3 ms·

Not completely. Batteries are only going to offer on the order of hours or maybe days of energy storage to manage short term hiccups in wind and sun. You will

Not completely. Batteries are only going to offer on the order of hours or maybe days of energy storage to manage short term hiccups in wind and sun. You will always need a backup that can spin up quickly in in the long tail events where you have weeks of not enough sun or wind. And realistically, you have to exercise those backups regularly to keep all the infrastructure and systems in working order so you aren't surprised in an emergency that the system is broken from months or years of disuse.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
That'll be gas peakers until there is so much solar, wind, pumped hydro, and transmission that it doesn't matter. The US currently has more renewables in grid queues (~2TW) than total national generation capacity [1]. Nuclear takes years to build, renewables and batteries takes months. We're deploying 1GW of solar per day globally. Per day. China built more wind this year than the UK's entire generation capacity, and more solar than the entire US solar generation capacity. Battery manufacturing and deployment will come up to speed as the entire auto industry is forced to move to EV production. Tesla's utility scale storage is sold out for another 2 years or so at the moment, the demand for this tech is voracious, which is good; it sends market signals to build more factories faster. Lots of legacy fossil generation is going to end up stranded [2], from a capital markets perspective. No one is going to touch nuclear with their own capital, the LCOE speaks for itself [3]. Keep existing nuclear running as long as safe, but it'll sunset too eventually. Don't get mad at the math, it's just math. [1] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/us-power-regulator-weigh-plans-speed-up-green-energy-connection-2023-07-27/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/us-power-regulator-we... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01356-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01356-y [3] https://lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april-2023.pdf https://lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april-202...
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  Again, overproduction doesn't matter unless you have the storage capacity to store it and release it later. Even if you overproduce solar power by 100x you're still not getting any electricity at night from those panels. Simply comparing production figures without considering intermittency is one of the most common oversimplifications people make in decarbonization discussions.
- anonporridge 3y ago
  Wind, solar, and hydro don't have unlimited potential. They all asymptote out once you saturate the area. We're already noticing that wind farms can't be too close together, because upwind farms slow the wind, degrading the output of downwind farms. https://www.sustainability-times.com/low-carbon-energy/placing-wind-farms-too-close-together-isnt-a-good-idea/ https://www.sustainability-times.com/low-carbon-energy/placi... Solar is limited by available surface area, but more importantly by environmental impact. You're going to start destroying ecosystems if you blanket the land with panels. Hydro has been mostly tapped out for a long time. At least in the developed world, all the geography that can be dammed, has been. And even here, there's a strong push from environmental groups to destroy the dams to restore ecosystems disrupted.
- oezi 3y ago
  I share your optimism in most parts but don't agree that fossil fuels will be stranded. Reduced demand will push down prices which will increase demand until a new equilibrium is found that satisfies cost of production. As long as the Saudis can produce oil at 6 USD per barrel and sell for more (80 USD atm), they will sell their oil.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Complex topic. Lets scope to solely the electrical grid for this subthread. Oil is already not competitive in most generation mixes (there are some outliers in Central America, for example). That leaves coal and fossil gas. This generation infrastructure, the burners of these fossil fuels, is what will be stranded. Indeed there is much work to be done to drive fossil fuels out of all modes of transportation.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

That'll be gas peakers until there is so much solar, wind, pumped hydro, and transmission that it doesn't matter. The US currently has more renewables in grid queues (~2TW) than total national generation capacity [1]. Nuclear takes years to build, renewables and batteries takes months. We're deploying 1GW of solar per day globally. Per day. China built more wind this year than the UK's entire generation capacity, and more solar than the entire US solar generation capacity. Battery manufacturing and deployment will come up to speed as the entire auto industry is forced to move to EV production. Tesla's utility scale storage is sold out for another 2 years or so at the moment, the demand for this tech is voracious, which is good; it sends market signals to build more factories faster. Lots of legacy fossil generation is going to end up stranded [2], from a capital markets perspective. No one is going to touch nuclear with their own capital, the LCOE speaks for itself [3]. Keep existing nuclear running as long as safe, but it'll sunset too eventually. Don't get mad at the math, it's just math. [1] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/us-power-regulator-weigh-plans-speed-up-green-energy-connection-2023-07-27/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/us-power-regulator-we... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01356-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01356-y [3] https://lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april-2023.pdf https://lazard.com/media/2ozoovyg/lazards-lcoeplus-april-202...

Manuel_D 3y ago
Again, overproduction doesn't matter unless you have the storage capacity to store it and release it later. Even if you overproduce solar power by 100x you're still not getting any electricity at night from those panels. Simply comparing production figures without considering intermittency is one of the most common oversimplifications people make in decarbonization discussions.
anonporridge 3y ago
Wind, solar, and hydro don't have unlimited potential. They all asymptote out once you saturate the area. We're already noticing that wind farms can't be too close together, because upwind farms slow the wind, degrading the output of downwind farms. https://www.sustainability-times.com/low-carbon-energy/placing-wind-farms-too-close-together-isnt-a-good-idea/ https://www.sustainability-times.com/low-carbon-energy/placi... Solar is limited by available surface area, but more importantly by environmental impact. You're going to start destroying ecosystems if you blanket the land with panels. Hydro has been mostly tapped out for a long time. At least in the developed world, all the geography that can be dammed, has been. And even here, there's a strong push from environmental groups to destroy the dams to restore ecosystems disrupted.
oezi 3y ago
I share your optimism in most parts but don't agree that fossil fuels will be stranded. Reduced demand will push down prices which will increase demand until a new equilibrium is found that satisfies cost of production. As long as the Saudis can produce oil at 6 USD per barrel and sell for more (80 USD atm), they will sell their oil.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Complex topic. Lets scope to solely the electrical grid for this subthread. Oil is already not competitive in most generation mixes (there are some outliers in Central America, for example). That leaves coal and fossil gas. This generation infrastructure, the burners of these fossil fuels, is what will be stranded. Indeed there is much work to be done to drive fossil fuels out of all modes of transportation.