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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

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Not if you get the equivalent of multiple NPPs in renewables installed every month it isn't. The best time to build nuclear was before Chernobyl, and since Fukushima new nuclear plants are dead basically.

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

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What kind of emissions and polution could come from a nuclear reprossesing site? Hmm... Radiation, maybe?

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/inside-sellafield-nuclear-wa...

Sellafield is infamous for radioactive polution, reprocessingnof nuclear waste is dangerous, dirty and not always economically feasible. Or do you thonk anybody would buy new fuel rods if reprocessed ones were cheaper?

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

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, start-upsnonly fail because of the interest rate hike and not because they are unsustainable businesses. But other sectors requiring serious financing are absolutely not affected... Not.

Ørested isn't a startup, it's a decades-old energy company which built the first off-shore wind turbines. It used to be called DONG, Danish Oil and Natural Gas.

And their projects still need outside funding. Funding which is impacted by inflation and intrest rates, expoaing the project, and hence the company behind it, to financial impacts the same way start-ups are: money all of a sudden isn't free anymore.

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

#214
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…

<3 Germany <3

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

#215

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…

What's the cost of a once a generation nuclear incident v ongoing pollution from coal plants? Maybe they are under insured, but the whole fossil fuel industry is too

Sure, nuclear is maybe better than coal. We get it, even greenpeace and the green party in Germany does. That point has been discussed, and agreed upon.

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

#216
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

Please do so yourself. Reprocessing is a good thing, but it does not resolve the need for long term storage.

And btw. you also didn't answer my question who pays for the 10 to 100k years of storage. The current answer typically is "the state", all while energy companies get to keep the money earned.

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

#217

The lion share of renewables in Portugal is hydroelectric. The renewable statistics looks good on paper but wind power and PV is still fractional in their contribution. Base load is still assured by Methane 'Natural' gas. The country has the geography and a long history of politicians focusing on large infrastructure projects, dams are needed for water supply since most water has origin in Spain who itself also hogs…

> The lion share of renewables in Portugal is hydroelectric. This is not true. Portugal produces more wind power than it does hydroelectric: https://datahub.ren.pt/pt/eletricidade/balanco-mensal/ 10 TWh versus less than 8 for hydro. Solar is also already past 3 TWh and has barely started in a country with excellent conditions for it. We also already have quite a bit of storage. Hydro already contributes over 3 TWh of…

Fair, things have changed, I stand corrected. Wind power farms have grown a lot more than I had assumed.

My point still stands storage infrastructure for intermittent renewables (Wind, PV) is still the key problem to solve for Gas/Coal to finally stay in the ground.

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

#218

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…

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

Or near fault lines. Or near rivers if those risk running dry in summer. Or near densly populated areas.

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

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> And tell me, where are the uranium mines in france? And tell me, where are the rare earth mines... lithium mines... solar panel factories... windmills factories... in France ? Ah right, same as uranium mines, abroad, the only difference is one require much less transport and processing to get much more energy

Yes, solar panels from Asia fare pretty well whem measured like that, you are absolutely right.

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

#220
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…

Nice to see you here, and thanks for posting this.
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