191–200 of 246 posts
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You can always store energy by pushing rocks uphill.
Gravity is an incredibly feeble force; storing large amounts of energy this way requires a lot of rocks and a lot of land.
Pushing water uphill is relatively cheap and ~80% efficient. We can build more 2x nuclear power station equivalent "batteries" like fengning fairly easily.
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Unless someone can demonstrate that nuclear projects are preventing solar and wind deployments, why not do both?
Money is fungible. Each dollar spent on clean generation displaces some rate of CO2 exhaust. A dollar spent on renewables displaces much more than the same dollar spent on nukes. You cannot spend the same dollar on both. Thus, a dollar spent on nukes instead of renewables brings climate catastrophe nearer.
Which is why wasting it in trying to shoehorn solar or wind which are completely unacceptable as baseload power sources is doomed to failure.
If you think batteries[1] are a solution, you should go buy some batteries, and try to take advantage of wholesale energy price arbitrage between daily oversupply (when energy is ~free) and undersupply (when energy is very, very expensive).
You'll quickly discover why nobody has managed to make a profitable business out of it. The economics of battery storage, compressed air storage, etc, etc are horrible.
[1] Pumped hydro is okay, cost-wise. Unfortunately, the capacity isn't there to meet our energy needs.
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> Because not every location has high solar irradiance[0] nor wind density[1]. Isn't that solvable with HVDC links? I agree with GP at this point it is mostly a budget, political will, manufacturing problem.
It sure is solvable with HVDC links, but upgrading infrastructure isn’t free. That cost would need to be included when comparing it against nuclear
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The figure I quoted above was for thermal solar with storage. That's pretty basic tech, the storage is generally thermal as well. I don't see why the price would drop all that much. Lazard is the source that most renewables advocates point me to, to prove how uncompetitive nuclear is. If your counterargument is that future costs will be lower than today's costs, then I think it's fair to also consider the costs Thorc…
ThorCon true costs are just unknown. Storage, like solar and wind generation, costs are subject to statistical laws.
Personally I think deferring electric vehicle charging and feeding power back into the grid could help a lot here and make this make economic sense, but that doesn't give you enough energy storage to go 100% solar and wind. Right now intermittent power sources are being subsidized heavily with being able to lean on cheap natural gas. Nuclear doesn't depend on any resources that would be strained even if relying on Nuclear power for 100% of demand. Nuclear is also power dense and other than NIMBY concerns is easier to site closer to where the energy is needed than large scale wind farms. Before you say "rooftop solar!" I'll admit, a PV panel is great for being able to scale down to tiny amounts of power instead of just "hundreds of MWe". That still doesn't address the fact that massive swaths of the globe do not get enough sunlight during the winter months to make 100% solar every week of the year worth it. You could currently overproduce enough in the summer to be net zero, but that doesn't change the fact that you're still relying on massive overproduction in sunnier climates and transporting energy large distances or fossil fuels to make up the difference. No chance energy storage bridges the gaps for seasonal changes instead of just a few days.
Renewables true costs are just unknown.
I understand the interest in baseload generation but don't see why there's so much interest in nuclear when low-tech concentrated solar in the desert can get the job done and scaling it up (and ensuring it's 100% safe) isn't a matter of R&D but just basic manufacturing. It strikes me a lot of the nuclear focus is (understandable, if not justifiable) interest in cool new technology. Ironically, with concentrated solar…
Some places don't have deserts. Or even large unpopulated areas. Definitely not large unfarmed areas.
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> but don't see why there's so much interest in nuclear when low-tech concentrated solar in the desert can get the job done Because not every location has high solar irradiance[0] nor wind density[1]. I'm not sure why comments (for and against nuclear/renewables) with energy ignore this factor. Wind, hydro, and solar aren't homogeneously distributed around the globe (let alone the US) nor through time. The conversati…
> Because not every location has high solar irradiance[0] nor wind density[1]. Isn't that solvable with HVDC links? I agree with GP at this point it is mostly a budget, political will, manufacturing problem.
No, because then you have the Russia situation times ten - namely that a foreign power can cripple your society at will.
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"Just build a 10m tall San Francisco sized battery farm lol smh" Congratulations on suggesting the most impractical, stupidly dangerous (mmmmh battery fires), impossible to make, single point of failure. At least it won't be attacked because it only lasts a single day anyways. Stick to philosophy and let actual engineers build a grid, thank you.
Way to miss the point. San Francisco does not occupy much of the Earth's surface, or even of the continental US. This battery farm, spread out between all the towns in the US, would not even be noticed.
I've seen the investment pitches. Nobody is seriously considering it for a reason, it's a terrible, terrible, idea.
Covering intermittent sources is pretty much 100% public sector's responsibility, everywhere.
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The world uses about 556.63 exajoules per year. Say your nuclear reactor produces 3GW. That's more than 5000 reactors to power the world. You can probably safely cut that in half because electricity is a better source of energy for transportation and heating that fossil fuels, but still. Do you think we can scale reactor production sufficiently to build thousands of reactors in two or three decades?
Yes. 5000 reactors is not actually that much. Think about how many planes we produce. Imagine 5 Gigafactory each producing 100s reactor cores every year. That not really hard to imagine is it? Those would more likely be 500MW. So you need a few 10000+. The rest of a nuclear plant without water cooling is none nuclear and building a concrete hole, and a concrete bunker a whole bunch of electronics, pipes and the same…
I understand the interest in baseload generation but don't see why there's so much interest in nuclear when low-tech concentrated solar in the desert can get the job done and scaling it up (and ensuring it's 100% safe) isn't a matter of R&D but just basic manufacturing. It strikes me a lot of the nuclear focus is (understandable, if not justifiable) interest in cool new technology. Ironically, with concentrated solar…
But even if we assume it was a meaningful thing to aim for, concentrated solar power isn't as cost effective as solar pv, wind and batteries to provide the same thing.
This is basically true of all non-pv solar power. In the past really basic solar heaters have made a lot of sense in many places. As the costs of PV and batteries have plummeted they no longer make sense.
When you need electricity, PV gives you that, if you want heat then PV plus heat pump gives you that and cooling at the same time.
Even basic things like designing houses for solar gain can be substituted for just slapping cheap PV on the roof now.
I'm fairly sure the Saul Griffith of 2022 would agree with that, no matter what the 2009 Saul thought. PV wind and battery price drops have surprised even the smart people paying attention to this area, like him.
And here he is, saying "electrify everything":
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-09-07/climate-chang...
I understand the interest in baseload generation but don't see why there's so much interest in nuclear when low-tech concentrated solar in the desert can get the job done and scaling it up (and ensuring it's 100% safe) isn't a matter of R&D but just basic manufacturing. It strikes me a lot of the nuclear focus is (understandable, if not justifiable) interest in cool new technology. Ironically, with concentrated solar…
nuclear fusion can give us actually unlimited energy. maybe it won't work soon, but some people don't want to give ip a probably final resolution.