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>. Installing $4B of solar and $2B of batteries will result in 20-40 years of carbon-free electricity, and far far far more of it. Beginning when? Diablo Cany

>. Installing $4B of solar and $2B of batteries will result in 20-40 years of carbon-free electricity, and far far far more of it. Beginning when? Diablo Canyon is already on line today, and just as importantly, tonight. Where is the land going to come from to support $4B of solar panels? How many times will those batteries need to be replaced over 20-40 years? What are the ongoing maintenance costs? How will all that solar be connected to the grid? Alleging "PR move" and "PR game" without similarly considering the motivation for your comments weakens your position.

ceejayoz 3y ago
> Where is the land going to come from to support $4B of solar panels? The desert. https://www.kqed.org/news/11935070/solar-energy-farms-are-booming-in-californias-deserts-heres-why-environmentalists-are-concerned https://www.kqed.org/news/11935070/solar-energy-farms-are-bo... Doesn't take as much as you'd think. https://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/5535 https://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/5535 > The land area required to supply 100% of projected U.S. electricity demand in 2050 with PV installations is roughly half the area of cropland currently devoted to growing corn for ethanol production, an important consideration given the neutral or negative energy payback of corn ethanol and other complications associated with this fuel source. That same land area - i.e., 33,000 km2 to supply 100% of U.S. electricity demand with PV -is less than the land area occupied by major roads. The currently existing rooftop area within the United States provides enough surface area to supply roughly 60% of the nation’s projected 2050 electricity needs with PV... You could power California off a solar field roughly the size of Andrews Air Force Base.
- kelnos 3y ago
  Sure, but I think the GP's point is that this doesn't just happen overnight. Let's say the same people who planned out keeping this nuclear plant open another 5 years today said "ok, let's plan out a same-price solar build and get it started". How long would you expect the planning process to go, buying up the land, permitting, the construction process, connecting it to the grid, testing, and then finally energizing it? A couple years? More? (Also remember that this is California, where people will put up stupid roadblocks even for construction out in the desert, away from anyone's home.) Now, they absolutely should be doing that in parallel! It's dumb that they aren't. But this nuclear plant is running today, and will continue to provide much-needed electricity, and that'd still be needed if we got this (unfortunately only hypothetical) solar project going right now.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    > Sure, but I think the GP's point is that this doesn't just happen overnight. The article says Diablo Canyon generates 2,250 megawatts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_California says "The Solar Energy Industries Association predicts that California will increase its solar capacity by over 27,000 MW over the next five years". According to the chart titled "California Solar PV Capacity by Year", they added two Diablo Canyons worth (4,779 MW) of PV capacity last year alone.
    - Aloha 3y ago
      More importantly, Nuclear generates the base load capacity that renewables struggle with - the 27,000 MW is great, but its use it or lose it, as we dont have anywhere near the capacity in place to store the excess - nor will I think we will build it in anything resembling a timely manner.
    - reportingsjr 3y ago
      Keep in mind you need to multiply those power numbers by capacity factor. Solar in California is at ~29% capacity factor (much higher than I expected honestly), while nuclear is generally around 92%. That is, Diablo Canyon actually puts out 2,070MW of power from it's nameplate 2,250MW. While 4,779MW of PV in California will generate 1,385MW of power. So, they really only added half of a Diablo Canyons worth of capacity last year. (Still an impressive amount of power, but not as much as it seems).
      - realusername 3y ago
        It seems that people do not understand that capacity factor is the #1 criteria when building an electricity grid. Electricity grids do not have the luxury of being able to shut down, they must meet the demand every day of the year, every minute of the year Technologies with an higher capacity factor are inherently more valuable than the ones who don't and technologies with an unpredictable capacity factor are worth even less than those two.
- credit_guy 3y ago
  Some things that are easy in theory are not as easy in practice. In theory it's so easy to build lots of huge solar power plants. We all know that solar is dirt cheap, because we've all seen the Lazard report with the levelized costs of energy. In practice, here's the list of solar power stations in California [1]. None is close to 1 GW. Only 3 are above half a gigawatt nameplate capacity. But their capacity factor is on average less than 30%. Or to put it differently, 20% of the electricity generated in California comes from solar, and 9% from nuclear (i.e. from Diablo). If you want to replace nuclear with solar, you need to increase the current solar generation by 50%. That's doable, but it's not something you do overnight, it will very likely take a few years. Meanwhile, guess what you'd use to replace Diablo? Of course, it would be natural gas, which, by the way, accounts for 47% of the current generation. We've heard the story of nuclear being replaced with renewable in my state, New York. Two reactors, with a combined capacity of 2.1 GW were shut down in 2020 and 2021. But instead of renewables, they were replaced with natural gas [2]. > As a result of the permanent shutdown of the plant, three new natural-gas fired power plants: Bayonne Energy Center, CPV Valley Energy Center, and Cricket Valley Energy Center were built, with a total capacity of 1.8 GW, replacing 90% of the 2.0 GW of carbon-free electricity previously generated by the plant.[6] As a consequence, New York is expected to struggle to meet its climate goals [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_California#Photovoltaic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Cali... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Point_Energy_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Point_Energy_Center
  - epistasis 3y ago
    The solar doesn't need to be in one large install, and that would actually be a very bad idea. Big central points of failure are less reliable than widely spread resources. So I'm not sure what the point is of saying the biggest single site is X MW. And if the idea is that "oh no we are going to see an emissions spike when DC shuts down" that's going to happen anytime before 2035, while there's still gas on the generation network. If it happens now or in five years is less important than the total emissions over time. If we bit that bullet in five years, but didn't spend the $6B on more permanent solutions that bring us to our long term transition, it's money wasted.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  California already has a lot of solar installed in the desert. They could just expand that. Nuclear is a base load though, so they would need batteries or pumped storage to add to that.
Aloha 3y ago
Nuclear also generates base load - I dont think zero fossil fuel is possible (peaking is the hard one to solve), but I know its not even close to possible without replacing the base load supplied by thermal plants - without base load capacity, the grid goes down when the wind doesn't blow and the sun is down.
thelastgallon 3y ago
Land requirement for Solar is negligible. Solar can be installed on lakes, reservoirs, canals, in deserts, on superfund sites, on farmland as agrivoltaics and on highways[1]. All these options are available in California. A small fraction of land used for ethanol (40M acres) is enough to supply all the electricity that US needs. But, I agree with you, Diablo Canyon is ready now, we should keep it online. We can't deploy new nuclear anyways, might as well keep the existing ones as long as possible. Besides, it might cost a few billions to decommission anyways. (1) California Is Ideal For Highway Solar: https://cleantechnica.com/2023/09/05/solar-along-nations-highways-can-avoid-nimby-concerns/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/09/05/solar-along-nations-hig...
- vlovich123 3y ago
  > All these options are available in California. Except how easy is it to build a plant to connect panels installed there to feed back into the grid? It’s not just a matter of throwing some panels down. Don’t you need ancillary large equipment to manage all that power safely? > A small fraction of land used for ethanol (40M acres) is enough to supply all the electricity that US needs. Are you sure that’s including capacity factor because solar panels don’t run in ideal conditions at all times vs assuming the rated panel output is what you’re always getting? Also I feel like that’s missing the storage requirements which is frequently ignored and would take up some non trivial amount of space.

ceejayoz 3y ago

> Where is the land going to come from to support $4B of solar panels? The desert. https://www.kqed.org/news/11935070/solar-energy-farms-are-booming-in-californias-deserts-heres-why-environmentalists-are-concerned https://www.kqed.org/news/11935070/solar-energy-farms-are-bo... Doesn't take as much as you'd think. https://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/5535 https://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/5535 > The land area required to supply 100% of projected U.S. electricity demand in 2050 with PV installations is roughly half the area of cropland currently devoted to growing corn for ethanol production, an important consideration given the neutral or negative energy payback of corn ethanol and other complications associated with this fuel source. That same land area - i.e., 33,000 km2 to supply 100% of U.S. electricity demand with PV -is less than the land area occupied by major roads. The currently existing rooftop area within the United States provides enough surface area to supply roughly 60% of the nation’s projected 2050 electricity needs with PV... You could power California off a solar field roughly the size of Andrews Air Force Base.

kelnos 3y ago
Sure, but I think the GP's point is that this doesn't just happen overnight. Let's say the same people who planned out keeping this nuclear plant open another 5 years today said "ok, let's plan out a same-price solar build and get it started". How long would you expect the planning process to go, buying up the land, permitting, the construction process, connecting it to the grid, testing, and then finally energizing it? A couple years? More? (Also remember that this is California, where people will put up stupid roadblocks even for construction out in the desert, away from anyone's home.) Now, they absolutely should be doing that in parallel! It's dumb that they aren't. But this nuclear plant is running today, and will continue to provide much-needed electricity, and that'd still be needed if we got this (unfortunately only hypothetical) solar project going right now.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > Sure, but I think the GP's point is that this doesn't just happen overnight. The article says Diablo Canyon generates 2,250 megawatts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_California says "The Solar Energy Industries Association predicts that California will increase its solar capacity by over 27,000 MW over the next five years". According to the chart titled "California Solar PV Capacity by Year", they added two Diablo Canyons worth (4,779 MW) of PV capacity last year alone.
  - Aloha 3y ago
    More importantly, Nuclear generates the base load capacity that renewables struggle with - the 27,000 MW is great, but its use it or lose it, as we dont have anywhere near the capacity in place to store the excess - nor will I think we will build it in anything resembling a timely manner.
  - reportingsjr 3y ago
    Keep in mind you need to multiply those power numbers by capacity factor. Solar in California is at ~29% capacity factor (much higher than I expected honestly), while nuclear is generally around 92%. That is, Diablo Canyon actually puts out 2,070MW of power from it's nameplate 2,250MW. While 4,779MW of PV in California will generate 1,385MW of power. So, they really only added half of a Diablo Canyons worth of capacity last year. (Still an impressive amount of power, but not as much as it seems).
    - realusername 3y ago
      It seems that people do not understand that capacity factor is the #1 criteria when building an electricity grid. Electricity grids do not have the luxury of being able to shut down, they must meet the demand every day of the year, every minute of the year Technologies with an higher capacity factor are inherently more valuable than the ones who don't and technologies with an unpredictable capacity factor are worth even less than those two.
credit_guy 3y ago
Some things that are easy in theory are not as easy in practice. In theory it's so easy to build lots of huge solar power plants. We all know that solar is dirt cheap, because we've all seen the Lazard report with the levelized costs of energy. In practice, here's the list of solar power stations in California [1]. None is close to 1 GW. Only 3 are above half a gigawatt nameplate capacity. But their capacity factor is on average less than 30%. Or to put it differently, 20% of the electricity generated in California comes from solar, and 9% from nuclear (i.e. from Diablo). If you want to replace nuclear with solar, you need to increase the current solar generation by 50%. That's doable, but it's not something you do overnight, it will very likely take a few years. Meanwhile, guess what you'd use to replace Diablo? Of course, it would be natural gas, which, by the way, accounts for 47% of the current generation. We've heard the story of nuclear being replaced with renewable in my state, New York. Two reactors, with a combined capacity of 2.1 GW were shut down in 2020 and 2021. But instead of renewables, they were replaced with natural gas [2]. > As a result of the permanent shutdown of the plant, three new natural-gas fired power plants: Bayonne Energy Center, CPV Valley Energy Center, and Cricket Valley Energy Center were built, with a total capacity of 1.8 GW, replacing 90% of the 2.0 GW of carbon-free electricity previously generated by the plant.[6] As a consequence, New York is expected to struggle to meet its climate goals [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_California#Photovoltaic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Cali... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Point_Energy_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Point_Energy_Center
- epistasis 3y ago
  The solar doesn't need to be in one large install, and that would actually be a very bad idea. Big central points of failure are less reliable than widely spread resources. So I'm not sure what the point is of saying the biggest single site is X MW. And if the idea is that "oh no we are going to see an emissions spike when DC shuts down" that's going to happen anytime before 2035, while there's still gas on the generation network. If it happens now or in five years is less important than the total emissions over time. If we bit that bullet in five years, but didn't spend the $6B on more permanent solutions that bring us to our long term transition, it's money wasted.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
California already has a lot of solar installed in the desert. They could just expand that. Nuclear is a base load though, so they would need batteries or pumped storage to add to that.

Aloha 3y ago

Nuclear also generates base load - I dont think zero fossil fuel is possible (peaking is the hard one to solve), but I know its not even close to possible without replacing the base load supplied by thermal plants - without base load capacity, the grid goes down when the wind doesn't blow and the sun is down.

thelastgallon 3y ago

Land requirement for Solar is negligible. Solar can be installed on lakes, reservoirs, canals, in deserts, on superfund sites, on farmland as agrivoltaics and on highways[1]. All these options are available in California. A small fraction of land used for ethanol (40M acres) is enough to supply all the electricity that US needs. But, I agree with you, Diablo Canyon is ready now, we should keep it online. We can't deploy new nuclear anyways, might as well keep the existing ones as long as possible. Besides, it might cost a few billions to decommission anyways. (1) California Is Ideal For Highway Solar: https://cleantechnica.com/2023/09/05/solar-along-nations-highways-can-avoid-nimby-concerns/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/09/05/solar-along-nations-hig...

vlovich123 3y ago
> All these options are available in California. Except how easy is it to build a plant to connect panels installed there to feed back into the grid? It’s not just a matter of throwing some panels down. Don’t you need ancillary large equipment to manage all that power safely? > A small fraction of land used for ethanol (40M acres) is enough to supply all the electricity that US needs. Are you sure that’s including capacity factor because solar panels don’t run in ideal conditions at all times vs assuming the rated panel output is what you’re always getting? Also I feel like that’s missing the storage requirements which is frequently ignored and would take up some non trivial amount of space.