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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

#191

As always, this is the electrical grid only, not all the other stuff a nation will need various type of energy for. Still it's a major stepping stone. Back in 2006/2007 I had a job as a consultant for an energy trading company and it was huge the first day when the entire country ran solely on wind power. If was during the Christmas holidays, so less power was used overall, but still it was absolutely a huge deal for…

> not all the other stuff a nation will need various type of energy for

like what?

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

#192
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…

Lies, damn lies....

All these metrics should just support a much needed trend towards renewables. For me the metric days off grid is very compelling, that is what we are trying to achieve aren't we? PT is at 6 out of 365, where is DE? It helps to motivate others in a positive manner.

And on your topic, nuclear is a pipe dream. It is a toy for politicians to evade the raw fact that very hard measurements are needed (tax flying, much higher fossil energy pricing, tax on meat, tax on children, etc). Governments cannot buy their way out of this mess, I have no confidence at all other then spending on infrastructure, that government spending will solve the climate crisis.

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

#193
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can technically use nuclear power plants as load followers in much thr same way that you can technically keep warm by setting $50 bills on fire. Load following with a nuclear plant basically means provisioning a 2GW plant and then using, say, 0.5GW of that - throwing away the rest. (since the vast majority of the cost is capex not fuel) Every kilowatt hour produced by that 2GW power plant is already 5x the cost o…

Nuke plant -> btc mining with excess load when load is not demanded Nuke plant -> consumers when in demand Pretty easy equation, much more reliable and much more scalable and not subject to the whims of the elements / can be done anywhere and on any planet in the solar system.

BTC mining is the exact opposite of scalable: there's a fixed supply of BTC available to mining, so you can only pay for so many nuclear power plants with it. Even the entire bitcoin market cap is about enough for 20 nuclear power plants, optimistically (and that's ignoring the cost of the miners themselves, risk, etc, etc).

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

#194
post #166

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…

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 choi…

There is also geothermal, where some very interesting innovations are being made by Quaise Energy among others.

Also, energy storage is emerging as an electricity grid stabilizer. The cost trend of solar+wind+storage is looking very promising when compared to nuclear.

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

#195
It really doesn't tell what really happened: -This was only due to hydro production... -The amount of rain that fell was consistent along those days, which is definitely not usual. -The energy produced was mainly exported to Spain, but at ZERO or even NEGATIVE euros.

Does this help? Doesn't seem to me! And besides having to pay full price to the renewables producers (while exporting the same energy at ZERO), which amounts to a significant energy deficit, they are talking about even more H2 or whatever schemes??? This is the reason why Portugal has had one of the biggest rises of electricity prices in Europe over the last 15 years...

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

#196
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…

I advise not building nuclear plants on a coast next time.

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

#197
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You’re the one arguing against nuclear power; where are your sources for its damage?

What about the “not so high level” waste from coal which results in trillions of dollars of health issues worldwide?

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is none except hydro and nuclear for base load. Unless you want to burn gas (co2) or coal (co2 and radioactive emissions that cause more cancers in the us then nuclear has world wide) Renewables outside hydro cannot, and will never, be able to provide a a stable base load for the grid, battery storage isn’t there and has all sorts of issues, pumped storage requires even more rare conditions then hydro, as does…

> There is none except hydro and nuclear for base load. I'm not the person you're replying to, and I mostly agree with your points, but I think its necessary to point out that nuclear and hydro have long lead times to build the infrastructure. And we basically don't have enough time left to build it. I don't have good answers. Solar + interconnectors, maybe? So that areas in daylight can power areas that aren't? But…

The second best time to build nuclear is today.

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

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

yes, France should build more reprocessing, but it's not like they don't know what to do with the waste. They know and they've done this for decades. Can you specify exactly about what impact you are talking about? The CO2 emissions or what?

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

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, CO2 emissions are big problem, a life threatening one for some people. Nuclear is a problem too, just not a global obe. You know, both things can be true at the same time. Again, what would be your alternative way forward? Coal and oil burning has to go, that much is sure. We still need electricity so, hence we need clean sources. And we need them fast, because as a species we were asleep at the wheel for way…

There is none except hydro and nuclear for base load. Unless you want to burn gas (co2) or coal (co2 and radioactive emissions that cause more cancers in the us then nuclear has world wide) Renewables outside hydro cannot, and will never, be able to provide a a stable base load for the grid, battery storage isn’t there and has all sorts of issues, pumped storage requires even more rare conditions then hydro, as does…

My proposal would be to use combined cycle gas turbines to peak renewables until over-installation and storage make that no longer necessary.

Gas is the cleanest fossil fuel. Modern gas turbines are by far the most efficient way of generating electricity from fossil fuels. Replacing fossil fuels burnt in ICEs and for heating with electricity generated using gas will drastically reduce emissions quickly. There is plenty of gas. Much of it is cheap to extract.

The strategic reasons for doing this are that gas turbines will be able to handle the extreme 'duck curves' and other demand volatility we will see when both renewables and electric vehicles are ramped up hard. Those are the two levers which are currently easiest to push on - because individuals can replace vehicles and heating systems, and will do so given smallish financial incentives. And because solar, wind and storage, can be scaled easily without excessive top-down planning or insane capital needs.

If nuclear is to be the solution, we have to quickly commit to it hard as a society. Compared to gas, nuclear will both make electricity more expensive and make swings and volatility in demand or in renewable supply more costly to deal with. It will on the margin discourage EV and electric heating, and discourage other renewables.

Nuclear is good at 'base load', but not much else. This is fine(-ish) if we rapidly switch to almost all nuclear. It works well in a 'Star Trek economy' where governments can act quickly and cheaply and impose choices by offering abundance. If this was the case, it would make sense to call a 50 year decision that nuclear with a modest amount of over-provision will replace almost all generation. (This has succeeded historically only in France, a very centralized economy for a Western democracy, with a high degree of regulation, and where the government has abundant access to capital.)

The real climate/energy economy is not like this. If you want to see an example of rapid change in action, look at the fracking revolution in the United States. Small players who saw opportunities created a whole new set of technologies, techniques and practices. They did this because they could react to incremental incentives. They didn't have to win everywhere at once. They could win field by field, installation by installation. We need the situation for new renewable generation and power storage to work like this. We need it to be the case that someone who provides storage in the right place at the right time can make money from it. We need it to be the case that someone who makes batteries (or gas storage or gravity storage or turbines or EVs) slightly cheaper or more efficient can make money from that. There is no reason why this type of progress can work for environmentally damaging tech like fracking and not for environmentally beneficial tech.

Gas isn't a 50 year decision, more like a 20 year decision. It reduces emissions a lot in the short term but leaves the playing field wide open for further rapid and drastic reductions in the longer term.

(A subsidiary concern but still a real one: if you could press a button and replace all fossil fuels with reliable and safe nuclear, you would instantly have catastrophic political breakdown in places where societal cohesion depends on money from fossil fuels. Moving from oil to gas and then ramping down gas progressively allows these places to gradually develop other incomes, and allows the rest of the world time to deal with them and political problems which they are likely to export.)_

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