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For the first time in the U.S., renewables generate more power than natural gas

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Re: For the first time in the U.S., renewables generate more power than natural gas

#101

Post by gpm »

ambicapter wrote: post #64
energy123 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world's biggest industrial economy, China, installed about 300x more renewable energy than nuclear last year. New nuclear sucks, and baseload is a false concept that can (and is) being synthetically replicated with over-building + storage + transmission + peaking.

How is base load a false concept?

Base load is marketing term for electricity supply which cannot economically follow the demand curve and is only affordable if you can use a constant supply of it. It's not a feature, it's a bug. What you want is dispatchable power.

The term vaguely makes sense if there are sources of electricity that output a constant supply that are cheaper than the dispatchable sources of power. Like nuclear was supposed to be (but in the end is not). Or in some very specific locations hydro (without a reservoir) and geothermal are. But as often bandied about as a "type of power that must be filled" it simply doesn't exist. The type of power that must be filled is dispatachable power, everything else is just "well what cheap non-dispatchable sources can we use to avoid using more expensive dispatchable power".

Re: For the first time in the U.S., renewables generate more power than natural gas

#102

Post by gpm »

UltraSane wrote: post #83
energy123 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution mix needs to be tailored the location. Non-tropical equatorial countries don't have meaningful seasonality, so they don't need seasonal storage. For countries far north of the equator, it's more challenging, but there are multiple tools to address this, including: over-building so you have enough in winter, using wind which is seasonally negatively correlated with solar, importing power over HVDC, and di…

"over-building so you have enough in winter" This makes wind and solar much more expensive to the point where nuclear is cheaper. " we are dealing with exponential change in the price of storage and solar." But not in grid storage. That is still incredibly expensive.

> But not in grid storage. That is still incredibly expensive.

The price of grid storage is absolutely falling exponentially with respect to time.

Re: For the first time in the U.S., renewables generate more power than natural gas

#103

Post by nradov »

gpm wrote: post #101
ambicapter wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is base load a false concept?

Base load is marketing term for electricity supply which cannot economically follow the demand curve and is only affordable if you can use a constant supply of it. It's not a feature, it's a bug. What you want is dispatchable power. The term vaguely makes sense if there are sources of electricity that output a constant supply that are cheaper than the dispatchable sources of power. Like nuclear was supposed to be (bu…

Base load is a feature, not a bug. Companies planning new industrial facilities need long-term guarantees of reliable 24×7 power with predictable rates. Otherwise they'll build elsewhere. Dispatchable power doesn't help them.

Re: For the first time in the U.S., renewables generate more power than natural gas

#104

Post by gpm »

nradov wrote: post #103
gpm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Base load is marketing term for electricity supply which cannot economically follow the demand curve and is only affordable if you can use a constant supply of it. It's not a feature, it's a bug. What you want is dispatchable power. The term vaguely makes sense if there are sources of electricity that output a constant supply that are cheaper than the dispatchable sources of power. Like nuclear was supposed to be (bu…

Base load is a feature, not a bug. Companies planning new industrial facilities need long-term guarantees of reliable 24×7 power with predictable rates. Otherwise they'll build elsewhere. Dispatchable power doesn't help them.

Base load power cannot provide predictable rates because it provides a fixed amount of power that the market then bids on. If there's too much demand rates go up arbitrarily high. If there's too little rates go to zero.

Dispatchable power is the only sort of power that provides 24x7 power with predictable rates. If there's more demand, you produce more power (at the same cost). If there's less, you produce less so you can sell what you do produce at the same cost.

Re: For the first time in the U.S., renewables generate more power than natural gas

#105

Post by epistasis »

KaiserPro wrote: post #84
epistasis wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment, like the linked article, was focused entirely on the US's situation, which has abundant fossil gas to the point that many frackers burn it as a waste product. I'd totally agree for UK and continental Europe. The difference between oil and gas is massive on the distribution angle, oil moves easily as long as there's not a naval blockade, but fossil gas requires super super expensive infrastructure either v…

You're missing the nuance here, gas is priced internationally, as is oil. The distribution costs for the UK are much less than in the US

LNG may be priced internationally to some degree, but local distribution of gas by pipelines drastically changes that equation. It may only be a few dollars per barrel to transport a barrel of oil, but LNG is far higher due to the massive liquefaction costs. As an indication of just how much natural gas is not priced internationally, US Henry Hub is down around $3/MMBTu, while UK NBP prices are around $14/MMBtu, if I did that correctly.

When you say that distribution costs for the UK are much less than in the US, do you mean the cost of distributing natural gas? I'm not following your logic there.

Re: For the first time in the U.S., renewables generate more power than natural gas

#106

Post by markus92 »

OneDonOne wrote: post #86
stop50 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If climate change prevention is the target, then its also an no for nuclear. Nuclear reactors need tons of cement, the fuel needs an complicated and energy intensive process with a lot of waste.

By that logic solar power should also be banned, due to the amount of coal required per panel (0) both for reduction and Czochralski process. And remember, solar panel factories don't run on solar power. (0) https://co2coalition.org/2024/05/21/coals-importance-for-sol...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO2_Coalition

Re: For the first time in the U.S., renewables generate more power than natural gas

#107

Post by AnthonyMouse »

mekdoonggi wrote: post #90
philipallstar wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand the economics when it comes to power all the time, not some of the time, and I rarely see that being mentioned in this sort of gung-ho post. I want to feel how you feel - can you help with the specifics there?

Easy. US puts panels, turbines and batteries everywhere connected in big grid. Grid is big enough that something is always generating, and batteries smooth out the curve. Power is priced dynamically. Cheap solar at noon? Do big work. High demand in evening? Discharge battery. Power is always available, but cost goes up and down. Daily, god willing.

In theory that works as long as you're willing to let the price reflect actual supply and demand even when the difference is very large, e.g. it has been cloudy and still for a couple weeks so the batteries are low and then you get a hot summer day or cold winter night with a lot of demand. No problem, we'll just set the price to "high enough to get people to stop cooling/heating their buildings" and the market will clear. But people aren't going to like that.

Re: For the first time in the U.S., renewables generate more power than natural gas

#108

Post by linkjuice4all »

asdff wrote: post #85
0xWTF wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's even more important is how solar, and to a lesser extent other tech, served as a gateway for China to accumulate electrical engineering, physics, and chemistry talent the US seems committed to offshoring by incentivizing universities to hire the cheapest available grad student talent (inevitably from China). We are training them and not our own.

>incentivizing universities to hire the cheapest available grad student talent (inevitably from China) That isn't how that works. Domestic students are just as cheap.

Domestic students sometimes get a local/in-state discount so they actually cost more since they aren't paying as much tuition upfront. GP also alluded to international students coming to the US to learn and then taking their big brains back home instead of starting a company here. This was already an issue before Trump II but has been exacerbated by ICE's gestapo tactics along with all of the other roadblocks that Trump and team are trying to insert via executive order, strategic defunding, and all the other mob/shakedown behavior.

Re: For the first time in the U.S., renewables generate more power than natural gas

#109

Post by selimthegrim »

linkjuice4all wrote: post #108
asdff wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>incentivizing universities to hire the cheapest available grad student talent (inevitably from China) That isn't how that works. Domestic students are just as cheap.

Domestic students sometimes get a local/in-state discount so they actually cost more since they aren't paying as much tuition upfront. GP also alluded to international students coming to the US to learn and then taking their big brains back home instead of starting a company here. This was already an issue before Trump II but has been exacerbated by ICE's gestapo tactics along with all of the other roadblocks that Tr…

It was also the case at MIT that students on an NSF fellowship cost the PI more to hire.

Re: For the first time in the U.S., renewables generate more power than natural gas

#110

Post by mekdoonggi »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #107
mekdoonggi wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy. US puts panels, turbines and batteries everywhere connected in big grid. Grid is big enough that something is always generating, and batteries smooth out the curve. Power is priced dynamically. Cheap solar at noon? Do big work. High demand in evening? Discharge battery. Power is always available, but cost goes up and down. Daily, god willing.

In theory that works as long as you're willing to let the price reflect actual supply and demand even when the difference is very large, e.g. it has been cloudy and still for a couple weeks so the batteries are low and then you get a hot summer day or cold winter night with a lot of demand. No problem, we'll just set the price to "high enough to get people to stop cooling/heating their buildings" and the market will…

The demand can be more elastic than you envision. If power is expensive on a given day, electric cars can wait to charge, or even discharge if they aren't going to be used. People can wait to run laundry dryers.

The market will incentivize actors to smooth out before those kinds of restrictions are necessary.

People might not like changing their habits to follow the energy, but they'll probably be pretty happy when the end result is both good for the environment and cheaper overall. At least in my corner of the Midwest, either the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, and often both.

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