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Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

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Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#221

Post by cbmuser »

epistasis wrote: post #86
PostThisTooFast wrote: post #37

We should be busily building nuclear plants. This isn't going to get better otherwise.

Nuclear plants are the worst possible way to reduce energy costs. They are also incredibly massive single points of failure, so they tend to reduce reliability compared to more distributed smaller generation units. Germany, for example, has seen reliability increase massively as they shift towards more distributed renewables, even though it's not a super high penetration level. As we shift to more renewables and star…

> Germany, for example, has seen reliability increase massively as they shift towards more distributed renewables, even though it's not a super high penetration level.

That’s a blatant lie.

According to the Bundesnetzagentur which is the local regulator for the electricity grid, the number of times where they have to intervene on the electricity grid to stabilize it has dramatically increased due to the higher share of renewables:

> https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Sachgebiete/Elektrizitae...

Germany’s energy sector causes 350 million tons of CO2 annually, 50 France’s just 50 million tons CO2 annually.

> https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?t...

> https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?t...

The kWh in France costs 17 Euro Cents, while it costs over 31 Euro Cents in Germany.

> https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/electricity_prices/

France has 70% nuclear, Germany 50% renewables.

I have no idea why some people on HN keep spreading such lies about nuclear and the so-called Energiewende in Germany.

You should get your facts straight!

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#222

Post by tomc1985 »

morninglight wrote: post #211
tomc1985 wrote: post #31

The state that brought us Enron now getting Enron'd itself. Turnabout is fair play! Sucks for the regular folk, though...

Many young people have no memory of Enron. Instead of pointing fingers, it would be better if we presented them with historical facts. Because of fraudulent energy market manipulation, many thousands of people from around the world lost their jobs, homes and savings in the blink of an eye. Hopefully, we are not seeing a repeat of that fiasco, but if we are not vigilant, it could happen again. https://www.youtube.com/…

Indeed, it feels a bit weird getting a warning on my original comment when I remember all the BS we had to put up with from people who were reselling our own power back to us. I don't know for sure but I don't think electricity prices ever came back down from that.

Like that comment was dripping with irony and schadenfreude, sure, but is not flamebait!

Enron was real, and they fucked things up for good!

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#223

Post by konjin »

akamaka wrote: post #220
konjin wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s funny seeing people in this thread jumping right past the root cause and suggesting elaborate solutions like nuclear power. The root cause is extreme weather events which will will get more of. Non-renewables are not affected by the wind and sun. Since we don't want to go extinct by pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere we are left with nuclear. I don't understand how people can want to return to feudalism where…

Did you know that one third of US carbon emissions come from buildings? Upgrading buildings would massively reduce emissions, and we’d never have to generate the electricity in the first place. It pays for itself.

Do you know that if electricity generation doesn't produce CO2 then consuming it won't either?

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#224

Post by stevenwoo »

Scoundreller wrote: post #166
samatman wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of answers about various renewables, no one addressing why diesel, so let me throw that in: Everything comes to Hawaii by boat or plane, and boats run on diesel. So our power plants burn diesel, instead of coal, because coal, while cheaper per unit energy, would be a whole additional supply chain just for power plants. And yeah, there's more solar and wind every year, but not nearly enough to provide the overpro…

> would be a whole additional supply chain just for power plants. This isn't an issue. There are coal ships, coal trains, coal trucks, you name it. Storage is easier too, you just dump it.

It requires two dumps, one for fuel and one for fly ash with containment - the latter is usually huge.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#226

Post by cbmuser »

secfirstmd wrote: post #114
waiseristy wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is a much more modern, cost effective, and scalable tech today than it was in the 70's as well. France has one of the highest levels of nuclear utilization, and one of the lowest energy costs in europe

The costs are all hidden. Removal and dismantling of nuclear waste and the decommissioning power plants is ridiculously expensive in places like the UK. When you factor that in also, nuclear ain't so cheap at all. Those costs only rise also.

It’s actually not expensive at all and fully paid by the energy companies.

The costs are always inflated by the anti-nuclear movement, but when you talk to actual nuclear engineers you will learn that these costs have never been a problem.

I have visited multiple decommissioned nuclear plants in Germany and the guides talked about the decommissioning costs which were 6 billion Euros for the two plants of former East Germany.

And keep in mind that a single nuclear reactor produces electricity worth more than one million Dollars - per day - with the NRC already having licensed plants for an 80-year lifetime such as the Turkey Point station.

And don’t forget that solar and wind will _always_ need a backup solution such as natural gas. You have to include these when comparing costs.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#228

Post by cbmuser »

waiseristy wrote: post #129
secfirstmd wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The costs are all hidden. Removal and dismantling of nuclear waste and the decommissioning power plants is ridiculously expensive in places like the UK. When you factor that in also, nuclear ain't so cheap at all. Those costs only rise also.

The cost of dismantling and recycling solar panels, wind turbines, etc. is also hidden, using that same logic. And will present a huge problem in 20-30 years. We've already had 50 years experience decommissioning poorly designed reactors. We should know how to do it at least slightly better in the year 2021 The costs also do not rise per unit power. As with anything, the more you install, the cheaper it gets to insta…

And he somehow forgot the costs for any backup generation that is needed for volatile renewable energy.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#230

Post by katbyte »

konjin wrote: post #223
akamaka wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that one third of US carbon emissions come from buildings? Upgrading buildings would massively reduce emissions, and we’d never have to generate the electricity in the first place. It pays for itself.

Do you know that if electricity generation doesn't produce CO2 then consuming it won't either?

what if we do both!
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