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Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

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Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#31

Post by jerven »

rjmunro wrote: post #18

How are they going to balance supply from solar (which peaks at midday, and goes away entirely at night) with demand (which usually peaks in the evening)?

Same way anyone else will. Displacing demand to easier times. If most demand is aircon based then moving it to pre-cooling (make ice during day/defrost during evening) etc... and economics will do that for the largest consumers.

A bit of storage, and peaker plants. Storage kinds do not really mater as it is all about what is locally price efficient.

Otherwise, it is the same as the nuclear case. Production does not match demand curve so fix it with storage, pricing and other tools. (i.e. if nuclear is baseload something else needs to produce when demand peeks, which in other words makes it rather similar in practice (see also why all the pumped storage in the UK was build in the 60-80's))

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#32

Post by realusername »

jerven wrote: post #30
pjc50 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.. assuming the nuclear plant got built on time and on budget.

Exactly, considering the nuclear power plants where a vague promise from 2007 to have a nuclear power plant at all. A promise that has now been revoked. Now let's see if solar can meet it's promises.

I would be surprised if they changed their mind, 3% in 12 years is already not much so that's definitely achievable.

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#33

Post by addicted »

pg_bot wrote: post #26

I think the greatest irony of our age is the progression of climate change due to environmentalists protesting against the development of nuclear power. While nuclear power admittedly has risks, the tradeoffs are clearly worth making if you look at emissions and deaths per megawatt hour. We didn't curtail energy demand, and future generations will pay the price for using fossil fuels instead of nuclear.

Nuclear hasn’t suffered because of environmentalists protesting.

Nuclear has suffered because it is expensive and uneconomical. The only way it is even feasible is by having laws that protect the owners from liabilities caused due to catastrophic failure.

Blaming environmentalists gives them way more power than they possess. Environmentalists have struggled to even stop pipelines running through the US whose sole purpose is to make Canada richer. Far more than environmentalists it’s NIMBY folks who have affected nuclear (but still not as much as basic economics).

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#34

Post by rsynnott »

pastullo wrote: post #16

i'm sad to see a decline of nuclear energy everywhere in the world. While renewables are the end goal, nuclear was gonna be the perfect transition source for the next decades, providing emission-free and continuous energy to the grid. I have the bad feeling that cancelling a nuclear power plant, means building coal/gas plants in its place. This article actually mention the renewaleble goal of Vietnam which are really…

Fukushima was the worst possible timing; it's a very hard sell now.

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#35

Post by sgift »

Brakenshire wrote: post #13
ForHackernews wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no political or economic will. It won't happen.

It all depends on economics, people will switch if the new technologies are cheaper, or if they face tariffs for not doing their part.

If the west tariffs developing countries there will be an outcry over neocolonialism and forcing the poor countries to our will and whatever.

The only thing the west is allowed to do is putting money into developing countries without any guarantees and hope they do something useful with it. It's frustrating.

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#36

Post by nottoberudebut »

pg_bot wrote: post #26

I think the greatest irony of our age is the progression of climate change due to environmentalists protesting against the development of nuclear power. While nuclear power admittedly has risks, the tradeoffs are clearly worth making if you look at emissions and deaths per megawatt hour. We didn't curtail energy demand, and future generations will pay the price for using fossil fuels instead of nuclear.

> and future generations will pay the price for using fossil fuels instead of nuclear

IMO this is pretty short-sighted and ironic in itself - I really don't think future generations will be thankful that we left them huge chunks of radioactive waste.

All the pro-nuclear folks seem to miss another important thing - uranium isn't growing on trees, the mining is probably as destructive as coal mining, and the worldwide supply is finite - we simply couldn't mine enough uranium to power the entire world for a long time.

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#37

Post by Nasrudith »

realusername wrote: post #6
adrianN wrote: post #5

So they want to be ~20% carbon free in thirty years? That is not a very ambitious goal. Especially if you consider that they want to increase the amount of energy produced from coal from ~30% in 2015 to ~50% until 2030. [1] [1] https://news.mongabay.com/2017/05/vietnam-makes-a-big-push-f...

Yeah that's what I got from the article. > Currently solar power only accounts for 0.01 per cent of total power generation capacity in Vietnam, but the government plans to increase the ratio to 3.3 per cent by 2030 and 20 per cent by 2050. This is not very impressive, they plan to add 3.3% solar in the next 12 years, I don't find that revolutionary at the moment.

I wonder how the math works out in terms of mass photovolatics and some sort of night power solution (sufficent wind, pumped storage, or other) vs an expensive nuclear plant at this point.

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#38

Post by ceejayoz »

baybal2 wrote: post #12

Nuclear is too expensive, and small nuclear is even more so, but one has to remember that nothing can replace atomic energy as the closest one to ideal, flawless power source.

"Too expensive" seems like a flaw, as does radioactive waste.

(Unless you're counting solar as a form of nuclear energy.)

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#39

Post by cageface »

realusername wrote: post #9
MyticMoon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

having them moved away from that nuclear power plant is a big relief for Vietnamese people already. This is still a huge leap, I would say. Basically, they are just following what China is doing (slowly) so if renewable energy could make a huge impact in China, they might accelerate the program.

> having them moved away from that nuclear power plant is a big relief for Vietnamese people already. Why so exactly? It would have massively reduced emissions to have that nuclear power plant, now instead you have a vague promise they put on 2050, purposely far enough that it does not bind the government to anything.

Vietnam doesn't have a good track record on public infrastructure projects. Due to corruption and cronyism they have a hard time even building roads to spec. The prospect of running a nuclear reactor in that environment is horrifying.

Re: Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved

#40

Post by realusername »

Nasrudith wrote: post #37
realusername wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's what I got from the article. > Currently solar power only accounts for 0.01 per cent of total power generation capacity in Vietnam, but the government plans to increase the ratio to 3.3 per cent by 2030 and 20 per cent by 2050. This is not very impressive, they plan to add 3.3% solar in the next 12 years, I don't find that revolutionary at the moment.

I wonder how the math works out in terms of mass photovolatics and some sort of night power solution (sufficent wind, pumped storage, or other) vs an expensive nuclear plant at this point.

What I meant with my comment is I suspect they don't consider solar seriously either, it might just be a PR issue. 3% in 12 years is seriously not much.
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