuels is not a pie in the sky proposal these days. You could look at the success of the lithium storage battery in Australia, previously serviced by fossil fuel peaker plants. There is pumped hydro, and all manner of other non-chemical storage that is possible. There are certainly a range of options that are 100% renewable with storage, but at this moment don’t compete on price with natural gas or even coal if you only factor the cost of the input to the system. Can we agree on that? I would say the inexpensive nature of fossil fuels ignores the total cost of the fuel. We’re basically setting up future generations for a complicated terraforming process to recover the atmosphere to something that supports our farming needs and temperature needs to support life, not just our own but the natural world we rely on. This cost might not factor in to the per/MW cost of coal or NG, but it should. This is factored into nuclear (waste storage) so to ignore its cost for fossil fuels is disingenuous.
- troupo 3y ago
  > I would say the inexpensive nature of fossil fuels ignores the total cost of the fuel. So do most calculations of renewables. Most of them don't ask how much it costs to build enough storage for the energy, or how much terraforming needs to be dun for pumped hydro storage, or how much we need to overbuild (and most renewables take up a lot of land) etc. > This is factored into nuclear (waste storage) so to ignore its cost for fossil fuels is disingenuous. That I definitely agree with.
pydry 3y ago
Spain produces more from renewable energy (14%) than it does from nuclear energy (12%): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Spain
- troupo 3y ago
  Except at night. According to [1] at 6:00 this morning Spain was producing its electricity from: - 42% gas - 26% nuclear - 20% wind - 4.4% hydro - 0.5% solar - "negative" from hydro storage (as it was depleted by this time, and was being filled back up) And Spain only has 7GW of nuclear installed, so it's not difficult to surpass that https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/ES https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/ES