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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

#161

Post by choeger »

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…

Interestingly, you don't give a source for Germany, which according to this source has much lower emissions per kWh these last days:

https://www.agora-energiewende.de/daten-tools/agorameter/cha...

And even this source is a bit dubious, as there's no clear correlation between the amount of coal and gas and the emissions. Presumably they also count imported energy.

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

#162

Post by Moldoteck »

atoav wrote: post #146
KingOfCoders wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`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 p…

The nuclear waste thing is my pet peeve. Maybe this works in sparsely populated countries where you just dump it in a remote area, but in Europe producing a ton of nuclear waste means you have a ton of radiating toxic waste that you have to guarantee to store safely in a densely populated landmass for the next 10.000 years. There isn't many options to do that and all of them ain't even cheap today . Unless you want t…

Pls read abt how france is reprocessing waste or how breeding reactors work

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

#163

Post by m2fkxy »

atoav wrote: post #146
KingOfCoders wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`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 p…

The nuclear waste thing is my pet peeve. Maybe this works in sparsely populated countries where you just dump it in a remote area, but in Europe producing a ton of nuclear waste means you have a ton of radiating toxic waste that you have to guarantee to store safely in a densely populated landmass for the next 10.000 years. There isn't many options to do that and all of them ain't even cheap today . Unless you want t…

Here is a visualisation of of all the high-level nuclear waste produced in France over the last 60 years, superimposed over the port of Marseille.

https://twitter.com/laydgeur/status/1433463215321669633?lang...

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

#164

Post by vasco »

louison11 wrote: post #97

Meanwhile many Portuguese cars are 25+ years old and a portion of them have black exhaust fumes that stink from a 100 meters. As in: proper black smoke coming out of the exhaust as it drives. I don’t know if there are SMOG tests, and if there are, they’re clearly not enforced. The reality in poorer countries is that pollution reduction is not as much a priority as saving money. So yeah, I mean, I always find it funny…

I could say the same about country side France, Spain, Italy, all of the Balcans including Greece and keep going, including the USA as well. This feels like typical intra-euro "they are poor" so we must be dirty stereotypes reminiscent of the times when we got called PIGS.

For your information the EU average fleet age is 11.8 years, Portugal stands at 13.2 and France at 10.3. Perhaps not the story you're trying to tell.

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

#165

Post by icy_deadposts »

himinlomax wrote: post #158
icy_deadposts wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a harsh reality: "zero co2" nuclear emits massive amounts of CO2 during mining, during enrichment, creation of fuels, the massive motorcades that transport the fuels to their final power plant destination where they finally produce power without emitting CO2. So maybe its better for local air quality, but really the emissions are quite high. The actual metric that reflects the total embodied energy, which is a…

> Here's a harsh reality: "zero co2" nuclear emits massive amounts of CO2 during mining, during enrichment, creation of fuels, the massive motorcades that transport the fuels to their final power plant destination where they finally produce power without emitting CO2. So maybe its better for local air quality, but really the emissions are quite high. That's complete bollocks, because all those CO₂ emissions are propo…

> Solar panels and wind turbines also require emitting CO₂ for their manufacture, and it turns out that they emit more than nuclear, fuel included.

You traced every aspect of the supply chain of both technologies to come to this conclusion?

> in France for instance it's nuclear energy fueling enrichment.

And tell me, where are the uranium mines in france?

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

#166

Post by epups »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #117
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 p…

Nuclear waste is a problem, but it is nothing compared to the waste from gas and coal, which we release to the atmosphere daily. It kills thousands every year and will kill millions in the future.

And you may think: well there you go, let's get rid of all of that and just use renewables then. But we can't, as the parent comment demonstrates. Some days you just need a stable energy source, and your only realistic choice for the next 20 years is hydro (already maxed out at most places), nuclear, gas or coal. Pick your poison.

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

#167

Post by hef19898 »

Moldoteck wrote: post #162
atoav wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nuclear waste thing is my pet peeve. Maybe this works in sparsely populated countries where you just dump it in a remote area, but in Europe producing a ton of nuclear waste means you have a ton of radiating toxic waste that you have to guarantee to store safely in a densely populated landmass for the next 10.000 years. There isn't many options to do that and all of them ain't even cheap today . Unless you want t…

Pls read abt how france is reprocessing waste or how breeding reactors work

Some of it, the French nuclear waste, goes to Germany for "storage". Not all goes to breeding reactos. Regarding treaent, feel free to move next to Sellafield or similar sites. You might want to google the environmental impact of those first.

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

#168

Post by hef19898 »

realusername wrote: post #159
hef19898 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that, you know? You have some good news regarding electricity and renewables, and instead of being happy, people start to look for problems. But let's role with it for second. Renewables are, unfortunately, not at a point yet where they can cover 100% of demand. We cannot change the current mix neither. So, what would be your proposed way forward to "solve" climate change? I am really curious, because most of…

I'm the kind of "I'll believe it when I see it" type of person. The transition is clearly not going well and they even wanted to build more gas pipes, the russian war lessons have not been learned. Renewables in the EU overpromissed and underdelivered for a long time.

Timeline, again... The additional gas pipes, used for heating and industrial use primarily and not electricity (no idea why people fail to understand the difference) have been built before (!) the war in Ukraine. And never been used. To the point Germany increased coal consumption. So, when those pipelines, Nordstream 2 I assume you mean, was built, there was no war in Ukriane or elsewhere involving Russia, and hence no lessons to be drwan from it! I know, social media resulted in attention spans zrending to zero, but time for us humans still moves im one direction, and things happened whek they did, and not when peiole learn about them...

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

#169

Post by olddustytrail »

troupo wrote: post #130
throwaway2037 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did some googling about this issue. Roughly I searched: natural gas/solar/wind construction cost per MW in United States I found: Natural gas: ~1200 USD/kW, Solar: ~1500 USD/kW, Wind: ~1500 USD/kW Let us say that solar and wind is about 25% more expensive to build. All types have high up front costs, so interest rates will affect nearly equally. However, operations for solar and wind must be way cheaper over 10/20/…

> To be fair, I never read anything about maintenance costs for solar and wind. Indeed. Those costs are never counted (e.g. how do you service and repair offshore wind farms in the middle of the North Sea). As the costs of decommissioning and replacements are never counted either. Neither are the costs of overprovisioning required for renewables.

Of course these costs are counted. You do realise these are companies running these North Sea windfarms and selling the electricity to the grid? Do you think they suddenly go, "Oh, we forgot about maintenance costs! We're losing money now!"

They sell to the grid at a price that makes them a profit. How did you think this all worked?

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

#170

Post by achenet »

m2fkxy wrote: post #163
atoav wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nuclear waste thing is my pet peeve. Maybe this works in sparsely populated countries where you just dump it in a remote area, but in Europe producing a ton of nuclear waste means you have a ton of radiating toxic waste that you have to guarantee to store safely in a densely populated landmass for the next 10.000 years. There isn't many options to do that and all of them ain't even cheap today . Unless you want t…

Here is a visualisation of of all the high-level nuclear waste produced in France over the last 60 years, superimposed over the port of Marseille. https://twitter.com/laydgeur/status/1433463215321669633?lang...

What about the not so high level nuclear waste? Is that not also dangerous? How much of that is there?
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