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Yes. The grid needs to be expanded by 1.5 - 2.5x no matter what to electrify society and industry. The extra costs are what is needed when more distributed gen

Yes. The grid needs to be expanded by 1.5 - 2.5x no matter what to electrify society and industry. The extra costs are what is needed when more distributed generation is added compared to the baseline. It also not like the current renewable supply will stop existing. > The CEO of NextEra Energy said that gas turbines have a multi-year backlog, leading to soaring costs for new gas-fired power plants. Renewables “are cheaper and available right now.” > “There is a lot of demand for gas turbines right now. You have to get in a long line. It has pushed the prices up,” NextEra Energy CEO John Ketchum said at CERAWeek. NextEra built 16 gigawatts of gas-fired power over the past two decades, and operates a fleet of 26 GW of gas capacity. It also builds renewable energy. > “We built our last gas-fired facility in 2022, at $785/kW. If we wanted to build that same gas-fired combined cycle unit today…$2,400/kW,” he said. “The cost of gas-fired generation has gone up three-fold.” Ahh yes, gas turbines are expensive because a supply crunch. Not because they inherently are expensive. Will this get fixed in the 20 years it would take to build nuclear power? Yes. Will likely even see several cycles of boom and bust before said nuclear plant comes online. Nuclear power simply is completely out of step with the current energy industry. Too expensive and too slow to build.

chickenbig 1y ago
> Yes. The grid needs to be expanded by 1.5 - 2.5x no matter what to electrify society and industry. It is unclear that the grid needs to expand by that much if energy is consumed close to where it is produced, or if energy can be consumed at a less variable rate. > It also not like the current renewable supply will stop existing. There are examples of generation technologies getting dropped from the grid (by bans). > Not because they inherently are expensive. Before the crunch CCGTs were perhaps $1B/GW ($.7B/GW to $1.15B/GW for peakers according to Lazard 2024). So the $1B for backup isn't enough.

chickenbig 1y ago

> Yes. The grid needs to be expanded by 1.5 - 2.5x no matter what to electrify society and industry. It is unclear that the grid needs to expand by that much if energy is consumed close to where it is produced, or if energy can be consumed at a less variable rate. > It also not like the current renewable supply will stop existing. There are examples of generation technologies getting dropped from the grid (by bans). > Not because they inherently are expensive. Before the crunch CCGTs were perhaps $1B/GW ($.7B/GW to $1.15B/GW for peakers according to Lazard 2024). So the $1B for backup isn't enough.