5 ms·

> How do you square that with the fact that the grid is operating just fine with this stuff already? Simple every grid in the united states has enough reliabl

> How do you square that with the fact that the grid is operating just fine with this stuff already? Simple every grid in the united states has enough reliable generation capacity to take up the slack when solar fails. But that means the cost of building all those natural gas peaker plants is part of the cost of solar (it's never included in the LCOE).

mikestorrent 1y ago
This is what we're hoping battery-style plants will supplant. I say "battery-style" because it turns out that filling a tank with compressed air, lifting a heavy weight with a crane, or pumping water up into a lake all have excellent energy storage potential while not requiring any kind of esoteric matter or construction techniques. It does remain to be seen if such activities can be profitable or not - but if you're effectively buying power when it's cheap / free / paid to take it, and you're selling it when it isn't, it should be possible....
- buckle8017 1y ago
  The only large scale energy storage system im aware of that is also cost effective is pumped hydro. However pumped hydro is shall we say extremely environmentally bad. Like casually remove a mountain bad
  - hvb2 1y ago
    Norway disagrees, it depends on your environment
  - mikestorrent 1y ago
    I suppose it depends where you're doing it. Makes most sense to do these things where natural formations do 99% of the construction and you just build a dam. Honestly, we probably need to do a lot more damming to keep more fresh water in - we lose so much of it to the ocean where it becomes useless salt trash...
    - buckle8017 1y ago
      Virtually all the practical and politically acceptable locations for dams already have one. At least in western countries. There's lots of potential in developing countries.
  - pfdietz 1y ago
    What's the environmental downside of off-river pumped hydro?
    - buckle8017 1y ago
      To scale it up requires building very large impoundments of water, typically on the top of a mountain by removing the top of the mountain. Think artificial volcano shape with a tube in the middle.
      - pfdietz 1y ago
        The reservoirs need not be that large, at least for diurnal storage. Look at the illustration for this 1000 MW, 8 hour project: https://www.whitepinepumpedstorage.com/ https://www.whitepinepumpedstorage.com/
        buckle8017 1y ago
        For solar the storage really need to be seasonal. Think 100 million times the size of that project. 24/8 * 100days * 330000Mw
        pfdietz 1y ago
        Pumped hydro is not appropriate for seasonal storage. It's not an environmental issue, it's a capital cost issue. The capex per kWh of storage capacity is two orders of magnitude too high. See the comparison tables at https://www.orcasciences.com/articles/standard-thermal-copy https://www.orcasciences.com/articles/standard-thermal-copy
        buckle8017 1y ago
        Well yes, but nothing is appropriate. That's why we still burn natural gas all winter instead of storing solar.
        1y ago
- lambdaone 1y ago
  Lifting heavy weights with a crane (or up a hill with a train) is unfortunately a very expensive way to store energy compared with pumped-storage hydroelectricity, which does effectively the same thing but with far lower cost and greater scalability. This can be seen from the fact that while lifted weight storage is ridiculously easy to build with existing technology - it's a train or a crane, after all! - it has never caught on as an economically fieldable system, whereas pumped-storage hydro has wide adoption.
hvb2 1y ago
> But that means the cost of building all those natural gas peaker plants is part of the cost of solar (it's never included in the LCOE). This is a weird position to take. How would you price out nuclear then? As that cannot respond to changes in demand quickly either? Should every power source's cost have some gas tacked on to it? Or can we just assume that for now we have a mix of sources where different sources have different pros and cons. And as said in many other places here, fossils don't have their externalities priced in either. I wouldn't be surprised if future generations scold us for burning so much natural gas that can also be used for many other things than burning
- Leherenn 1y ago
  Not the GP, but I think it's fairly reasonable, yes. Ultimately, what we care about, from a grid policy perspective, is the cost to provide 99% (or whatever) guaranteed 24/7/365 power. Each energy source will have its own challenges in order to do that, and for solar availablity it clearly one of them. And yes, externalities should be factored in. > Or can we just assume that for now we have a mix of sources where different sources have different pros and cons. Of course, but the question is: what is the right mix for the right place. And saying "solar + storage" is cheaper than gas means very different things if it can only guarantee 60% availability like in England, or 95+% in the sunniest regions of the world. The figures reported here come from (among others) Lazard' LCOE analysis. (https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024-_vf.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-...) If you have a look at how it's calculated, "solar + storage" only has enough storage for 4h for instance. You cannot really meaningfully compare it directly with nuclear which is much more reliable in itself. What LCOE says is that the system will produce X amount of energy at cost of Y. It says nothing about when that energy will be produced. An energy source that produces 365 MWh on January 1st only, and another that produces 1 MWh every day, for the same cost, will have the same LCOE. The latter is, provided you can scale it, much more useful in practice. Look, I'm not saying that solar is bad or we shouldn't do it. It's just that the "solar is cheap" thing which is regularly reported is a bit misleading. We've heard it for years now, and yet electricity prices around the world are mostly increasing. Clearly there's a mismatch, but where does it come from? And I think part of the reason is that the "ancillary" costs of solar have been underestimated. Sure, the energy straight out of the panel is very cheap, but if you need 10s of billions in grid upgrades and storage/backup to make it work in practice, then it should definitely be included in the comparison! Just like the externalities of fossil fuels should be.
epistasis 1y ago
> (it's never included in the LCOE). Right, because that would change the definition of LCOE. And you are right that it's important, and there are other terms to look for, as LACE, which EIA has been putting out for a long time. And Lazard's energy reports: https://www.lazard.com/news-announcements/lazard-releases-2025-levelized-cost-of-energyplus-report-pr/ https://www.lazard.com/news-announcements/lazard-releases-20... have an entire section on "Cost of firming intermittency" where it estimates costs based on each region of the US.
- buckle8017 1y ago
  Thank you for this link. This is the first time I've seen serious discussion about "firming intermittent" power sources. I'm not sure I agree with the numbers from the various ISOs but it's still an excellent starting point.

mikestorrent 1y ago

This is what we're hoping battery-style plants will supplant. I say "battery-style" because it turns out that filling a tank with compressed air, lifting a heavy weight with a crane, or pumping water up into a lake all have excellent energy storage potential while not requiring any kind of esoteric matter or construction techniques. It does remain to be seen if such activities can be profitable or not - but if you're effectively buying power when it's cheap / free / paid to take it, and you're selling it when it isn't, it should be possible....

buckle8017 1y ago
The only large scale energy storage system im aware of that is also cost effective is pumped hydro. However pumped hydro is shall we say extremely environmentally bad. Like casually remove a mountain bad
- hvb2 1y ago
  Norway disagrees, it depends on your environment
- mikestorrent 1y ago
  I suppose it depends where you're doing it. Makes most sense to do these things where natural formations do 99% of the construction and you just build a dam. Honestly, we probably need to do a lot more damming to keep more fresh water in - we lose so much of it to the ocean where it becomes useless salt trash...
  - buckle8017 1y ago
    Virtually all the practical and politically acceptable locations for dams already have one. At least in western countries. There's lots of potential in developing countries.
- pfdietz 1y ago
  What's the environmental downside of off-river pumped hydro?
  - buckle8017 1y ago
    To scale it up requires building very large impoundments of water, typically on the top of a mountain by removing the top of the mountain. Think artificial volcano shape with a tube in the middle.
    - pfdietz 1y ago
      The reservoirs need not be that large, at least for diurnal storage. Look at the illustration for this 1000 MW, 8 hour project: https://www.whitepinepumpedstorage.com/ https://www.whitepinepumpedstorage.com/
      - buckle8017 1y ago
        For solar the storage really need to be seasonal. Think 100 million times the size of that project. 24/8 * 100days * 330000Mw
        pfdietz 1y ago
        Pumped hydro is not appropriate for seasonal storage. It's not an environmental issue, it's a capital cost issue. The capex per kWh of storage capacity is two orders of magnitude too high. See the comparison tables at https://www.orcasciences.com/articles/standard-thermal-copy https://www.orcasciences.com/articles/standard-thermal-copy
        buckle8017 1y ago
        Well yes, but nothing is appropriate. That's why we still burn natural gas all winter instead of storing solar.
        1y ago
lambdaone 1y ago
Lifting heavy weights with a crane (or up a hill with a train) is unfortunately a very expensive way to store energy compared with pumped-storage hydroelectricity, which does effectively the same thing but with far lower cost and greater scalability. This can be seen from the fact that while lifted weight storage is ridiculously easy to build with existing technology - it's a train or a crane, after all! - it has never caught on as an economically fieldable system, whereas pumped-storage hydro has wide adoption.

hvb2 1y ago

> But that means the cost of building all those natural gas peaker plants is part of the cost of solar (it's never included in the LCOE). This is a weird position to take. How would you price out nuclear then? As that cannot respond to changes in demand quickly either? Should every power source's cost have some gas tacked on to it? Or can we just assume that for now we have a mix of sources where different sources have different pros and cons. And as said in many other places here, fossils don't have their externalities priced in either. I wouldn't be surprised if future generations scold us for burning so much natural gas that can also be used for many other things than burning

Leherenn 1y ago
Not the GP, but I think it's fairly reasonable, yes. Ultimately, what we care about, from a grid policy perspective, is the cost to provide 99% (or whatever) guaranteed 24/7/365 power. Each energy source will have its own challenges in order to do that, and for solar availablity it clearly one of them. And yes, externalities should be factored in. > Or can we just assume that for now we have a mix of sources where different sources have different pros and cons. Of course, but the question is: what is the right mix for the right place. And saying "solar + storage" is cheaper than gas means very different things if it can only guarantee 60% availability like in England, or 95+% in the sunniest regions of the world. The figures reported here come from (among others) Lazard' LCOE analysis. (https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024-_vf.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-...) If you have a look at how it's calculated, "solar + storage" only has enough storage for 4h for instance. You cannot really meaningfully compare it directly with nuclear which is much more reliable in itself. What LCOE says is that the system will produce X amount of energy at cost of Y. It says nothing about when that energy will be produced. An energy source that produces 365 MWh on January 1st only, and another that produces 1 MWh every day, for the same cost, will have the same LCOE. The latter is, provided you can scale it, much more useful in practice. Look, I'm not saying that solar is bad or we shouldn't do it. It's just that the "solar is cheap" thing which is regularly reported is a bit misleading. We've heard it for years now, and yet electricity prices around the world are mostly increasing. Clearly there's a mismatch, but where does it come from? And I think part of the reason is that the "ancillary" costs of solar have been underestimated. Sure, the energy straight out of the panel is very cheap, but if you need 10s of billions in grid upgrades and storage/backup to make it work in practice, then it should definitely be included in the comparison! Just like the externalities of fossil fuels should be.

epistasis 1y ago

> (it's never included in the LCOE). Right, because that would change the definition of LCOE. And you are right that it's important, and there are other terms to look for, as LACE, which EIA has been putting out for a long time. And Lazard's energy reports: https://www.lazard.com/news-announcements/lazard-releases-2025-levelized-cost-of-energyplus-report-pr/ https://www.lazard.com/news-announcements/lazard-releases-20... have an entire section on "Cost of firming intermittency" where it estimates costs based on each region of the US.

buckle8017 1y ago
Thank you for this link. This is the first time I've seen serious discussion about "firming intermittent" power sources. I'm not sure I agree with the numbers from the various ISOs but it's still an excellent starting point.