91–100 of 204 posts
I don't see batteries being able to store the amount of power (for a practical battery lifetime to be cost effective) needed to make solar a practical primary electricity source.
If solar + storage comes out cheaper than alternatives, it wins. Period. The market will insure that. If you don't think it is possible, you need to lead with actual numbers to support your case, not just gut feelings.
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> and nuclear plants are shutting down a decade or more before official end-of-life, because they're losing major customers to cheaper alternatives that are available right now How? My understanding is that most of the cost of nuclear power comes from building the plant and decommissioning it. Running existing power plants for as long as they can seems like the most economical choice.
You are totally correct. US, France, Japan and UK all decided to extend the filetime of their nuclear power plants. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclearpower/u-s-to-e... Wind is cheap because when the wind blows, everybody is trying to sell their wind produced energy at the same time and the country often overproduces. In Germany, we even see negative prices when the wind blows; The price is low not because…
That's the best argument for the battery storage market I've seen yet... (And really, it makes sense. Generate surplus when the sun is shining or wind is especially strong, run from storage when demand exceeds supply, build both until there's enough. As long as the costs are less than current baseline systems, which seems possible, then it wins.)
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Don't get fooled by simple price comparison. It's comparing apples and oranges. Gas, nuclear, coal, reversible dams, geothermy... are all controllable energy sources: they produce when we need it. Wind and solar are intermittent. Equip fully the world with solar and wind and the trains will have to leave their stations when the wind blows and not at any other moment. What's happening is that countries migrating towar…
I suspect that if variable electricity pricing for consumers, a great deal of the need for "batteries" will evaporate. Heavy consumer electric uses (charging the car, HVAC, hot water) can easily be time shifted. It isn't time shifted today because consumer electricity rates are constant 24/7.
I'm interested in understanding how this will play out with the electrification of cars. As it stands now, the production and distribution infrastructure is mostly used for homes. But you could easily double your home's electric consumption with an electric car traveling just 10 miles per day. If we see a quick change in electric car adoption, our production and distribution systems are going to be massively strained…
>"The authors of the study say they analyzed the costs of construction, fuel and anticipated operations for 68 gigawatts of gas plants proposed across the U.S. They compared those costs to building a combination of solar farms, wind plants and battery systems that, together with conservation efforts, could supply the same amount of electricity and keep the grid stable." If the same amount of electricity is being supp…
That's not the only dodgy thing either. Their proposal generates substantial excess energy throughout most of the year. In order to improve its cost effectiveness, they assume that excess energy has a value of $15/KWh and subtract that income from the cost of the renewable program. The actual value of this energy is probably close to zero; remember, we're talking about energy that has gone unused even after substantial use of demand shifting and storage.
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Don't get fooled by simple price comparison. It's comparing apples and oranges. Gas, nuclear, coal, reversible dams, geothermy... are all controllable energy sources: they produce when we need it. Wind and solar are intermittent. Equip fully the world with solar and wind and the trains will have to leave their stations when the wind blows and not at any other moment. What's happening is that countries migrating towar…
I suspect that if variable electricity pricing for consumers, a great deal of the need for "batteries" will evaporate. Heavy consumer electric uses (charging the car, HVAC, hot water) can easily be time shifted. It isn't time shifted today because consumer electricity rates are constant 24/7.
Some time, in not so distant future, we will have abundant, almost infinite, almost free, renewable energy. We will forget what an energy bill is, because administration overhead will be higher than the price of the energy itself. It will just be an inconspicuous tiny item on the city taxes. And we won't think it's amazing. We'll take it for granted. It will become new normal. Just like now we don't remember any more…
And at that point in time, in a cloudy night, the wind will stop blowing. And the lights will go dark.
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Improved stargazing and no more blackout curtains? Sign me up. :-)
Hahaha. Maybe by that time we will take it so for granted that time-out periods so we can see the stars better will be socialized. I still remember the blackout of 2003 rather fondly... Probably not, though...
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This assumes that we keep supply and demand pricing models mismatched. The current "fixed price 24/7" model is not set in stone. AC/heating, EV charging, many industrial processes can shift demand and make good forecasts about how flexible their demand is vs average intra-day variation in electricity prices.
I don't have a lot of hope for people changing their behaviour based on time of day pricing. Sure aluminum smelters etc might have to flag it for a day once every 5 years but they do that currently because there isn't enough power for everyone so please help us out and shutdown for a day instead cause we are going to dump you anyway because we have to decide between giving you power or this other major load such as a…
Are you honestly trying to argue it doesn't have any effect? "What day of the week is best to fill your tank" is like an age-old question. Obviously within reason. Not if your tank is empty and you have to be somewhere. Less so for people who think this to be beneath them. And probably also less so in places with cheap fuel (US i hear?). But it certainly changes behavior and is a good & easy first step.