5 ms·
There is storage for that, which is now finally, available, inexpensive and safe. Plus, it's long since proven that with moderate losses, renewable electricity
by anovikov 2y ago
There is storage for that, which is now finally, available, inexpensive and safe. Plus, it's long since proven that with moderate losses, renewable electricity system that combines solar, wind, and hydro, does not need any storage at all, or very moderate amounts of storage to achieve no or almost no losses.
- dageshi 2y agoIs there? What storage?
- the_mitsuhiko 2y agoBatteries?
- Moldoteck 2y agolol, look at California and how much it imports & used gas. And that's WITH a nuclear plant. Same is valid for Germany which is in a worse position due to dunkelflauten
- the_mitsuhiko 2y agoI am not sure what your point is honestly. Batteries are a very viable option for storage, competing cost wise with pump storage which has been in use for decades. > Same is valid for Germany which is in a worse position due to dunkelflauten Even existing storage solutions in Germany are already sufficient for the present day electricity network and build-out is progressing rapidly. The time for a nuclear build out was 20 years ago. We missed that window, now other technologies will prevail.
- Moldoteck 2y agoHow are these sufficient when Germany still bumps coal, gas and imports in off peak hours? The question isn't if you can build them, the question is how much storage do you need and the cost. Like how much storage does Germany need for dunkelflauten? Are there any estimations?
- the_mitsuhiko 2y ago> How are these sufficient when Germany still bumps coal, gas and imports in off peak hours? Because they bump coal, gas and imports in peak hours. > The question isn't if you can build them, the question is how much storage do you need and the cost. Like how much storage does Germany need for dunkelflauten? Are there any estimations? I suppose you did not spend a lot of time researching this. That can be easily found by mere googling.
- Moldoteck 2y agoUm... No, Germany bumps them in offpeak hours https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE?lang=en https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE?lang=en You can also check their imports. Sorry, I'm quite bad at googling, may you show me what you found regarding this topic? I mean how much energy storage does Germany need to not use fossils and to not import from neighbor states with fossil generation?
- davedx 2y agohttps://www.energy-storage.news/massive-growth-potential-continues-for-battery-storage-in-uk-and-ireland-co-location-emerging/ https://www.energy-storage.news/massive-growth-potential-con... > The energy storage market in the UK is currently experiencing substantial growth, as evidenced by the current operational capacity of 4.6GW/5.9GWh, projected to increase to 7.4GW/11.6GWh by the end of 2024.
- Moldoteck 2y ago"4.6GW" - that means that after 1h the 4.6GW are gone?
- matt-p 2y agono, 5.9GWh, so after 1 hour at 4.6GW we could do another hour at 1.3 GW (or another 16 Mins at 4.6HW) ~76 mins at 4.6GW.
- littlestymaar 2y agoToo bad the nights a little bit more than 76 minutes.
- matt-p 2y agoIndeed. We can only have a small amount of solar, but wind keeps blowing at night, Nucular continues, biomas too. The gap we need to bridge most urgently is turning off gas generation. Take a look here, https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/historical https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/historical the majority of "turning off gas" is daytime demand that needs to be covered.
- littlestymaar 2y ago> wind keeps blowing at night But stops during anticyclones, which can last several weeks (that makes it completely unfeasible to use wind power with gas as a backup, because there's no way we can build several weeks worth of storage). > Nucular continues The problem is that nuclear plants cost is roughly the same no matter if they produce or not, so nuclear + solar is strictly costlier than just nuclear. Solar in a country as cloudy and rainy as the UK, and one that is so far north it gets very long nights in winter, doesn't make make any sense whatsoever.
- clarionbell 2y agoAnd yet the energy prices are so high that they drive companies to cut production. Especially in countries which banked on renewables the most (along with gas).
- lupusreal 2y ago> There is storage for that There literally isn't, it doesn't exist.
- pfdietz 2y agoIn the same sense this reactor doesn't exist?
- lupusreal 2y agoYes, anybody speaking as though this reactor already exists is wrong.
- littlestymaar 2y agoWell HPC exists, it's not operational yet (and won't be before several years) but it does exist. And equivalent storage doesn't exist not as a WIP, not even as a project.
- pfdietz 2y agoStorage can go from planned to installed in a very short time, much shorter than a nuclear power plant, so that doesn't mean much. Storage prices are declining and installs are expanding with short time constants as well. The whole skeptical approach here smells strongly of ignoring rapid exponential change, which is pretty remarkable for a SV associated forum like HN.
- littlestymaar 2y ago> Storage can go from planned to installed in a very short time, No it cannot, when you start building large hazardous (because of fire risk) facilities, then you face the same kind of red tape that you face with any big projects. Storage also requires adapting the electric grid to allow the energy to flow from and to the storage facilities. Believing storage is easy is just magical thinking. Nuclear isn't different, it's just big by default. And the French example in the 80s shows that building mass nuclear from scratch is in fact tractable in under two decades.
- blitzar 2y agoThe UK has almost 7GW of shovel-ready pumped storage hydropower projects with over 135GWh storage capacity.