Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030 • Hacker News Board

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#161

Post by rhodozelia » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 3:15 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #146

rhodozelia wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who pays for the shadow generation system that we keep perfectly maintained and ready to generate 100% of system demand on the 5 days stretch of cloudy windless days? This cost has to be added to the cost of building a 100% solar/wind system. Nobody is arguing the solar and wind power isn’t cheap, but the cost of power on those cloudy windless weeks is going to be real high to make having all that standby generation…

The cost will be there, but overall it looks like it will be cheaper than nuclear.

In British Columbia they are building a 1000 MW hydro plant that is going to cost 10-12 billion. Similar story at muskrat falls in Labrador.

Large projects are just expensive now. Nuclear would be competitive with either of these hydro projects.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#162

Post by mlyle » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 3:16 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #141

mlyle wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, you all are engaging in the "nothing can be invented" argument. No, we're engaging in the "this has been resistant to being invented so far, so let's not bet everything on it showing up tomorrow" argument. > Uranium quickly runs out if the world is powered by burner reactors and known uranium resources You could quadruple the present rate of uranium use, representing in a major contribution to mankind's energy…

Not at all. The technology for hydrogen energy storage is (with the possible exception of cheap electrolysers) is off the shelf. It's not widely used not because it's not available, but because natural gas is cheaper to store and burn when there are no CO2 taxes. But the CO2 taxes will be raised enough to push natural gas out, if we're going to control global warming.

When the largest electrolyzer we have in the world is 10MW... and hydrogen storage hasn't been demonstrated at anywhere near the scale you're talking about... it's a tad of a stretch to talk about it being "off the shelf." Particularly when you point to nuclear fuel reprocessing and breeding as nonexistent in the same thread.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#163

Post by Qwertious » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 3:19 AM UTC

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #111

pydry wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even achieving just one hour of storage globally amounts to 2.5 TWh of storage. By comparison the entire world produces ~300 GWh worth of lithium ion battery What's the point of this comparison? Lithium ion batteries are probably the least cost effective means of dealing with intermittency. It's also rare that the entire world is without wind and sun simultaneously. In terms of cost: Demand shaping < overproduction…

"Demand shaping" is a nice euphemism for energy shortages. And if we demand shaping we're just externalizing the cost to consumers that need to buy their own energy storage or change their energy usage patterns to accommodate the unreliable supply. Overproduction helps but doesn't eliminate intermittency. And pumped hydroelectricity is geographically dependent. The irony is that most places with extensive hydroelectr…

>to accommodate the unreliable supply.

You're conflating "expensive" with "unreliable". Even with infinite batteries, buying stored energy will always be more expensive than direct solar/wind.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#164

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 3:19 AM UTC

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #160

pfdietz wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That "manipulation of hydrogen" mostly involves use in the the chemical industry. We don't use hydrogen to power gas turbines. So, when you said hydrogen rapidly corrodes any metal it comes into contact with, that didn't include the metal that the chemical industry makes their equipment from? So, let's just put a "this is chemical industry" signs on our hydrogen storage plants, and presto! Magically protected! Note…

> So, when you said hydrogen rapidly corrodes any metal it comes into contact with, that didn't include the metal that the chemical industry makes their equipment from? So, let's just put a "this is chemical industry" signs on our hydrogen storage plants, and presto! Magically protected! I'd say you're being deliberately ignorant here, but I'm really not so sure. A gas turbine spins rapidly, putting huge stresses on…

Your grumbling and desperate denial doesn't change that turbines burning hydrogen are old hat. This is not something that any reasonable person would think won't work.

None of the issues discussed there are showstoppers. They are things that should be, and have been, tweaked.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#165

Post by Manfredo_1 » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 3:20 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #158

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're falling back to the "if it works on paper it'll be guaranteed to work at scale, and work cheaply" argument. Please stop this foolishness. It's not just a question of storage, you can just use a salt cavern for that. It's also a question of electrolyzing water into hydrogen efficiently. And converting it back into electricity efficently. And building all of these systems cheaply. And deploying all of these syst…

Why shouldn't it scale? It's not as if it uses any rare materials. The geological formations in which hydrogen can be stored are abundant. The cost estimation should be good, since the technology is just integrating existing components. That's the easiest and surest kind of technology to roll out.

That's a question that can't be answered until people actually build hydrogen storage facilities at scale.

Why shouldn't nuclear plants scale? They're mostly just steel and concrete. Uranium is more than 40 times more prevalent than gold, and it's energy density is such that it represents a negligible cost of operations. The technology is just scaling up existing components, we had nuclear powered submarines for a while. This is what people thought about nuclear power in the 1950s and early 60s. As plants actually started being constructed problems such as corrosion, large amounts of earth moving, metal impurities, and more were discovered and made the plants more expensive.

We haven't discovered these issues with hydrogen storage. We won't discover these issues until we actually build hydrogen storage facilities at scale. We don't know what challenges will lie in store when building hydrogen storage, because we've never done it before. This is why it's useless to talk about the cost of hydrogen storage until we actually have experience building and operating hydrogen storage plants. Our knowledge of cost of hydrogen storage is in the same situation as nuclear power in the 1950s.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#166

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 3:20 AM UTC

mlyle wrote: post #162

pfdietz wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. The technology for hydrogen energy storage is (with the possible exception of cheap electrolysers) is off the shelf. It's not widely used not because it's not available, but because natural gas is cheaper to store and burn when there are no CO2 taxes. But the CO2 taxes will be raised enough to push natural gas out, if we're going to control global warming.

When the largest electrolyzer we have in the world is 10MW... and hydrogen storage hasn't been demonstrated at anywhere near the scale you're talking about... it's a tad of a stretch to talk about it being "off the shelf." Particularly when you point to nuclear fuel reprocessing and breeding as nonexistent in the same thread.

We can run electrolysers in parallel to scale to any desired output level. There might be economies of scale to make them even larger, or there could be economies of manufacturing scale of making smaller ones at higher volume. PV and wind are examples of technologies that work well with large numbers of not so large units, replicated as needed. This is a nice place for a technology to be.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#167

Post by Qwertious » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 3:23 AM UTC

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #157

jeffbee wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody needs 1 full day of storage.

We'd actually need 3 weeks of storage to migrate to a fully renewable grid: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...

From your own source:

"The solar heavy network wouldn’t need energy storage with an HVDC network."

So no, we wouldn't need that. HVDC would be far cheaper.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#168

Post by Manfredo_1 » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 3:23 AM UTC

Hypx wrote: post #159

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #145

That "manipulation of hydrogen" mostly involves use in the the chemical industry. We don't use hydrogen to power gas turbines. I'm not sure why you're trying to deny the existence of chemical facts: https://www.twi-global.com/technical-knowledge/faqs/what-is-... .

Are you familiar with fuel gases? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_manufactured_fuel_g... Burning hydrogen gas (blended with other gases) for heat or power has been around for a long time. > I'm not sure why you're trying to deny the existence of chemical facts You're projecting here.

That link you provided doesn't encompass gas turbines. Gas turbines capable of burning hydrogen do exist, but only at smaller concentrations, 70% methane and 30% hydrogen or less.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#169

Post by Hypx » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 3:25 AM UTC

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #160

pfdietz wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That "manipulation of hydrogen" mostly involves use in the the chemical industry. We don't use hydrogen to power gas turbines. So, when you said hydrogen rapidly corrodes any metal it comes into contact with, that didn't include the metal that the chemical industry makes their equipment from? So, let's just put a "this is chemical industry" signs on our hydrogen storage plants, and presto! Magically protected! Note…

> So, when you said hydrogen rapidly corrodes any metal it comes into contact with, that didn't include the metal that the chemical industry makes their equipment from? So, let's just put a "this is chemical industry" signs on our hydrogen storage plants, and presto! Magically protected! I'd say you're being deliberately ignorant here, but I'm really not so sure. A gas turbine spins rapidly, putting huge stresses on…

> I'd say you're being deliberately ignorant here, but I'm really not so sure. A gas turbine spins rapidly, putting huge stresses on the blades. They also operate at extremely high temperatures.

Seriously, your projection is out of control here. A gas turbine burning hydrogen does not experience any stresses that is meaningfully different from one burning natural gas or kerosene. Simply applied engineering can solve all of the issues associated with hydrogen gas turbines.

Re: Solar Is Cheapest Electricity in History, U.S. DOE Aims to Cut Costs 60% by 2030

#170

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 3:25 AM UTC

rhodozelia wrote: post #161

pfdietz wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost will be there, but overall it looks like it will be cheaper than nuclear.

In British Columbia they are building a 1000 MW hydro plant that is going to cost 10-12 billion. Similar story at muskrat falls in Labrador. Large projects are just expensive now. Nuclear would be competitive with either of these hydro projects.

That hydro project doesn't sound competitive.