Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 364 posts

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#331

Post by clomond »

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #327
clomond wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if I missed it but didn’t see anything in your source to back up this 7 years worth of battery production requirement for what the US needs in stationary storage. Without seeing how we got to the number, I’m skeptical. Things worth considering: 1) decommissioned battery packs from electric cars will eventually have 2nd lives on the grid 2) the manufacturing capacity of li-ion globally today is paltry compare…

> Not sure if I missed it but didn’t see anything in your source to back up this 7 years worth of battery production requirement for what the US needs in stationary storage. The source is a curve of projected battery production. You take the integral of the curve. The US consumes 4TWh of electricity per day. 3 days of storage is 12 TWh. The 3 day capacity estimate already includes solar and wind generation complement…

Thanks for the reply, Manfredo.

Apologies for not clearly stating that what I wanted to know was not how you did your math, but your source/the modelling behind the '3 days of storage' number which I didn't see in your source.

The points in my previous reply were all in questioning the need for everywhere to have '3 days of energy storage' in order for us to significantly decarbonize. While it might represent a theoretical metric based on the state of the world today, I am doubtful it includes the points I mentioned, particularly demand response and continent wide grids connected with HVDC transmission lines (both of which are under discussions in various parts of the world).

Additionally, the same principle applies with a server/service uptime reaching 100%. Realistically, we talk about 'how many 9s'. 99% uptime is much easier than 99.999%. Pushing the last 10% of fossil fuels off our grid will be hard, and the last 1% even harder, 0.1% etc as you start covering all the edge cases until we get to 100%. Probably will not get to 100% in our lifetimes. But I'd bet that we will get to 80% and maybe even 90% much faster than what status quo projects.

Using Germany and California as an example, where many of my points above do not apply (and they are still able to get to 50% renewable generation) I view as a good sign. Neither grid has a particularly large amount of installed storage, connectedness to other grids or integrated demand response either. Getting the world to even 80% renewables will require no-where near the '3 days of storage', particularly as other tech (like storing energy as heat in blocks when there is excess energy) becomes viable in this decade. Many parts of the world have less than single digit penetration of renewables today - we have lots of room to go.

Additionally, solar's cost is declining quickly (disclaimer & note: I am in the solar industry and see these cost declines continuing apace) and have seen first hand people starting to 'overbuild' their solar sites. Factor overbuilt solar, and that it has a unique property of 'predictability' (you KNOW for sure the sun will rise tomorrow, you don't know if it will be windy at all in the next 2 weeks). Given that even a very cloudy day can still generate a large fraction of the peak energy capacity - any excess can be curtailed until that capacity can find somewhere valuable to go as the grids and other energy storage tech beyond li-ion evolves.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#332

Post by winrid »

manfredo wrote: post #312
winrid wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that we can build something that will last a billion years is mind boggling, and I'll admit I have my doubts. https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Internationa... They don't seem to define "specific conditions" in this article. Also, tried to get a non-amp link and failed...

It doesn't need to last a billion years. Within 10-50 thousand years the uranium is no more radioactive that uranium that was never used in fuel. Sure, uranium is still a toxic heavy metal. But you do understand where this uranium came from before it was used as fuel?

Good clarification, thanks!

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#333

Post by Hypx »

macspoofing wrote: post #307
pfdietz wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is clear is that wind and solar cannot create a fossil-fuel-free grid because both wind and solar need base-load backup That does not prevent wind and solar from providing an all renewable grid. And as I explained, for plausible near term costs figures, dealing with intermittency via proper system design makes the all-renewable grid cheaper than one including nuclear. That the backup "today, is natural gas" is…

>That does not prevent wind and solar from providing an all-renewable grid. Yes, it does. Which part of "there is no alternative to natural gas for base-load" are you purposely ignoring? >That the backup "today, is natural gas" is not relevant to that question. It is if there is no path past natural gas. What if there is no other alternative? What if there is no path past natural gas. What if natural gas is not an in…

Hydrogen can be stored underground in the form of salt caverns or domes. According to this: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/201910.0187/v1

The storage capacity is 84.8 PWh-H2 in Europe across all known formations. This is a very large number and likely far exceeds demand. It's safe to say we will not struggle with hydrogen storage if or when we need it.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#334

Post by pfdietz »

macspoofing wrote: post #307
pfdietz wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is clear is that wind and solar cannot create a fossil-fuel-free grid because both wind and solar need base-load backup That does not prevent wind and solar from providing an all renewable grid. And as I explained, for plausible near term costs figures, dealing with intermittency via proper system design makes the all-renewable grid cheaper than one including nuclear. That the backup "today, is natural gas" is…

>That does not prevent wind and solar from providing an all-renewable grid. Yes, it does. Which part of "there is no alternative to natural gas for base-load" are you purposely ignoring? >That the backup "today, is natural gas" is not relevant to that question. It is if there is no path past natural gas. What if there is no other alternative? What if there is no path past natural gas. What if natural gas is not an in…

> Yes, it does. Which part of "there is no alternative to natural gas for base-load" are you purposely ignoring?

I'm not ignoring it. I'm telling you it's false. I've pointed out to you how one can design a 100% renewable grid without natural gas. You believe something that's just not so.

It's not possible to have an intelligent conversation with you when you're the moral equivalent of a Flat Earther.

As pointed out below, hydrogen would not be stored in containers, but rather underground, as natural gas already is.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#335

Post by pfdietz »

Hypx wrote: post #333
macspoofing wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That does not prevent wind and solar from providing an all-renewable grid. Yes, it does. Which part of "there is no alternative to natural gas for base-load" are you purposely ignoring? >That the backup "today, is natural gas" is not relevant to that question. It is if there is no path past natural gas. What if there is no other alternative? What if there is no path past natural gas. What if natural gas is not an in…

Hydrogen can be stored underground in the form of salt caverns or domes. According to this: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/201910.0187/v1 The storage capacity is 84.8 PWh-H2 in Europe across all known formations. This is a very large number and likely far exceeds demand. It's safe to say we will not struggle with hydrogen storage if or when we need it.

In particular, the optimum solution for a steady supply of renewable power for Germany (from https://model.energy) for their current average grid power demand would involve about 0.1% of this as hydrogen storage.

And that's just salt caverns. Hydrogen can also be stored in aquifers and spent oil fields.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#336

Post by [deleted] »

clomond wrote: post #331
Manfredo_1 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure if I missed it but didn’t see anything in your source to back up this 7 years worth of battery production requirement for what the US needs in stationary storage. The source is a curve of projected battery production. You take the integral of the curve. The US consumes 4TWh of electricity per day. 3 days of storage is 12 TWh. The 3 day capacity estimate already includes solar and wind generation complement…

Thanks for the reply, Manfredo. Apologies for not clearly stating that what I wanted to know was not how you did your math, but your source/the modelling behind the '3 days of storage' number which I didn't see in your source. The points in my previous reply were all in questioning the need for everywhere to have '3 days of energy storage' in order for us to significantly decarbonize. While it might represent a theor…

[deleted]

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#337

Post by mrlonglong »

heipei wrote: post #122
renaudg wrote: post #106

Every time there's a thread on the topic, I like to share this fantastic realtime map of the carbon intensity of electricity production in various countries : https://www.electricitymap.org/map As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. This is better than the worst European offender (coal-loving Poland : 652g) as well as Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Germany…

I don't know how any German in their right mind can continue supporting coal (especially lignite) even if you were to ignore all the fancy carbon emission calculations. Lignite is won using strip-mining here, and by here I mean in the most populous state of Germany between the major Ruhr area and Düsseldorf/Cologne, all major population centers. From where I live, I have to drive straight through these mines whenever…

It's an obscenity, defiling woods to make way for strip mining. I wonder once it's all played out whether they will backfill and let new woods grow again.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#338

Post by mrlonglong »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #95
twic wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So to set up a 30 year rotation of 300 square miles you are looking at an area roughly the size of Wales. Well, what are they using Wales for at the moment?

Mostly raising talented singers and sheep.

Talented singers - that's debatable.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#339

Post by Manfredo_1 »

clomond wrote: post #331
Manfredo_1 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure if I missed it but didn’t see anything in your source to back up this 7 years worth of battery production requirement for what the US needs in stationary storage. The source is a curve of projected battery production. You take the integral of the curve. The US consumes 4TWh of electricity per day. 3 days of storage is 12 TWh. The 3 day capacity estimate already includes solar and wind generation complement…

Thanks for the reply, Manfredo. Apologies for not clearly stating that what I wanted to know was not how you did your math, but your source/the modelling behind the '3 days of storage' number which I didn't see in your source. The points in my previous reply were all in questioning the need for everywhere to have '3 days of energy storage' in order for us to significantly decarbonize. While it might represent a theor…

Estimates vary. This study [1] calls for ~1,700 TWh of storage globally (and proposes that synthetic methane be used for that storage, but this requires a way of separating and storing carbon dioxide out of gas turbine exhaust which doesn't yet exist). This study [2] calls for 3 weeks energy usage to reach 100% renewable energy consumption. A compromise of only 80% renewables would only require 12 hours. But that still leaves 20% unaccounted for. And even this more modest figure is still massive compared to what batteries can deliver. My numbers above weren't correct. The US consumes 4,000 TWh of energy annually [3] which works out to 11 TWh daily not 4TWh. half of that would be 5.5TWh, which is still more than 18 times the current global lithium ion battery production.

Declining cost of solar does nothing if there's no way to store that energy. Daytime energy use is already saturated in many markets. This a big reason why German emissions have remained mostly flat for the last 5 years despite substantial increases to solar power.

Energy isn't just a matter of installing X watt-hours of capacity. It's about delivering energy when it's needed where it's needed. Heat engines are the only way we know how to do this reliably (hydro and geothermal too, but those lose out on the "where" part). That's why the only country that have successfully gotten their electricity generation to mostly non-carbon sources without geographically dependent sources is France. They use heat engines, but with a non-carbon source of heat (nuclear energy).

1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187661021...

2. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Co...

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#340

Post by ascotan »

theptip wrote: post #309
ascotan wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think having potentially foreign-owned interests coming into the US to buy up land for commercial logging in order to feed non-coal burning plants is not a net positive.

Why? On the face of it, the US has lots of land to spare, and if the trees are being harvested sustainably, then why does it matter where they are sold? Sure, all else being equal I'd rather use solar than coal or wood, but if it's more economically viable in the short run to switch a coal plant to wood, thus getting to carbon-neutral, that seems like progress to me. At some point solar will be cheap enough that the…

Commercial logging doesn't protect the environment and it's likely even worse than digging up coal and burning it. In the end some politician somewhere is running for re-election and I'm sure this is great press. However, it's not good for the environment:

Here's a quick article on the uncounted CO2 cost of making wood pellets exactly for these plants: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2215913-logging-study-r... "Logging in North Carolina emits 44 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year."

Here's another discussing why the EUs view of burning trees is off: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa512/... "Sixth, growth in wood harvest for bio energy causes a steady increase in atmospheric CO2 because the initial carbon debt incurred each year exceeds what is repaid. With the US forest parameters used here, growth in the wood pellet industry to displace coal aggravates global warming at least through the end of this century, even if the industry stops growing by 2050."

Post reply on HN