6 ms·

There is no such thing as a cheap renewable when you need to have coal plant running 24/7 as a backup.

by TheLoafOfBread 3y ago

blitzar 3y ago
Its cheaper than running everything on coal.
- TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
  Well that coal runs anyway even if you are not consuming electricity from it.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    The coal doesn't run anyway. Look at how UK coal burning fell off a cliff in recent years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_coal-fired_power_stations_in_the_United_Kingdom#Phase-out_of_coal_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_coal-fired_powe... Conversely, the sun does shine even if you don't put up a solar panel.
    - TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
      It does run anyway. You think that you can switch coal plant on/off like it is a light bulb? It takes a week to heat up a coal plant and it takes a week to wind it down. Do it faster, and you will damage it.
      - ben_w 3y ago
        > Coal supplied 1.6% of UK electricity in 2020,[13] down from 30% in 2014.[14] In 2020, coal produced 4.4 TWh of electricity and Britain went 5,202 hours free from coal electricity generation, up from 3,665 hours in 2019 and 1,856 in 2018.[15] QED your claim is falsified. I don't care enough to figure out where exactly your mistake is, but the facts prove you wrong: the coal does, as a point of fact, get switched off.
        TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
        You have completely missed the point. Sorry. I am talking about fact, that coal plant is running 24/7 because it can't be easily switched on/off, which is important for countries like Germany which are using fossil plants as a backup for intermittent renewables. Try to read whole thread.
        ben_w 3y ago
        I'm outright saying you are wrong and your point is false, this is not "missing" the point, it's falsifying it. That power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, actually does get switched off. It really, genuinely, does not get kept on 24/7 the way you keep saying it does. Whenever it does get switched back on, this is considered newsworthy and announced in the media as it "getting warmed up". If you want to change my mind, don't tell me to re-read your own previous words on this topic, come up with an actual link to a document that says how much coal it uses each day. Such a source would have to also explain why the following record shows both Annual Output (MWh) and CO2 Emissions (Tonnes) both fell by a factor of about x8 between 2018 and 2020: https://osuked.github.io/Power-Station-Dictionary/objects/10011.html https://osuked.github.io/Power-Station-Dictionary/objects/10...
    - makomk 3y ago
      UK coal burning fell off a cliff in recent years because there's been a huge push to switch to natural gas, which can be switched on and off much faster and so doesn't have this problem when used as a backup to intermittent renewables. (After Russia invaded Ukraine and natural gas prices skyrocketed, there were actually articles in publications like the Guardian attacking the British government for how dependent this made us on gas compared to Germany.) That is, basically the only way for the coal not to run anyway is if you switch it off permanently and replace it with non-coal-based fossil fuel plants at great expense, which also requires a bunch of ongoing development of non-coal fossil fuel reserves and production to feed it, something green groups are opposed to. Whilst there's enough already-known fossil fuel reserves to blow past CO2 emissions targets and environmental groups always use this to argue against further exploration and development, those known reserves contain far too much coal and too little natural gas.
      - ben_w 3y ago
        Gas may well be better than coal in this regard (and of course gas inherently falsifies TheLoafOfBread's previous implicit claim that renewables must be backed by coal specifically[0]) but coal still can be, and does actually get, switched off. A quick Google for news about the (singular remaining coal plant in the UK) Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station, suggests that the thing has at least one intermediate state when there is a forecast of excess demand soon-ish. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37999558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37999558

There is no such thing as a cheap renewable when you need to have coal plant running 24/7 as a backup.

blitzar 3y ago

Its cheaper than running everything on coal.

TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
Well that coal runs anyway even if you are not consuming electricity from it.
- ben_w 3y ago
  The coal doesn't run anyway. Look at how UK coal burning fell off a cliff in recent years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_coal-fired_power_stations_in_the_United_Kingdom#Phase-out_of_coal_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_coal-fired_powe... Conversely, the sun does shine even if you don't put up a solar panel.
  - TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
    It does run anyway. You think that you can switch coal plant on/off like it is a light bulb? It takes a week to heat up a coal plant and it takes a week to wind it down. Do it faster, and you will damage it.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      > Coal supplied 1.6% of UK electricity in 2020,[13] down from 30% in 2014.[14] In 2020, coal produced 4.4 TWh of electricity and Britain went 5,202 hours free from coal electricity generation, up from 3,665 hours in 2019 and 1,856 in 2018.[15] QED your claim is falsified. I don't care enough to figure out where exactly your mistake is, but the facts prove you wrong: the coal does, as a point of fact, get switched off.
      - TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
        You have completely missed the point. Sorry. I am talking about fact, that coal plant is running 24/7 because it can't be easily switched on/off, which is important for countries like Germany which are using fossil plants as a backup for intermittent renewables. Try to read whole thread.
        ben_w 3y ago
        I'm outright saying you are wrong and your point is false, this is not "missing" the point, it's falsifying it. That power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, actually does get switched off. It really, genuinely, does not get kept on 24/7 the way you keep saying it does. Whenever it does get switched back on, this is considered newsworthy and announced in the media as it "getting warmed up". If you want to change my mind, don't tell me to re-read your own previous words on this topic, come up with an actual link to a document that says how much coal it uses each day. Such a source would have to also explain why the following record shows both Annual Output (MWh) and CO2 Emissions (Tonnes) both fell by a factor of about x8 between 2018 and 2020: https://osuked.github.io/Power-Station-Dictionary/objects/10011.html https://osuked.github.io/Power-Station-Dictionary/objects/10...
  - makomk 3y ago
    UK coal burning fell off a cliff in recent years because there's been a huge push to switch to natural gas, which can be switched on and off much faster and so doesn't have this problem when used as a backup to intermittent renewables. (After Russia invaded Ukraine and natural gas prices skyrocketed, there were actually articles in publications like the Guardian attacking the British government for how dependent this made us on gas compared to Germany.) That is, basically the only way for the coal not to run anyway is if you switch it off permanently and replace it with non-coal-based fossil fuel plants at great expense, which also requires a bunch of ongoing development of non-coal fossil fuel reserves and production to feed it, something green groups are opposed to. Whilst there's enough already-known fossil fuel reserves to blow past CO2 emissions targets and environmental groups always use this to argue against further exploration and development, those known reserves contain far too much coal and too little natural gas.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      Gas may well be better than coal in this regard (and of course gas inherently falsifies TheLoafOfBread's previous implicit claim that renewables must be backed by coal specifically[0]) but coal still can be, and does actually get, switched off. A quick Google for news about the (singular remaining coal plant in the UK) Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station, suggests that the thing has at least one intermediate state when there is a forecast of excess demand soon-ish. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37999558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37999558