361–370 of 619 posts
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Do you have evidence that batteries are cheaper than say nuclear? I only heard of the opposite, batteries are prohibitively expensive.
Batteries are only the most of expensive of many candidates for energy storage. But, as was demonstrated in Australia, adequate.
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10 years ago? It's 2020, wind/solar have dropped by significant percentages every year since then. Wind/solar are cheaper (LCOE) than everything except natural gas, which it is on parity with right now, and shortly will pass even for installed generation (meaning it will be worth it for electric companies to invest in replacing the natural gas generators)
Yes renewables have gotten cheaper but nuclear isn't outlandishly expensive either. If it doesn't match expectations and the price doesn't significantly drop further from today (seems unlikely), going nuclear would be a good decision. If renewable continues to drop, we have a bit more expensive power depending on the percentage of nuclear to renewable power. However, if we don't build nuclear, I'm really not sure how…
To me the achilles heel in this scheme is how long it takes to build a new nuclear power station. This article [0] says that modern nuclear plants are planned to be built in 5 years (this assumes no time overruns which have been common in practice in recent years). I'm not convinced that nuclear will still be relevant in 5-10 years times once it's actually been built.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla...
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To me the bummer of nuclear power is how much advocates try to underestimate the cost of handling the waste for decades and the potential risks. I think if you really think we need to go full speed ahead with nuclear power you need to ask how close a waste deposit to your home are you comfortable with? Often times these things just get transported to supposedly remote places which just mean a more vulnerable communit…
Modern nuclear power plants use waste from previous generation nuclear power plants as their fuel.
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Also using car batteries seem an odd choice, as the mismatch between renewable production and electrical consumption (duck curve) happens in the early morning and in the evening, just when people are about to drive (so they don't want to have their batteries emptied by the grid), are driving (so their batteries aren't connected to the grid) or have finished their drive so the batteries aren't full
Very few commutes require the draining of an electric car battery. If the cars were parked plugged in during the day they whey would likely have sufficient capacity to help with the main after-work spikes, base load nuclear during the evening would then recharge over night.
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"the issue with nuclear is cost" the cost is the problem indeed, but the cost is something that can be lowered with sufficient amount of innovation - see how SpaceX managed to lower cost of sending satellites or people to the space. Nuclear energy researches were stagnant for many, many years - anything "atomic" was considered to be "non-green", and green movements were fighting nuclear energy vigorously, as a result…
> Another "success" of ecologist was that they've managed to scare people. And that saves lives and protects the economy of entire areas. In 1974 somebody wanted to build a nuclear plant in Murcia Spain. Same BWR model as Fukushima. A few ecologists marched with home made banners, a famous actor protested, and the plan eventually was dismissed. In 2011, just 37 years after, the same area chosen to hold a nuclear plan…
This is a bad kind of fearmongering.
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You can avoid a lot of storage requirements by making your grid smarter and electrifying transportation and heating. 60% renewables are possible with hardly any storage at all, certainly less than 12 hours. Shifting demand is always cheaper than storage. Once you've electrified transportation, you have hundreds of millions of car batteries that can help out with demand spikes. That distributes the high upfront cost o…
Electrifying heating doesn't improve this situation, it worsens it drastically. People come back home after work and turn on the heat or AC right as the sun goes down. A big part of why renewable generation is so high in Germany is because they mostly heat their homes with gas (which emits carbon, but doesn't factor into electricity generation statistics). Using car batteries for storage doesn't solve the fundamental…
An efficient way to heat a house is to have a heatpump plus low temperature floor heating (and cooling). This system works best by keeping the floor at a constant temperature, day and night.
Of course, a house also needs to be properly insulated and have ventilation with heat recovery
I can’t really reconcile people who genuinely, in their heart of hearts, believe we’re on the precipice of doom because of carbon emissions, and are at the same time strongly against nuclear power. Can someone who feels this way chime in and help me understand? I’m genuinely curious how these two ideas fit together.
Can anyone who feels this way delete their account? I'm genuinely tired of your shtick.
BBC on nuclear: asking the questions that don't matter. You know what the real problem with nuclear is? It's not economically competitive. What if I told you: you can invest in a project that will tie up your money for 10+ years and once it's completed will provide energy for 10x the current cost of solar/wind. And while youre building this plant, solar/wind and batteries will keep getting cheaper.. and by the time y…
1. It's slightly less than 2x, not 10x. 2. Countries like the Netherlands that don't have the space for sufficient on-shore wind have to go to off-shore wind, which is actually more expensive than nuclear energy. 3. We'd be making actual progress instead of fighting residents and nature preservation for every plot of land again and again, auctioning land leases for every few megawatts, and it all just taking forever…
Nuclear energy is great but it is a pain to build, maintain, manage, decommission etc.
Everything around the nuclear disasters has been a human bullshit of a problem, not a technological one. Probably with the exception of Fukushima, where all the conditions were put into the extreme - killer earthquake and monster tsunami. Being anxious about it is more than justified, especially with idiotic countries in mind. But that doesn't mean we need to abandon it. Nuclear is the future and there is no debate a…
Fukushima was largely a human bullshit problem too.