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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

#261

Post by realusername »

natmaka wrote: post #252
realusername wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Share of nuclear and renewables: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-renewables-electr... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-renewables-electr...

Too bad that doesn't materialize in reality as seen in the EU

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

#262

Post by Moldoteck »

hef19898 wrote: post #235
Moldoteck wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so you say that something that is done like shit have shit consequences? Somehow La Hague is doing much better so maybe reprocessing/storage is not that a big problem and humanity should just get their sh* together?

You know what else could be done, if we got our shit together and cooperated? A proper energy transition away from fossil fuels to clean alternatives. One thing so: France, or rather all French goverents, are as pro-nuclear as it gets. And even they only built one reprocessing plant. Should tell you something.

reprocessing & breeding are not that popular bc with these it's easy to make bombs. I agree with energy transition, this should imply all: hydro/solar/wind/nuclear/geo. Hydro is pretty much already exploited, maybe we could replace old generators with new ones to get more juice, solar+wind are a good combo but not reliable, so we need both more batteries for short term stabilization and hydro storage for longer term stabilization, all together are expensive, esp considering that solar&batteries should be periodically replaced. Geo is nice but not feasible in all regions, nuclear is nice but again - less feasible in earthquake areas/tsunami areas. I just hate that so many ppl want to go with solar/wind only. It's not the solution, it's a part of it, together with other technologies, including nuclear

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

#263

Post by natmaka »

adev_ wrote: post #243
natmaka wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear AND Renewable energy It cannot be done because it financially condemns new nuclear plants. "The rates at which conventional power plants are utilized will continue to decrease as competitive pressure from near-zero marginal cost solar photovoltaic and onshore wind power, and battery energy storage continue to grow exponentially worldwide." Eye-opening video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udJJ7n_Ryjg

It is does not. LCOE is a metric from the Lazard institute has been debunked many time alreayd because it does not take into consideration the cost of the capacity guarantee of the grid. If you had that, Nuclear become competitive. If you had that and tax properly coal and Gas plant proportionally to the emission they really do. Nuclear become even incredibly cheap, specially if we consider its hydrogen co-generation…

LCOE (cost of produced electricity: the difference between nuclear and renewables is huge, and growing. Therefore it offers financial resources to build what is needed for a renewables-based system to provide most of the time: continental grid interconnections (many already done, most already planed because they are useful even without renewables), green hydrogen backup, V2G and smartgrid (also planed whatever the type of production units)...)

> hydrogen co-generation

Nuclear-generated electricity is way more expensive than renewable-generated electricity, and on the hydrogen chain all other costs are the same whatever the type of electricity-production units. Therefore choosing to produce H thanks to nuclear instead of renewables is only useful in order to bump up their capacity factor (reducing their total cost) and may prove to be a bad deal as electrolysis equipment doesn't like (breaks sooner) when using an intermittent electricity input.

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

#264

Post by timeon »

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…

What I find strange is that there is always someone who is arguing for nuclear and against renewable. Or other way around. That is something what fossil-fuel industry likes.

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

#265

Post by wtcactus »

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…

Why do I need a new car if mine is working just fine?

I don't get it how common sense went so much out of the window when discussing these issues, that people are now effectively arguing that's more environmentally sound, to build an whole new car, then to use an older one.

It's just blatant propaganda.

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

#266

Post by natmaka »

bobthepanda wrote: post #55
robocat wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear can’t do that You are repeating a myth. Load following is used in France: https://www.oecd-nea.org/nea-news/2011/29-2/nea-news-29-2-lo... It mostly isn't used in the US due to regulations. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36254716 The reason load following is not generally used is because because the economics of nuclear (large fixed costs) favour base load.

It’s mentioned that it runs the equipment harder, and France did have to shut down a large number of plants for maintenance recently: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-11/french-nu...

Load-following runs the equipment harder, indeed.

There are safety-related limits (power modulation proportion, duration of a pause needed after each modulation, modulations frequency...) to nuclear load-following capacity, and the very combustible status is a major parameter.

Pertinent document (French ahead!): https://www.sfen.org/rgn/expertise-nucleaire-francaise-suivi...

Quote: « un réacteur peut varier de 100 % à 20 % de puissance en une demi-heure, et remonter aussi vite après un palier d’au moins deux heures, et ce deux fois par jour »

Proposed translation: "a reactor power output can vary from 100% to 20% in 30 minutes, then after 2 hours can go back to 100% at the same speed, and can cycle this way 2 times per day".

This is quite a good performance when it comes to load-following (French engineers are very good at this), however it is insufficient in the real world (save any ridiculously expensive over-provision of nuclear reactor, most idling) and very weak compared to gas turbines performances.

Even in nuclear-packed France (which exports electricity) fossil fuels are also burnt in order to produce electricity since nuclear's inception, for most of the load-following and peak (about 9% in 2021), and it would be much worse without hydro. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source?coun...

On the other hand green hydrogen (produced by intermittent renewables at over-electric-generation time) can be stored then used at insufficient-generation time.

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

#267

Post by adrianN »

labster wrote: post #259
mplewis wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second best time to build nuclear is today.

The third best time to build nuclear is in about 20 years, when we develop fusion.

There is no reason to believe that fusion will be cost competitive.

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

#268

Post by dontlaugh »

pedrocr wrote: post #207
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #179

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…

Even if it wasn't true, why would it matter? Hydroelectric power has no direct carbon emissions either.

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

#269

Post by natmaka »

realusername wrote: post #261
natmaka wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Share of nuclear and renewables: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-renewables-electr... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-renewables-electr...

Too bad that doesn't materialize in reality as seen in the EU

Those are the share of nuclear and renewables in total electricity production, therefore this is quite real. In which way 'electricity production' isn't real, or not helping to reduce greenhouse-gas effect emissions?

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

#270

Post by hef19898 »

adev_ wrote: post #260
hef19898 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, institute or not, European elextricity markets, which include grid operators and plant operators, agreed on awarding contracts based on generation cost alone (mostly fuel and certificates, I'd have to sig up the details but am literally to lazy to do for a discussion that seems to happen 50% in the land of make believe). Nuclear is, by any metric you want, on the actual happening markets too expensivebto build…

> Well, institute or not, European elextricity markets, which include grid operators and plant operators, agreed on awarding contracts based on generation cost alone (mostly fuel and certificates, I'd have to sig up the details but am literally to lazy to do for a discussion that seems to happen 50% in the land of make believe). It is not true anymore [1] [1]: https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/deal-on…

I didn't find any details on the new pricing structure so in the article...
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