4 ms·

> Oh right, nuclear makes electricity at night. When it's cheapest. Applying naive market logic to this, as solar becomes a larger share of the energy supply m

by treyd 3y ago

> Oh right, nuclear makes electricity at night. When it's cheapest. Applying naive market logic to this, as solar becomes a larger share of the energy supply mix, the price of energy at night will increase, making baseload supply more attractive. There's probably other effects that could complicate this, but it seems like a problem that could solve itself over time.

thedrbrian 3y ago
>the price of energy at night will increase Thought green energy was supposed to save us all money ?
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  It's more like drastic drop in energy price mid day.
bruce511 3y ago
It will solve itself. But I don't think the solution is nuclear. The solution will be storage. Again, the issue is cost, and externalities. On the one hand the cost of nuclear electricity is low, but the externalities are extremely high. Time, public opinion, and long-term liability are all against it (and that's assuming it goes as planned.) Sure, optimal storage has yet to be figured out. Batteries and pumped-water-schemes are working in some cases, but are not necessarily grid-scalable [1]. But work in this area has potential, and we've not reached any maxima here yet. Technologies like compressed air, hydrogen and so on are sll in their infancy. I should note that I am pro-nuclear. It's a lot cleaner than coal or gas. I'm just not sure it'll ever be economically attractive. [1] on a household level, batteries that can store over-night amounts of power exist, send are easily available. This provides a cap on how expensive night electricity can be.
- int0x2e 3y ago
  Storage will never work. Quote me on this. Nuclear or a mix of nuclear and renewables will be the only way to seriously get away from fossil fuels. Also, even if storage works some day, hoping we manage to discover how, scale and implement it across human civilization in time is a crazy bet to make. Even if we seriously go all in on nuclear and renewables tomorrow - it might already be too late, so betting on some miracle tech to be found, scaled and implemented in time is not only unwise, it would require several miracles to have any hope.
  - Joeri 3y ago
    The storage plan for the EU is a mix of battery and hydrogen storage. It has a timeline that will take a while, but so does nuclear. There is a roadmap for converting europe’s gas transport and storage infrastructure over to hydrogen as part of the EU hydrogen strategy. I know there are people who don’t believe in the feasibility of the hydrogen strategy, but the people actually in the field working as experts seem to believe in it, so I remain unconvinced by the critics. By the way, wind is already getting close to nuclear’s share in the EU electricity mix. https://mastodon.energy/@matteodefelice/111335718838014650 https://mastodon.energy/@matteodefelice/111335718838014650
  - Kon5ole 3y ago
    >Storage will never work. It already does work though, and it growing exponentially without any tedious political debates since just about anyone can do it at any time, at any cost and any scale. Companies store their own energy, counties store their own energy, private individuals store their own energy. I see no way of stopping it unless corruption somehow manages to make private power production and storage illegal. There certainly are no technical or economical showstoppers.
- adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
  if I had to bet on the grid storage solution, I'm going with a mix of hydro and molten sodium batteries. for grid storage the only variable is price per joule, and when the system gets big thermal loses get way easier to manage.
- shswkna 3y ago
  IMO you are only partly right. It will have to be a mix until storage can scale to the level nuclear can provide cleanly. I say this because there is a category of power consumers that is often forgotten by us mere mortals: industry. To produce the things we consume, all kinds of industrial plants and operations exist that we know little about, but that have gigantic power needs. Just one example (out of many more): metal processing. Or industrial fans, where one fan could need 5MW at a time. All I‘m saying is, if you dig deeper and discover what power needs our society has, it is not straightforward. Peak demand, baseload demand, time of day, distribution networks to get it where its needed, location of primary sources (wind/solar/nuclear), etc. It is a difficult optimization problem.
  - solatic 3y ago
    > It will have to be a mix until storage can scale to the level nuclear can provide cleanly. It would, if it were easy and quick to scale up nuclear power. The story for scaling storage is much clearer, simpler, faster, and cheaper than building new nuclear supply.
  - Qwertious 3y ago
    Industry demand is massively overblown (although still a very real problem), because AIUI ~75% of the demand is for heat. Heat can be stored directly, without need for batteries - get a giant (like, 20ish metre diameter) tank of sand (or other thermal mass, but any crappy asbestos-riddled sand will work just fine), wrap it in a metre or two of insulation, and the cube-square law will ensure it stays heated for months when heated. This has drawbacks such as not working well with heat pumps (if you need 1000C temps then heat pumps flat-out don't work, and if you cap your heat at lower then your construction costs go way up, not to mention giant heat pumps are expensive compared to resistive heating, so electricity prices had better be high enough to justify the investment), but they let you turn surplus intermittent renewables into on-demand heating for literally dirt-cheap. If there's any sort of battery crunch, then direct heat storage will win by virtue of being available and trivially deployed wherever there's a construction industry. It's very boring 20th-century (or 19th-century?) tech, and that's an absolute blessing, logistically.
p1mrx 3y ago
That "expensive power at night" price signal is much weaker if fossil fuels are burned without paying for carbon removal.
- bruce511 3y ago
  I completely agree that fossil fuels don't price in external costs, while nuclear is expected to. But this is not nuclear vs coal. Both are (imo) effectively dead, killed by economics, not politics. Solar is cheap. Storage has a lot of potential winners. Put together the long-term outlook for fossil or nuclear is not great.
jiggawatts 3y ago
Batteries will become economical for base load at night before nuclear does. Whatever is wrong or bad with batteries, nuclear is in some way worse. The only economical way to produce nuclear power is as a side-effect of weapons production.
- pdntspa 3y ago
  'Side effect'? You can stop your refinement process a lot sooner with nuclear power vs weapons.
  - jiggawatts 3y ago
    Nuclear energy is partially funded by weapons requirements. That’s why nuclear-armed states have a lot of nuclear power plants. It’s like the space program — partially funded by military ballistic missile requirements.
- chii 3y ago
  i dont see lithium-ion batteries be economical for grid level storage, since grid level storage is very different from a car, which require portability and the car buyer pays a premium for portability. The biggest criteria for grid level storage is price to energy ratio. Cheap cost beats all, since size is not really a problem. So i want to see molten sodium, or heat based storage, which uses cheap materials. Or have cheap electricity produce green fuels for storage and use long term (e.g., synthetic "natural gas" from CO2 capture). I do believe nuclear has a place tho - diversification is security, but this might have to be subsidized rather than be naturally economically competitive.

by treyd 3y ago

thedrbrian 3y ago

>the price of energy at night will increase Thought green energy was supposed to save us all money ?

KptMarchewa 3y ago
It's more like drastic drop in energy price mid day.

bruce511 3y ago

It will solve itself. But I don't think the solution is nuclear. The solution will be storage. Again, the issue is cost, and externalities. On the one hand the cost of nuclear electricity is low, but the externalities are extremely high. Time, public opinion, and long-term liability are all against it (and that's assuming it goes as planned.) Sure, optimal storage has yet to be figured out. Batteries and pumped-water-schemes are working in some cases, but are not necessarily grid-scalable [1]. But work in this area has potential, and we've not reached any maxima here yet. Technologies like compressed air, hydrogen and so on are sll in their infancy. I should note that I am pro-nuclear. It's a lot cleaner than coal or gas. I'm just not sure it'll ever be economically attractive. [1] on a household level, batteries that can store over-night amounts of power exist, send are easily available. This provides a cap on how expensive night electricity can be.

int0x2e 3y ago
Storage will never work. Quote me on this. Nuclear or a mix of nuclear and renewables will be the only way to seriously get away from fossil fuels. Also, even if storage works some day, hoping we manage to discover how, scale and implement it across human civilization in time is a crazy bet to make. Even if we seriously go all in on nuclear and renewables tomorrow - it might already be too late, so betting on some miracle tech to be found, scaled and implemented in time is not only unwise, it would require several miracles to have any hope.
- Joeri 3y ago
  The storage plan for the EU is a mix of battery and hydrogen storage. It has a timeline that will take a while, but so does nuclear. There is a roadmap for converting europe’s gas transport and storage infrastructure over to hydrogen as part of the EU hydrogen strategy. I know there are people who don’t believe in the feasibility of the hydrogen strategy, but the people actually in the field working as experts seem to believe in it, so I remain unconvinced by the critics. By the way, wind is already getting close to nuclear’s share in the EU electricity mix. https://mastodon.energy/@matteodefelice/111335718838014650 https://mastodon.energy/@matteodefelice/111335718838014650
- Kon5ole 3y ago
  >Storage will never work. It already does work though, and it growing exponentially without any tedious political debates since just about anyone can do it at any time, at any cost and any scale. Companies store their own energy, counties store their own energy, private individuals store their own energy. I see no way of stopping it unless corruption somehow manages to make private power production and storage illegal. There certainly are no technical or economical showstoppers.
adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
if I had to bet on the grid storage solution, I'm going with a mix of hydro and molten sodium batteries. for grid storage the only variable is price per joule, and when the system gets big thermal loses get way easier to manage.
shswkna 3y ago
IMO you are only partly right. It will have to be a mix until storage can scale to the level nuclear can provide cleanly. I say this because there is a category of power consumers that is often forgotten by us mere mortals: industry. To produce the things we consume, all kinds of industrial plants and operations exist that we know little about, but that have gigantic power needs. Just one example (out of many more): metal processing. Or industrial fans, where one fan could need 5MW at a time. All I‘m saying is, if you dig deeper and discover what power needs our society has, it is not straightforward. Peak demand, baseload demand, time of day, distribution networks to get it where its needed, location of primary sources (wind/solar/nuclear), etc. It is a difficult optimization problem.
- solatic 3y ago
  > It will have to be a mix until storage can scale to the level nuclear can provide cleanly. It would, if it were easy and quick to scale up nuclear power. The story for scaling storage is much clearer, simpler, faster, and cheaper than building new nuclear supply.
- Qwertious 3y ago
  Industry demand is massively overblown (although still a very real problem), because AIUI ~75% of the demand is for heat. Heat can be stored directly, without need for batteries - get a giant (like, 20ish metre diameter) tank of sand (or other thermal mass, but any crappy asbestos-riddled sand will work just fine), wrap it in a metre or two of insulation, and the cube-square law will ensure it stays heated for months when heated. This has drawbacks such as not working well with heat pumps (if you need 1000C temps then heat pumps flat-out don't work, and if you cap your heat at lower then your construction costs go way up, not to mention giant heat pumps are expensive compared to resistive heating, so electricity prices had better be high enough to justify the investment), but they let you turn surplus intermittent renewables into on-demand heating for literally dirt-cheap. If there's any sort of battery crunch, then direct heat storage will win by virtue of being available and trivially deployed wherever there's a construction industry. It's very boring 20th-century (or 19th-century?) tech, and that's an absolute blessing, logistically.

p1mrx 3y ago

That "expensive power at night" price signal is much weaker if fossil fuels are burned without paying for carbon removal.

bruce511 3y ago
I completely agree that fossil fuels don't price in external costs, while nuclear is expected to. But this is not nuclear vs coal. Both are (imo) effectively dead, killed by economics, not politics. Solar is cheap. Storage has a lot of potential winners. Put together the long-term outlook for fossil or nuclear is not great.

jiggawatts 3y ago

Batteries will become economical for base load at night before nuclear does. Whatever is wrong or bad with batteries, nuclear is in some way worse. The only economical way to produce nuclear power is as a side-effect of weapons production.

pdntspa 3y ago
'Side effect'? You can stop your refinement process a lot sooner with nuclear power vs weapons.
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  Nuclear energy is partially funded by weapons requirements. That’s why nuclear-armed states have a lot of nuclear power plants. It’s like the space program — partially funded by military ballistic missile requirements.
chii 3y ago
i dont see lithium-ion batteries be economical for grid level storage, since grid level storage is very different from a car, which require portability and the car buyer pays a premium for portability. The biggest criteria for grid level storage is price to energy ratio. Cheap cost beats all, since size is not really a problem. So i want to see molten sodium, or heat based storage, which uses cheap materials. Or have cheap electricity produce green fuels for storage and use long term (e.g., synthetic "natural gas" from CO2 capture). I do believe nuclear has a place tho - diversification is security, but this might have to be subsidized rather than be naturally economically competitive.