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Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

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Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#71

Post by survirtual »

pydry wrote: post #61
robocat wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear can’t do that You are repeating a myth. Load following is used in France: https://www.oecd-nea.org/nea-news/2011/29-2/nea-news-29-2-lo... It mostly isn't used in the US due to regulations. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254716 The reason load following is not generally used is because because the economics of nuclear (large fixed costs) favour base load.

You can technically use nuclear power plants as load followers in much thr same way that you can technically keep warm by setting $50 bills on fire. Load following with a nuclear plant basically means provisioning a 2GW plant and then using, say, 0.5GW of that - throwing away the rest. (since the vast majority of the cost is capex not fuel) Every kilowatt hour produced by that 2GW power plant is already 5x the cost o…

Nuke plant -> btc mining with excess load when load is not demanded Nuke plant -> consumers when in demand

Pretty easy equation, much more reliable and much more scalable and not subject to the whims of the elements / can be done anywhere and on any planet in the solar system.

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#72

Post by landemva »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #31

This article promotes a narrative that privatization leads to more renewables. This point lacks nuance as different energy markets that employ privatization can have wildly different ways to involve private firms and vastly different outcomes. 1. The retail competition of Texas, which has the highest renewable energy production in the U.S. [1], but is also a market where consumers overpay for electricity [2]. 2. The…

A big CA electricity provider was bankrupted a few years ago, so low rates may not be sustainable.

https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/industries-and-topics/pge/pge-bankru...

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#73

Post by lokar »

landemva wrote: post #72
vegetablepotpie wrote: post #31

This article promotes a narrative that privatization leads to more renewables. This point lacks nuance as different energy markets that employ privatization can have wildly different ways to involve private firms and vastly different outcomes. 1. The retail competition of Texas, which has the highest renewable energy production in the U.S. [1], but is also a market where consumers overpay for electricity [2]. 2. The…

A big CA electricity provider was bankrupted a few years ago, so low rates may not be sustainable. https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/industries-and-topics/pge/pge-bankru...

PG&E was catastrophically mismanaged. They deserved what they got and much more.

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#74

Post by sarchertech »

simonhorlick wrote: post #28
pmoleri wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tidal, waves, hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass. Many options to choose from, it just takes political will.

Did you know that tidal energy is actually not renewable? Harvesting tidal energy slightly slows the rotation of the planet over time. Here's a quote from the relevant paper by Liu: > Based on the average pace of world energy consumption over the last 50 years, if we were to extract the rotational energy just to supply 1% of the world's energy consumption, the rotation of the Earth would lock to the Moon in about 100…

That paper assumes that the worlds energy will keep increasing at the average rate from the last 50 years for 1000 years.

That’s a terrible assumption. First because the rate has been slowing (even before Covid), and second because the end result of that extrapolation is more energy than we could every hope to produce without building Dyson spheres around stars.

If you do similar calculations we’d cause severe problems harvesting that much energy from wind or geothermal as well.

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#75

Post by adev_ »

Meaningwhile, today 17/11/2023 the same Portugal is back to the normal and emitting 170g CO2/kwh [1][2]

- This is 6.8x the emissions of Sweden (25g) running on Nuclear and Hydro

- This is 4.1x the emissions of France (41g) running on Nuclear, Hydro and Gas

- This is 2.8x the emissions of Switzerland (59g) running on Nuclear and Hydro

But still much better than "Green" Germany that reaches 647g CO2/kwh.... with 22GW of power generated from Coal after closing its Nuclear powerplants for reasons.

Interestingly, these facts are not praised in the press as much as "Country X has been able to run renewable for X hours".

Maybe because, like the article point out, Nuclear is not entirely "privatised". Nuclear "just works" and consequently does not act as an interesting roller-coaster for speculators on the energy market and stock market ?

[1] https://postimg.cc/WDVZqnK1

[2] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/PT

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#76

Post by snewman »

voisin wrote: post #42
alexnewman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas only at 0% interest rates. When you factor in 5% rates they are below again

Source for this? I would think inflation in construction and maintenance costs for traditional generation would still keep it more expensive.

For renewables, most of the cost is up front, then they're cheap to run because they don't need fuel. (High capex, low opex.) Fossil fuel plants have more of a mix of upfront and operating costs. High interest rates make it expensive to borrow the upfront cost of renewables.

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#77

Post by lokar »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #59
Jedd wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any story like this always summons up people eager to cry 'But where I am is an exception'. They rarely say where they actually are. The thing that most countries - a convenient non-geo construct only because most countries have a national grid - who claim to be exceptional have in common, is a firm commitment to the idea that they are exceptional. I am reminded of that onion headline that ends 'says only nation wher…

I don't want to call it delusional, because green technology is feasible in some places. But in a lot of places and applications it's not just that it doesn't work, it's not feasible to ever work. Inflation is bad enough now. To blindly push it like a communist ideology...don't be surprised when the lower classes revolt because they can't heat their homes or afford food, due to cost of energy trickling into the price…

Pricing externalities correctly is the height of capitalist economic thinking.

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#79

Post by Jedd »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #59
Jedd wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any story like this always summons up people eager to cry 'But where I am is an exception'. They rarely say where they actually are. The thing that most countries - a convenient non-geo construct only because most countries have a national grid - who claim to be exceptional have in common, is a firm commitment to the idea that they are exceptional. I am reminded of that onion headline that ends 'says only nation wher…

I don't want to call it delusional, because green technology is feasible in some places. But in a lot of places and applications it's not just that it doesn't work, it's not feasible to ever work. Inflation is bad enough now. To blindly push it like a communist ideology...don't be surprised when the lower classes revolt because they can't heat their homes or afford food, due to cost of energy trickling into the price…

Yup, this is what I mean about 'we're exceptional' claims.

'It can't work here, and can never work here, because ...' and then followed by some basic math mistakes wrapped up into some wild extrapolations, augmented with some demonstrably pessimistic assumptions that every piece of the stack can't ever get better, or be swapped out for something better.

That suspiciously well-prepared rando on tiktok you used as a citation - the comments attached to that thread quite rightly point out his math mistakes, around hydro generation, dam sizes, and so on.

He's also assuming that rail will never augment / replace large tracts of (currently) road transport - which is a despairingly safe claim in the USA, where rail infrastructure is just awful, but it doesn't need to be forever.

He then assumes the only way you can 'green' truck transport is to use current-tech (Lithium) batteries - this is obviously not the case, and Lithium / solid state batteries are probably NOT the answer there anyway.

He says the logging truck uses 2.5 MW (not MWh) of power per day - and then talks about '3 megawatt battery pack' - not MWh.

Essentially he's ignoring the fact that the height of technology that is transport infrastructure today is the result of a century of roads, mining/drilling, refineries, fuel distribution, engine/truck design.

He's effectively repeating that standard trope - 'green tech' at year #10 isn't as integrated as fossil tech at year #100, so it can be dismissed.

Clearly some practice has gone into reciting this rant, but it's not a compelling argument for the 'we can't get there from here' camp.

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#80

Post by adev_ »

adev_ wrote: post #75

Meaningwhile, today 17/11/2023 the same Portugal is back to the normal and emitting 170g CO2/kwh [1][2] - This is 6.8x the emissions of Sweden (25g) running on Nuclear and Hydro - This is 4.1x the emissions of France (41g) running on Nuclear, Hydro and Gas - This is 2.8x the emissions of Switzerland (59g) running on Nuclear and Hydro But still much better than "Green" Germany that reaches 647g CO2/kwh.... with 22GW o…

Would people that minus a post stating facts backed by sources deign to explain why ?

I am aware that reality can be harsh to accept sometimes. And that a world where renewable are our only source of energy is more seducing to our collective imagination.

But unfortunately, it is still the reality. And we have to deal with it, even if it is pretty unpleasant.

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