5 ms·

Wants to run the full grid on intermittent energy and only one sentence on what happens if there is no wind (on top of typically no sun in the UK). Using nucle

by cm2187 3y ago

Wants to run the full grid on intermittent energy and only one sentence on what happens if there is no wind (on top of typically no sun in the UK). Using nuclear to compensate doesn’t make any sense. If you need to replicate your wind production capacity with nuclear (keep in mind wind, even offshore, can go to zero) and given that nuclear costs the same thing whether you switch it on or not, you might as well spare the construction of wind farms and go full nuclear. As the author points, energy storage is uneconomical. I am also surprised with the idea that electricity consumption will go down. With heating going electric, cars going electric, and mass immigration (hence population growth), that seems counter intuitive to me.

brutusborn 3y ago
I completely agree: his introductory mention of the importance of good numbers to inform policy got me hopeful, and then he ignored storage which is possibly the most critical constraint for high renewable penetration. I’m hoping grid scale batteries follow a similar cost reduction to solar but the latest projects which have been built do not inspire confidence. But for some reason this issue is always hand-waved away by the most ardent proponents of renewables. People treat this issue like a football match in that they cheer for their favourite team and ignore their failings.
- pydry 3y ago
  Grid scale batteries wouldnt be the most cost effective short term storage - pumped storage like coire glas in scotland is. If the UK had another 10 or 15 of those (perfectly doable and economic) that would provide ~8 hours of storage. That would be enough by itself to provide a 94-96% solar/wind powered grid. For that last 3-4% of seasonal/peaking storage and backup nothing beats hydrogen yet. It's only 50% efficient roundtripped but it stores very cheaply for very long periods. If you turned all solar and wind energy into hydrogen and only burned that for electricity it would still be cheaper than power from a nuclear plant. Batteries are probably best used in cars or places which can't connect to pumped storage (which are pretty rare).
  - brutusborn 3y ago
    Do you have any figures for the hydrogen storage vs nuclear point? I’m not saying you’re wrong but it goes against intuition. Both hydro storage and hydrogen have the same problem: not all locales have elevated valleys or underground caverns. I’ve heard some talk about using natural gas pipelines for hydrogen storage, but that has its own issues.
    - pydry 3y ago
      https://theecologist.org/2016/feb/17/wind-power-windgas-cheaper-and-greener-hinkley-point-c-nuclear-plant https://theecologist.org/2016/feb/17/wind-power-windgas-chea... The LCOE for nuclear power is roughly ~5x that of solar and wind. If you assumed that the capex and running costs to electrolyze and store 1GWh of power in an underground cavern is roughly the same as it takes to produce it, and that it's about 50% efficient when roundtripped then that would make the stored wind and solar roughly 3/5ths of the cost of nuclear power. This still makes it a lot more expensive than peaking with natural gas. Just because hydrogen storage is competitive with nuclear power doesn't mean it's economically competitive in general. Nuclear power is just way more expensive than people assume, and generally won't get built without a lot of really lavish subsidies (e.g. like Hinkley Point C getting paid 3-5x as much for the same kwh of electricity as everybody else).
      - kgabis 3y ago
        LCOE doesn't account for storage, grid extension necessary and for the fact that nuclear can work for 100 years but solar panels and wind turbines have to be replaced after 20-30. Also, wind and solar where? Solar and wind vary greatly based on where they're installed, yet everyone throws these values around like a solar panel in Greenland would be as efficient as one in Sahara.
        pydry 3y ago
        It doesn't account for storage (obviously, I think I was pretty clear that this would increase the price from 1/5th to < 3/5ths) or for grid upgrades but LCOE absolutely does account for the projected lifespan of the generating assets. 100 years is, by the way, ludicrously optimistic for a nuclear power plant lifespan. If we ran nuclear power plants that long past their projected lifespans then quite a few would go kaboom.
danans 3y ago
> I am also surprised with the idea that electricity consumption will go down. With heating going electric, cars going electric, and mass immigration (hence population growth), that seems counter intuitive to me. The article says energy consumption (which includes electricity and also fossil fuels burned for heating/transportation) will go down, but electricity consumption will go up. But even the rise in electricity consumption will be tempered by the fact that electrical end uses are so much more efficient than fossil fuel burning equivalents, in particular for heating and transportation. Heat pumps can move 3-4 times more energy than they consume, and EVs are likewise far more efficient at turning energy into motion.
- fy20 3y ago
  Modern building techniques also play a big part in it. Houses build to modern building standards (see Scandinavia and Central Europe - the UK and Ireland is still lacking here) uses a hell of a lot less energy for heating than houses built even two decades ago. Last year I was renting a house built in the early 2000s. It was poorly insulated and inside we had the thermostat set to 18c, yet our gas bill for November was €400. Over Christmas I moved into a newer house built in 2018 that was the same size, the thermostat was set to 22c and during February (which was much colder than November) the gas bill was under €200.
specialist 3y ago
For grid scale, novel batteries, such as thermal and gravity, are just about to "cross the chasm" and jump onto the cost learning curve. In 15-20 years time, they'll be cheap and plentiful. For residential, batteries are being added to appliances. Much cheaper (not panel upgrades) and much larger potential market size (apartments, condos) than "powerwall" style storage. These will follow the standard replacement rate of appliances, accelerated by incentives. Sodium batteries are just starting to hit scale. Of course they'll replace lithium for stationary storage. I don't know enough to predict how big of a role they'll have in grid scale systems. Thermal batteries will be super competitive. And of course, there's many more aspirants. Like flow batteries.
edent 3y ago
I know you're probably being tongue in cheek about there being no sun in the UK, but my domestic solar panels produce about 4 MegaWatt Hours each year. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/03/1-year-of-edent_solar-we-are-100-offset/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/03/1-year-of-edent_solar-we-ar... Rooftop solar is extremely viable in the UK.
- leoedin 3y ago
  The problem isn't "there's no sun in the UK". The problem is: What do you do on an overcast December day with no wind? Or worse - what do you do if the whole country has heavy snow and no wind in December? Renewable capacity factor isn't predictable on a daily basis. You need a backup - which basically means having an entire grid's worth of gas turbine/coal/hydro plants in storage for a few hours a year, or having grid-scale storage. That's not really a solved problem (even the biggest batteries are a couple of orders of magnitude too small to provide an entire country's electricity supply). Electric vehicles (with vehicle to grid) will help. But even then, we need way, way more long term storage than we currently have.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    > The problem is: What do you do on an overcast December day with no wind? You burn green hydrogen in turbines. A simple cycle turbine power plant is maybe 5% of the capital cost of a nuclear power plant of the same rated power output. And because its used so infrequently, the fuel costs are quite tolerable. The hydrogen is stored in salt formations, which the UK has in sufficient quantity. There are other more complicated e-fuel schemes with the same effect.
neilwilson 3y ago
The way around this is to think even bigger. The UK should be exporting green energy. Which means installing two or three times the capacity projected, plus as many nuclear power stations as we can throw into the mix. For a nation that relies upon imported food, it is vital that our exports are also required by the rest of the world. Being a major green energy exported - particularly if we can bottle it as synthetic liquified methane - is the way the UK needs to go. You don't need storage if you build big. Those who import from you need the storage.
- cm2187 3y ago
  Wind goes pretty much to zero on certain days (like 3%). You don't solve that by overprovisioning. There is also quite a high correlation with the weather across Europe, and when it is windy in the UK, chances are it is also windy in most of the major countries the UK could export energy to. As for nuclear, again, it doesn't make sense to use it to compensate for wind. Just make it run whether the wind blows or not, and save the cost of a wind farm.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    The dark-calm periods are solved by burning e-fuels like hydrogen in turbines. Europe has the geology for cheaply storing many petawatt hours of hydrogen.

by cm2187 3y ago

brutusborn 3y ago

I completely agree: his introductory mention of the importance of good numbers to inform policy got me hopeful, and then he ignored storage which is possibly the most critical constraint for high renewable penetration. I’m hoping grid scale batteries follow a similar cost reduction to solar but the latest projects which have been built do not inspire confidence. But for some reason this issue is always hand-waved away by the most ardent proponents of renewables. People treat this issue like a football match in that they cheer for their favourite team and ignore their failings.

pydry 3y ago
Grid scale batteries wouldnt be the most cost effective short term storage - pumped storage like coire glas in scotland is. If the UK had another 10 or 15 of those (perfectly doable and economic) that would provide ~8 hours of storage. That would be enough by itself to provide a 94-96% solar/wind powered grid. For that last 3-4% of seasonal/peaking storage and backup nothing beats hydrogen yet. It's only 50% efficient roundtripped but it stores very cheaply for very long periods. If you turned all solar and wind energy into hydrogen and only burned that for electricity it would still be cheaper than power from a nuclear plant. Batteries are probably best used in cars or places which can't connect to pumped storage (which are pretty rare).
- brutusborn 3y ago
  Do you have any figures for the hydrogen storage vs nuclear point? I’m not saying you’re wrong but it goes against intuition. Both hydro storage and hydrogen have the same problem: not all locales have elevated valleys or underground caverns. I’ve heard some talk about using natural gas pipelines for hydrogen storage, but that has its own issues.
  - pydry 3y ago
    https://theecologist.org/2016/feb/17/wind-power-windgas-cheaper-and-greener-hinkley-point-c-nuclear-plant https://theecologist.org/2016/feb/17/wind-power-windgas-chea... The LCOE for nuclear power is roughly ~5x that of solar and wind. If you assumed that the capex and running costs to electrolyze and store 1GWh of power in an underground cavern is roughly the same as it takes to produce it, and that it's about 50% efficient when roundtripped then that would make the stored wind and solar roughly 3/5ths of the cost of nuclear power. This still makes it a lot more expensive than peaking with natural gas. Just because hydrogen storage is competitive with nuclear power doesn't mean it's economically competitive in general. Nuclear power is just way more expensive than people assume, and generally won't get built without a lot of really lavish subsidies (e.g. like Hinkley Point C getting paid 3-5x as much for the same kwh of electricity as everybody else).
    - kgabis 3y ago
      LCOE doesn't account for storage, grid extension necessary and for the fact that nuclear can work for 100 years but solar panels and wind turbines have to be replaced after 20-30. Also, wind and solar where? Solar and wind vary greatly based on where they're installed, yet everyone throws these values around like a solar panel in Greenland would be as efficient as one in Sahara.
      - pydry 3y ago
        It doesn't account for storage (obviously, I think I was pretty clear that this would increase the price from 1/5th to < 3/5ths) or for grid upgrades but LCOE absolutely does account for the projected lifespan of the generating assets. 100 years is, by the way, ludicrously optimistic for a nuclear power plant lifespan. If we ran nuclear power plants that long past their projected lifespans then quite a few would go kaboom.

danans 3y ago

> I am also surprised with the idea that electricity consumption will go down. With heating going electric, cars going electric, and mass immigration (hence population growth), that seems counter intuitive to me. The article says energy consumption (which includes electricity and also fossil fuels burned for heating/transportation) will go down, but electricity consumption will go up. But even the rise in electricity consumption will be tempered by the fact that electrical end uses are so much more efficient than fossil fuel burning equivalents, in particular for heating and transportation. Heat pumps can move 3-4 times more energy than they consume, and EVs are likewise far more efficient at turning energy into motion.

fy20 3y ago
Modern building techniques also play a big part in it. Houses build to modern building standards (see Scandinavia and Central Europe - the UK and Ireland is still lacking here) uses a hell of a lot less energy for heating than houses built even two decades ago. Last year I was renting a house built in the early 2000s. It was poorly insulated and inside we had the thermostat set to 18c, yet our gas bill for November was €400. Over Christmas I moved into a newer house built in 2018 that was the same size, the thermostat was set to 22c and during February (which was much colder than November) the gas bill was under €200.

specialist 3y ago

For grid scale, novel batteries, such as thermal and gravity, are just about to "cross the chasm" and jump onto the cost learning curve. In 15-20 years time, they'll be cheap and plentiful. For residential, batteries are being added to appliances. Much cheaper (not panel upgrades) and much larger potential market size (apartments, condos) than "powerwall" style storage. These will follow the standard replacement rate of appliances, accelerated by incentives. Sodium batteries are just starting to hit scale. Of course they'll replace lithium for stationary storage. I don't know enough to predict how big of a role they'll have in grid scale systems. Thermal batteries will be super competitive. And of course, there's many more aspirants. Like flow batteries.

edent 3y ago

I know you're probably being tongue in cheek about there being no sun in the UK, but my domestic solar panels produce about 4 MegaWatt Hours each year. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/03/1-year-of-edent_solar-we-are-100-offset/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/03/1-year-of-edent_solar-we-ar... Rooftop solar is extremely viable in the UK.

leoedin 3y ago
The problem isn't "there's no sun in the UK". The problem is: What do you do on an overcast December day with no wind? Or worse - what do you do if the whole country has heavy snow and no wind in December? Renewable capacity factor isn't predictable on a daily basis. You need a backup - which basically means having an entire grid's worth of gas turbine/coal/hydro plants in storage for a few hours a year, or having grid-scale storage. That's not really a solved problem (even the biggest batteries are a couple of orders of magnitude too small to provide an entire country's electricity supply). Electric vehicles (with vehicle to grid) will help. But even then, we need way, way more long term storage than we currently have.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  > The problem is: What do you do on an overcast December day with no wind? You burn green hydrogen in turbines. A simple cycle turbine power plant is maybe 5% of the capital cost of a nuclear power plant of the same rated power output. And because its used so infrequently, the fuel costs are quite tolerable. The hydrogen is stored in salt formations, which the UK has in sufficient quantity. There are other more complicated e-fuel schemes with the same effect.

neilwilson 3y ago

The way around this is to think even bigger. The UK should be exporting green energy. Which means installing two or three times the capacity projected, plus as many nuclear power stations as we can throw into the mix. For a nation that relies upon imported food, it is vital that our exports are also required by the rest of the world. Being a major green energy exported - particularly if we can bottle it as synthetic liquified methane - is the way the UK needs to go. You don't need storage if you build big. Those who import from you need the storage.

cm2187 3y ago
Wind goes pretty much to zero on certain days (like 3%). You don't solve that by overprovisioning. There is also quite a high correlation with the weather across Europe, and when it is windy in the UK, chances are it is also windy in most of the major countries the UK could export energy to. As for nuclear, again, it doesn't make sense to use it to compensate for wind. Just make it run whether the wind blows or not, and save the cost of a wind farm.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  The dark-calm periods are solved by burning e-fuels like hydrogen in turbines. Europe has the geology for cheaply storing many petawatt hours of hydrogen.