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Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

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Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#111

Post by anovikov »

adev_ wrote: post #75

Meaningwhile, today 17/11/2023 the same Portugal is back to the normal and emitting 170g CO2/kwh [1][2] - This is 6.8x the emissions of Sweden (25g) running on Nuclear and Hydro - This is 4.1x the emissions of France (41g) running on Nuclear, Hydro and Gas - This is 2.8x the emissions of Switzerland (59g) running on Nuclear and Hydro But still much better than "Green" Germany that reaches 647g CO2/kwh.... with 22GW o…

Well, they still consume 60% of renewable electricity long term overall, that's not counting whatever renewable electricity may be a part of imports from Spain. It's good enough and that's a big progress. With solar power due to increase more than 7x by 2030 (now generating 8% of all power consumed), and wind by almost 3x with almost all additions being offshore (now generating 18% of all power), it's easy to see that even we assume 50% curtailment rate, they will provide 100% renewable power easily.

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#112

Post by sien »

pmoleri wrote: post #14
melling wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like these small wins. Population of Portugal is 10.5 million people. We have such a long way to go. Global fossil fuel will hopefully peak by the end of the decade. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/world-oil-gas-coal-d...

> People like these small wins. And for good reason, it proves wrong the mainstream thinking that this is impossible. Quite a few countries already run the full year over 90% renewable[1] and we still neglect it with all kind of excuses. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewab...

Sort that by percent of renewables and then check the hydro.

If you have lots of hydro you can have 90% plus renewables.

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#113

Post by fomine3 »

kuchenbecker wrote: post #36
helloooooooo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would they regulate fluctuations in demand? Nuclear can’t do that. You need storage, or a reasonably scalable generation medium. Nuclear as a base load is moot

Control rods modulate the output.

Fuel cost is a somewhat minor cost for nuclear plants, so it's not much worth to do it

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#114

Post by fulafel »

snewman wrote: post #76
voisin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source for this? I would think inflation in construction and maintenance costs for traditional generation would still keep it more expensive.

For renewables, most of the cost is up front, then they're cheap to run because they don't need fuel. (High capex, low opex.) Fossil fuel plants have more of a mix of upfront and operating costs. High interest rates make it expensive to borrow the upfront cost of renewables.

On the other hand fossil fuel costs are risky, and if we plan to steer away from the worst climate disaster using policy tools, the cheap fuel will be gone within a plan't lifetime.

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#115

Post by Maxion »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #101

For most economies, assuming positive real interest rates, the choice is between natural gas and nuclear. Solar + wind will be the cheapest, and will make up the bulk of primary production. But they won’t replace coal, natural gas, oil and nukes—not in the near term, and certainly not if we’re tooling up for EVs. Portugal has gone gas. America will, too, in all likelihood. Both will be subsidised by countries without…

What you say is not true in most places.

EV charging won't raise overall power consumption that much, and the majority of tthe EU will stop burning coal around the 2030's. Nuclear isn't much on the table in Europe, especially since new wind developments produce cheaper power than nuclear plants.

Solar works quite well at lower latitudes, but at higher latitudes in Europe it can work as a supplement to hydro in the summer (as there's less water around then), but it won't play any significant role in power production (some 10s of percentage points perhaps).

Biggest challenge for the next few decades is inertia as well as base load when there's low wind over large geographic areas. We need cheaper (and better) grid scale energy storage. A lot of people forget about the cheaper part.

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#116

Post by adev_ »

anovikov wrote: post #111
adev_ wrote: post #75

Meaningwhile, today 17/11/2023 the same Portugal is back to the normal and emitting 170g CO2/kwh [1][2] - This is 6.8x the emissions of Sweden (25g) running on Nuclear and Hydro - This is 4.1x the emissions of France (41g) running on Nuclear, Hydro and Gas - This is 2.8x the emissions of Switzerland (59g) running on Nuclear and Hydro But still much better than "Green" Germany that reaches 647g CO2/kwh.... with 22GW o…

Well, they still consume 60% of renewable electricity long term overall, that's not counting whatever renewable electricity may be a part of imports from Spain. It's good enough and that's a big progress. With solar power due to increase more than 7x by 2030 (now generating 8% of all power consumed), and wind by almost 3x with almost all additions being offshore (now generating 18% of all power), it's easy to see tha…

> it's easy to see that even we assume 50% curtailment rate,

It is now 07h00 in Portugal.

- Solar production is reduced to 0% because it is night time. Like it is 30% of the time.

- Wind is not blowing much. Wind production is at 3.14% of its total capacity.

To compensate that, 29% of the production is guarantee by Gas powerplant. The rest from Hydro.

To compensate its high Hydro consumption, Portugal is also doing Hydro storage for around 500 MW by Night using electricity imported from Spain. Spanish Electricity is produced around 25% from Gas, which makes the entire operation looks pretty much like Greenwashing.

The situation is not exceptional. It can in fact happen for weeks when an heavy depression exist in northern Atlantic.

So please, tell me again: How easy will it be to achieve 100% renewable we assume 50% curtailment rate ?

Shall Portugal increase its Wind capacity again by 20x ?

Can Hydro storage powered by Gas powerplants ever be considered "Green" ?

Or Shall we maybe rely on future magical Hydrogen electrolyser that do not exist yet to solve 22 GW of coal power consumption like Germany ?

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#117

Post by KingOfCoders »

adev_ wrote: post #75

Meaningwhile, today 17/11/2023 the same Portugal is back to the normal and emitting 170g CO2/kwh [1][2] - This is 6.8x the emissions of Sweden (25g) running on Nuclear and Hydro - This is 4.1x the emissions of France (41g) running on Nuclear, Hydro and Gas - This is 2.8x the emissions of Switzerland (59g) running on Nuclear and Hydro But still much better than "Green" Germany that reaches 647g CO2/kwh.... with 22GW o…

`Nuclear "just works"`

No it doesn't. Nuclear power plants are nowhere near insured to risk and nuclear waste is not paid for. So nuclear operators are freeloading on society for decades making billions of profits [0].

To make nuclear "work", one would need to adjust insurance and establish a trust to pay for nuclear waste facility operation for the next hundres of years. But then, no one would operate them nuclear plants from the building costs to the operating and insurance costs.

As a car driver I need to insure my car, so the insurance company pays people I hit. Nuclear operators do not need to insure their plant to any significant risk level.

And if you think a disaster is not happening, well I also don't intend to have a car accident, so why do I need to pay insurance?

[0] Fukushima is around $80B-$200B, the US nuclear insurance coverage is $15B. Chernobyl was around $200B.

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#118

Post by adrianN »

adev_ wrote: post #116
anovikov wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they still consume 60% of renewable electricity long term overall, that's not counting whatever renewable electricity may be a part of imports from Spain. It's good enough and that's a big progress. With solar power due to increase more than 7x by 2030 (now generating 8% of all power consumed), and wind by almost 3x with almost all additions being offshore (now generating 18% of all power), it's easy to see tha…

> it's easy to see that even we assume 50% curtailment rate, It is now 07h00 in Portugal. - Solar production is reduced to 0% because it is night time. Like it is 30% of the time. - Wind is not blowing much. Wind production is at 3.14% of its total capacity. To compensate that, 29% of the production is guarantee by Gas powerplant. The rest from Hydro. To compensate its high Hydro consumption, Portugal is also doing H…

You build something like 3x peak demand and produce hydrogen or ammonia while you have a surplus so that you can burn it while the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow or use it as feedstock for your industrial processes. Industrial scale hydrogen electrolyzers exist, we just need to build more of them once we have a steady electricity surplus that allows us to run them economically.

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#119

Post by KingOfCoders »

adev_ wrote: post #103
adrianN wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This source has very different numbers: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-per-unit-energy?count... Do you perhaps neglect to average over the whole year?

Average on the year 2022 gives similar result with a Portugal at 227g, a Sweden around 22g, France around 72g, Switzerland around 50g.[1] Data provided by the French electrical network manager are also aligned with these estimations [2] And other sources I am aware of also report similar numbers [3] Are you sure your number is not also counting residential heating and not only electricity generation ? [1] https://app…

Are your numbers electricity or primary energy? You're sources don't say. I assume nowtricity is electricity because of the domain? But then it says "CO2 emissions per country" so one would assume it's all of primary energy (including traffic and heating?).

Re: Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row

#120

Post by KingOfCoders »

adev_ wrote: post #75

Meaningwhile, today 17/11/2023 the same Portugal is back to the normal and emitting 170g CO2/kwh [1][2] - This is 6.8x the emissions of Sweden (25g) running on Nuclear and Hydro - This is 4.1x the emissions of France (41g) running on Nuclear, Hydro and Gas - This is 2.8x the emissions of Switzerland (59g) running on Nuclear and Hydro But still much better than "Green" Germany that reaches 647g CO2/kwh.... with 22GW o…

Shouldn't that be g/person not g/kwh? E.g. when travelling to the US I was astonished to see escalators going at night with no one around. In Germany they stop at night. Or Germany uses lots of public transport while the US doesn't. Which reflects in the numbers, the US has much higher g/person compared to Germany (Didn't look into Portugal).
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