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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

#301

Post by hef19898 »

phil21 wrote: post #292
hef19898 wrote: post #174

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…

> So what is your proposal? A realistic one, please, not a scenarion of "we should have done X decades ago", but one that can be worked on right now, on the basis we have. Sometimes the only realistic answer is "We should have done X, many years ago" - I think society and humans in general need to get better at admitting this. Sometimes we back ourselves into a corner and we just need to accept that as a fact. But du…

There were two new nuclear reactor projects launched in Europe in the 2000s / 2010s: two new reactors in Finland and Hinkley C in the UK. Finland canceled one and got one 1600 MW reactor online this year. Hinkley C is already 3 years late and will take at least 5 more years. In the same time Hinkley C was planned until now, the UK installed 10x the capacity of Hinkley C in wind alone.

You see the maths here, right? Not to mention wind and solar are cheaper than Hinkley C, already were in 2015 or so (based on 20 year bid prices per kWh for both alternatives).

Nuclear in the developed world is dead because it is too expensive. Nuclear isn't dead in the developing world because governments there want it, and it is better than coal (which makes nuclear a better choice for me, no idea if that really factors into those decisions or not). Developing countries could as easily go for renewables straight away as well so.

It is not society that needs to change to make nuclear viable again, it is the economics behind it. And with renewables, especially solar, following Moore's law to a T so far, that wont happen ever.

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

#302

Post by adev_ »

hef19898 wrote: post #290
adev_ wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Which is entirely ok. There is one thing people mis-understand often about Nuclear power: The cost of fuel is close to zero. Cons…

Cost of nuclear fuel close to zero? Where I can buy that magic fuel? The little much money I have should do the trick!

It is wise to not combine sarcasm and ignorance in the same sentence. That allows to avoid looking like a fool.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec...

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

#303

Post by phil21 »

hef19898 wrote: post #301
phil21 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what is your proposal? A realistic one, please, not a scenarion of "we should have done X decades ago", but one that can be worked on right now, on the basis we have. Sometimes the only realistic answer is "We should have done X, many years ago" - I think society and humans in general need to get better at admitting this. Sometimes we back ourselves into a corner and we just need to accept that as a fact. But du…

There were two new nuclear reactor projects launched in Europe in the 2000s / 2010s: two new reactors in Finland and Hinkley C in the UK. Finland canceled one and got one 1600 MW reactor online this year. Hinkley C is already 3 years late and will take at least 5 more years. In the same time Hinkley C was planned until now, the UK installed 10x the capacity of Hinkley C in wind alone. You see the maths here, right? N…

I mean, the same exact argument can be made for public transportation (e.g. subway/rail) construction in the US. It's too expensive to be realistic!

Well, sure. But why is it that expensive? It's expensive because we decided it to be so.

If it became an existential problem for society you would see the cost per mile of rail plummet 10x or more.

The same goes for nuclear. The expensive bits are almost all societal constructs. Much like all large projects in the developed world. Once the shit hits the fan so to speak, those costs tend to mysteriously evaporate and society magically gets stuff done in record time. See: historical shifts to wartime production.

If your only argument against nuclear is cost, I'm afraid it's not a very compelling one to me.

Now, renewables may surprise me and somehow we crack the storage problem. But I will continue to posit nuclear power plants are the best grid-scale battery tech we've yet to invent. I say this due to the costs. Not the monetary costs, but the return on energy invested cost which is really the only thing that will end up mattering in the end.

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

#304

Post by libertine »

anonyfox wrote: post #246

This is good news. And while there are problems with achieving 100% renewables year round, from energy storage to geographic country conditions, the world would be much better off when the fossils only are used on these days where there isn't enough renewable energy. No need to go overzealous here for the last few %, I'd be very happy if we manage to globally run the vast majority of the time clean.

The problem that isn't mentioned in the article is: at what cost to the Portuguese people this achievement was done?

We're already a poor country, and we're kept in mediocrity because we keep getting crushed by rising prices.

So the question is: if we don't get anything positive out of it, other than a green drop in the ocean of pollution which won't change that tide of events, why are we paying a premium for it?

Shouldn't we be one of the last European countries to perform these achievements, until we got the means to do it? Or is Portugal going to collect a tax from those countries that are not performing?

With this, I'm not saying this isn't a positive achievement, of course it is, but the Portuguese people are so numbed from an economic point of view that at least I, and my circle of family and friends, don't rejoice.

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

#305

Post by hef19898 »

adev_ wrote: post #300
hef19898 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I explicity said elswhere that the devloping world is different, didn't I? In the developed world, read western industrial nations, nuclear is launched anymore. Those legacy projects, Hinkley C or in Finland, run late and cost more than planned. And they a certainly more expensive than solar and wind. Nuclear is good for base load, the old inflexible kind, only. It is didficult to ramp up and down on short notice, ma…

> In the developed world, read western industrial nations, nuclear is launched anymore There is Korea, USA, France, UK, Slovakia and the UAE in the list. In longer term, you can add Japan, Czeck Republic, Poland (under investigation) and even Italy is considering it right now. You should certainly said to them that they are not part of your definition of the developed world . > Nuclear is good for base load, the old…

Technically France is on that list here:

https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-an...

With one reactor. Wow.

That being said, the majority are in Asia. The UAE have one under construction, they did install more solar capacity already.

Two Japanese ones are suspended. Which leaves China as the leader.

Just as a reminder: these are the capacities

Under Construction (grid connection, as of Nov. 2023, between 2023 and 2030): 68 GW

Planned: 109 GW

Proposed: 353 GW

Total: 630 GW

Solar capacity installed between 2018 and 2021: 500 GW

Solar capacity estimated to be installed until 2025: 1.3 TW

I hope that puts it into perspective with regards to where the money goes. Nuclear proponents are at risk of becoming a serious road block when it comes to a fast energy transition, even more so if they continue to ignore raw market numbers.

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

#306

Post by lesuorac »

gimili wrote: post #299
adev_ wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [0] Fukushima is around $80B-$200B, the US nuclear insurance coverage is $15B. Chernobyl was around $200B. So you speak about $400B, lets consider it upper bound and even up to $500B by adding the cost Three Miles island incident and the various minor ones around the world. Spread over 60 years of the humanity nuclear power usage, that makes us an insurance cost of 8.3 billions dollar per year at world scale . So t…

I like the calculation; makes things more clear. However, to your last point: You are saying that nuclear power plants then are insured to risk. Can you point me in your sources to the place where it is shown how nuclear power plant operators today then are insuring "to risk" the risk of nuclear disaster and all costs and risks of the disposal?

Not OP but I do think you have a false equivalence here.

Coal plants don't cover the costs and risk associated with the disposal of their _nuclear_ waste as well as their CO2 waste. They just vent it out into the atmosphere.

https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactive-wastes-coal-fired-po...

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

#307

Post by hef19898 »

phil21 wrote: post #303
hef19898 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were two new nuclear reactor projects launched in Europe in the 2000s / 2010s: two new reactors in Finland and Hinkley C in the UK. Finland canceled one and got one 1600 MW reactor online this year. Hinkley C is already 3 years late and will take at least 5 more years. In the same time Hinkley C was planned until now, the UK installed 10x the capacity of Hinkley C in wind alone. You see the maths here, right? N…

I mean, the same exact argument can be made for public transportation (e.g. subway/rail) construction in the US. It's too expensive to be realistic! Well, sure. But why is it that expensive? It's expensive because we decided it to be so. If it became an existential problem for society you would see the cost per mile of rail plummet 10x or more. The same goes for nuclear. The expensive bits are almost all societal con…

Public mass transport is freaking expensive, everywhere. Just look at all the cost overruns for similar projects in Germany (which I know of off top of my head). The alternative to public transports is a car. The alternative to nuclear power are, among other things, renewables which are readily available, faster to deploy at scale and cheaper (that is happening right now for almoat a decade). So the comparison is somewhat wrong.

Edit: Cost is the compelling argument for everyone with the money, everything else is either political or ideological. And the money truely has spoken.

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

#308

Post by hef19898 »

adev_ wrote: post #302
hef19898 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost of nuclear fuel close to zero? Where I can buy that magic fuel? The little much money I have should do the trick!

It is wise to not combine sarcasm and ignorance in the same sentence. That allows to avoid looking like a fool. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec...

Better not use biased opinion pieces, when there numbers from government sources (US, but eho cares):

LCOE (total, incl. CAPEX, in USD per MWh):

coal 82.6, combined cycle 39.9, advanced nuclear 81.7, geothermal 37.6, biomass 90.1, onshore wind 40, offshore wind (that one was a surprise, since offshore wind should be quite cheap, mainly driven by capital cost of 104 USD per MWh) 105, solar 33.8, solar hybrid 49 and hydro 64.

Variable cost (same as above):

coal 23.7, combined cycle 27.7, adv. nuclear 10.3, geothermal 1.2, biomass 30, onshore wind 0, offshore wind 0, solar 0, solar hybrid 0, hydro 4.1

All number from here:

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation...., page 9.

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

#309

Post by KingOfCoders »

adev_ wrote: post #276
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…

> [0] Fukushima is around $80B-$200B, the US nuclear insurance coverage is $15B. Chernobyl was around $200B. So you speak about $400B, lets consider it upper bound and even up to $500B by adding the cost Three Miles island incident and the various minor ones around the world. Spread over 60 years of the humanity nuclear power usage, that makes us an insurance cost of 8.3 billions dollar per year at world scale . So t…

"Based on facts, it is currently plain wrong."

No.

"Your sentence "Nuclear power plants are nowhere near insured to risk" is pretty typical of the anti-nuclear argumentation: Mainly based on feelings not on facts."

  A:   Fukushima is costing $200B
  B:   US nuclear power plants are insured for a payout of $15B 
  A+B: US power plants are underinsured by $185B
(Germany had $0.25B insurance company payouts and $2.25B coverage by energy companies, so a nuclear plant was underinsured by $197.5B or ~99%, or 99.8% if you count insurance company payouts only).

Moving goal posts, hand waving, talking about my feelings (thanks for caring!), personal attacks and sources unrelated to nuclear power plant insurance doesn't explain the fact away, that "Nuclear power plants are nowhere near insured to risk".

PS: "EnergyWende" is not a German word. While Java is using Camelcase, German is not using Camelcase.

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

#310

Post by DoingIsLearning »

dontlaugh wrote: post #268
pedrocr wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It matters because hydroeletric is a non-intermittent renewable source.

The available hydro does not allow to cover all base load. It needs to be supplemented and the other renewable sources available are by their nature intermittent.

So the problem of energy storage needs to be solved fast in order for gas/coal to be finally sunset.

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