6 ms·

> Solar and wind still have no path to stability. This is a surprising assertion. I keep seeing it, and each time, when I dig, it turns out it is from someone

by cauch 3y ago

> Solar and wind still have no path to stability. This is a surprising assertion. I keep seeing it, and each time, when I dig, it turns out it is from someone who does not really know what they are saying and fall for naive ideas such as "but we don't have energy at night and without wind", while in practice, dunkelflaute appear to be as rare as unexpected shutdown of a nuclear plant anyway. I'm working in the energy sector and I see that solar and wind are considered as a very valid solution. They have disadvantages, but in practice, it's far from being the end of the world, it just makes thing more complicated, but not more than all the other complications that exist for any other sources. Maybe I'm in a bubble, so it would be great if you can show that what you say is not coming from someone who has no idea.

palata 3y ago
> I'm working in the energy sector and I see that solar and wind are considered as a very valid solution. I would assume that people working in solar and wind believe in it... could it be a bubble? Jean-Marc Jancovici has really great insights about that. I would recommend looking at them, that's very interesting!
- cauch 3y ago
  I'm not working in solar and wind. Some of my colleagues are writing reports that recommend more nuclear in some cases, and less nuclear in other cases (I say "some of my colleagues" because I'm not personally working on generation, even if I sometimes peer-review their work). It is very telling that your first thoughts was "if someone says that in the sector, it's not what they say, then, surely this person is wrong somehow". It shows the level of bias. As for Jancovici, I find him very disappointing on solar. In one hand, he says very interesting things on economics and history. On the other hand, my colleagues and I are just looking each other with total surprise when he talk about solar: it looks like he never worked on the subject (but he did). In fact, few decades ago, he was saying that solar has no future, with predictions that are factually BS, proven by the fact that what he predicted never happened (and not because of a fluke, just because it was unrealistic). It feels like he chose a side and got emotionally invested in it, and now he just denies the reality. He may have been confronted to intellectually dishonest people, and now each time there is just neutral facts, he may be systematically concluding that it is impossible for it to not be something from intellectually dishonest people. It's a bit sad, I'm not sure if he is doing more good than bad: he is informing people on some aspect, but he is also spreading a lot of harmful stereotype (for example, in some places, solar is really an essential element for decarbonisation, there is just no other way that is not mathematically absurd, but these conclusions are labelled "ideological" by people having done zero study, "because Jancovici said that only ideological people promotes solar"). Just to be clear: my colleagues and I are paid the same (or even more if we have to be paid again for another study when they choose a bad option), but I just feel it's not good for society that there is so little rationality.
  - palata 3y ago
    > It is very telling that your first thoughts was "if someone says that in the sector, it's not what they say, then, surely this person is wrong somehow". It shows the level of bias. I said that I would expect someone working in the sector to believe in the sector. I did not say AT ALL that someone working in the sector is surely wrong. Of course people in renewables tend to say that nuclear doesn't work, and people in nuclear tend to say that renewables don't work. That's how it works. Asking who is saying what and consider they may have a bias seems reasonable to me. > "because Jancovici said that only ideological people promotes solar" I have been following him for years, and that is not AT ALL what I understood. He never says "solar is completely useless". He says "it depends on the situation, but it won't scale to replace fossil fuels". He also says that in many situations nuclear is a better fit (because if you have enough nuclear energy, then you don't need renewables, but when you have renewables, you need a solution for the times where they don't produce enough). I am absolutely certain that renewables are good in many situations. I just say that people selling solar farms have an interest in believing that solar farms will replace fossil fuels. But they won't.
    - cauch 3y ago
      > I said that I would expect someone working in the sector to believe in the sector. I did not say AT ALL that someone working in the sector is surely wrong. No, you said that you expect someone saying that solar and wind is not that bad to be working IN SOLAR AND WIND and not in nuclear. You said that my view on solar and wind is biased because I work on solar and wind. I don't, I work on the full energy sector, I don't prefer renewables to nuclear. > Of course people in renewables tend to say that nuclear doesn't work, and people in nuclear tend to say that renewables don't work. That's how it works. Asking who is saying what and consider they may have a bias seems reasonable to me. That's exactly my point: you ASSUMED that if I say renewable is good, then I HAVE TO be in renewable. Being careful is fine, you could have asked precision about my domain. But you did not, it was just obvious in your mind: if I'm saying the renewables are not bad, then there is no way I'm intellectually honest and unbiased. > I have been following him for years, and that is not AT ALL what I understood. I have worked on projects where we saw DIRECT AFFIRMATIONS from Jancovici that were, for real, just BS. Not because we were interpreting them badly or something like that, it was very clear cut, such as "we've just done the math for your exact project and we guarantee you you will not get it for less than X euros" and few months later, we got it for 0.001 X euros. You may understand superficially what Jancovici says. But obviously, I've seen, from first hand, the reality, and it will be very difficult for you to convince me that what I've experienced was a dream. Each time he is saying "nuclear is a better fit", you need to be very prudent, he is always comparing the very very worst case scenario for renewables with the unrealistically ideal case for nuclear. > (because if you have enough nuclear energy, then you don't need renewables, but when you have renewables, you need a solution for the times where they don't produce enough) That only is stupid. You cannot place "just nuclear", the way they work is just not suited for flexible grid, which is essential if we want to reduce emissions. You can somehow follow the demand, but you will spend order of magnitude more money than if you use renewables for exactly the same result, and you will never reach the needed reduction in time. You were saying that you reacted to "silver bullet, if you have enough renewables then you don't need nuclear". And there, you are doing exactly the same thing by saying that "if you have enough nuclear, then you don't need renewables". Let be clear: I know you prefer a mixed solution. The problem is that you believe that if you have enough nuclear, then you don't need renewables, which is just not correct.
- cauch 3y ago
  I've had a look to the other answers parallel to mine, and it looks like I'm not the only one who thinks the affirmation I've reacted to has no ground in any scientific study. I've also seen some of your other contributions, and, hum, for someone who concludes "we need both nuclear and renewables", you seem strangely only interested to criticize renewables while not accepting any of the problems of the nuclear side (I'm not talking about nuclear incident, but just things like "not a single cell has been produced fully with renewable energy": not only it's totally absurd, but this argument would apply identically to nuclear, and yet you thought of it as something against renewables while it does not bother you when it's about nuclear)
  - palata 3y ago
    > you seem strangely only interested to criticize renewables while not accepting any of the problems of the nuclear side Probably my fault, but I was answering to comments that did sound to me like "we don't need nuclear, renewable is the silver bullet". To which I say "I think it is extremely dangerous to think like this, because we are not in a position where we can make mistakes for another few decades, and nobody has deployed renewables at scale yet". If I look at Germany for instance, they pushed a lot for renewables, which was great for the fossil business (e.g. coal and NLG) because renewables are apparently not enough on their own (e.g. when there is no wind and no sun). And that's only for their current electricity needs, we're not talking about replacing fossil fuels in any way (rather they seem to have replaced nuclear with renewables + more fossil). My experience as an engineer is that it's easy to say "yup we made a small prototype, it will most definitely work at scale, just give us the money!". Then you start doing it at scale, and you realize it's a whole new problem. I feel like in HN too many people make a quick calculation ("with a fraction of Earth covered with solar panels, we're good for a thousand years") and forget that in practice, you can't just throw solar panels in the desert and call it a day. Where I come from, solar farms are used at a fraction of their capacity because the electrical infrastructure cannot get their full production. It was just not built like that. But the people working in solar of course did not say it upfront (or did not even know it, I don't know?). Of course there are issues with nuclear plants. But there are countries (e.g. France) who did it at a scale that renewables haven't reached yet. Again, I don't mean that renewables don't work at all. I just think that it is very risky to just hope that all the fundamental problems of renewables (e.g. storage) will be solved in the near future because unlike autonomous cars or AGI it's not just meant to convince VCs: in this case it matters.
kortilla 3y ago
Wind and solar do not provide base load anywhere in the US without having to have battery backups. The fallback on all 3 of the major grids are coal and gas. It’s not even close to a closing solution without them. Maybe things are different in the tiny grids in Europe or people are getting really creative with accounting where they take renewable credits from other jurisdictions during excess and then use those to greenwash the fossil fuels they burn during deficits. Either way, there is no large grid running without coal, gas, geothermal, nuclear, and/or hydro anywhere in the world. Even Hawaii’s tiny grid with its excess solar is backstopped by diesel/gas generators.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  > Wind and solar do not provide base load anywhere in the US without having to have battery backups. You're implying this is a showstopper. It's not. > Either way, there is no large grid running without coal, gas, geothermal, nuclear, and/or hydro anywhere in the world. "Nothing can ever been done for the first time." Why, oh why do you imagine this matters?
  - kortilla 3y ago
    >You're implying this is a showstopper. It's not. It has been so far. Nobody has done it in a meaningful enough deployment to make a dent. My entire point is that we willfully did massive climate damage for 50 years to get to today because we didn’t want nuclear. We will still do damage for 20+ years because we’re still waiting on something to replace peaker plant load on solar/wind. People who pushed for solar/wind instead of nuclear are as much to blame for climate change as the fossil fuel junkies for the last 50 years of no effect. At least the fossil junkies didn’t righteously pretend to care.
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      > It has been so far. Nobody has done it in a meaningful enough deployment to make a dent. Nobody has done it because nobody has HAD to do it. If you're still allowed to burn some fossil fuels, it's not necessary. This doesn't mean it isn't possible, and it certainly isn't strong evidence it won't be possible. And by "possible", I mean possible at an acceptable cost. Even you should agree it's possible at sufficiently high cost. I will add that no economy has been nuclear powered yet either (not even France, where most of the energy is still coming from fossil fuels, if one doesn't limit examination to just the grid.)

by cauch 3y ago

palata 3y ago

> I'm working in the energy sector and I see that solar and wind are considered as a very valid solution. I would assume that people working in solar and wind believe in it... could it be a bubble? Jean-Marc Jancovici has really great insights about that. I would recommend looking at them, that's very interesting!

cauch 3y ago
I'm not working in solar and wind. Some of my colleagues are writing reports that recommend more nuclear in some cases, and less nuclear in other cases (I say "some of my colleagues" because I'm not personally working on generation, even if I sometimes peer-review their work). It is very telling that your first thoughts was "if someone says that in the sector, it's not what they say, then, surely this person is wrong somehow". It shows the level of bias. As for Jancovici, I find him very disappointing on solar. In one hand, he says very interesting things on economics and history. On the other hand, my colleagues and I are just looking each other with total surprise when he talk about solar: it looks like he never worked on the subject (but he did). In fact, few decades ago, he was saying that solar has no future, with predictions that are factually BS, proven by the fact that what he predicted never happened (and not because of a fluke, just because it was unrealistic). It feels like he chose a side and got emotionally invested in it, and now he just denies the reality. He may have been confronted to intellectually dishonest people, and now each time there is just neutral facts, he may be systematically concluding that it is impossible for it to not be something from intellectually dishonest people. It's a bit sad, I'm not sure if he is doing more good than bad: he is informing people on some aspect, but he is also spreading a lot of harmful stereotype (for example, in some places, solar is really an essential element for decarbonisation, there is just no other way that is not mathematically absurd, but these conclusions are labelled "ideological" by people having done zero study, "because Jancovici said that only ideological people promotes solar"). Just to be clear: my colleagues and I are paid the same (or even more if we have to be paid again for another study when they choose a bad option), but I just feel it's not good for society that there is so little rationality.
- palata 3y ago
  > It is very telling that your first thoughts was "if someone says that in the sector, it's not what they say, then, surely this person is wrong somehow". It shows the level of bias. I said that I would expect someone working in the sector to believe in the sector. I did not say AT ALL that someone working in the sector is surely wrong. Of course people in renewables tend to say that nuclear doesn't work, and people in nuclear tend to say that renewables don't work. That's how it works. Asking who is saying what and consider they may have a bias seems reasonable to me. > "because Jancovici said that only ideological people promotes solar" I have been following him for years, and that is not AT ALL what I understood. He never says "solar is completely useless". He says "it depends on the situation, but it won't scale to replace fossil fuels". He also says that in many situations nuclear is a better fit (because if you have enough nuclear energy, then you don't need renewables, but when you have renewables, you need a solution for the times where they don't produce enough). I am absolutely certain that renewables are good in many situations. I just say that people selling solar farms have an interest in believing that solar farms will replace fossil fuels. But they won't.
  - cauch 3y ago
    > I said that I would expect someone working in the sector to believe in the sector. I did not say AT ALL that someone working in the sector is surely wrong. No, you said that you expect someone saying that solar and wind is not that bad to be working IN SOLAR AND WIND and not in nuclear. You said that my view on solar and wind is biased because I work on solar and wind. I don't, I work on the full energy sector, I don't prefer renewables to nuclear. > Of course people in renewables tend to say that nuclear doesn't work, and people in nuclear tend to say that renewables don't work. That's how it works. Asking who is saying what and consider they may have a bias seems reasonable to me. That's exactly my point: you ASSUMED that if I say renewable is good, then I HAVE TO be in renewable. Being careful is fine, you could have asked precision about my domain. But you did not, it was just obvious in your mind: if I'm saying the renewables are not bad, then there is no way I'm intellectually honest and unbiased. > I have been following him for years, and that is not AT ALL what I understood. I have worked on projects where we saw DIRECT AFFIRMATIONS from Jancovici that were, for real, just BS. Not because we were interpreting them badly or something like that, it was very clear cut, such as "we've just done the math for your exact project and we guarantee you you will not get it for less than X euros" and few months later, we got it for 0.001 X euros. You may understand superficially what Jancovici says. But obviously, I've seen, from first hand, the reality, and it will be very difficult for you to convince me that what I've experienced was a dream. Each time he is saying "nuclear is a better fit", you need to be very prudent, he is always comparing the very very worst case scenario for renewables with the unrealistically ideal case for nuclear. > (because if you have enough nuclear energy, then you don't need renewables, but when you have renewables, you need a solution for the times where they don't produce enough) That only is stupid. You cannot place "just nuclear", the way they work is just not suited for flexible grid, which is essential if we want to reduce emissions. You can somehow follow the demand, but you will spend order of magnitude more money than if you use renewables for exactly the same result, and you will never reach the needed reduction in time. You were saying that you reacted to "silver bullet, if you have enough renewables then you don't need nuclear". And there, you are doing exactly the same thing by saying that "if you have enough nuclear, then you don't need renewables". Let be clear: I know you prefer a mixed solution. The problem is that you believe that if you have enough nuclear, then you don't need renewables, which is just not correct.
cauch 3y ago
I've had a look to the other answers parallel to mine, and it looks like I'm not the only one who thinks the affirmation I've reacted to has no ground in any scientific study. I've also seen some of your other contributions, and, hum, for someone who concludes "we need both nuclear and renewables", you seem strangely only interested to criticize renewables while not accepting any of the problems of the nuclear side (I'm not talking about nuclear incident, but just things like "not a single cell has been produced fully with renewable energy": not only it's totally absurd, but this argument would apply identically to nuclear, and yet you thought of it as something against renewables while it does not bother you when it's about nuclear)
- palata 3y ago
  > you seem strangely only interested to criticize renewables while not accepting any of the problems of the nuclear side Probably my fault, but I was answering to comments that did sound to me like "we don't need nuclear, renewable is the silver bullet". To which I say "I think it is extremely dangerous to think like this, because we are not in a position where we can make mistakes for another few decades, and nobody has deployed renewables at scale yet". If I look at Germany for instance, they pushed a lot for renewables, which was great for the fossil business (e.g. coal and NLG) because renewables are apparently not enough on their own (e.g. when there is no wind and no sun). And that's only for their current electricity needs, we're not talking about replacing fossil fuels in any way (rather they seem to have replaced nuclear with renewables + more fossil). My experience as an engineer is that it's easy to say "yup we made a small prototype, it will most definitely work at scale, just give us the money!". Then you start doing it at scale, and you realize it's a whole new problem. I feel like in HN too many people make a quick calculation ("with a fraction of Earth covered with solar panels, we're good for a thousand years") and forget that in practice, you can't just throw solar panels in the desert and call it a day. Where I come from, solar farms are used at a fraction of their capacity because the electrical infrastructure cannot get their full production. It was just not built like that. But the people working in solar of course did not say it upfront (or did not even know it, I don't know?). Of course there are issues with nuclear plants. But there are countries (e.g. France) who did it at a scale that renewables haven't reached yet. Again, I don't mean that renewables don't work at all. I just think that it is very risky to just hope that all the fundamental problems of renewables (e.g. storage) will be solved in the near future because unlike autonomous cars or AGI it's not just meant to convince VCs: in this case it matters.

kortilla 3y ago

Wind and solar do not provide base load anywhere in the US without having to have battery backups. The fallback on all 3 of the major grids are coal and gas. It’s not even close to a closing solution without them. Maybe things are different in the tiny grids in Europe or people are getting really creative with accounting where they take renewable credits from other jurisdictions during excess and then use those to greenwash the fossil fuels they burn during deficits. Either way, there is no large grid running without coal, gas, geothermal, nuclear, and/or hydro anywhere in the world. Even Hawaii’s tiny grid with its excess solar is backstopped by diesel/gas generators.

pfdietz 3y ago
> Wind and solar do not provide base load anywhere in the US without having to have battery backups. You're implying this is a showstopper. It's not. > Either way, there is no large grid running without coal, gas, geothermal, nuclear, and/or hydro anywhere in the world. "Nothing can ever been done for the first time." Why, oh why do you imagine this matters?
- kortilla 3y ago
  >You're implying this is a showstopper. It's not. It has been so far. Nobody has done it in a meaningful enough deployment to make a dent. My entire point is that we willfully did massive climate damage for 50 years to get to today because we didn’t want nuclear. We will still do damage for 20+ years because we’re still waiting on something to replace peaker plant load on solar/wind. People who pushed for solar/wind instead of nuclear are as much to blame for climate change as the fossil fuel junkies for the last 50 years of no effect. At least the fossil junkies didn’t righteously pretend to care.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    > It has been so far. Nobody has done it in a meaningful enough deployment to make a dent. Nobody has done it because nobody has HAD to do it. If you're still allowed to burn some fossil fuels, it's not necessary. This doesn't mean it isn't possible, and it certainly isn't strong evidence it won't be possible. And by "possible", I mean possible at an acceptable cost. Even you should agree it's possible at sufficiently high cost. I will add that no economy has been nuclear powered yet either (not even France, where most of the energy is still coming from fossil fuels, if one doesn't limit examination to just the grid.)