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We recently had an election in AU where "nuclear" was on the agenda as the (losing) party/coalition were promoting nuclear as a "solution" to our aging coal-gen

by rswail 1y ago

We recently had an election in AU where "nuclear" was on the agenda as the (losing) party/coalition were promoting nuclear as a "solution" to our aging coal-generator fleet. The trouble is that: a) "baseload" is a misnomer, what is required is storage to cover periods when "the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow" b) CSIRO (our government research organization) releases a regular report called "Gencost" [1]. It has shown regular decreases in solar and wind, with costs for other solutions (coal/gas/nuclear) growing during the same period c) The problem for nuclear power in AU is doubled because there is no local infrastructure or engineering or industry for the nuclear fuel cycle d) AU home solar is world leading, with now a government subsidy available for home battery storage to soak up the midday peak, one state (SA) regularly runs on 100% renewables e) SMRs do NOT exist in a commercially deployable way. There are any number of research and demo-scale possible SMRs, but none that are immediately able to be deployed f) SMRs are too SMALL to replace existing coal gen, especially compared to the capacity of solar and wind farms, with offshore wind only just being started in AU [1] https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/electricity-transition/gencost https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/ele...

zozbot234 1y ago
> "baseload" is a misnomer, what is required is storage to cover periods when "the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow" "Storage" can't do that for more than smoothing out daily peaks. The only longer-term storage that matters when you look at the numbers is pumped hydro, and that's built out. That's why "baseload" is in fact quite relevant; it's way better to supply those critical needs via a highly reliable source.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- MrBuddyCasino 1y ago
  One would think people would learn from the disastrous results of the German Energiewende, where this has already been tried, but no. The problem is that the issue of intermittent energy generation is unsolved. It is currently not feasible to use batteries for base load needs, it would be insanely expensive. Some day perhaps, but not yet. There was never a technically solid plan to solve this issue by the German Greens, just wishful thinking. They undertook this massive project without having the faintest clue about the underlying physics and financials, which is hard to believe but true. The overwhelming majority of green party members are from the humanities, not STEM. So you either have a lot of pumped hydro, in which case great, or you don’t, which is the case nearly everywhere but the nordics and perhaps Switzerland. Solar is much better than wind btw, wind is simply a costly mistake as it is a lot more intermittent than solar. The math doesn’t add up.
  - energy123 1y ago
    > It is currently not feasible to use batteries for base load needs, it would be insanely expensive. The CSIRO report says that nuclear is almost 2x more expensive than renewables even after factoring in all costs of storage and interconnects. > Solar is much better than wind btw, wind is simply a costly mistake as it is a lot more intermittent than solar. That depends on the location. Insolation and seasonality vary depending on distance from the equator, among other factors. Also, solar and wind are negatively correlated on both seasonal scales and intraday scales, so it often makes sense to mix the two if you're in Europe, rather than pick a simple winner.
    - MrBuddyCasino 1y ago
      Unlike solar, power wind makes very little sense even if storage improves. This is true even in first principles so technological progress is unlikely to overcome these limitations.
      - energy123 1y ago
        I mean, you didn't address what I said, you just looped back to what you originally said.
      - jacquesm 1y ago
        What's with the utterly uninformed takes on energy on HN? Wind makes extremely good sense and has been making good sense for 30 years or more now depending on where on the globe you are looking. There is a ton of FUD about it but it is practical, affordable, available and relatively fast to deploy. Moreover there is readily financing available to take care of the capex. There are 7 MW turbines deployed regularly https://www.enercon.de/en/turbines/e-175-ep5 https://www.enercon.de/en/turbines/e-175-ep5 And there are 10 MW turbines and higher on the drawing board. Offshore and onshore options are available.
        MrBuddyCasino 1y ago
        > it is practical, affordable, available and relatively fast to deploy It is none of those things.
- ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  If you compare the combination of renewables and batteries to pumped hydro it loses badly. It's like pumped hydro with a very predictable rainstorm directly above it every day. You'd be able to get by with a much smaller reservoir.
- myrmidon 1y ago
  First, "providing baseload" is a privilege you enjoy if you are the unconditionally cheapest provider of electricity at all times, not something that anyone ever needs you to do. If you only need power for short periods of time when renewables are unavailable, then "constant output" plants like coal or nuclear are the last thing you want to build-- they are simply not worth it for the the short periods of time when renewables are down. You want simple, cheap powerplants instead that trade off higher fuel costs for low capex, and that is currently gas. You want cheap MW (max power) from those plants instead of cheap MWh (energy), basically.
  - zozbot234 1y ago
    It's easy to be "unconditionally cheapest" when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. "Simple, cheap" power plants that burn a lot of expensive natural gas (or even worse, coal) are the current approach to that problem, which is not working very well. The point is to do better, and nuclear may be a very sensible choice since a single nuclear plant can replace a whole lot of natural gas peakers.
    - myrmidon 1y ago
      Nuclear power plants struggle with economics already at highest possible capacity factors (running 90% of the time). If they get undercut by renewables most of the time, there is simply no way they can stay competitive. Nuclear peaker plants are not ever gonna be a thing, because that makes no sense economically: High capex is the last thing you want for that usecase, and it implies that the economics for your plant have to stay decent for the next 30 years. Meanwhile batteries, solar and wind are still getting cheaper every year right now. This is the worst bet you could ever make as an investor. > nuclear may be a very sensible choice since a single nuclear plant can replace a whole lot of natural gas peakers. This argument does not help nuclear power if the equivalent number of gas plants is still cheaper than a single nuclear reactor (and built much faster).
      - weregiraffe 1y ago
        >Nuclear power plants struggle with economics already Because they are over-regulated. Why? Because of nucleophobia, which is fueled by fossil fuel producers.
- willvarfar 1y ago
  Can sand batteries work? Recent post on HN about use in Finland https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45112653 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45112653
  - ezst 1y ago
    Isn't that to store energy as heat so you don't produce it by other means during winter? Seems to address a specific class of storage needs
  - 2000UltraDeluxe 1y ago
    For district heating, sure. For electricity? Yes, in theory, but not at efficiencies that would make financial sense.
    - tcfhgj 1y ago
      do efficiencies matter that much when you don't need much and can "charge" with "free" energy?
      - bryanlarsen 1y ago
        Higher efficiency storage can outbid you for the "free" energy.
        tcfhgj 1y ago
        perhaps, but the other way around is a possible scenario as well, because it may still be cheaper to have inefficient storage when the way you store the energy is expensive (e.g. some batteries may have very high efficiency, but you need difficult to obtain materials)
        bryanlarsen 1y ago
        LFP batteries are > 95% efficient and only use common elements.
- crote 1y ago
  But how often is it cloudy and windless for weeks at a time? And for those once-every-few-years scenarios, why shouldn't we build (far cheaper) carbon-captured natural gas peaker plants? Besides, you've got to keep in mind that we aren't going to be building for yearly-average kWh consumption. Companies will be building overcapacity to take advantage of high-demand/low-supply peak pricing. I don't think it is unlikely that we'll end up with a situation where PV on an overcast day is enough for "baseload", with the practically-free electricity on sunny/windy days opening up new economic opportunities.
  - mkj 1y ago
    I agree generally, but is carbon-captured natural gas generation actually a thing? The only carbon capture I've heard of is at the gas production site removing CO2 from the reservoir gas and pumping it back underground - that's not after combustion. (And the pumping it back underground hasn't been particularly successful, eg https://www.boilingcold.com.au/regulator-limits-chevrons-troubled-gorgon-co2-injection-to-one-third-capacity/ https://www.boilingcold.com.au/regulator-limits-chevrons-tro... )
  - throw0101a 1y ago
    > But how often is it cloudy and windless for weeks at a time? '“Energy Droughts” in Wind and Solar Can Last Nearly a Week, Research Shows': * https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/energy-droughts-wind-and-solar-can-last-nearly-week-research-shows https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/energy-droughts-wind-and-sol... See also: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute I think it would be location-dependent (low risk that (e.g.) the UK would be windless for long stretches of time, especially off the coast).
    - natmaka 1y ago
      Not at continental scale, and grids are or will soon be at this scale. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032115017013 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403211... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960148116308680 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09601... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148119302319#abs0010 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096014811...
- pfdietz 1y ago
  > "Storage" can't do that for more than smoothing out daily peaks. See the system described in the OP link at this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45012942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45012942 Long term literally dirt cheap thermal storage coupled with extreme cost optimized PV that would provide 600 C heat 365/24/7 for as little as $3/GJ, on par with combustion of inexpensive natural gas. Complementary with diurnal storage from batteries, this would be a complete solution to the renewable intermittency problem.
- natmaka 1y ago
  A typical car battery stores 60 kWh (the average capacity of models is increasing), so, charged during the day using inexpensive renewable electricity (particularly solar), it can power a household during one of the rare winter nights with insufficient wind. Case in point: France. A household consumes an average of 14 kWh of electricity per day. The capacity of electric cars will exceed 500 GWh before 2035 and 2000 GWh between 2040 and 2050. Trucks, utility vehicles, and stationary batteries (domestic and industrial) will add to this. Batteries from retired vehicles will increasingly be converted into static batteries before being recycled (see "Redwood Materials" in the US). In California, when the sun is at its peak (midday), solar power produces up to three-quarters of the electricity. Batteries are charged in the afternoon, when solar electricity is cheap, and released in the evening, when Californians return home. At their peak consumption, around 8 p.m., batteries can supply up to 30% of the state's electricity.
  - tonyarkles 1y ago
    Just to clarify for anyone who's confused... that's an EV battery, not the 12V lead-acid that's in an ICE vehicle.
  - ponector 1y ago
    >> A household consumes an average of 14 kWh of electricity per day. If there is a motivation, consumed amount for particular cloudy day could be 1\4 easily. Simply do the laundry, other energy intensive task next day.
    - camel_gopher 1y ago
      “Simply do the laundry, other energy intensive task next day.” lol the single life
- gpm 1y ago
  Baseload is quite irrelevant, because baseload also doesn't supply those critical needs. "Baseload" is by definition power production that can't follow the demand curve, and thus can't provide the power to keep the grid stable. It's as bad as solar and wind in this way, it's just that instead of having a fixed but variable supply curve it has a fixed but flat supply curve. What you want is dispatchable power. Gas peaker plants for instance. Or overbuilt solar + batteries. Not baseload.
- adrian_b 1y ago
  "Storage" can synthesize hydrocarbons, i.e. fuel, which can then be stored forever, until energy is needed. This was already possible by the time of WWII, but now there are many methods in development for reducing carbon dioxide by electrolysis, and then use the product to synthesize longer hydrocarbons, which have higher efficiency than the older methods. The round-trip efficiency of this will always be worse than for batteries, which remain a better option for short time storage, but synthesizing fuel will be a valid method for storing energy for the winter during the summer, and also for applications where batteries are unsuitable, like aircraft and spacecraft.
  - trillic 1y ago
    We can also do things like desalinate water and pump it uphill when solar is plentiful and prices are negative. No need to get hydrocarbons involved. Creating fresh water and pumping it uphill to a reservoir that is uphill of a turbine would help solves two problems in Southern California.
- tcfhgj 1y ago
  you forgot gas
Neil44 1y ago
I guess the shear quantity of land that AU has available for solar and wind takes away a lot of the issues for you guys?
- XorNot 1y ago
  Well it all does absolutely nothing to store energy.
  - dbetteridge 1y ago
    Ahem https://colliebattery.com.au/ https://colliebattery.com.au/
- ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  It's interesting that this country with all the spare land is also a world leader in rooftop solar. That rooftop solar is delivering the cheapest consumer electricity in history. Amazingly, the hardware costs and labor costs for rooftop solar are the same as the USA and sensible regulations around permitting and training have dropped the cost by 2/3rds.
- pfdietz 1y ago
  Land cost isn't a strong limit on renewables even in Europe.
energy123 1y ago
g) AU is very well suited for solar, due to the confluence of abundant desert making land-use a non-issue, high irradiance per m^2, low seasonality of irradiance, and large landmass which generates statistical diversification due to lower temporal coupling between plants.
- ZeroGravitas 1y ago
  This applies to where most of the human population live currently. People who don't live in such regions are likely to underestimate solutions that work well in these places.
aussieguy1234 1y ago
There's another Australian state, Tasmania that also runs on 100% renewables, mostly hydro. There are plans to export more of that power to other states.
- 0xy 1y ago
  100% renewable until the dams dried up and they flew in diesel generators (worse than coal) to prop up the state, reversing several years of environmental progress. That event is illustrative of the fundamental problem here. Green energy proponents pretend it never happens and do not factor diesel emissions into the cost of hydro and other solutions. Another common way they mislead is by pretending that emissions from gas peaking plants are not inherently associated with solar and wind generating, even though they would not exist without them. It's a kind of sleight of hand or green washing that should be called out more frequently. 100% renewable does not exist. Not in '100% hydro' Tasmania or anywhere else.
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    On unconnected islands. If Tasmania had the interconnects to export their power they could have reversed those to import solar from the mainland.
- belorn 1y ago
  Hydro is pretty great with a few caveats. Flooding remain a massive problem if there is a failure, as the world most deadliest power plant accident was a hydro power plant with a death toll between 26,000 to 240,000 people. An other major issue is the extinction of species, as is currently occurring in Europe and especially in the northern parts. There are technologies to allow for migrating fish to bypass hydro power plants without chopping them to bits, through the effectiveness of the bypass tend to work against the power output of the plant.
pjc50 1y ago
> AU home solar is world leading, with now a government subsidy available for home battery storage to soak up the midday peak, one state (SA) regularly runs on 100% renewables I feel we're going to keep seeing "solar doesn't work" posts in decades to come, long past when many areas of the world will already be on 100% renewables. It turns out that incremental deployment is a superpower. There's no longer any good reason for AU not to be at >100% solar at midday every single day. > SMRs do NOT exist in a commercially deployable way .. while this is more of a problem. I could jokingly say that SMRs are a conspiracy by Big Turbine to sell more turbines. Also don't forget the need for water cooling, which may be a critical problem in AU.
- Perz1val 1y ago
  In Poland we're seeing government slowly taking actions against people owning solar. Turns out, people were paying a lot in taxes for electricity and this money is now not present in the budget. Recent development is an incoming ban on energy storage beyond certain size. They want you to give energy basically for free to the grid during the day (when you're at work) and buy the energy from the grid during the night (charging cars). Electricity prices are not even that high now, bills are mostly some transfer fees. I imagine the same will be/is the case in all countries.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
chickenbig 1y ago
> c) The problem for nuclear power in AU is doubled because there is no local infrastructure or engineering or industry for the nuclear fuel cycle One might say this is an advantage, with no home industry asking for local supply chains to be built up (at significant cost and risk). Solar panels, batteries and wind turbines are not generally made in Australia, right? For the fuel cycle, Urenco for enrichment, and Westinghouse or Orano for the uranium processing and fuel fabrication would be possible deals with allies. > e) SMRs do NOT exist in a commercially deployable way. There are any number of research and demo-scale possible SMRs, but none that are immediately able to be deployed SMRs are not the entirety of nuclear, and were not the entirety of the Coalition nuclear plan. Large reactors do exist and are being built around the world. Rosatom are able to do so (Egypt, Turkey, Bangladesh), KEPCO has done so in the UAE, and China is exporting to Pakistan. As an aside, a GE-Hitachi BWRX-300 first-of-a-kind (not demo-scale or research) is being built in Darlington Canada, so SMRs are being deployed. > f) SMRs are too SMALL to replace existing coal gen, especially compared to the capacity of solar and wind farms, with offshore wind only just being started in AU This is why the Coalition plan proposed large reactors in addition to SMRs. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/feb/04/nuclear-power-liberal-coalition-energy-power-plan-details https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/feb/04/nucle...
- omegabravo 1y ago
  > One might say this is an advantage I'm baffled that anyone could propose this as a good thing. I've worked in industries that are supported - just smaller than the US and the price gouging is substantial. Parts will be designed for the US market, we need to adapt. Bonus points when buying incompatible European / US designs. Solar panels, batteries, and wind turbine have all the necessary ancillary parts in warehouses close to where they are needed. They also have all the expertise, the cranes, the transport regulations nailed down.

by rswail 1y ago

zozbot234 1y ago

> "baseload" is a misnomer, what is required is storage to cover periods when "the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow" "Storage" can't do that for more than smoothing out daily peaks. The only longer-term storage that matters when you look at the numbers is pumped hydro, and that's built out. That's why "baseload" is in fact quite relevant; it's way better to supply those critical needs via a highly reliable source.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
MrBuddyCasino 1y ago
One would think people would learn from the disastrous results of the German Energiewende, where this has already been tried, but no. The problem is that the issue of intermittent energy generation is unsolved. It is currently not feasible to use batteries for base load needs, it would be insanely expensive. Some day perhaps, but not yet. There was never a technically solid plan to solve this issue by the German Greens, just wishful thinking. They undertook this massive project without having the faintest clue about the underlying physics and financials, which is hard to believe but true. The overwhelming majority of green party members are from the humanities, not STEM. So you either have a lot of pumped hydro, in which case great, or you don’t, which is the case nearly everywhere but the nordics and perhaps Switzerland. Solar is much better than wind btw, wind is simply a costly mistake as it is a lot more intermittent than solar. The math doesn’t add up.
- energy123 1y ago
  > It is currently not feasible to use batteries for base load needs, it would be insanely expensive. The CSIRO report says that nuclear is almost 2x more expensive than renewables even after factoring in all costs of storage and interconnects. > Solar is much better than wind btw, wind is simply a costly mistake as it is a lot more intermittent than solar. That depends on the location. Insolation and seasonality vary depending on distance from the equator, among other factors. Also, solar and wind are negatively correlated on both seasonal scales and intraday scales, so it often makes sense to mix the two if you're in Europe, rather than pick a simple winner.
  - MrBuddyCasino 1y ago
    Unlike solar, power wind makes very little sense even if storage improves. This is true even in first principles so technological progress is unlikely to overcome these limitations.
    - energy123 1y ago
      I mean, you didn't address what I said, you just looped back to what you originally said.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      What's with the utterly uninformed takes on energy on HN? Wind makes extremely good sense and has been making good sense for 30 years or more now depending on where on the globe you are looking. There is a ton of FUD about it but it is practical, affordable, available and relatively fast to deploy. Moreover there is readily financing available to take care of the capex. There are 7 MW turbines deployed regularly https://www.enercon.de/en/turbines/e-175-ep5 https://www.enercon.de/en/turbines/e-175-ep5 And there are 10 MW turbines and higher on the drawing board. Offshore and onshore options are available.
      - MrBuddyCasino 1y ago
        > it is practical, affordable, available and relatively fast to deploy It is none of those things.
ZeroGravitas 1y ago
If you compare the combination of renewables and batteries to pumped hydro it loses badly. It's like pumped hydro with a very predictable rainstorm directly above it every day. You'd be able to get by with a much smaller reservoir.
myrmidon 1y ago
First, "providing baseload" is a privilege you enjoy if you are the unconditionally cheapest provider of electricity at all times, not something that anyone ever needs you to do. If you only need power for short periods of time when renewables are unavailable, then "constant output" plants like coal or nuclear are the last thing you want to build-- they are simply not worth it for the the short periods of time when renewables are down. You want simple, cheap powerplants instead that trade off higher fuel costs for low capex, and that is currently gas. You want cheap MW (max power) from those plants instead of cheap MWh (energy), basically.
- zozbot234 1y ago
  It's easy to be "unconditionally cheapest" when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. "Simple, cheap" power plants that burn a lot of expensive natural gas (or even worse, coal) are the current approach to that problem, which is not working very well. The point is to do better, and nuclear may be a very sensible choice since a single nuclear plant can replace a whole lot of natural gas peakers.
  - myrmidon 1y ago
    Nuclear power plants struggle with economics already at highest possible capacity factors (running 90% of the time). If they get undercut by renewables most of the time, there is simply no way they can stay competitive. Nuclear peaker plants are not ever gonna be a thing, because that makes no sense economically: High capex is the last thing you want for that usecase, and it implies that the economics for your plant have to stay decent for the next 30 years. Meanwhile batteries, solar and wind are still getting cheaper every year right now. This is the worst bet you could ever make as an investor. > nuclear may be a very sensible choice since a single nuclear plant can replace a whole lot of natural gas peakers. This argument does not help nuclear power if the equivalent number of gas plants is still cheaper than a single nuclear reactor (and built much faster).
    - weregiraffe 1y ago
      >Nuclear power plants struggle with economics already Because they are over-regulated. Why? Because of nucleophobia, which is fueled by fossil fuel producers.
willvarfar 1y ago
Can sand batteries work? Recent post on HN about use in Finland https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45112653 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45112653
- ezst 1y ago
  Isn't that to store energy as heat so you don't produce it by other means during winter? Seems to address a specific class of storage needs
- 2000UltraDeluxe 1y ago
  For district heating, sure. For electricity? Yes, in theory, but not at efficiencies that would make financial sense.
  - tcfhgj 1y ago
    do efficiencies matter that much when you don't need much and can "charge" with "free" energy?
    - bryanlarsen 1y ago
      Higher efficiency storage can outbid you for the "free" energy.
      - tcfhgj 1y ago
        perhaps, but the other way around is a possible scenario as well, because it may still be cheaper to have inefficient storage when the way you store the energy is expensive (e.g. some batteries may have very high efficiency, but you need difficult to obtain materials)
        bryanlarsen 1y ago
        LFP batteries are > 95% efficient and only use common elements.
crote 1y ago
But how often is it cloudy and windless for weeks at a time? And for those once-every-few-years scenarios, why shouldn't we build (far cheaper) carbon-captured natural gas peaker plants? Besides, you've got to keep in mind that we aren't going to be building for yearly-average kWh consumption. Companies will be building overcapacity to take advantage of high-demand/low-supply peak pricing. I don't think it is unlikely that we'll end up with a situation where PV on an overcast day is enough for "baseload", with the practically-free electricity on sunny/windy days opening up new economic opportunities.
- mkj 1y ago
  I agree generally, but is carbon-captured natural gas generation actually a thing? The only carbon capture I've heard of is at the gas production site removing CO2 from the reservoir gas and pumping it back underground - that's not after combustion. (And the pumping it back underground hasn't been particularly successful, eg https://www.boilingcold.com.au/regulator-limits-chevrons-troubled-gorgon-co2-injection-to-one-third-capacity/ https://www.boilingcold.com.au/regulator-limits-chevrons-tro... )
- throw0101a 1y ago
  > But how often is it cloudy and windless for weeks at a time? '“Energy Droughts” in Wind and Solar Can Last Nearly a Week, Research Shows': * https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/energy-droughts-wind-and-solar-can-last-nearly-week-research-shows https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/energy-droughts-wind-and-sol... See also: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute I think it would be location-dependent (low risk that (e.g.) the UK would be windless for long stretches of time, especially off the coast).
  - natmaka 1y ago
    Not at continental scale, and grids are or will soon be at this scale. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032115017013 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403211... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960148116308680 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09601... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148119302319#abs0010 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096014811...
pfdietz 1y ago
> "Storage" can't do that for more than smoothing out daily peaks. See the system described in the OP link at this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45012942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45012942 Long term literally dirt cheap thermal storage coupled with extreme cost optimized PV that would provide 600 C heat 365/24/7 for as little as $3/GJ, on par with combustion of inexpensive natural gas. Complementary with diurnal storage from batteries, this would be a complete solution to the renewable intermittency problem.
natmaka 1y ago
A typical car battery stores 60 kWh (the average capacity of models is increasing), so, charged during the day using inexpensive renewable electricity (particularly solar), it can power a household during one of the rare winter nights with insufficient wind. Case in point: France. A household consumes an average of 14 kWh of electricity per day. The capacity of electric cars will exceed 500 GWh before 2035 and 2000 GWh between 2040 and 2050. Trucks, utility vehicles, and stationary batteries (domestic and industrial) will add to this. Batteries from retired vehicles will increasingly be converted into static batteries before being recycled (see "Redwood Materials" in the US). In California, when the sun is at its peak (midday), solar power produces up to three-quarters of the electricity. Batteries are charged in the afternoon, when solar electricity is cheap, and released in the evening, when Californians return home. At their peak consumption, around 8 p.m., batteries can supply up to 30% of the state's electricity.
- tonyarkles 1y ago
  Just to clarify for anyone who's confused... that's an EV battery, not the 12V lead-acid that's in an ICE vehicle.
- ponector 1y ago
  >> A household consumes an average of 14 kWh of electricity per day. If there is a motivation, consumed amount for particular cloudy day could be 1\4 easily. Simply do the laundry, other energy intensive task next day.
  - camel_gopher 1y ago
    “Simply do the laundry, other energy intensive task next day.” lol the single life
gpm 1y ago
Baseload is quite irrelevant, because baseload also doesn't supply those critical needs. "Baseload" is by definition power production that can't follow the demand curve, and thus can't provide the power to keep the grid stable. It's as bad as solar and wind in this way, it's just that instead of having a fixed but variable supply curve it has a fixed but flat supply curve. What you want is dispatchable power. Gas peaker plants for instance. Or overbuilt solar + batteries. Not baseload.
adrian_b 1y ago
"Storage" can synthesize hydrocarbons, i.e. fuel, which can then be stored forever, until energy is needed. This was already possible by the time of WWII, but now there are many methods in development for reducing carbon dioxide by electrolysis, and then use the product to synthesize longer hydrocarbons, which have higher efficiency than the older methods. The round-trip efficiency of this will always be worse than for batteries, which remain a better option for short time storage, but synthesizing fuel will be a valid method for storing energy for the winter during the summer, and also for applications where batteries are unsuitable, like aircraft and spacecraft.
- trillic 1y ago
  We can also do things like desalinate water and pump it uphill when solar is plentiful and prices are negative. No need to get hydrocarbons involved. Creating fresh water and pumping it uphill to a reservoir that is uphill of a turbine would help solves two problems in Southern California.
tcfhgj 1y ago
you forgot gas

Neil44 1y ago

I guess the shear quantity of land that AU has available for solar and wind takes away a lot of the issues for you guys?

XorNot 1y ago
Well it all does absolutely nothing to store energy.
- dbetteridge 1y ago
  Ahem https://colliebattery.com.au/ https://colliebattery.com.au/
ZeroGravitas 1y ago
It's interesting that this country with all the spare land is also a world leader in rooftop solar. That rooftop solar is delivering the cheapest consumer electricity in history. Amazingly, the hardware costs and labor costs for rooftop solar are the same as the USA and sensible regulations around permitting and training have dropped the cost by 2/3rds.
pfdietz 1y ago
Land cost isn't a strong limit on renewables even in Europe.

energy123 1y ago

g) AU is very well suited for solar, due to the confluence of abundant desert making land-use a non-issue, high irradiance per m^2, low seasonality of irradiance, and large landmass which generates statistical diversification due to lower temporal coupling between plants.

ZeroGravitas 1y ago
This applies to where most of the human population live currently. People who don't live in such regions are likely to underestimate solutions that work well in these places.

aussieguy1234 1y ago

There's another Australian state, Tasmania that also runs on 100% renewables, mostly hydro. There are plans to export more of that power to other states.

0xy 1y ago
100% renewable until the dams dried up and they flew in diesel generators (worse than coal) to prop up the state, reversing several years of environmental progress. That event is illustrative of the fundamental problem here. Green energy proponents pretend it never happens and do not factor diesel emissions into the cost of hydro and other solutions. Another common way they mislead is by pretending that emissions from gas peaking plants are not inherently associated with solar and wind generating, even though they would not exist without them. It's a kind of sleight of hand or green washing that should be called out more frequently. 100% renewable does not exist. Not in '100% hydro' Tasmania or anywhere else.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  On unconnected islands. If Tasmania had the interconnects to export their power they could have reversed those to import solar from the mainland.
belorn 1y ago
Hydro is pretty great with a few caveats. Flooding remain a massive problem if there is a failure, as the world most deadliest power plant accident was a hydro power plant with a death toll between 26,000 to 240,000 people. An other major issue is the extinction of species, as is currently occurring in Europe and especially in the northern parts. There are technologies to allow for migrating fish to bypass hydro power plants without chopping them to bits, through the effectiveness of the bypass tend to work against the power output of the plant.

pjc50 1y ago

> AU home solar is world leading, with now a government subsidy available for home battery storage to soak up the midday peak, one state (SA) regularly runs on 100% renewables I feel we're going to keep seeing "solar doesn't work" posts in decades to come, long past when many areas of the world will already be on 100% renewables. It turns out that incremental deployment is a superpower. There's no longer any good reason for AU not to be at >100% solar at midday every single day. > SMRs do NOT exist in a commercially deployable way .. while this is more of a problem. I could jokingly say that SMRs are a conspiracy by Big Turbine to sell more turbines. Also don't forget the need for water cooling, which may be a critical problem in AU.

Perz1val 1y ago
In Poland we're seeing government slowly taking actions against people owning solar. Turns out, people were paying a lot in taxes for electricity and this money is now not present in the budget. Recent development is an incoming ban on energy storage beyond certain size. They want you to give energy basically for free to the grid during the day (when you're at work) and buy the energy from the grid during the night (charging cars). Electricity prices are not even that high now, bills are mostly some transfer fees. I imagine the same will be/is the case in all countries.

deleted 1y ago

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chickenbig 1y ago

> c) The problem for nuclear power in AU is doubled because there is no local infrastructure or engineering or industry for the nuclear fuel cycle One might say this is an advantage, with no home industry asking for local supply chains to be built up (at significant cost and risk). Solar panels, batteries and wind turbines are not generally made in Australia, right? For the fuel cycle, Urenco for enrichment, and Westinghouse or Orano for the uranium processing and fuel fabrication would be possible deals with allies. > e) SMRs do NOT exist in a commercially deployable way. There are any number of research and demo-scale possible SMRs, but none that are immediately able to be deployed SMRs are not the entirety of nuclear, and were not the entirety of the Coalition nuclear plan. Large reactors do exist and are being built around the world. Rosatom are able to do so (Egypt, Turkey, Bangladesh), KEPCO has done so in the UAE, and China is exporting to Pakistan. As an aside, a GE-Hitachi BWRX-300 first-of-a-kind (not demo-scale or research) is being built in Darlington Canada, so SMRs are being deployed. > f) SMRs are too SMALL to replace existing coal gen, especially compared to the capacity of solar and wind farms, with offshore wind only just being started in AU This is why the Coalition plan proposed large reactors in addition to SMRs. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/feb/04/nuclear-power-liberal-coalition-energy-power-plan-details https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/feb/04/nucle...

omegabravo 1y ago
> One might say this is an advantage I'm baffled that anyone could propose this as a good thing. I've worked in industries that are supported - just smaller than the US and the price gouging is substantial. Parts will be designed for the US market, we need to adapt. Bonus points when buying incompatible European / US designs. Solar panels, batteries, and wind turbine have all the necessary ancillary parts in warehouses close to where they are needed. They also have all the expertise, the cranes, the transport regulations nailed down.