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The world's biggest industrial economy, China, installed about 300x more renewable energy than nuclear last year. New nuclear sucks, and baseload is a false con

The world's biggest industrial economy, China, installed about 300x more renewable energy than nuclear last year. New nuclear sucks, and baseload is a false concept that can (and is) being synthetically replicated with over-building + storage + transmission + peaking.

UltraSane 7mo ago
Firm/dispatchable capacity that can run for arbitrary durations is required unless you've solved seasonal storage. https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30386-6 https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30386-6 Firm low-carbon resources consistently lower decarbonized electricity system costs • Availability of firm low-carbon resources reduces costs 10%–62% in zero-CO2 cases • Without these resources, electricity costs rise rapidly as CO2 limits near zero • Batteries and demand flexibility do not substitute for firm low-carbon resources
- energy123 7mo ago
  The solution mix needs to be tailored the location. Non-tropical equatorial countries don't have meaningful seasonality, so they don't need seasonal storage. For countries far north of the equator, it's more challenging, but there are multiple tools to address this, including: over-building so you have enough in winter, using wind which is seasonally negatively correlated with solar, importing power over HVDC, and diversifying wind spatially to reduce correlations which drop more than linearly in distance. For small countries very far away from the equator that have highly variable insolation and limited geography to decorrelate, nuclear may be better. But it cannot be asserted a priori without a simulation study tailored to the specifics of that location. When I said that nuclear is bad, I am talking in generalities about the common case (United States) at current market prices. The paper that you linked is old, we are dealing with exponential change in the price of storage and solar.
  - UltraSane 7mo ago
    "over-building so you have enough in winter" This makes wind and solar much more expensive to the point where nuclear is cheaper. " we are dealing with exponential change in the price of storage and solar." But not in grid storage. That is still incredibly expensive.
    - energy123 7mo ago
      > "over-building so you have enough in winter" This makes wind and solar much more expensive to the point where nuclear is cheaper. No it doesn't. Why do you just say that? There are simulation studies like CSIRO's work which show that it's still cheaper than nuclear after you account for everything.
    - gpm 7mo ago
      > But not in grid storage. That is still incredibly expensive. The price of grid storage is absolutely falling exponentially with respect to time.
      - UltraSane 7mo ago
        Please provide proof
        gpm 7mo ago
        See the first graph on this page for example: https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline
        nradov 7mo ago
        Batteries are only one of many inputs needed for grid storage.
        gpm 7mo ago
        Batteries utterly dominate the cost of grid storage... everything else is a rounding error. You're welcome to go find your own data of course, you'll struggle to find more direct numbers because significant grid storage has only become affordable in the last few years.
ambicapter 7mo ago
How is base load a false concept?
- gpm 7mo ago
  Base load is marketing term for electricity supply which cannot economically follow the demand curve and is only affordable if you can use a constant supply of it. It's not a feature, it's a bug. What you want is dispatchable power. The term vaguely makes sense if there are sources of electricity that output a constant supply that are cheaper than the dispatchable sources of power. Like nuclear was supposed to be (but in the end is not). Or in some very specific locations hydro (without a reservoir) and geothermal are. But as often bandied about as a "type of power that must be filled" it simply doesn't exist. The type of power that must be filled is dispatachable power, everything else is just "well what cheap non-dispatchable sources can we use to avoid using more expensive dispatchable power".
  - nradov 7mo ago
    Base load is a feature, not a bug. Companies planning new industrial facilities need long-term guarantees of reliable 24×7 power with predictable rates. Otherwise they'll build elsewhere. Dispatchable power doesn't help them.
    - gpm 7mo ago
      Base load power cannot provide predictable rates because it provides a fixed amount of power that the market then bids on. If there's too much demand rates go up arbitrarily high. If there's too little rates go to zero. Dispatchable power is the only sort of power that provides 24x7 power with predictable rates. If there's more demand, you produce more power (at the same cost). If there's less, you produce less so you can sell what you do produce at the same cost.
      - bluGill 7mo ago
        Base load provides predictable cheap power at night. Which is why heavy industry runs third shift only (only rare industy is this way), and shuts down for maintenance in december (christman lights). Now that wind is cheap they are changing shifts because nobody wants to work third shift if they don't have to.
AnthonyMouse 7mo ago
> The world's biggest industrial economy, China, installed about 300x more renewable energy than nuclear last year. Comparing nameplate capacity for generation methods with much different capacity factors is misleading. China generates the majority of its electricity from coal, and is still adding more. They're adding more in renewables than coal by nameplate capacity, but coal likewise has a higher capacity factor than renewables, so it's really about the same. Then they say "increasing the proportion of renewables" because the initial proportion of renewables was close to 0. Coal is a baseload source but not one you actually want to use.
- energy123 7mo ago
  Coal in China is decreasing, peaked last year
  - AnthonyMouse 7mo ago
    It declined slightly (-1.6%) last year in significant part because the winter was warmer than average resulting in lower heating demand. They've had year over year declines like that in the past (there was a larger one in 2015) so it's too early to tell if it'll stick, and they're starting from such a massive proportion of coal "basically standing still" numbers like that aren't going to move the needle for a long time.

UltraSane 7mo ago

Firm/dispatchable capacity that can run for arbitrary durations is required unless you've solved seasonal storage. https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30386-6 https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30386-6 Firm low-carbon resources consistently lower decarbonized electricity system costs • Availability of firm low-carbon resources reduces costs 10%–62% in zero-CO2 cases • Without these resources, electricity costs rise rapidly as CO2 limits near zero • Batteries and demand flexibility do not substitute for firm low-carbon resources

energy123 7mo ago
The solution mix needs to be tailored the location. Non-tropical equatorial countries don't have meaningful seasonality, so they don't need seasonal storage. For countries far north of the equator, it's more challenging, but there are multiple tools to address this, including: over-building so you have enough in winter, using wind which is seasonally negatively correlated with solar, importing power over HVDC, and diversifying wind spatially to reduce correlations which drop more than linearly in distance. For small countries very far away from the equator that have highly variable insolation and limited geography to decorrelate, nuclear may be better. But it cannot be asserted a priori without a simulation study tailored to the specifics of that location. When I said that nuclear is bad, I am talking in generalities about the common case (United States) at current market prices. The paper that you linked is old, we are dealing with exponential change in the price of storage and solar.
- UltraSane 7mo ago
  "over-building so you have enough in winter" This makes wind and solar much more expensive to the point where nuclear is cheaper. " we are dealing with exponential change in the price of storage and solar." But not in grid storage. That is still incredibly expensive.
  - energy123 7mo ago
    > "over-building so you have enough in winter" This makes wind and solar much more expensive to the point where nuclear is cheaper. No it doesn't. Why do you just say that? There are simulation studies like CSIRO's work which show that it's still cheaper than nuclear after you account for everything.
  - gpm 7mo ago
    > But not in grid storage. That is still incredibly expensive. The price of grid storage is absolutely falling exponentially with respect to time.
    - UltraSane 7mo ago
      Please provide proof
      - gpm 7mo ago
        See the first graph on this page for example: https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline
        nradov 7mo ago
        Batteries are only one of many inputs needed for grid storage.
        gpm 7mo ago
        Batteries utterly dominate the cost of grid storage... everything else is a rounding error. You're welcome to go find your own data of course, you'll struggle to find more direct numbers because significant grid storage has only become affordable in the last few years.

ambicapter 7mo ago

How is base load a false concept?

gpm 7mo ago
Base load is marketing term for electricity supply which cannot economically follow the demand curve and is only affordable if you can use a constant supply of it. It's not a feature, it's a bug. What you want is dispatchable power. The term vaguely makes sense if there are sources of electricity that output a constant supply that are cheaper than the dispatchable sources of power. Like nuclear was supposed to be (but in the end is not). Or in some very specific locations hydro (without a reservoir) and geothermal are. But as often bandied about as a "type of power that must be filled" it simply doesn't exist. The type of power that must be filled is dispatachable power, everything else is just "well what cheap non-dispatchable sources can we use to avoid using more expensive dispatchable power".
- nradov 7mo ago
  Base load is a feature, not a bug. Companies planning new industrial facilities need long-term guarantees of reliable 24×7 power with predictable rates. Otherwise they'll build elsewhere. Dispatchable power doesn't help them.
  - gpm 7mo ago
    Base load power cannot provide predictable rates because it provides a fixed amount of power that the market then bids on. If there's too much demand rates go up arbitrarily high. If there's too little rates go to zero. Dispatchable power is the only sort of power that provides 24x7 power with predictable rates. If there's more demand, you produce more power (at the same cost). If there's less, you produce less so you can sell what you do produce at the same cost.
    - bluGill 7mo ago
      Base load provides predictable cheap power at night. Which is why heavy industry runs third shift only (only rare industy is this way), and shuts down for maintenance in december (christman lights). Now that wind is cheap they are changing shifts because nobody wants to work third shift if they don't have to.

AnthonyMouse 7mo ago

> The world's biggest industrial economy, China, installed about 300x more renewable energy than nuclear last year. Comparing nameplate capacity for generation methods with much different capacity factors is misleading. China generates the majority of its electricity from coal, and is still adding more. They're adding more in renewables than coal by nameplate capacity, but coal likewise has a higher capacity factor than renewables, so it's really about the same. Then they say "increasing the proportion of renewables" because the initial proportion of renewables was close to 0. Coal is a baseload source but not one you actually want to use.

energy123 7mo ago
Coal in China is decreasing, peaked last year
- AnthonyMouse 7mo ago
  It declined slightly (-1.6%) last year in significant part because the winter was warmer than average resulting in lower heating demand. They've had year over year declines like that in the past (there was a larger one in 2015) so it's too early to tell if it'll stick, and they're starting from such a massive proportion of coal "basically standing still" numbers like that aren't going to move the needle for a long time.