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Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

the-independent.com

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Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#201

Post by lxgr »

pfdietz wrote: post #196
lxgr wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not where natural geothermal energy is from. It's residual heat from planetary formation and some natural radioactivity. This form of storage also unfortunately only yields heat (via heat pumps or directly), not electricity, as the temperature difference is much too low in comparison to meaningfully run any heat engine from it. Great if you need to heat houses; not so great if you were hoping to store the sola…

No, that is how natural geothermal energy works. Perhaps you mistakenly thought I was saying the heat comes from sunlight? I didn't. The heat comes from below (or, in some cases, from internal radioactive decay). And this delivery of heat from below (or from decay) is a slow process, taking a very long time, which is why geothermal resources have to be buried deeply (otherwise, that heat just leaks out and the temper…

Yeah, "accumulate the heat over thousands of years" indeed sounds a bit misleading to me. The heat is largely already there (or is generated pretty uniformly through radioactive processes), it's just slowly transmitted outwards down a gradient.

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#202

Post by ninalanyon »

sumea wrote: post #164
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finland has electricified 40% of primary energy which is pretty much world leading (Sweden and Norway are 50%). European average is 19%. Largest chunk left is transport which can mostly be electrified now. Industrial and home heat too. There are hard to electrify sections in both but overall it's fairly obvious what to do next. And the easy parts eliminate 3 or 4 units of primary energy for every one they replace, so…

Yes, ground transport (except long distance trucks) can be electrified now. In principle, most homes could be heated with electricity if we had means to store all the "excess" wind energy or waste heat from e.g. datacenters and use it in district heating. The technology for heat storage is mostly ready but the capacity is not. But would it be easy or obvious what to do next? Absolutely not. Everything is simple if yo…

> except long distance trucks) can be electrified now.

What do you call long distance? And why do you think it can't be electrified now. Both Volvo and Scania have electric tractor units.

Scania has trucks with over 500 km range at 42 t GTW. In Europe you can't drive more than 360 km in one go. See https://www.scania.com/group/en/home/products-and-services/t...

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#203

Post by XorNot »

swiftcoder wrote: post #166
ambicapter wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just use nuclear as base load, and battery storage as much as you can.

Nuclear doesn't really solve this particular problem - solar is already cheaper than nuclear, so no one is going to replace their entire solar capacity with nuclear. And nuclear doesn't spin up/down rapidly like natural gas, so its a lousy solution for nighttime.

This is just wrong. Nuclear is perfectly fine for nighttime because nighttime is highly predictable and doesn't fluctuate very much.

My state (NSW, Australia) for example uses no less then 6 GW at all times of day. Variable load is on top of that during the day.

If we had 6GW of nuclear plants, our grid would be almost completely green and they'd run at 100% utilization.

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#205

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #150
Tepix wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it unnecessary burden? We've had major nuclear accidents despite regulations and that was before 9/11 and dron wars.

What's the fatality rate per GWh of civilian nuclear power in the US vs. other forms of power generation?

Tiring with arbitrary limitations to exclude major accidents of a fleet in the hundreds.

The difference between renewables and nuclear power is who gets harmed.

When dealing with nuclear accidents entire populations are forced into life changing evacuations, if all goes well.

For renewables the only harm that comes are for the people who has chosen to work in the industry. And the workplace hazards are the same as any other industry working with heavy things and electric equipment.

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#206

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

littlestymaar wrote: post #153
cyjackx wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of this is unnecessary regulatory burden, though? There probably is some margin of improvement over what the anti-nuclear lobbyists have imposed.

It's not the regulations, it's the financing scheme: if it's not state backed with a long investment horizon, it's very expensive because private investors expect 10% yields in the middle of a ZIRP to cover from the possible political reversal. The Hinckley Point C EPR reactor would have produced electricity at a rate below £20/MWh instead of a planned £80/MWh if it was financed by government bonds.

”If we compare apples to oranges nuclear power is cheap”.

You can finance the competition in the same way and get similarly cheaper prices.

Hinkley Point C just got a loan at a 7% interest rate to finish the plant. That is after about all uncertainty should already have been discovered.

Now add making a profit and factor in the risk on top and you’ll end up with electricity costing $400 per MWh

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#208

Post by chinabot »

librasteve wrote: post #204

I see that Norway is big on renewables - great that all that Oil & Gas revenue can be used to build hydro & wind to salve their conscience.

Interesting looking at the data, that Norway generates 4x the electricity of NZ and they are roughly the same size and population I assume it exports most.

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#209

Post by XorNot »

hvb2 wrote: post #144
thangalin wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's dangerous. For millenia. See https://www.jlab.org/news/releases/jefferson-lab-tapped-lead... > Partitioning and recycling of uranium, plutonium, and minor actinide content of used nuclear fuel can dramatically reduce this number to around 300 years.

The word CAN is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Let's not pretend like the track record of energy production is free of externalities. We CAN also produce almost all of our plastics from recycled ones. We don't, because those are more expensive than new.

But who cares? Plastic in stabilized landfill is behaving better then the oil in the ground it was manufactured from. It doesn't matter.

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#210

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

XorNot wrote: post #203
swiftcoder wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear doesn't really solve this particular problem - solar is already cheaper than nuclear, so no one is going to replace their entire solar capacity with nuclear. And nuclear doesn't spin up/down rapidly like natural gas, so its a lousy solution for nighttime.

This is just wrong. Nuclear is perfectly fine for nighttime because nighttime is highly predictable and doesn't fluctuate very much. My state (NSW, Australia) for example uses no less then 6 GW at all times of day. Variable load is on top of that during the day. If we had 6GW of nuclear plants, our grid would be almost completely green and they'd run at 100% utilization.

Now calculate what it costs running a nuclear plant only at night.

You’ll end up at $400 per MWh excluding transmissions costs, taxes etc.

Your state already has coal plants forced to become peakers or be decommissioned because no one wants their expensive electricity during the daytime. Let alone a horrifyingly expensive new built nuclear plant.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-13/australian-coal-plant...

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