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Baseload Is a Myth (2024)

cleanenergyreview.io

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Re: Baseload Is a Myth (2024)

#41

Post by alan-crowe »

rcxdude wrote: post #5
bryanlarsen wrote: post #2

The ironic part is that baseload is usually brought up by nuclear proponents along with comments about storage not being able to fill in the gaps. Yet pumped hydro storage was originally implemented in the 70's because nuclear of the time couldn't do peaking power. It was envisioned as a way to move cheap nuclear power generation from the nighttime lows to daytime peaks. Baseload is just a cost optimization. We need…

Yeah, nuclear wants storage (or gas peakers) just as much as renewables do.

That depends on where you live.

If nuclear power is trying to match a fluctuating load it needs storage for a day or two, to escape the Xenon dead time. But solar power for air-conditioning only needs an hour or two of storage to bridge from peak solar at noon, to maximum demand mid-afternoon.

On the other hand I live in Scotland. Solar power for space heating needs to save the summer sun for six months to heat homes in January. Ouch! Adding a day or two of storage to a nuclear power plant is much more practical.

Re: Baseload Is a Myth (2024)

#42

Post by slopinthebag »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #40
slopinthebag wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 > 0

Germany has installed the equivalent of about 25 nukes worth of solar & wind. And 3 is definitely not enough to provide any sort of cost scaling benefits.

They did, but at a cost that vastly exceeded the expected cost of building 25 reactors.

> Germany could have kept the existing nuclear power in 2002 and possibly invest in new nuclear capacity. The analysis of these two alternatives shows that Germany could have reached its climate gas emission target by achieving a 73% cut in emissions on top of the achievements in 2022 and simultaneously cut the spending in half compared to Energiewende.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14786451.2024.2...

Honestly a pretty shocking policy decision from the German government, and I imagine was entirely ideological rather than pragmatic.

Re: Baseload Is a Myth (2024)

#43

Post by rcxdude »

alan-crowe wrote: post #41
rcxdude wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, nuclear wants storage (or gas peakers) just as much as renewables do.

That depends on where you live. If nuclear power is trying to match a fluctuating load it needs storage for a day or two, to escape the Xenon dead time. But solar power for air-conditioning only needs an hour or two of storage to bridge from peak solar at noon, to maximum demand mid-afternoon. On the other hand I live in Scotland. Solar power for space heating needs to save the summer sun for six months to heat homes…

I mean, Scotland has more wind power than it can use (or transfer to England) at the moment, so solar is probably not the main focus. The price of nuclear plants also means you can afford to overbuild renewables by quite a lot to make up for seasonal variation and still come in at the same price.

Re: Baseload Is a Myth (2024)

#44

Post by rcxdude »

throw0101d wrote: post #25
cbsmith wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article concedes that there is a minimum power consumption. Thinking that therefore defines your generation strategy (e.g. I will have plants that constantly generate that minimum amount and the rest I'll handle with separate peak plants) is a myth.

> Thinking that therefore defines your generation strategy (e.g. I will have plants that constantly generate that minimum amount and the rest I'll handle with separate peak plants) is a myth. The strategy would be to have economical, non-intermittent generation. It would be non-intermittent supply because that part of demand is non-intermittent.

It is a reasonable strategy if you have some non-intermittent generation that is significantly more economical than the other options. It's not a requirement for all grids in all technological contexts.

Re: Baseload Is a Myth (2024)

#45

Post by opo »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #18
slopinthebag wrote: post #10

One thing I don’t understand is environmentalists seemingly unbounded hatred of nuclear energy. If the goal is to reduce carbon emissions and switch to clean energy, nuclear is a way to do that, but it seems like many of them would rather use coal (see Germany). I simply don’t understand this.

This hatred is irrational, but has incidentally done the world a lot of good. In the 90's/00's when Germany and Denmark decided to start decarbonizing their grid, the sane choice would have been nuclear. At the time it was the cheapest zero carbon viable electricity source. (Geothermal may have been cheaper at the time, but wasn't viable to power their entire grid). But instead they decided to massively overpay for w…

>This hatred is irrational, but has incidentally done the world a lot of good.

Turning off nuclear power plants while you still are burning coal does not meet the criteria for a crime against humanity, but that decision has resulted in the death of many people already. Those that supported this decision are responsible for those deaths and for that contribution to future deaths caused by climate change.

>...Today solar & wind are significantly cheaper than natural gas, and orders of magnitude cheaper than nuclear.

Solar is not "orders of magnitude" cheaper than nuclear. Utility solar cost is somewhat comparable to older nuclear power plants that are already running and much cheaper than new nuclear. Rooftop solar is much more expensive than older nuclear power plants that are already running and comparable to the price of new nuclear.

Re: Baseload Is a Myth (2024)

#46

Post by Tostino »

throw0101d wrote: post #34
bryanlarsen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That strategy makes no sense when dispatchable power generation is cheaper than non-intermittent generation. This happened about 20 years ago when natgas became cheaper than coal.

> This happened about 20 years ago when natgas became cheaper than coal. With or without externalities like climate change costed in?

Dude, that's like, our kids' problem.

Re: Baseload Is a Myth (2024)

#47

Post by Zanfa »

rcxdude wrote: post #43
alan-crowe wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on where you live. If nuclear power is trying to match a fluctuating load it needs storage for a day or two, to escape the Xenon dead time. But solar power for air-conditioning only needs an hour or two of storage to bridge from peak solar at noon, to maximum demand mid-afternoon. On the other hand I live in Scotland. Solar power for space heating needs to save the summer sun for six months to heat homes…

I mean, Scotland has more wind power than it can use (or transfer to England) at the moment, so solar is probably not the main focus. The price of nuclear plants also means you can afford to overbuild renewables by quite a lot to make up for seasonal variation and still come in at the same price.

The problem is still long periods (up to weeks) of single-digit percentage of nominal capacity of power generation from wind farms. Overbuilding doesn’t help much, so a non-renewable option still needs to be available.

Re: Baseload Is a Myth (2024)

#48

Post by audunw »

alan-crowe wrote: post #41
rcxdude wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, nuclear wants storage (or gas peakers) just as much as renewables do.

That depends on where you live. If nuclear power is trying to match a fluctuating load it needs storage for a day or two, to escape the Xenon dead time. But solar power for air-conditioning only needs an hour or two of storage to bridge from peak solar at noon, to maximum demand mid-afternoon. On the other hand I live in Scotland. Solar power for space heating needs to save the summer sun for six months to heat homes…

If the energy you need is in the form of heating, it’s actually surprisingly viable to store energy for months. Heat batteries is probably the cheapest and easiest way to store energy for the long term. It’s just that it’s horribly inefficient to go back to electricity.

So it’s more of an issue when you want to use that excess solar to power your computer in winter.

If not nuclear, I think the northern regions need to focus on geothermal (Quaise?) and trash burning (yes, recycle first, but eventually everything non metal degrades and should be incinerated)

Re: Baseload Is a Myth (2024)

#49

Post by roryirvine »

Zanfa wrote: post #47
rcxdude wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, Scotland has more wind power than it can use (or transfer to England) at the moment, so solar is probably not the main focus. The price of nuclear plants also means you can afford to overbuild renewables by quite a lot to make up for seasonal variation and still come in at the same price.

The problem is still long periods (up to weeks) of single-digit percentage of nominal capacity of power generation from wind farms. Overbuilding doesn’t help much, so a non-renewable option still needs to be available.

Wind droughts lasting a week or more are a 1-in-5 year event in the UK so, yes, must be accounted for.

Nuclear is prone to similar issues - statutory outages for inspections and refuelling, and emergency outages which often affect multiple plants at the same time (eg. a cracked steam valve in one plant requiring remediation on the same component in the others).

Keeping existing gas generators around, ready to be put into use when needed, is the simplest way of dealing with this until sufficient storage capacity is built out.

Re: Baseload Is a Myth (2024)

#50

Post by bryanlarsen »

slopinthebag wrote: post #42
bryanlarsen wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has installed the equivalent of about 25 nukes worth of solar & wind. And 3 is definitely not enough to provide any sort of cost scaling benefits.

They did, but at a cost that vastly exceeded the expected cost of building 25 reactors. > Germany could have kept the existing nuclear power in 2002 and possibly invest in new nuclear capacity. The analysis of these two alternatives shows that Germany could have reached its climate gas emission target by achieving a 73% cut in emissions on top of the achievements in 2022 and simultaneously cut the spending in half co…

Yes, that was central to my point in my first post in this thread.
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