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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

#321

Post by lanstin »

epups wrote: post #147
adev_ wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is what you qualify "easy" ? Replacing 30% of a country grid capacity by an unproven technology never tested at scale. Associated with an hydrogen storage capacity (which we already struggle to do in labs and in the rocket industry) large enough to substain weeks of productions never also not tested at scale is easy ? All of that should also be cost efficient right ? And if I follow your initial post, it sho…

Every single energy thread in HN ends like this. Renewable fanatics get backed into a corner when they realize that it is impossible to run a grid on solar and wind alone. Then they start talking about things that currently cannot account for even 0.001% of our global energy storage needs, like hydrogen or batteries.

Batteries handle considerably more than 0.001% of the grid in California, and they are buying large scale battery installations like a drunken environmentalist. And the batteries are getting cheaper.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-battery-insta...

That is from 2022. From what I could gleam from a paywalled Bloomberg article, 2023 continued the growth curve.

Solar plus batteries are just cheaper and faster than nuclear. The pro nuclear argument would have won if we had started the carbon burn shutdown 20 years ago but they snoozed while the mad environmentalists successfully pushed solar and cell phones pushed batteries into economic dominance.

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

#322

Post by ZeroGravitas »

realusername wrote: post #131
natmaka wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a work in progress, their transition isn't done yet. Without nuclear no risks tied to a major accident, dependancy towards uranium providers, hot waste disposal, overcentralization, overcentralization, proliferation, daunting building and decommission projects... ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38288706 ) Not a bad deal.

Yeah no risk of a major accident ... apart from climate change you know. If Germany could at least reach the 90s levels of France, that's why I would consider that some work in progress already

I have good news for you, Germany did so in 2011:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-based-carbon-...

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

#323

Post by ZeroGravitas »

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...

And these undersell it as they combine hydro (which has been broadly flat for decades) with solar and wind, which have been growing exponentially.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source?time...

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

#324

Post by realusername »

hef19898 wrote: post #293
realusername wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe just maybe we can say that it doesn't work and it failed? Building more gas pipes after the Russian war is pure insanity, even if you don't care about the environment

How exactly is importing gas from Algeria (which delivered to the yet to connected to the German gas grid in Spain for decades) related with anything Russia does?

Algeria is just a second Russia with sunny weather. Dictatorship, most of the money is going to the military complex (and buying russian gear even), in conflict with their neighbors, most of the money comes from fossil fuel, politically opposed to the EU...

There's not many places you can get gas even if you don't care about the environment.

And yes, getting gas from Algeria was a problem before the war as well.

Realistically,the only good choice in the EU is Norway.

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

#325

Post by realusername »

hef19898 wrote: post #295
realusername wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the real world, the grid got almost shut down by the Russian war and the salvation came from even dirtier gas from the US

What are you even talking about? The electricity grid? The gas grid? If so, whoms? Germany's? The French? The only grid that got shot up was the Ukrainian one. And even then gas still flowed through to Eastern Europe...

The electricity grid would have been dead without dirty gas import from the US

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

#326

Post by realusername »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #322
realusername wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah no risk of a major accident ... apart from climate change you know. If Germany could at least reach the 90s levels of France, that's why I would consider that some work in progress already

I have good news for you, Germany did so in 2011: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-based-carbon-...

I'm talking per capita and no it hasn't. GDP is not a license to pollute.

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

#327

Post by ZeroGravitas »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #88
snewman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For renewables, most of the cost is up front, then they're cheap to run because they don't need fuel. (High capex, low opex.) Fossil fuel plants have more of a mix of upfront and operating costs. High interest rates make it expensive to borrow the upfront cost of renewables.

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/…

Lazard has a nice chart on this in their annual LCOE report.

This link is to one from a couple of years ago that I found on the web, but you can look up the latest one in their PDF:

https://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/lazar...

Some things are affected more than others, especially nuclear, but it doesn't really swap relative positions to any great degree.

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

#328

Post by Scarblac »

troupo wrote: post #311
Scarblac wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you include the electricity needed for when all heating, transport, industry etc is electrified?

Good question as it makes the problem even worse. When I was writing this (before I forgot to send it on a cloudy morning) 140 GW of installed renewables in Germany are producing a grand total of 14GW of electricity. Germany needs 61GW. Right now it looks like all of Europe [1] is busy burning gas and coal because it's cloudy, and there's very little wind. So what happens when everything becomes electrical? Say, Germ…

Ah, I misunderstood you completely, I thought you were saying that Germany had more renewables than it needs.

Hopefully we build better ways for storing large amounts of energy.

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

#329

Post by hef19898 »

realusername wrote: post #324
hef19898 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly is importing gas from Algeria (which delivered to the yet to connected to the German gas grid in Spain for decades) related with anything Russia does?

Algeria is just a second Russia with sunny weather. Dictatorship, most of the money is going to the military complex (and buying russian gear even), in conflict with their neighbors, most of the money comes from fossil fuel, politically opposed to the EU... There's not many places you can get gas even if you don't care about the environment. And yes, getting gas from Algeria was a problem before the war as well. Real…

I missed the part where Algeria has a nuclear arsenal and wants to invade some place (don't mention West-Sahara please, that thing is worthy of it's own series of books).

So, no fossil fuels from oppressive regimes then (I'm all for it, really, the sooner the Saudi can no longer pay the way into everything the better). Which leaves us with what exactly?

Renewables, meaning sourcing from China. And nuclear, just remind me, where does the reactor fuel come from again?

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

#330

Post by hef19898 »

realusername wrote: post #325
hef19898 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you even talking about? The electricity grid? The gas grid? If so, whoms? Germany's? The French? The only grid that got shot up was the Ukrainian one. And even then gas still flowed through to Eastern Europe...

The electricity grid would have been dead without dirty gas import from the US

Again, in which country? Because Germany for sure only mostly uses gas for heating and industrial purposes, not electricity generation (hard to disguish I know, but primary and secondary energy are well explained on wiki).
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