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Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

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Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#171

Post by oezi »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #130
adrianN wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French nuclear power is still not particularly economical and they didn’t build as many plants as originally planned because of it, nor do they plan to build a sufficient number of new plants to sustain current capacity over the next decades. France justifies the expense with their nuclear bomb program that benefits from a strong civilian nuclear industry.

French nuclear power has a levelized cost of about $70/MWh - which is about the same cost as the levelized cost of solar or wind in France, without most the headaches of intermittency. (Remember the average French person lives further north than the average Canadian...)

> which is about the same cost as the levelized cost of solar or wind in France

As of 2024. Remember that solar and wind are still on a downward price trajectory and the reduced investment in Nuclear has meant that the prices to up.

So if you have a figure for example of $70/MWh for PV and wind in mind from a couple of years ago, then this figure might be slightly outdated now and more slightly outdated tomorrow. PV might go under $20/MWh at the end of the decade for instance. Nobody will be able to compete with that.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#172

Post by pjc50 »

Reason077 wrote: post #155
MagnumOpus wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French nuclear power has a levelized cost of about $70/MWh - which is about the same cost as the levelized cost of solar or wind in France, without most the headaches of intermittency. (Remember the average French person lives further north than the average Canadian...)

> “Remember the average French person lives further north than the average Canadian...” That doesn’t mean much. Regardless of latitude, the French climate is much milder than most of Canada. In fact there’s plenty of places in North America that get much, much colder than equivalent latitudes in Europe. Heck, Chicago is the same latitude as Barcelona(!!), but there can be 20°C or more difference in temperature during…

That's true, because of the gulf stream, but the only thing that matters from a solar panel point of view is the angle to the sun. In fact you might get slightly more out of a Canadian solar panel than a French one at the same latitude because the Canadian one will be colder!

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#173

Post by einpoklum »

hef19898 wrote: post #102
rudolph9 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like this thread has sparked a lot nuclear vs solar debate, but both have the potential to be net zero energy sources and most fault tolerant grids are powered by a multitude of sources. We should be aggressively building solar, wind, battery, and nuclear along with anything else that can reasonably be part of a net zero supply chain that produces electricity in the not too distant. They all have different t…

We are building solar and wind aggressively. The problem with nuclear power is, nobody manages to build it aggressively or even at enough scale to make a meaningfull impact. What we should do, is keeping existing nuclear plants running as long as economically and safely possible. Emphasis on economically and safely, because those two points meant that the German reactors did run as long as possible, they even got an…

> We are building solar and wind aggressively

That's absolutely not true. 68 GW nameplate capacity, or, say, 30 GW effective capacity, is a very small amount. The US consumed 4 Trillion kWH in 2022 [1], which, if assuming a peak consumption of twice the average, means up to, say 2.2 10^12 W. 68 GW is 6810^9 W, or 3% of the peak consumption.

Even if my cocktail-napkin math is off by a factor of 2, that's still not much more than offsetting demand increases. And even if there were no demand increase - "aggressive" would mean 4x that amount, to be able to phase out fossil fuel power by 2030 or so.

[1]: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/use-of-elect...

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#174

Post by Reason077 »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #67

> Nuclear. Start-up of the fourth reactor (1.1 GW) at Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear power plant I checked the Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla... > Two additional units utilizing Westinghouse AP1000 reactors were under construction since 2009, with Unit 3 being completed in July 2023.[9][10][11] This last report blames the latest increase in costs on the contractor not completing wor…

> "I feel the same about the two big nuke projects in the UK (Hinkley Point C & Sizewell C). It makes no sense compared to solar/wind/battery."

Renewables are far cheaper, and can be built much more quickly. But there is an argument for (some) nuclear around energy security and diversification of supply. Batteries are great but can't really provide long-term storage (ie: multiple days/weeks). Do we want to rely solely on natural gas as a backup during the cold, calm, winter weather patterns which in some years can persist for weeks? Last year's energy crisis suggests maybe not. Or can we build enough interconnections and rely on imports from our neighbours?

Also worth considering that Hinkley Point C & Sizewell C are really only replacing existing nuclear plants that are shutting down. Even if both are built, the UK will still have only around half the nuclear capacity in the 2030s that we had in the 1990s.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#175

Post by actionfromafar »

hef19898 wrote: post #161
lucioperca wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still plenty of water, the problem is that you have to limit heating the river. With a cooling tower can cool with or without evaporating water depending on the design but always without heating the river. But it is cheaper to directly dump the heat into the water.

And you cannot empty the river neither, especially during a drought, can you?

My hunch is evaporative cooling uses not very much water. You could also fill a small dam when the water flow is higher. All means higher cost, of course.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#176

Post by einpoklum »

elif wrote: post #33
bequanna wrote: post #30

One thing I have wondered: does it make sense to just put most of our eggs in the solar basket in sunny states and then invest heavily in batteries and transmission lines to less sunny areas? Wind seems so much more expensive and maintenance intensive.

Panel and battery prices have come down such that transmission losses, natural disasters to farms, last mile power lines in storms, etc become bigger concerns comparatively. I think the end-use solar and battery model makes more and more sense every year from a consumer perspective.

Note that you don't necessarily have to put the panels and the batteries at the same place. You can, and there are benefits like DC AC conversion, but you could in theory de-centralize solar more than you de-centralize battery storage. And there may be some scale advantages there, especially since some storage technologies involve putting things underground, or high temperatures which are a safety concern like with molten salt, etc. Caveat: I'm just a layman about this stuff.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#177

Post by ceejayoz »

fbdab103 wrote: post #106
hackermatic wrote: post #63

I'm surprised that wind is such a small part of the US's projected future energy mix. Does anyone know why? Wind power works overnight, it leaves a lot more usable land than solar does, and there's a lot more capacity to be exploited. It's strange even considering the political backlash against wind power in some areas.

My knee jerk thought is that you have to work significantly harder to secure land for windmills. They have to be distributed such that you require huge tracts of land and/or to secure rights to install a tower on someone else's property. Each of those towers then need additional transmission lines. While solar might generate less energy per unit area, it is at least condensed so that you could get away with buying a…

Drive through Indiana and it’s pretty clear farmers are happy to site lots of windmills in their fields.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#178

Post by luizfwolf »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #67

> Nuclear. Start-up of the fourth reactor (1.1 GW) at Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear power plant I checked the Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla... > Two additional units utilizing Westinghouse AP1000 reactors were under construction since 2009, with Unit 3 being completed in July 2023.[9][10][11] This last report blames the latest increase in costs on the contractor not completing wor…

Nuclear is the most clean energy that can be generated on-demand, solar and wind can only generate energy depending on the external conditions.

Batteries until today are not a viable solution.

When talking about the electrical grid you have to be able to generate energy in any amount whenever you want.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#179

Post by Reason077 »

pjc50 wrote: post #172
Reason077 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Remember the average French person lives further north than the average Canadian...” That doesn’t mean much. Regardless of latitude, the French climate is much milder than most of Canada. In fact there’s plenty of places in North America that get much, much colder than equivalent latitudes in Europe. Heck, Chicago is the same latitude as Barcelona(!!), but there can be 20°C or more difference in temperature during…

That's true, because of the gulf stream, but the only thing that matters from a solar panel point of view is the angle to the sun. In fact you might get slightly more out of a Canadian solar panel than a French one at the same latitude because the Canadian one will be colder!

Indeed. But in either case, solar doesn't help too much on cold winter days at higher latitudes. Especially if we want to decarbonise heating, leading to increased grid demand on the coldest days.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#180

Post by JohnCClarke »

luizfwolf wrote: post #178
throwaway2037 wrote: post #67

> Nuclear. Start-up of the fourth reactor (1.1 GW) at Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear power plant I checked the Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla... > Two additional units utilizing Westinghouse AP1000 reactors were under construction since 2009, with Unit 3 being completed in July 2023.[9][10][11] This last report blames the latest increase in costs on the contractor not completing wor…

Nuclear is the most clean energy that can be generated on-demand, solar and wind can only generate energy depending on the external conditions. Batteries until today are not a viable solution. When talking about the electrical grid you have to be able to generate energy in any amount whenever you want.

Providing "base load" is often touted as an advantage of nuclear power plants (NPP) here on HN. The reality is actually the opposite. As the International Atomic Energy Agency says[1]:

"Any unexpected sudden disconnect of the NPP from an otherwise stable electric grid could trigger a severe imbalance between power generation and consumption causing a sudden reduction in grid frequency and voltage. This could even cascade into the collapse of the grid if additional power sources are not connected to the grid in time."

Basically NPPs are designed to SCRAM for all sorts of reasons, then the sudden loss of multiple GW really ruins the grid managers' day. The first paragraphs of [1] make it clear that a large, stable, grid is a pre-requisite for NPPs not a result of NPPs.

[1] https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/gc/gc53inf-3-att5_e...

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