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It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants

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Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants

#41

Post by Scoundreller »

VintageCool wrote: post #27
tekstar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ontario power is mostly from renewable sources already, but yes it is highly mismanaged. You can see the hourly Ontario energy use by source here: http://www.ieso.ca/power-data One of the worst inefficiencies of the Ontario grid is that we run an abundance of energy during parts of the day, during which we dump electricity to the US at extremely cheap rates. If that electricity were offered at the same rate to Ontari…

Is there a minimum rate at which they produce hydro power? That seems like a great option to spin down hydro power during those parts of the day, store the water, and then spin the hydro plants back up at peak load.

About a quarter of it is from Niagara Falls, ie: run of the river.

The amount that they divert varies by time: they want to keep the falls nice during the day, but divert more at night.

And a lot of dams are dual use: controlling water levels while generating electricity, so it really depends on weather. When it’s dry they can maybe do this, but when it’s wet, they gotta be careful. Or vice versa depending on which side it’s raining more on.

Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants

#42

Post by namibj »

Scoundreller wrote: post #22
FullyFunctional wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or deploy storage to make the curve smoother

You mean I can “bank” A/C in the form of ice???

Well, ammonia coolers offer cheap storage in the form of liquid ammonia. This applies to both absorption and compressor coolers.

Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants

#43

Post by bluGill »

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #32
air7 wrote: post #28

I don't understand the hype around wind and solar. Or rather I don't see how these technologies can ever be anything more than a minor player in the energy market: These technologies are extremely sensitive to weather conditions which means that other, more stable sources must exist and have "stand by" production cap to produce all the energy these tech won't under bad conditions. If so, what's the point? (I mean in…

Energy storage will enable us to use only clean renewables. While the costs for energy storage aren't falling nearly as fast, they are still decreasing. I anticipate that rate to accelerate

The amount of storage needed is massive. 1000s of hoover dams (including the lakes on both sides) for example. Batteries might work, but so far they haven't scaled that large.

Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants

#44

Post by toomuchtodo »

bluGill wrote: post #43
ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy storage will enable us to use only clean renewables. While the costs for energy storage aren't falling nearly as fast, they are still decreasing. I anticipate that rate to accelerate

The amount of storage needed is massive. 1000s of hoover dams (including the lakes on both sides) for example. Batteries might work, but so far they haven't scaled that large.

It's about 6000 Tesla Megapacks [1] for the entire US, roughly 20 square miles of land use.

"Using Megapack, Tesla can deploy an emissions-free 250 MW, 1 GWh power plant in less than three months on a three-acre footprint – four times faster than a traditional fossil fuel power plant of that size. Megapack can also be DC-connected directly to solar, creating seamless renewable energy plants."

We need more Gigafactories (regardless of manufacturer/owner), which needs demand to be proven (contracts with utilities), which allows for more capital to be acquired from capital markets to build more battery factories. Batteries are a known quantity though, versus nuclear where you can spend billions and a decade and still not produce a kWh of power.

Tesla built Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai in 190 days, from breaking ground to manufacturing validation of a Model 3. These are tractable problems.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/introducing-megapack-utility-scal...

Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants

#45

Post by ReptileMan »

0000011111 wrote: post #26

I learned from Professor Vaclav Smil that while Wind and Solar are practical energy solutions in the United States population ~340mil. It is not practical in all regions in more populous countries such as China (population ~1.4 Billion). There are large regions in the country where Solar is not a good solution due to fog. And Wind is not a good solution due to lack of wind. We have a global climate system. As is such…

You could cover the arabian peninsula and sahara with panels and use UHV lines to connect to china.

Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants

#46

Post by bryanlarsen »

air7 wrote: post #28

I don't understand the hype around wind and solar. Or rather I don't see how these technologies can ever be anything more than a minor player in the energy market: These technologies are extremely sensitive to weather conditions which means that other, more stable sources must exist and have "stand by" production cap to produce all the energy these tech won't under bad conditions. If so, what's the point? (I mean in…

Perhaps the biggest reason that wind is mostly offshore these days is because it's much more reliable there than on land. It still varies, but not by as much as you'd expect.

There's also a saying "the wind is always blowing somewhere". A good grid reduces variability a lot.

Renewables are projected to get cheap enough that over provisioning can handle most, (but not all) of the stalls, drastically reducing the need for storage or peakers. For example, if you have enough solar to provide 3X as much power as you need on a sunny day, you get about 1X on a cloudy day.

Over-provisioning results in incredibly cheap power on sunny/windy days which can be a huge boon to industry.

Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants

#47

Post by toomuchtodo »

derision wrote: post #39
mepiethree wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if solar can only run a third of the time, that's still a third of our electric carbon emissions taken out, which ain't nothing to shake a stick at. > what am I missing Battery storage is a thing and will become much more of a thing

Batteries are made from metals which have to be strip mined. It's really not any more environmentally friendly

Lithium is evaporated from brine in ponds, not strip mined.

Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants

#48

Post by tefferon »

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #32
air7 wrote: post #28

I don't understand the hype around wind and solar. Or rather I don't see how these technologies can ever be anything more than a minor player in the energy market: These technologies are extremely sensitive to weather conditions which means that other, more stable sources must exist and have "stand by" production cap to produce all the energy these tech won't under bad conditions. If so, what's the point? (I mean in…

Energy storage will enable us to use only clean renewables. While the costs for energy storage aren't falling nearly as fast, they are still decreasing. I anticipate that rate to accelerate

Why does everyone turn from Nuclear though? It seems like the most viable option in my opinion. I'd rather have a network of nuke power where energy reliability is weather-independent than forests of wind and farms of solar. I feel like its a much greener approach overall. What's the manufacturing breakeven in carbon costs for a windmill or a solar panel?

Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants

#49

Post by tofflos »

NullPrefix wrote: post #23
hannasanarion wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it wouldn't, because nuclear isn't reactive enough to produce energy to match the extreme afternoon demand curves when solar capacity drops and demand jumps. To account for those rapid jumps in non-renewable demand, you need an energy source that can ramp up really fast on short notice, like hydrocarbon fire.

> the extreme afternoon demand curves when solar capacity drops and demand jumps Does the hourly schedule variate day by day or can it be predicted? If you can predict when and how much power you will need to produce then it can be ramped up slowly, I assume.

The Nordic system operators are in the early stages of transitioning from a reactive to a predictive process. The schedule does vary from day to day but there isn't anyone there that doesn't believe it can't be predicted with an accuracy that is more safe, and economical, than the current reactive process.

You can read more about it at http://nordicbalancingmodel.net.

Re: It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants

#50

Post by tefferon »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #5
mikece wrote: post #2

"[Wind and solar are] even close to being competitive with the marginal costs of running the coal and nuclear plants we already have." Is that still true without incentives, green grants, rebates, and tax credits? Because without all of that and with mountains of red tape nuclear still produces energy at the lowest cost, and without emitting any CO2.

Are you sure about that? You should look at the fortunes of the engineering groups McDermott, CB&I, and Shaw and how the cost overruns associated with the Westinghouse contributed to so much trouble for those EPC companies and Toshiba. Nuclear has two big problems: difficulty with costs of constructing new plants and currently completely externalized storage of spent fuel. The latter is poorly defined and understood,…

is there any reason why we can't conceivably jettison nuclear waste out of orbit?
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