Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 125 posts

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

#71

Post by sunstone »

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…

To a certain extent you're not wrong. There's a critical technology with quickly dropping costs that this future assumes and that's HVDC transmission lines. The larger the geographical span of the area that has all its solar and wind attached the more the variations all average out and the overall reliability and consistency improves a lot.

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

#72

Post by toomuchtodo »

Maximus9000 wrote: post #58
toomuchtodo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Gigafactori…

How much does 1 megapack cost?

Somewhere between $250 and $400 million.

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

#73

Post by keanzu »

ip26 wrote: post #38
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…

Among other things, when it gets really cheap you can start over-provisioning. Cloud cover sometimes cuts the solar irradiance in half? No problem, just build twice as much solar capacity (and maybe add a HVDC transmission line to the next state over for the high production times) Wide deployment & interconnection will also erase some of the local variability of, e.g. a cloud passing over.

Land use of solar prevents it ever getting really cheap. According to the UK solar power portal [1]: "If solar covered one percent of the UK it would meet the country’s entire power demand".

> just build twice as much solar capacity

This would increase the land use from 1% to 2%. That's a huge amount of the country to give over to power production.

[1] https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/if_solar_covered_one...

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

#74

Post by keanzu »

dredmorbius wrote: post #68
nerpderp82 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Energy storage isn't really feasible You couldn't be more Dam wrong.

Doesn't scale. Not enough sites. Mind, where it does work, it's phenomenally effective, efficient, and responsive. There are a few sites at which seawater-based systems might be possible, in which the ocean forms the "lower reservoir". These are dependent on suitable terrain. Matching terrain to consumption patterns is difficult: the Netherlands and much of Britain are sorely lacking. Some of the best potential sites…

> Doesn't scale. Not enough sites.

Terrible energy density, massive land use.

To store the energy contained in 1 gallon of gasoline requires over 55,000 gallons to be pumped up 726 feet (CCST 2012). [1]

Itaipu Dam has 14,000 MW installed power, 1,350 square kilometres (520 sq mi) were flooded. [2]

[1] http://energyskeptic.com/2015/hydropower-has-a-very-low-ener...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaipu_Dam

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

#75

Post by keanzu »

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.

Mountains of red tape don't exist in the communist dictatorship of China yet they haven't broken ground on a new plant since 2016 [1]. There are fundamental economic problems with nuclear that prevent it from being the power solution we all hoped it would be.

[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612564/chinas-losing-its-...

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

#76

Post by tekstar »

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.

Pretty sure in overage situations the water runs over the dam and nothing is stored in Niagara but I may be mistaken.

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

#77

Post by wainstead »

tlb wrote: post #53
tefferon wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes. Launch vehicles sometimes fail. They may explode, or they may not make it all the way to orbit and have to re-enter. Either way, this would scatter the radioactive material over a wide area.

Indeed, to your point:

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/10/science/groups-protest-us...

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

#78

Post by imtringued »

tefferon wrote: post #50
throwaway5752 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because there is no need to. The radioactive material wasn't a problem before it was dug out of the soil. It's not a problem if it returns to where it came from. The problem is that most government try to find an idiotic central storage location instead of simply distributing the spent fuel over many locations.

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

#79

Post by henryfjordan »

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…

This is surprising to hear. Here's some back of the napkin math that seems to contradict the assertion that there's not enough sunlight to power humanity: https://ag.tennessee.edu/solar/Pages/What%20Is%20Solar%20Ene...

They claim texas recieves >300x the amount of power consumed in the form of sunlight.

Another source claims that the Sun delivers enough power in a single hour to power the earth for a year: https://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-the-potential-of-sol...

I can respect the fact that we cannot capture 100% of that power, but even a fraction should power the earth, no?

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

#80

Post by Faark »

tefferon wrote: post #48
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

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?

In my case geopolitical reasons, mostly. I prefer nuclear plants not be in what the US president lovingly calls shithole countries. Those tend to not yet have nuclear, but a drastically increasing need for energy. Many of them are also a lot closer to the equator than western countries with existing nuclear, making solar much more viable than e.g. in the UK.

> What's the manufacturing breakeven in carbon costs for a windmill or a solar panel?

This questions feels like you mostly try to justify your otherwise preexisting preference. A proper system would have external costs factored into the price, by the way.

Post reply on HN