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Renewables remain cheapest, but cost reductions on hold

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Re: Renewables remain cheapest, but cost reductions on hold

#31

Post by foota »

londons_explore wrote: post #29
londons_explore wrote: post #12

I want to see a "solar dispenser" that can drive very slowly across open land, leaving behind a trail of solar panels. Installation costs are a big part of current solar farms, and a big part of that is the labour to assemble frames, do up all the bolts, connect all the wires, etc. If we could make a single truck drive along at 0.5 mph leaving a trail of installed panels, it would really make installation far cheaper…

Cabling in a solar farm is also a big part of the costs. If inverters were designed to output higher voltages - eg. a direct-to-10 kV output, then cables could be far thinner and cheaper. 3 phase silicone cable thinner than your baby finger rated for 20kV at just 20 amps could be run along (and carry all the energy from) a length of panels over a kilometer long. Such a design generally isn't used today because you ha…

Is this true? I wouldn't have thought that safety would be required there, is the same true for something like a substation plant? Those have warning signs all over.

Re: Renewables remain cheapest, but cost reductions on hold

#32

Post by gregwebs »

pydry wrote: post #26
breadloaf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all is valid only if you have geography and water for such stunt.

This, along with wind turbine bird death thing, is one of the more bizarre objections Ive heard emanating from the carbon + nuclear public relations lobbies. There isnt a shortage of up. The geography to make it work isnt rare: https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-spot-530-000-potenti...

Geography plus water plus land usage concerns make it rare. The western US has plenty of sites identified but little water to spare. There is one pumped hydro storage project in process in the entire USA and it is being challenged on environmental concerns. If we are going to make pumped hydro work these issues do need to be acknowledged.

Re: Renewables remain cheapest, but cost reductions on hold

#34

Post by saddlerustle »

pydry wrote: post #19
yodelshady wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the original report, which still includes figures of >$100 per kWh for storage, projected for multiple decades (if not in this report, in others). For a higher-latitude nation, we need TWh , probably tens of, for even a small nation. Be assured I have crunched these numbers and confirmed against our current best wind+PV resource data. In other words, if we run a nuclear plant and deliberately induce a, as you…

Australia is already building a lot of pumped storage. E.g. snowy 2 alone has 350 GWh of storage. Im skeptical of the idea that this + solar + wind costs more than nuclear + this even without free catastrophe insurance but id be curious to see your numbers. (Obviously some form of storage would also be necessary for nuclear power which cant adjust output to match variable demand). It is pretty cheap to build pumped s…

Significant new pumped storage capacity requires building large new dams, which is even more unpopular in populated areas than building nuclear.

Re: Renewables remain cheapest, but cost reductions on hold

#35

Post by asdefghyk »

However I say the amount of storage would need to be capable of supply several days in a row (because of no renewable energy ) We have just come out of a rainy period where it rained or overcast every day for a few weeks in SE QLD region I'm skeptical that the amount of storage and transmission capacity has been included to handle such extended periods of no renewable generation.

Re: Renewables remain cheapest, but cost reductions on hold

#36

Post by benj111 »

adrianN wrote: post #23
benj111 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to presuppose that we would need to build new fossil fuel generating capacity. When in fact it's already installed. And I'm not sure they would always need to burn fossil fuels anyway. Coal fired power plants can burn wood, gas plants hydrogen or methane. I don't really get the 2 grids thing either. Everything is being plugged into the same grid. Instead of replacing a coal fired power station, you just plug…

I don't think there is enough wood to replace coal, so we'd probably need some new gas turbines. Remember that you need to be prepared for at least a couple of days of roughly zero renewable generation every couple of years. In many locations you have significantly reduced generation every winter. So you need to have sufficient backup capability available. I don't think today's battery tech scales to that amount of s…

There's not enough wood to replace the coal we're using now, no.

But if we are only talking about a fraction of today's usage that is doable.

Re: Renewables remain cheapest, but cost reductions on hold

#37

Post by Denvercoder9 »

grapeskin wrote: post #28
helloguillecl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d want the same but to place them on top of unused rail tracks. This way we would have a solid base to have them installed and possibly a lot of land available. The machine would need to support different gaugages.

Place them on basically any commercially unusable and economically “worthless” space. Instead of mowing down forests to lay them 5 inches off the ground, put them on highway noise barriers, build ceilings over commercial walkways (Europe is full of these but without solar panels), spread them out and put them high over parks to provide shaded areas that allow for greenery to grow underneath, and so on. The way solar…

The problem here is that big, concentrated solar farms are far cheaper to install per kWh generated.

Re: Renewables remain cheapest, but cost reductions on hold

#38

Post by ramraj07 »

foota wrote: post #31
londons_explore wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cabling in a solar farm is also a big part of the costs. If inverters were designed to output higher voltages - eg. a direct-to-10 kV output, then cables could be far thinner and cheaper. 3 phase silicone cable thinner than your baby finger rated for 20kV at just 20 amps could be run along (and carry all the energy from) a length of panels over a kilometer long. Such a design generally isn't used today because you ha…

Is this true? I wouldn't have thought that safety would be required there, is the same true for something like a substation plant? Those have warning signs all over.

Sounds like it’s a fundamental safety issue not just geared towards thieves. Even workers can trip and break a wire!

Re: Renewables remain cheapest, but cost reductions on hold

#39

Post by Gwypaas »

defrost wrote: post #21
pydry wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read down to the 4th paragraph? It absolutely does. I'd be curious to know if it also includes a "true" nuclear catastrophe insurance price or (as is more common) if theyre assuming the taxpayer will fund 99.5% of a Fukushima-type $800 billion cleanup bill like in US/Europe.

They're specifically signalling an interest in Small Nuclear Power Reactors [1] which are less accident prone, deferring cost analysis until Dec 2024 [2], and looking for more of a global uptake to bring costs down [3] [1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu... [2] https://www.iaea.org/projects/crp/i12007 [3] "Achieving the lower end of the nuclear SMR range requires that SMR is deployed glob…

> which are less accident prone.

All nuclear powerplants are cheap and free from accidents when they only exist as Powerpoint reactors. Reality has had a tendency to change that.

Re: Renewables remain cheapest, but cost reductions on hold

#40

Post by londons_explore »

foota wrote: post #31
londons_explore wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cabling in a solar farm is also a big part of the costs. If inverters were designed to output higher voltages - eg. a direct-to-10 kV output, then cables could be far thinner and cheaper. 3 phase silicone cable thinner than your baby finger rated for 20kV at just 20 amps could be run along (and carry all the energy from) a length of panels over a kilometer long. Such a design generally isn't used today because you ha…

Is this true? I wouldn't have thought that safety would be required there, is the same true for something like a substation plant? Those have warning signs all over.

Part of it is worker safety too... But in general if someone chooses a substantially less safe design and then a thief breaks in and gets injured, yes they would probably end up paying out.

In the USA, that's normally what "up to code" means. Exceptions from code requirements are quite easy to get, but if you have an exception and someone gets injured, all the liability will be on you.

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