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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

#341

Post by troupo »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #318
troupo wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not because renewables cannot tackle the challenge, but because this is a work in progress (not quick enough) => not enough electricity produced What is the end of this work in progress? 1000% overprovisioning of renewables?

Generally models of fully renewable grids aim for about a 4x overprovisioning (based on peak demand), though of course since that's based on achieving the lowest cost way to provide energy, you could debate whether the phrase "overprovisioning" really applies. Some have taken to calling it "superpower" (terrible name) because by overbuilding to meet the peak demand, you end up with masses of cheap energy at all non-p…

> Generally models of fully renewable grids aim for about a 4x overprovisioning (based on peak demand)

So assuming Germany needs 60GW of power you need 240GW of renewables. Thing is, at 15% generation those renewables barely produce the required electricity. Countries don't like barely when it comes to electricity production.

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

#342

Post by manonthewall »

phil21 wrote: post #287
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…

> So nuclear operators are freeloading on society for decades making billions of profits Funny. I have the opposite take. Society has freeloaded off of nuclear for a generation or two by ignoring the wider social benefits and putting all the risk on the operators. Cheap, clean, reliable power matters. That we made it expensive via some made up social construct isn't very material to me in the bigger picture. > As a c…

cheap, clean, reliable -- under current conditions you only get to pick 2

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

#343

Post by realusername »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #331
realusername wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's caught up per capita too: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2?facet=none&country=...

I admit I was wrong here, it seems they finally reached the 90s levels. I'll also check for the current year just in case since 2020 could have been affected by covid.

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

#344

Post by realusername »

hef19898 wrote: post #330
realusername wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

It's both, it's true that the german industry is the least transitioned but the grid is also using gas as power generation

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

#345

Post by adev_ »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #309
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…

"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…

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

Quick question, outside of the necessity of CamelCase.

Are water dam operating companies insured up to the damages of a damn rupture ? Like in the case of the Vajont damn in Italy ?

Even for your car insurance: Will your insurance pays for the society cost of two disabled persons for life after you hit them when your tire exploded ?

Quick answer: No. In both case, the society will pay. Nuclear is no different.

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

#346

Post by natmaka »

apex_sloth wrote: post #273
natmaka wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A major piece here (electricity storage) is V2G ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid ). Reducing emissions related to transportation leads to electrical vehicles, and therefore to a vast amount of batteries, most not used at any given moment and therefore ready to store overproduction or release needed electricity. Batteries' performance are quickly progressing, and their prices history is clear: https://o…

car batteries aren't great for storing and retrieving energy for grid usage. to expensive for too few cycles.

This very average frequency/amplitude/speed of discharge, for any given battery, depends upon many parameters (during most of such 'call to batteries': slope of the call and quantity of electricity needed, duration, proportion of vehicles connected to the grid...).

This is part of the solution, as we have ways to reduce effects of intermittency on production (mainly a mix spread over the continent), other ways to store electricity (hydro, green hydrogen-burning turbo-alternators...), and curtailment...

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

#347

Post by natmaka »

troupo wrote: post #341
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally models of fully renewable grids aim for about a 4x overprovisioning (based on peak demand), though of course since that's based on achieving the lowest cost way to provide energy, you could debate whether the phrase "overprovisioning" really applies. Some have taken to calling it "superpower" (terrible name) because by overbuilding to meet the peak demand, you end up with masses of cheap energy at all non-p…

> Generally models of fully renewable grids aim for about a 4x overprovisioning (based on peak demand) So assuming Germany needs 60GW of power you need 240GW of renewables. Thing is, at 15% generation those renewables barely produce the required electricity. Countries don't like barely when it comes to electricity production.

The challenge isn't about producing electricity, but providing it when needed.

In most nations "providing it when needed" was equivalent to "producing it when needed" because, then, the sole way to realistically store enough electricity (hydro dams) weren't a solution due to inadequate local features (geography).

It isn't true anymore, as we now can store huge amounts of electricity in batteries (mainly in vehicles), as hydrogen...

"Producing it when needed" was equivalent to "generating electricity in a fully controllable manner, using a managed stock of fuel in order to adjust production (especially: bumping it up whenever consumption rises)" because there was no real way to balance things on a large scale by massively benefiting from a remote electricity-generating equipment because transporting electricity over long distances was expensive and impractical (too much line losses).

This isn't true anymore, thanks to (U)HVDC ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HVDC_projects ), enabling continental-sized grids reducing the effects of wind and solar intermittency ( https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/180592/european-cooperation-... )

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

#348

Post by natmaka »

adev_ wrote: post #279
natmaka wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ty…

> 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…

> The cost of fuel is close to zero. Consequently running a powerplant at full charge or half-charge is exactly the same (It can even be inverted).

This is false from an economical/financial point of view: "Another important factor in estimating a NPPs lifetime cost derives from its capacity factor. According to Anthonie Cilliers, a scholar and nuclear engineer, "Because of the large capital investment, and the low variable cost of operations, nuclear plants are most cost effective when they can run all the time to provide a return on the investment. Hence, plant operators now consistently achieve 92 percent capacity factor (average power produced of maximum capacity). The higher the capacity factor, the lower the cost per unit of electricity." Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla...

This is also false upon a purely technical considerations as modulating induces thermal shocks leading to failures.

>> may prove to be a bad deal as electrolysis equipment doesn't like (breaks sooner) when using an intermittent electricity input.

> The problem is exactly the same than for electrolysis done associated with intermittent renewable

Nope, as an electrical system based upon intermittent renewables must be continental ( https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/180592/european-cooperation-... ), the powerful grid needed being paid by the low LCOE of renewables and enabling the system to route overproduction, wherever they occur, towards centralized water-electrolysis plants. Good luck trying to convince anyone brain-equipped to pay for such a powerful continental grid along with the high LCOE of nuclear. 'Laughable', seems adequate.

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

#349

Post by natmaka »

hef19898 wrote: post #308
adev_ wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hy…

The main challenge is peak uranium, as "The amount of uranium present in all currently known conventional reserves alone ((...)) is enough to last over 200 years at current consumption rates." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla... therefore a real nuclear 'renaissance' implies a dangerous bet (on new uranium reserves, industrializing breeder reactors, or GenIV...)

Nuclear power: about 10% of global electricity generation ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Production ) which is about 22% of final energy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_supply_and_consum... ). Therefore the nuclear fleet (~440 reactors) now provides a meek ~2.2 of final energy. To reach about 11% implies building 2200 reactors (good luck with this), and would only let known uranium reserves provide each reactor for ~40 years, with few hopes towards the discovery of new reserves ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38288706 ).

In such a context uranium will become more and more rare, and therefore more and more expensive... and strategic (keyword: 'embargo').

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

#350

Post by natmaka »

realusername wrote: post #281
natmaka wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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

No, in Europe one of the main importers of this dirtier US gas is... nuclear-hero France! Source: https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/open-sourc...
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