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Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

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Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#131

Post by pjc50 »

konjin wrote: post #95
marshray wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there is a tipping point where marginal solar is not really valuable for a grid anymore. And that is a very good problem to have. There are any number of industrial processes that could easily put that excessively cheap energy to use. Aluminum smelting, for example.

It isn't. Your base load stations close and you are left only with the intermittent reweables and natural gas. South Australia is the only energy market in that place right now and the prices paid there would destroy any industrial economy.

"Renewables, natural gas and a couple of nuclear plants" is the UK situation, with normal electricity prices. Almost all the coal is closed permanently.

People will keep saying it won't work long after it's already been done.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#132

Post by trhway »

WalterBright wrote: post #93
throwaway201103 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're exaggerating a bit. Water heater will stay hot for a day or so, but will rapidly cool when you start using it and cold water flows in. House will be uncomfortably cold after a few hours in the wintertime if the heat is not running, and it's not really practical to overheat it when electric rates are low/free because you can only go maybe 10 degrees before it's really too warm for comfort. You'd need a heat tan…

I've had power outages for a week more than once, and can vouch for it staying warm enough for a comfortable shower for a couple days. For HVAC, you can heat/cool it at a minimum to the edge of the comfort range, which will make a big difference. You can take it much further by heating/cooling some thermal mass, and drawing on that mass when the electricity is cheaper. That mass can simply be a pile of stones in a bo…

>a pile of stones in a box with some ductwork added

man, the beauty in our lives disappears. Imagine that heated by electricity (especially if during cheap period) instead of coal/wood, and how great it is to sleep on or right next to such a stove (my grandmother house had one :):

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/12/tile-stoves.html

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#133

Post by beervirus »

throwaway12319 wrote: post #124
ralfd wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely this theoretical risk of that is dwarved by the concrete risk of climate change.

No doubt, but this is entirely besides the point. My point is still valid.

Beside, not besides.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#134

Post by pjc50 »

the_economist wrote: post #6
BurningFrog wrote: post #3

So fossil fuels, at least for power generation, is already obsolete. Fantastic! Since the power plant replacement cycle is much slower than for phones, it will take a while to propagate the shift, but it is already inevitable.

There's still the problem of what to do between 4pm and 8 am on a day without wind, which means we won't be able to shut down too many power plants until cheap energy storage exists.

It's more or less impossible for there to be no wind over a large area at the same time - low wind areas are surrounded by circulating air in a cyclonic structure.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#135

Post by xyzzyz »

WalterBright wrote: post #93
throwaway201103 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're exaggerating a bit. Water heater will stay hot for a day or so, but will rapidly cool when you start using it and cold water flows in. House will be uncomfortably cold after a few hours in the wintertime if the heat is not running, and it's not really practical to overheat it when electric rates are low/free because you can only go maybe 10 degrees before it's really too warm for comfort. You'd need a heat tan…

I've had power outages for a week more than once, and can vouch for it staying warm enough for a comfortable shower for a couple days. For HVAC, you can heat/cool it at a minimum to the edge of the comfort range, which will make a big difference. You can take it much further by heating/cooling some thermal mass, and drawing on that mass when the electricity is cheaper. That mass can simply be a pile of stones in a bo…

Water has really good thermal mass already. I think that adding huge water tanks in basements would be pretty beneficial: if the water in those tanks is operated in closed cycle, minerals from water wouldn't accumulate, and if we used rust proof materials, they tanks could last for the lifetime of the house. Then, we could use them to store heat in winter and cold in summer, when electricity is cheap.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#136

Post by cbmuser »

gandalfian wrote: post #61

The Germans paid for it creating the market/industry. Vast amounts. Then the Chinese thought it looked like a good industry to be in and threw unbelievable money at developing manufacturing capacity. If the Germans keep voting green and being parsimonious savers then we may yet get cheap batteries and survive.

That’s rather inaccurate.

German electricity prices are so high because renewables need backup power plants and German law mandates that these plants (mostly coal and gas) are not allowed to operate unless wind and solar are unable to provide sufficient electricity.

Also, Germany‘s energy sector still accounts to 350 million tons CO2 emissions annually while France only accounts for 50 million tons CO2 p.a.

That’s the result of phasing out nuclear in Germany and over 70% nuclear in France in the electricity sector.

Unless you‘re Norway or Austria or any country with lots of hydropower, renewables are neither cheap nor do they significantly help to decarbonize the electricity sector.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#137

Post by pjc50 »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #58
bryanlarsen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The listed nuclear price is $155/MWh. But that's for baseload power, which can't replace batteries. What's needed is dispatchable or on-demand power, which costs about 3x as much for gas, I have no idea how much it inflates the price for nuclear, but the answer will be "a lot". Nuclear in 2020 doesn't make any sense. It's far cheaper to over-provision and use storage. We should have been building nuclear like crazy o…

> The listed nuclear price is $155/MWh. Getting the price down for nuclear construction and maintenance is important. Keep in mind that these plants were built in the 80s or earlier. > Nuclear in 2020 doesn't make any sense. It's far cheaper to over-provision and use storage. What storage? That's the point. You can listen to what Bill Gates said about this last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xe3BWPsBTU

The Hinckley C price is about that, and it's late.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#138

Post by adrianmonk »

jes5199 wrote: post #41
bregma wrote: post #12

The article says the world relies on fossil fuel for energy because it's cheaper. That's true. It doesn't mention that the world relies on it because it's reliable. It doesn't disappear for 6 months of the year, or stop producing for 3 out of 5 days or during peak demand periods. Make renewables cheaper and more reliable and they will replace fossil fuels in a snap. Cheaper is not enough if it doesn't do the job.

in the past they were cheaper. Now renewables are cheaper. Right now, intermittent renewables actually drives up the cost of fossil fuels! Renewables do wacky things to the spot price of power - sometimes electricity is free or even has negative value, sometimes it's expensive. Ideally fossil fuel plants would only spin up when they could sell power at a profit, but they can't dispatch so quickly, so they end up sell…

> Ideally fossil fuel plants would only spin up when they could sell power at a profit

Another effect is it makes these plants sit idle for periods of time.

It costs a lot of money to build a power plant. Every hour it sits idle is an hour you're not getting any benefit out of the investment you made. So it takes longer to break even on your investment. (Possibly, as a consolation, the plant lasts longer or has lower yearly maintenance costs.)

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#139

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

xyzzyz wrote: post #128
Ma8ee wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we’ll start using more ways to store the energy. In the scenarios you describe, when the energy price fluctuate so wildly, the processes don’t have to be efficient. There’s not really a problem if 70% is lost in the process if the energy we started with is free. Pumping water to higher elevation or hydrogen production is suddenly reasonable.

Pumped storage is great, but it's simply not viable at a large scale. There are very few places where natural landscape allows it, and making more artificial ones would require flooding vast areas. Considering how difficult it often is to build solar plants on deserts (e.g. consider Ivanpah solar plant, which almost did not get build due to its impact on habitat of desert tortoises, which ended up getting relocated a…

> I don't expect the green interest groups to accept such wholesale destruction of environments.

In the grand scheme of things, this is like refusing chemotherapy for cancer because it makes your hair fall out.

Climate change is a huge issue. You have to be willing to sacrifice what would normally be valid environmental concerns to address it. You either believe it is an emergency or not.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#140

Post by cbmuser »

bregma wrote: post #12

The article says the world relies on fossil fuel for energy because it's cheaper. That's true. It doesn't mention that the world relies on it because it's reliable. It doesn't disappear for 6 months of the year, or stop producing for 3 out of 5 days or during peak demand periods. Make renewables cheaper and more reliable and they will replace fossil fuels in a snap. Cheaper is not enough if it doesn't do the job.

To make wind and solar power more reliable, you need to stop earth rotation or manipulate the climate to produce continuous sunlight and/or wind.

That’s simply impossible.

The only reliable renewable enery is hydropower and maybe geothermal power.

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