Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

canarymedia.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 368 posts

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

#91

Post by eldaisfish »

zik wrote: post #65
marcusverus wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that renewables require extensive, expensive redundancies which are misleadingly excluded from the ubiquitous “renewables are cheaper” studies.

Not really. Most real world studies take this into account. It's still way cheaper than nuclear.

no, they do not. The vast majority of studies that estimate the LCOE for renewable generators consider only the spot price of electricity and OPEX costs. The cost of reliability is absolutely not factored into this energy cost.

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

#92

Post by Jedd »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #85
Jedd wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ci…

He built his own electric logging truck: https://www.tiktok.com/@freightfamous/video/7292048160296406... If you think BC's mountainous forests can be logged using rail lines ... I don't know what to tell you. The rest is you projecting "exceptional claims" about green technology, that amount to wishful thinking.

Well, he's retrofitted batteries to a diesel, and ended up with a hybrid diesel / electric truck.

I have no idea about local terrain, and really, if the mill(s) are at the bottom of the hills, and there's no longer-haul trucking component to the transport from felling site to mill location that could be better served by rail, then I'll concede that point.

On the other hand, you used this guy's argument to explain why electric trucks can't possible work in this environment.

And then used this same guy's electric truck to demonstrate how they can.

Pick one.

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

#93

Post by syllablehq »

bobthepanda wrote: post #52
kuchenbecker wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The backlog of hooking variable load sources to the US electric grid is very long, often requires retrofitting the grid, and cost is borne by the generator. It's not as simple as having the capacity because power is used the instant it's produced.

IIRC there are actually starting to be wind, solar and pumped hydro sited at former coal mines and plants because they already have transmission capacity. (In the case of pumped hydro, a coal mine can also act as a big hole with an elevation difference to drive a turbine.)

There's lots of exciting progress happening with underground mechanical storage like this. It's so interesting that the U.S. DOE has been studying underground pumped hydro since at least the 1980.(https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/6517343)

Today: - Hydrostor just signed a near $1 Billion contract to build their first underground facility in California using advanced compressed air with water to help efficiency. See also: Green Gravity, Gravitricity, Terrament, Renewell, RheEnergise, and more.

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

#94

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

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…

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

No different from reporters covering "Man bites dog" rather than "Dog bites man"

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

#95

Post by mmasu »

kieranmaine wrote: post #87
mmasu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a lot of data there is pre-covid, would be interesting to see what’s happening today - especially in Europe, with the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war on energy markets.

This contains data up to Jun 2023 for the EU. https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/eu-fossil-genera... "The first half of 2023 saw a collapse in EU fossil generation, leading to the lowest output on record. Wind and solar continued their growth, with solar generation increasing by 13% and wind by 5%. Hydro and nuclear are recovering from their historic lows in 2022, though their long term outlook is uncertain.…

thanks!

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

#96

Post by adrianN »

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…

This source has very different numbers: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-per-unit-energy?count...

Do you perhaps neglect to average over the whole year?

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

#97

Post by louison11 »

Meanwhile many Portuguese cars are 25+ years old and a portion of them have black exhaust fumes that stink from a 100 meters. As in: proper black smoke coming out of the exhaust as it drives. I don’t know if there are SMOG tests, and if there are, they’re clearly not enforced.

The reality in poorer countries is that pollution reduction is not as much a priority as saving money. So yeah, I mean, I always find it funny when Portugal is presented like this ecological example. Again, it’s not “their fault,” it’s poverty, but let’s not fool anyone here. There are also piles of old furniture, concrete, and other construction materials that people are just in the habit of dumping on the side of the road in most rural areas.

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

#98

Post by ajross »

avar wrote: post #81
ajross wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is emphatically not an instant-on hot backup. Plants take time to spool up, and very importantly time to cool down. Fukushima happened because you can't just turn a reactor off, it produces energy that has to go somewhere while the intermediate fission products decay over hours-to-days.

In this scenario you could just run the nuclear plant all the time, but just direct its electric production to heating a giant pool of water or whatever. Then when the grid needs more power you do less of that, and instead send electricity to the grid.

Yes, but the point is that the problem is isomorphic to wind or solar: you get power when you don't want it. So nuclear isn't backstopping any particular need, it has the same drawbacks. The reason gas plants are used as peaker plants is that they can be turned on and off more or less instantly.

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

#99

Post by amatecha »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #85
Jedd wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ci…

He built his own electric logging truck: https://www.tiktok.com/@freightfamous/video/7292048160296406... If you think BC's mountainous forests can be logged using rail lines ... I don't know what to tell you. The rest is you projecting "exceptional claims" about green technology, that amount to wishful thinking.

Not viewing the tiktok links so I don't know the full context, but 98% of BC's power is from "clean, renewable sources" apparently: https://choose.bchydro.com/why-choose-bc/clean-renewable-ene...

BTW, eventually "green" energy _has_ to work, because sooner or later, fossil fuels are going to run out. I mean, the sooner we figure this out in an effective way, the better. It's literally pointless to argue against the inevitability of needing truly renewable energy.

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

#100

Post by adrianN »

louison11 wrote: post #97

Meanwhile many Portuguese cars are 25+ years old and a portion of them have black exhaust fumes that stink from a 100 meters. As in: proper black smoke coming out of the exhaust as it drives. I don’t know if there are SMOG tests, and if there are, they’re clearly not enforced. The reality in poorer countries is that pollution reduction is not as much a priority as saving money. So yeah, I mean, I always find it funny…

So you're saying renewables are so cheap now that poor countries that only care about saving money build a ton of them? That sounds like excellent news to me.
Post reply on HN