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> Energy this cheap gives us a huge incentive to change our energy use patterns to match power abundance rather than to take energy demand as a constant. I hav

by klabb3 3y ago

> Energy this cheap gives us a huge incentive to change our energy use patterns to match power abundance rather than to take energy demand as a constant. I have not listened to the podcast, but I know for a fact that’s much harder than it sounds. Parking spaces, highways, factories, offices, parks, beaches, hiking trails, skiing, museums, stadiums, even grocery stores have an extreme variability in demand. Almost all demand comes from human activity, and like all other animals that activity is highly variable and intermittent. Yes, there are a few exceptions: batteries, some household appliances like washers, and perhaps certain factories/refineries that could be run with minimal operations at night. Incentives don’t even work to suppress leisure: people go through massive traffic, no parking and crowds to get to the beach on sunny weekends. Imagine chores or even actual needs: like keeping the heat or AC on. Electricity is survival-critical in many parts of the world. In short, I think the incentives needed to alter fundamental human behavior are less like cute coupons and more like a gun to your head. In most places, there won’t be enough political lunacy to push that through, and instead the glorious green energy programs will be stalled, delayed and eventually scrapped. I can’t think of a better outcome for fossil fuel companies.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
You can replace a significant proportion of the grid with intermittent generation without any trouble. Using solar for the air conditioning load in the summer is perfect. Use whatever you want to charge electric car batteries because they're batteries and most cars are parked >90% of the time. You can can't shift 100% of the load based on time of day through pricing, but you can do a non-trivial amount. Then you pick the low-hanging fruit and start trying to find a solution to power heat pumps in the winter at night and it's... not as easy. But a grid can be 0% fossil fuels without being 100% solar and wind.
- stcredzero 3y ago
  Using solar for the air conditioning load in the summer is perfect. Ish. They don't completely correspond.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    It's close enough that you can compensate by setting a lower indoor temperature during daylight and letting it rise a few degrees around sunset before the outdoor temperature declines.
    - stcredzero 3y ago
      Whether it be the thermal battery of the house, or something else, some form of storage or buffering is going to be needed. Therefore, not perfect correspondence.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        It's perfect correspondence in the amount of power required seasonally. You need more air conditioning in the summer because there is more sunlight, which also yields more solar generation. The times also align closely enough that the thermal buffer of the house is all you need, and since that is available, it's a solved problem. Whereas using solar power to provide heat in winter is exactly the opposite.
- danans 3y ago
  > Then you pick the low-hanging fruit and start trying to find a solution to power heat pumps in the winter at night and it's... not as easy. But it's also not impossible, especially as heat pump efficiency keeps marching up in colder conditions and stationary battery prices keep going down with new chemistries that trade off energy density for cost. Heck, if batteries are still too expensive, we could even use residential hydrogen fuel cells in that situation, which could easily power a heat pump.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    Storage isn't just a bad fit for that because it's expensive, though. What do you do when it runs down, because it's unusually cold or you have an extended period of low generation, or both? Now it's 20 degrees below freezing and you have no heat.
    - danans 3y ago
      > What do you do when it runs down, because it's unusually cold or you have an extended period of low generation, or both? I'm not talking about going off grid, just energy price arbitrage. You still have the option of pulling power from the grid to heat your house, although potentially at a higher price. With storage, you could also coordinate grid loads during the night so that at any given time the total load on the grid doesn't exceed the grid's generation capacity.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > I'm not talking about going off grid, just energy price arbitrage. You still have the option of pulling power from the grid to heat your house, although potentially at a higher price. It's not a different problem for the grid. If the grid is generating nearly all of its power from solar and wind and it's calm and cold and night, where does the grid get the power to run your heat pumps? Storage is not only expensive, it has finite capacity. On the coldest week of the decade when everyone's heating system is using 250% more power than usual, and has been for days, the storage runs down and then what?
- klabb3 3y ago
  > You can replace a significant proportion of the grid with intermittent generation without any trouble. Yes, in some locations. That’s a no brainer and where it’s economical it’s already happening. But unpredictable supply particularly needs on-demand energy. Nuclear can’t respond quickly, so if you don’t have hydro you’re likely left with gas. > Use whatever you want to charge electric car batteries because they're batteries and most cars are parked >90% of the time. Agreed. We have some way to go with universal infrastructure support for that though. > You can can't shift 100% of the load based on time of day through pricing, but you can do a non-trivial amount. Possibly. The major sources today are heating, AC, fridges. Cooking will come up there if you remove gas. In either case, industrial and commercial are ~60% of use and how do we move that significantly out of peak hours?
  - adrianN 3y ago
    For short term unpredictable demand it is likely that batteries will outcompete gas in the next couple of years.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > But unpredictable supply particularly needs on-demand energy. Nuclear can’t respond quickly, so if you don’t have hydro you’re likely left with gas. Nuclear is baseload, but baseload offsets intermittency. If you're using solar you've got no generation at night. Suppose you do all the load shifting to the day that you reasonably can and you still need 600 GWh of power for the 12 hours between sunset and sunrise. Well, add 40GW of nuclear and now you only need 120 GWh. You've cut back the amount of gas or batteries you need by quite a lot, but you still have some, which is enough to respond to short-term demand changes. And the nuclear plant generates during the day too, which isn't as valuable but is still not zero and contributes to paying its costs. > We have some way to go with universal infrastructure support for that though. At some point there was a fear that this was chicken and egg: No one buys electric cars because there are no chargers so no one builds chargers. There are enough chargers now that it's viable for a significant proportion of people to buy an electric car. At that point people will just build more chargers in proportion to how many cars need them and there isn't really anything to worry about. And the power can be generated from renewables without having to worry about intermittency because you're charging a battery which is typically stationary for most of the day. > The major sources today are heating, AC, fridges. Cooking will come up there if you remove gas. AC is fine, aligns well with solar. Heating is the hard one, but heating is approximately baseload. The best candidate for that seems to be nuclear -- which can also potentially provide cogeneration for buildings in reasonable distance from the plant. > In either case, industrial and commercial are ~60% of use and how do we move that significantly out of peak hours? Businesses disproportionately operate 9-5, which is daylight hours. Many industrial operations operate 24H because the cost of paying people a premium to work second and third shift is less than the cost of building three separate factories that only operate 9-5. Now they'll each have to decide if it's also worth paying the cost of energy storage to operate at night.

by klabb3 3y ago

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

You can replace a significant proportion of the grid with intermittent generation without any trouble. Using solar for the air conditioning load in the summer is perfect. Use whatever you want to charge electric car batteries because they're batteries and most cars are parked >90% of the time. You can can't shift 100% of the load based on time of day through pricing, but you can do a non-trivial amount. Then you pick the low-hanging fruit and start trying to find a solution to power heat pumps in the winter at night and it's... not as easy. But a grid can be 0% fossil fuels without being 100% solar and wind.

stcredzero 3y ago
Using solar for the air conditioning load in the summer is perfect. Ish. They don't completely correspond.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  It's close enough that you can compensate by setting a lower indoor temperature during daylight and letting it rise a few degrees around sunset before the outdoor temperature declines.
  - stcredzero 3y ago
    Whether it be the thermal battery of the house, or something else, some form of storage or buffering is going to be needed. Therefore, not perfect correspondence.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      It's perfect correspondence in the amount of power required seasonally. You need more air conditioning in the summer because there is more sunlight, which also yields more solar generation. The times also align closely enough that the thermal buffer of the house is all you need, and since that is available, it's a solved problem. Whereas using solar power to provide heat in winter is exactly the opposite.
danans 3y ago
> Then you pick the low-hanging fruit and start trying to find a solution to power heat pumps in the winter at night and it's... not as easy. But it's also not impossible, especially as heat pump efficiency keeps marching up in colder conditions and stationary battery prices keep going down with new chemistries that trade off energy density for cost. Heck, if batteries are still too expensive, we could even use residential hydrogen fuel cells in that situation, which could easily power a heat pump.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  Storage isn't just a bad fit for that because it's expensive, though. What do you do when it runs down, because it's unusually cold or you have an extended period of low generation, or both? Now it's 20 degrees below freezing and you have no heat.
  - danans 3y ago
    > What do you do when it runs down, because it's unusually cold or you have an extended period of low generation, or both? I'm not talking about going off grid, just energy price arbitrage. You still have the option of pulling power from the grid to heat your house, although potentially at a higher price. With storage, you could also coordinate grid loads during the night so that at any given time the total load on the grid doesn't exceed the grid's generation capacity.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > I'm not talking about going off grid, just energy price arbitrage. You still have the option of pulling power from the grid to heat your house, although potentially at a higher price. It's not a different problem for the grid. If the grid is generating nearly all of its power from solar and wind and it's calm and cold and night, where does the grid get the power to run your heat pumps? Storage is not only expensive, it has finite capacity. On the coldest week of the decade when everyone's heating system is using 250% more power than usual, and has been for days, the storage runs down and then what?
klabb3 3y ago
> You can replace a significant proportion of the grid with intermittent generation without any trouble. Yes, in some locations. That’s a no brainer and where it’s economical it’s already happening. But unpredictable supply particularly needs on-demand energy. Nuclear can’t respond quickly, so if you don’t have hydro you’re likely left with gas. > Use whatever you want to charge electric car batteries because they're batteries and most cars are parked >90% of the time. Agreed. We have some way to go with universal infrastructure support for that though. > You can can't shift 100% of the load based on time of day through pricing, but you can do a non-trivial amount. Possibly. The major sources today are heating, AC, fridges. Cooking will come up there if you remove gas. In either case, industrial and commercial are ~60% of use and how do we move that significantly out of peak hours?
- adrianN 3y ago
  For short term unpredictable demand it is likely that batteries will outcompete gas in the next couple of years.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > But unpredictable supply particularly needs on-demand energy. Nuclear can’t respond quickly, so if you don’t have hydro you’re likely left with gas. Nuclear is baseload, but baseload offsets intermittency. If you're using solar you've got no generation at night. Suppose you do all the load shifting to the day that you reasonably can and you still need 600 GWh of power for the 12 hours between sunset and sunrise. Well, add 40GW of nuclear and now you only need 120 GWh. You've cut back the amount of gas or batteries you need by quite a lot, but you still have some, which is enough to respond to short-term demand changes. And the nuclear plant generates during the day too, which isn't as valuable but is still not zero and contributes to paying its costs. > We have some way to go with universal infrastructure support for that though. At some point there was a fear that this was chicken and egg: No one buys electric cars because there are no chargers so no one builds chargers. There are enough chargers now that it's viable for a significant proportion of people to buy an electric car. At that point people will just build more chargers in proportion to how many cars need them and there isn't really anything to worry about. And the power can be generated from renewables without having to worry about intermittency because you're charging a battery which is typically stationary for most of the day. > The major sources today are heating, AC, fridges. Cooking will come up there if you remove gas. AC is fine, aligns well with solar. Heating is the hard one, but heating is approximately baseload. The best candidate for that seems to be nuclear -- which can also potentially provide cogeneration for buildings in reasonable distance from the plant. > In either case, industrial and commercial are ~60% of use and how do we move that significantly out of peak hours? Businesses disproportionately operate 9-5, which is daylight hours. Many industrial operations operate 24H because the cost of paying people a premium to work second and third shift is less than the cost of building three separate factories that only operate 9-5. Now they'll each have to decide if it's also worth paying the cost of energy storage to operate at night.