A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage • Hacker News Board

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#331

Post by ZeroGravitas » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #311

trashtester wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Note it's a common thing for "pro-fossil fuel" advocates to show "peaks" without enough context. Usually what looks like a peak on a daily basis is in fact a drop in the bucket compared with the yearly peak. I'm not pro-fossil, rather the opposite. I'm anti-fossil (GHG in general) fuel, and want us to use all production methods available that allow us to gut GHG emissions, including solar, wind AND nuclear. Eventua…

(I agree with almost all of your comment.) I don’t agree that fossil fuel should be “taxed at a high enough level to make sure both nuclear and renewable investments have a chance of being profitable”, but do agree that it should be taxed significantly higher. (If the outcome of that is that renewables have a chance to compete, great. But if there was a renewable that needed a $50/gallon tax to be competitive, it doe…

I've seen figures like $15-20 being what gas would cost if the real cost of externalities of driving were included, but I think the carbon is only like 90 cents of that.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#332

Post by stjohnswarts » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 6:37 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #29

conjecTech wrote: post #22

One thing I would love to see addressed in these kinds of analyses: the efficacy of strategic placement of solar. Electrical demand tends to peak slightly after sundown for much of the year. However, the sun obviously doesn't set at the same time everywhere. Darwin's sunset is currently an hour and a half later than Sydney/Brisbane. Could building more equatorial/western solar installations together with transmission…

Transmission losses would eat any benefit, unfortunately. Of course, the author didn't model this at all. This is the problem with 99% of "actually we could totally rip out our entire infrastructure right now" posts - it's usually justified with crappy modeling that falls apart under slightly more scrutinizing consideration. Solar-only with low storage overhead might become more viable if we get room-temperature supe…

Not true. Transmission lines can be made quite efficient especially the really high voltage ones like 345kV look it up. Other alternatives are High Voltage DC which is more expensive but much less lossy. There are solutions, nothing is cheap but these things last for decades and when amortized against losing our planet to global warming have great potential. Sorry but you are wrong.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#333

Post by craig_s_bell » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 7:47 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #167

scarby2 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data doesn't include SMRs and MSRs which could be extremely compelling both from a cost and time to build perspective (or they could be a dead end). Current gen LWRs are problematic for all sorts of reasons but i wouldn't rule nuclear out of the fight just yet. Especially when you take into account china's track record of delivering nuclear plants at a competitive price.

I'm reminded of Admiral Rickover's thoughts on this: > An academic reactor or reactor plant almost always has the following basic characteristics: (1) It is simple. (2) It is small. (3) It is cheap. (4) It is light. (5) It can be built very quickly. (6) It is very flexible in purpose. (7) Very little development will be required. It will use off-the-shelf components. (8) The reactor is in the study phase. It is not b…

Please note that SMR technology has advanced beyond the academic stage. After years of review, NuScale's design has been approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Multiple sites are planning for their use, both in the United States and elsewhere: https://www.nuscalepower.com/Projects/Current-Projects/Unite...

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#334

Post by olddustytrail » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 10:22 PM UTC

thrown_22 wrote: post #236

olddustytrail wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason for that is because of high natural gas prices. And the reason that increases overall prices is because they are treated as a single purchase so renewable sources (who are obviously well aware of gas prices) push their prices up to match. This is so obviously a bad idea that even the CEO of a major energy firm has suggested the purchase market be split between renewable and fossil, so there are effectively…

It was the already the highest electricity price in the developed world before the start of the war. You should learn about this stuff rather than parroting the renewable fanbook.

I do know about this stuff which is why I know reasons for things instead of mindlessly repeating talking points. You explain to me why cheaper sources of energy led to high prices. If you can? May require thinking.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#335

Post by thrown_22 » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 10:35 PM UTC

olddustytrail wrote: post #334

thrown_22 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was the already the highest electricity price in the developed world before the start of the war. You should learn about this stuff rather than parroting the renewable fanbook.

I do know about this stuff which is why I know reasons for things instead of mindlessly repeating talking points. You explain to me why cheaper sources of energy led to high prices. If you can? May require thinking.

>You explain to me why cheaper sources of energy led to high prices. If you can? May require thinking.

Sure.

Sun doesn't shine at midnight.

The end.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#336

Post by Schroedingersat » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 10:41 PM UTC

ParksNet wrote: post #324

Schroedingersat wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hoping we can spend some tax money on real infrastructure rather than handouts for rich people to line elon musk's pockets. A train line, a bike lane and a handful of trolley busses take far less network upgrades than 10,000 luxury cars. It would also help immensely if we could find our sanity and build some 400kg LEVs and NEVs with a 2kWh battery and a 150cc range extender rather than 2-5t padded ego protectors…

The bus and bus network of the future is more likely to be built and operated by Elon Musk than any Government agency. Auto-routing, and segregation by socio-economics (based on rider ratings and enforced subscription fees) is the killer feature of a sustainable mass transit system.

So just saying the quiet part out loud now, huh?

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#337

Post by olddustytrail » Thu, Aug 25, 2022, 11:42 PM UTC

thrown_22 wrote: post #335

olddustytrail wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do know about this stuff which is why I know reasons for things instead of mindlessly repeating talking points. You explain to me why cheaper sources of energy led to high prices. If you can? May require thinking.

>You explain to me why cheaper sources of energy led to high prices. If you can? May require thinking. Sure. Sun doesn't shine at midnight. The end.

So solar farms don't sell to the grid at midnight. You really don't know how any of this works, do you?

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#338

Post by thrown_22 » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 1:21 AM UTC

olddustytrail wrote: post #337

thrown_22 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You explain to me why cheaper sources of energy led to high prices. If you can? May require thinking. Sure. Sun doesn't shine at midnight. The end.

So solar farms don't sell to the grid at midnight. You really don't know how any of this works, do you?

I guess we can just shut off unimportant things like refrigeration and life support at night.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#339

Post by epistasis » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 2:10 AM UTC

craig_s_bell wrote: post #333

epistasis wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reminded of Admiral Rickover's thoughts on this: > An academic reactor or reactor plant almost always has the following basic characteristics: (1) It is simple. (2) It is small. (3) It is cheap. (4) It is light. (5) It can be built very quickly. (6) It is very flexible in purpose. (7) Very little development will be required. It will use off-the-shelf components. (8) The reactor is in the study phase. It is not b…

Please note that SMR technology has advanced beyond the academic stage. After years of review, NuScale's design has been approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Multiple sites are planning for their use, both in the United States and elsewhere: https://www.nuscalepower.com/Projects/Current-Projects/Unite...

Unconstructed plans are the very definition of academic.

NRC approval doesn't say anything about constructability or economics. It doesn't even say much about the operating characteristics, except that the NRC is pretty sure it meets the safety guidelines.

This is why there are these characteristics that Rickover lists, which NuScale will encounter when they finally build, but are not revealed by any planning they have done up until now:

> (1) It is being built now. (2) It is behind schedule. (3) It requires an immense amount of development on apparently trivial items. (4) It is very expensive. (5) It takes a long time to build because of its engineering development problems.

Re: A near 100% renewables grid is well within reach, and with little storage

#340

Post by Schroedingersat » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 2:52 AM UTC

trashtester wrote: post #329

Schroedingersat wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the cost of 5kW nameplate of new western nuclear (>$10/W) you can get, right now, at retail, as an individual: 50kW nameplate of solar, and 8kW nameplate of wind, and 75kWh of storage and a 5kW generator (which will almost never need turning on) and a biogas digester. And it will produce enough excess power to replace itself (with a cheaper version) or just triple the batteries if you can get 2-3c/kWh for the sur…

This report provides costs for nuclear power down to about $30/MWH (LCOE) at 3% discount rate (interest rate - inflation rate): https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-12... Most countries should be able to reach such levels if providing guarantees for the credit, removing overly excessive regulation and allowing the most capable and experienced construction companies to lead construction and initia…

There are a couple of problems with that analysis.

Firstly I am very sceptical of their 60 year claim with an additional 20 years for LTO. Every time I look a supposed 60 year reactor in the west up it is having major problems after less than 40 -- I'd be interested in seeing a survey of reactors broken down by location (china is provably much more cost efficient at doing large projects than anyone else albeit at a high human cost) and whether they're funded by geopolitical incentives (russia subsidizing reactors to induce energy dependence). Additionally half of the reactor lifetime is irrelevant to meeting 2050 targets even if we take design lifetime as true.

Even if we take the $30/MWh as an assumption. There are solar projects completing right now on the order of 80c/fixed Watt or $1.2 tilting. These produce 5-6 and 6-8 kWh/day/kW respectively.

Ending the day with half of that production in a battery nets you an LCOE around $50 and that is falling by 15%/year with little indication of slowing down.

Wind is a similar story (although not dropping as precipitously) and moderately anti-correlated.

When 'we promise we can reduce the price by 3x and we'll follow through on that promise for 70 years even though costs have been going up and we've never followed through before' is a pretty hard sell against 'we've been consistently dropping costs for 10 years at a rate that will make even the most optimistic projections of nuclear look expensive before you can build even the first one'. Then with the shorter lived renewables you get your money back after 10-20 years, and cna spend it on a new system that is $3/MWh (or more likely 10 as land and coupling costs will dominate).

And then there's all the geopolitical problems going nuclear entails for the large portion of the world who aren't allowed to make their own fuel. We did that with fossil fuels and it was awful -- and they can be refined by more than 5 countries.