Love reading this kind of news. As an aside, this is the exact type of content that is super welcome on the platform we launched in a Show HN on the front page today (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21472817). The url is https://collective.energy if you're interested in growing your impact further!
It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants
11–20 of 125 posts
Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants
#12Oh, can I not wait to ditch Ontario's Power for my own Renewables. The costs are reaching extremes now. We have some of the most expensive power in the world.
Ontario power is mostly from renewable sources already, but yes it is highly mismanaged.
You can see the hourly Ontario energy use by source here:
One of the worst inefficiencies of the Ontario grid is that we run an abundance of energy during parts of the day, during which we dump electricity to the US at extremely cheap rates. If that electricity were offered at the same rate to Ontario residents (who are paying for it!) you would see residents retrofit homes with dual-fire gas/electric heating and other utilities. Or if we had a means to store that electricity it would cover the highest-use parts of the day (approximately 3 hours later) where we still fire natural gas to cover demand.
Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants
#13Sounds great until you read the caveats, I think the general agreement is that choosing the best of the dirtiest sources is going to be the important decision facing my kids' generation.
Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants
#14I wish small scale solar was falling as fast, especially very small scale. It would be nice to be able to purchase a blanket-sized solar panel for twenty bucks.
Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the dream team would be a combination of renewable and nuclear.
No it wouldn't, because nuclear isn't reactive enough to produce energy to match the extreme afternoon demand curves when solar capacity drops and demand jumps. To account for those rapid jumps in non-renewable demand, you need an energy source that can ramp up really fast on short notice, like hydrocarbon fire.
Apparently this is less true for newer reactors, or older reactors with upgrades. I'm not an expert, but https://www.powermag.com/flexible-operation-of-nuclear-power...
Even if reactors aren't as fast to react as a gas peaking plant is, perhaps batteries will soon be able to bridge that gap. The economics of batteries change greatly if you only need them to carry the load for tens of minutes for reactors to ramp up, vs needing to carry the load until the sun shines again.
Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants
#16"[Wind and solar are] even close to being competitive with the marginal costs of running the coal and nuclear plants we already have." Is that still true without incentives, green grants, rebates, and tax credits? Because without all of that and with mountains of red tape nuclear still produces energy at the lowest cost, and without emitting any CO2.
[deleted]
Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the dream team would be a combination of renewable and nuclear.
No it wouldn't, because nuclear isn't reactive enough to produce energy to match the extreme afternoon demand curves when solar capacity drops and demand jumps. To account for those rapid jumps in non-renewable demand, you need an energy source that can ramp up really fast on short notice, like hydrocarbon fire.
So make a big enough nuclear plant for those peaks.
Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the dream team would be a combination of renewable and nuclear.
No it wouldn't, because nuclear isn't reactive enough to produce energy to match the extreme afternoon demand curves when solar capacity drops and demand jumps. To account for those rapid jumps in non-renewable demand, you need an energy source that can ramp up really fast on short notice, like hydrocarbon fire.
Or deploy storage to make the curve smoother
Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the dream team would be a combination of renewable and nuclear.
No it wouldn't, because nuclear isn't reactive enough to produce energy to match the extreme afternoon demand curves when solar capacity drops and demand jumps. To account for those rapid jumps in non-renewable demand, you need an energy source that can ramp up really fast on short notice, like hydrocarbon fire.
...or hydro.
Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the dream team would be a combination of renewable and nuclear.
No it wouldn't, because nuclear isn't reactive enough to produce energy to match the extreme afternoon demand curves when solar capacity drops and demand jumps. To account for those rapid jumps in non-renewable demand, you need an energy source that can ramp up really fast on short notice, like hydrocarbon fire.
Source for the latency of nuclear concerning spikes in electrical demand?
> 70% of France electricity is made from nuclear and they don't seem to have the issue you claim.