211–220 of 231 posts
solar is 10x cheaper than nuclear generation, but storage is 100x more expensive than nuclear. Need a massive change in our understanding of storage costs to go 100% renewable.
> storage is 100x more expensive than nuclear. Please don't make things up out of thin air. Storage is cheaper than nuclear.
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Do you happen to have a source for this comparison? I'm curious to know what the economics of grid scale electricity storage are.
Other recent threads have mentioned gridscale battery storage on the order of 8-10c/KWh.
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One thing to consider is that if that's profitable to do at house scale, then it's probably even more profitable to do at grid scale and you'll likely be out-competed by utility companies. Edit: Unless you're taking advantage of tax incentives to do it at house scale. Its hard to beat the economics of just being handed free money.
> One thing to consider is that if that's profitable to do at house scale, then it's probably even more profitable to do at grid scale and you'll likely be out-competed by utility companies. Utility companies have to pay for distribution networks, and generally pass that cost on in the price per kWh. Which you avoid the less you use the grid -- and which then become a higher proportion of the prices the utility has t…
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> storage is 100x more expensive than nuclear. Please don't make things up out of thin air. Storage is cheaper than nuclear.
Look at the cost of storing 12 hours of energy for a 2 GW solar install (assuming long winter nights) or cost per kWhr of non gravity storage (since mountains aren't available everywhere).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38942951
And you get roughly $9B for 24GWh. Rhis is roughly half the cost of Vogtle most recently completed $18B reactor, which is only 1.2GW and does baseload, so it provides less valuable constant power rather than dispatchable power that can match supply to demand. And that's before further price reductions for the batteries from having far lower power:energy ratio (save a ton on inverters), bulk discounts, and the thigh cost of doing any construction in Hawaii versus other places.
What about the solar to charge it and provide daytime power? Again, using high cost estimates of $1/W, and a capacity factor of 0.25, you'd need 8GW to supply an average of 2GW continuous power, which is $8B. And again, that's using a high installed cost, and ignoring that a major cost of install, the inverters, would be shared with the batteries and could be dual utilized. Solar panel costs are only 1/3 of the total installed cost of utility solar in the US, and batter packs are similarly only able 1/3 of the total balance of system.
So using excessivelt high, conservative estimates, a solar+batter install that could sustain 2GW average, but which is also hugely flexible and can adapt to peaks and troughs in demand, is going to be less than $17B, probably closer to $12B or $10B realistically. That nuclear reactor for an inflexible 1.2GW is $18B.
And then let's look at project completion risk and timelines. The nuclear reactor will take 10 years, and has a >25% of failing to complete construction, leaving billions stranded. The solar plus battery install will be completed in 2-5 years, with a >95% of project success.
That's today, but every year solar and storage costs fall. Nuclear might eke out a 5% decrease in cost when 10+ reactors have been built, but it's not going to catch up to storage and solar.
Gravity based storage won't be able to compete, according to any of the startups' preliminary numbers I have seen published. New hydro storage requires construction, which is super expensive for advanced economies, and is unlikely to be able to even match the costs of hydro built 75 years ago, and will likely be be far more expensive.
In any case, the idea that storage is 100x more expensive than nuclear is just not close to reality.
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Look at the cost of storing 12 hours of energy for a 2 GW solar install (assuming long winter nights) or cost per kWhr of non gravity storage (since mountains aren't available everywhere).
Take these numbers from a smaller install on HN a few days ago, $390/kWh: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38942951 And you get roughly $9B for 24GWh. Rhis is roughly half the cost of Vogtle most recently completed $18B reactor, which is only 1.2GW and does baseload, so it provides less valuable constant power rather than dispatchable power that can match supply to demand. And that's before further price reductio…
Which energy storage is $1/kWh? I thought battery was ~100$
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According to the charts, battery storage seems to be growing roughly in parity.
Battery storage does not help with seasonal differences.
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Take these numbers from a smaller install on HN a few days ago, $390/kWh: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38942951 And you get roughly $9B for 24GWh. Rhis is roughly half the cost of Vogtle most recently completed $18B reactor, which is only 1.2GW and does baseload, so it provides less valuable constant power rather than dispatchable power that can match supply to demand. And that's before further price reductio…
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf Which energy storage is $1/kWh? I thought battery was ~100$
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And don't forget the ultimate flexible load: electric vehicles. In 2023 near half of my (relatively well insulated all electric home) energy use was charging my EV at home.
That's in the game plan for 2024, no question. My new home came at the cost of doubling my commute distance. An EV charged by my own rooftop would be better for both the planet and my own bottom line. Edit: Any chance you're in the US? If so, what EV are you driving?
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Storage isn't just a bad fit for that because it's expensive, though. What do you do when it runs down, because it's unusually cold or you have an extended period of low generation, or both? Now it's 20 degrees below freezing and you have no heat.
> What do you do when it runs down, because it's unusually cold or you have an extended period of low generation, or both? I'm not talking about going off grid, just energy price arbitrage. You still have the option of pulling power from the grid to heat your house, although potentially at a higher price. With storage, you could also coordinate grid loads during the night so that at any given time the total load on t…
It's not a different problem for the grid. If the grid is generating nearly all of its power from solar and wind and it's calm and cold and night, where does the grid get the power to run your heat pumps? Storage is not only expensive, it has finite capacity. On the coldest week of the decade when everyone's heating system is using 250% more power than usual, and has been for days, the storage runs down and then what?
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You can replace a significant proportion of the grid with intermittent generation without any trouble. Using solar for the air conditioning load in the summer is perfect. Use whatever you want to charge electric car batteries because they're batteries and most cars are parked >90% of the time. You can can't shift 100% of the load based on time of day through pricing, but you can do a non-trivial amount. Then you pick…
> You can replace a significant proportion of the grid with intermittent generation without any trouble. Yes, in some locations. That’s a no brainer and where it’s economical it’s already happening. But unpredictable supply particularly needs on-demand energy. Nuclear can’t respond quickly, so if you don’t have hydro you’re likely left with gas. > Use whatever you want to charge electric car batteries because they're…
Nuclear is baseload, but baseload offsets intermittency.
If you're using solar you've got no generation at night. Suppose you do all the load shifting to the day that you reasonably can and you still need 600 GWh of power for the 12 hours between sunset and sunrise. Well, add 40GW of nuclear and now you only need 120 GWh. You've cut back the amount of gas or batteries you need by quite a lot, but you still have some, which is enough to respond to short-term demand changes. And the nuclear plant generates during the day too, which isn't as valuable but is still not zero and contributes to paying its costs.
> We have some way to go with universal infrastructure support for that though.
At some point there was a fear that this was chicken and egg: No one buys electric cars because there are no chargers so no one builds chargers.
There are enough chargers now that it's viable for a significant proportion of people to buy an electric car. At that point people will just build more chargers in proportion to how many cars need them and there isn't really anything to worry about. And the power can be generated from renewables without having to worry about intermittency because you're charging a battery which is typically stationary for most of the day.
> The major sources today are heating, AC, fridges. Cooking will come up there if you remove gas.
AC is fine, aligns well with solar. Heating is the hard one, but heating is approximately baseload. The best candidate for that seems to be nuclear -- which can also potentially provide cogeneration for buildings in reasonable distance from the plant.
> In either case, industrial and commercial are ~60% of use and how do we move that significantly out of peak hours?
Businesses disproportionately operate 9-5, which is daylight hours. Many industrial operations operate 24H because the cost of paying people a premium to work second and third shift is less than the cost of building three separate factories that only operate 9-5. Now they'll each have to decide if it's also worth paying the cost of energy storage to operate at night.