EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green • Hacker News Board

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#361

Post by pyrale » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

onethought wrote: post #190

arcticbull wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It wasn't that long ago we used to worry about whether fuel was renewable or not, and about pollution and other environmental externalities in general, not just CO2. These are the same thing in common parlance. High CO2 emission plants are fossil fuel driven, and those are of course non-renewable. Wind, solar and nuclear are renewable, sustainable and low CO2. Nuclear in particular also produces very little waste a…

Nuclear is not renewable… right? Ie there is a finite amount of nuclear material on earth and it’s not overly abundant either. Am I missing something?

Nothing is indefinitely renewable. In the end, the second law of thermodynamics is an immovable barrier. When we talk about renewable, it's never endless, it's renewable within reason.

When it comes to nuclear though, the people claiming it's renewable usually refer to the presence of uranium in seewater, which is leeched from the ocean floor. That fits within the "renewable within reason" frame I talked about before. The issue with making that case is that collecting uraium from seawater is experimental reearch at this point ; it's definitely not an industrial process. Other examples of people conflating research with established industrial standards include people claiming we can get rid of nuclear waste with new reactors, or people claiming that we can recycle wind turbine blades.

A reasonable case to be made is that, while nuclear is not renewable, the reserves we have is enough to let us buy another century of research and a reasonable chance to find more long-lasting solutions, whether it would be a great storage technology, fusion, new fission technology, a smart grid or whatever.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#362

Post by jeroenhd » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 2:36 PM UTC

locallost wrote: post #293

AQuantized wrote: post #63

Nuclear investments desperately need to be recognized as green so you don't have oxymoronic policies similar to Germany's current plan where you're decommissioning nuclear to become more "green" yet producing much more carbon dioxide.

Germany's carbon dioxide emissions have been going down steadily since they started switching off their aging nuclear plants. It's amazing to me how people can think they have a rational argument that's based entirely on fiction. Data: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38...

And they could be going down even faster by switching on the nuclear plants! But at least now Germany is prepared in case of a Fukushima style tsunami. Nobody claims that carbon emissions are increasing by an absolute number.

Germany is investing heavily in green energy, but green energy won't be able to provide the necessary energy for years to come. Switching to their objectively worse power sources, both in terms of carbon emissions and release of radioactive compounds to the surrounding environment, was a stupid move based on nothing more than FUD.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#363

Post by zajio1am » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 2:56 PM UTC

freeflight wrote: post #27

alkonaut wrote: post #18

There needs to be clearer terminology and labels for “green”, “sustainable”, “renewable”, “climate neutral” energy. I’d also like to throw in “democratic” in the mix. Because energy and foreign policy can’t be separated. The EU energy mix is going to be geopolitically very important in coming years. We also need to make it very clear what the goals are for each kind and where the tradeoffs are. I think right now the…

> independent of eastern natural gas. It's interesting how trade relationships that are centuries old, are now seen in a negative context solely on a foreign policy basis that's often dictated from across the Atlantic. Particularly when they go completely contrary to the other stated goal; Climate change. Western Europe has been dependent on Eastern Europe's resources for a very long time, as Siberia is the largest c…

> when in reality only 14% of Germany's gas consumption is for electricity production. ... Another huge chunk is household use for heating and kitchen appliances, together these two sectors account for 67% of Germany's gas consumption.

But this is pretty much connected. If you have cheap electricity, you can easily use it for heating instead of natural gas.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#364

Post by ben_w » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 2:56 PM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #357

ben_w wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The perfect is the enemy of the good. The required reduction is 99.9% of greenhouse emissions for the next millennium. No institution has ever had that power, few have lasted that long, and even those few which have lasted that long underwent significant policy changes in that time. If we can’t make saving the planet cheap enough that even the greedy and selfish prefer to do that, then we can’t win at all. But half-a…

Maximally 10 extra years and waste of a lot of labor and money that could be put into building and developing nuclear power plants and more renewables.

10 more years is needed if you want nuclear.

Possibly also batteries, but that’s harder for me to estimate — we’ve got the price down, but we need way more volume.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#365

Post by Retric » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 2:56 PM UTC

algo_trader wrote: post #349

Retric wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar dropped below 2c/kWh in the kind of places you should actually install solar. It depends on interest rates but that’s shockingly low. Batteries provide peaking power cheaper than any rarely used peaking power plant. (2,000 charge cycles on a 100$/kWh battery charged from 2c/kWh solar is ~7c/kWh whenever you need it.) That’s all it takes for adoption to dramatically increase. Market forces will shift things arou…

> 2,000 charge cycles on a 100$/kWh battery charged from 2c/kWh solar is ~7c/kWh whenever you need it. Well - no. The $100 is up front capex. Add interest rate over 10 years and the price doubles. This is just the module/pack price, and you need to add installation, cabinets, fire suppression, AC/DC and controllers. Which probably add 50% to 100%. Like wise the headline 2c/kWh is probably for ideal projects with idea…

2000 cycles is 5.5 years at one cycle per day, though 2 cycles per day can also be useful at the cost of a very short lifespan. Even 5% interest rates above inflation only increase costs by around 14%.

At scale batteries are effectively a fuel that needs continuous replacement, though related equipment can last much longer. Also, module/pack prices dominate installation and operating costs as PV operates on DC and therefore needs a DC/AC converter etc.

Summer vs winter depends on geography, it’s largely meaningless between the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn. It does become increasingly important further north, though offset by the relative need for AC. By the time you’re seeing such wide production swings from summer to winter you are simply in a bad location for solar.

PS: Actual charge vs discharge cycles of course vary widely as to various other costs.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#366

Post by AYBABTME » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 3:04 PM UTC

iso1210 wrote: post #325

inglor_cz wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Batteries/Storage are cheap to build today" And yet the existing battery facilities that could keep a smallish region (or a single city) supplied for 15 minutes or more are exceedingly rare. Maybe they aren't as cheap as you claim. Australia is recently building a 1200 MW battery in New South Wales for 2.4 billion dollars - a cost comparable to a new nuclear reactor. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/f…

My house uses about 500kWh/month, so a typical electric car parked on my driveway for 95% of the time can run it for several days. 20 million cars in the UK are parked on peoples drives overnight. Vast majority don't need a full charge for the following day and people will be delighted to buy electric during the day for 10c/kWh and sell it overnight for 20c/kWh If they were all electric with 60kWh of storage and can…

Are you heating up your house with 16.6KWh per day? Seems low for an electrically heated home.

The other problem with using cars to feed the grid is that you need inverters large enough to do so in each house. That's not a cheap solution and it takes a lot of space.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#367

Post by zajio1am » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 3:04 PM UTC

hammock wrote: post #165

nathan_phoenix wrote: post #12

For anyone wondering why gas, it's gas only in specific cases. > Investments in natural gas power plants would also be deemed green if they produce emissions below 270g of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (kWh), replace a more polluting fossil fuel plant, receive a construction permit by Dec. 31 2030 and plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035.

When did "green" get co-opted to mean low CO2 emissions? It wasn't that long ago we used to worry about whether fuel was renewable or not, and about particulate pollution, acid rain, habitat destruction and other environmental externalities in general, not just CO2. This global warming-driven definition of "green" ignores all of that.

> It wasn't that long ago we used to worry about whether fuel was renewable or not, and about particulate pollution, acid rain, habitat destruction and other environmental externalities in general, not just CO2.

From these points natural gas is relatively good, its main problem is CO2 emissions. I worry that focusing on CO2 would lead to going back from natural gas heating to biomass/wood heating, which could be CO2 neutral[1], but brings particulate pollution and other environmental externalities.

[1] although often is not due to extraction and processing steps

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#368

Post by ben_w » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 3:05 PM UTC

labawi wrote: post #341

iso1210 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 1kWh of gas is 6 cents, and a 1kWh battery is $100 and lasts for 10,000 cycles, that puts the price of the battery at 1 cent/kWh plus the charging cost (2c/kWh for solar) In addition, for Europe, the key part of removing Russia from the energy equation is worth a hell of a lot of money.

Unfortunately the math is meaningless if it takes 10 000 years to get those 10 000 cycles. Batteries are currently competitive for short response times and short cycles. As price declines they become become useful for longer cycles, but there will be a point beyond which we need alternative solutions, such as bulk storage/gas, long transmission lines, and/or demand management.

I expect most (but not all) of the batteries in a PV+battery grid would be cycled (to whatever depth) every day, giving them a ~27 year replacement cycle not too different from other power plants.

In principle I prefer antipodal transmission lines for the grid and batteries for transport — grid is cheaper and a trade opportunity — but at global scale, such a grid will take a while to build.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#369

Post by inglor_cz » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 3:06 PM UTC

iso1210 wrote: post #325

inglor_cz wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Batteries/Storage are cheap to build today" And yet the existing battery facilities that could keep a smallish region (or a single city) supplied for 15 minutes or more are exceedingly rare. Maybe they aren't as cheap as you claim. Australia is recently building a 1200 MW battery in New South Wales for 2.4 billion dollars - a cost comparable to a new nuclear reactor. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/f…

My house uses about 500kWh/month, so a typical electric car parked on my driveway for 95% of the time can run it for several days. 20 million cars in the UK are parked on peoples drives overnight. Vast majority don't need a full charge for the following day and people will be delighted to buy electric during the day for 10c/kWh and sell it overnight for 20c/kWh If they were all electric with 60kWh of storage and can…

Switching the entire (Western?) car fleet to electric cars will be neither a quick nor a cheap process. It won't even be feasible on a timescale of less than some 20 years, because the necessary amount of natural resources just isn't mined in such volumes. You also have to massively upgrade the grid to handle such powerful currents.

It is doable, yes, but I cannot concur with the OPs idea that it is cheap.

Re: EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green

#370

Post by q1w2 » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #316

nathan_phoenix wrote: post #12

For anyone wondering why gas, it's gas only in specific cases. > Investments in natural gas power plants would also be deemed green if they produce emissions below 270g of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (kWh), replace a more polluting fossil fuel plant, receive a construction permit by Dec. 31 2030 and plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035.

Gas power plants are currently a cornerstone of the Danish green electricity plan. The idea is to base everything primarily on wind and solar, and to build an extensive direct current distribution network to exchange power with neighboring countries. Even with all that, there will still be periods where the sun does not shine and the wind doesn't blow. Gas power plants are then supposed to take over in those periods,…

This is exactly why nuclear needs to be the solution. Solar and wind will always need gas to provide reliable power.