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How the U.K. broke its own economy

theatlantic.com

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Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#741

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #740
ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now you suggest that we should build peaking nuclear plants in an attempt at covering your previous blunder with pure insanity. Lazard expects peakers to run at 10-15% capacity factor because you know, how often do we have cold spells in France or whatever other reason causes them to run? A couple of weeks a year at most. Lets say 15%. Lets calculate what Hinkley Point C costs when running as a peaker. It has a CF…

If you've already provisioned enough nuclear plants to meet peak energy demand, producing less energy has no marginal cost. Alternatively, you can just keep operating at full capacity, and give energy away for free and use it for energy-intensive tasks like desalination or arc furnaces. The idea that we'd build nuclear plants that only operate a few weeks per year is a strawman of your own construction. You're right…

Now you start dodging.

Typical. Let me quote you:

> They could always build more nuclear plants to fill additional demand.

And then

> If you've already provisioned enough nuclear plants to meet peak energy demand, producing less energy has no marginal cost.

If the magic tooth fairy comes with free nuclear plants... Nuclear cult member fantasy land.

So at what capacity factor will the entire fleet run at when built out to manage both outages and cold spells requiring 30 GW of fossil fuels to handle?

France currently run their fleet of 63 GW at a ~70% capacity factor. Add another 30 GW (lets call it 100% reliable when a cold spell hits) and the capacity factors vastly lower due to extremely low utilization factors of the last 30 GW.

You can spread out the lower of capacity factors across the entire fleet or just let the peakers bear them.

But in the end the results are the same because you still need to finance the your fleet now delivering a measly 45% capacity factor.

Lets translate a 45% capacity factor to Hinkley Point C numbers:

Now you are forcing the consumers to pay $355/MWh or 35.5 cents per kWh for all electricity delivered the whole year.

All you have done is take the ~$1000/MWh cost from 15% of the time and spread it out over the whole year.

Do you see the pure insanity of what you keep proposing now?

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#742

Post by reverendsteveii »

Johanx64 wrote: post #513
reverendsteveii wrote: post #4

Everyone who bought into neoliberalism in the 80s is now experiencing economies that are mysteriously failing to thrive. Correlation isn't cause, except when it is.

>Everyone who bought into post-industrial "service-based" economies in the 80s is now experiencing economies that are mysteriously failing to thrive. Fixed it for you. I don't understand how people expect "service-based" economies to actually create any long term wealth, growth or prosperity. Unless you're serving increasingly ever more lattes to each other, and increasingly more "banking-services" and rents upon ren…

How does one reindustrialize, then?

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#743

Post by Manuel_D »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #741
Manuel_D wrote: post #740

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've already provisioned enough nuclear plants to meet peak energy demand, producing less energy has no marginal cost. Alternatively, you can just keep operating at full capacity, and give energy away for free and use it for energy-intensive tasks like desalination or arc furnaces. The idea that we'd build nuclear plants that only operate a few weeks per year is a strawman of your own construction. You're right…

Now you start dodging. Typical. Let me quote you: > They could always build more nuclear plants to fill additional demand. And then > If you've already provisioned enough nuclear plants to meet peak energy demand, producing less energy has no marginal cost. If the magic tooth fairy comes with free nuclear plants... Nuclear cult member fantasy land. So at what capacity factor will the entire fleet run at when built ou…

For the third time, I never said nuclear was cheaper than contuing to burn natural gas. It has the distinction of being the only non-intermittent source of carbon-free electricity besides geographically contrained sources like hydroelectricity and geothermal power. It is the only viable path to decarbonization for most countries.

What's the alternative to nuclear power for reaching a carbon-free grid? No doubt, your plan will assume a breakthrough in energy storage that delivers orders-of-magnitude more scale than existing solutions.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#744

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #743
ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you start dodging. Typical. Let me quote you: > They could always build more nuclear plants to fill additional demand. And then > If you've already provisioned enough nuclear plants to meet peak energy demand, producing less energy has no marginal cost. If the magic tooth fairy comes with free nuclear plants... Nuclear cult member fantasy land. So at what capacity factor will the entire fleet run at when built ou…

For the third time, I never said nuclear was cheaper than contuing to burn natural gas. It has the distinction of being the only non-intermittent source of carbon-free electricity besides geographically contrained sources like hydroelectricity and geothermal power. It is the only viable path to decarbonization for most countries. What's the alternative to nuclear power for reaching a carbon-free grid? No doubt, your…

Why do you keep trying to alter what you said? Can't you stick to the truth?

> It is the only viable path to decarbonization for most countries.

The research disagrees with you.

See the recent study on Denmark which found that nuclear power needs to come down 85% in cost to be competitive with renewables when looking into total system costs for a fully decarbonized grid, due to both options requiring flexibility to meet the grid load.

> Focusing on the case of Denmark, this article investigates a future fully sector-coupled energy system in a carbon-neutral society and compares the operation and costs of renewables and nuclear-based energy systems.

> The study finds that investments in flexibility in the electricity supply are needed in both systems due to the constant production pattern of nuclear and the variability of renewable energy sources.

> However, the scenario with high nuclear implementation is 1.2 billion EUR more expensive annually compared to a scenario only based on renewables, with all systems completely balancing supply and demand across all energy sectors in every hour.

> For nuclear power to be cost competitive with renewables an investment cost of 1.55 MEUR/MW must be achieved, which is substantially below any cost projection for nuclear power.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192...

Or the same for Australia if you went a more sunny locale finding that renewables ends up with a grid costing less than half of "best case nth of a kind nuclear power":

https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2024-25Co...

Or if you want meta analysis have articles like:

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910

But they are of course all wrong by some tiny insignificant factor you will now pick up and attempt to blow up like it would be the end of the world.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#745

Post by Manuel_D »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #744
Manuel_D wrote: post #743

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the third time, I never said nuclear was cheaper than contuing to burn natural gas. It has the distinction of being the only non-intermittent source of carbon-free electricity besides geographically contrained sources like hydroelectricity and geothermal power. It is the only viable path to decarbonization for most countries. What's the alternative to nuclear power for reaching a carbon-free grid? No doubt, your…

Why do you keep trying to alter what you said? Can't you stick to the truth? > It is the only viable path to decarbonization for most countries. The research disagrees with you. See the recent study on Denmark which found that nuclear power needs to come down 85% in cost to be competitive with renewables when looking into total system costs for a fully decarbonized grid, due to both options requiring flexibility to m…

Again, why are you talking about cost, when the real question is viability? How does the study you linked plan to accommodate intermittency? The answer is just a vague statement about storage mechanisms:

> Storage of energy is an important element of 100% RE systems, especially when using large shares of variable sources like solar and wind [14], [40]–[42], and it can take various forms [43]–[45]. Batteries can supply efficient short term storage, while e-fuels can provide long-term storage solutions. Other examples are mechanical storage in pumped hydro energy storage [46], [47] and compressed air energy storage [48], [49], and thermal energy in a range of storage media at various temperature levels [43], [50].

Nowhere do they actually outline how much storage of each system they will provision. How many TWh of batteries? How many TWh of pumped hydro? Totally unanswered. They just mention the existence of storage, and avoid any tangible discussion of scale. Like I said, there's no realistic plans for a grid primarily powered by intermittent sources. The storage required for such a grid is orders of magnitude larger than what can be feasibly provisioned.

This isn't a tiny insignificant detail. It's is a foundational part of a primarily renewable grid. And nobody has a plan to solve it that doesn't amount to "assume some different system, which has never been deployed at scale, can tens of terawatt hours of storage".

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#746

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #745
ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you keep trying to alter what you said? Can't you stick to the truth? > It is the only viable path to decarbonization for most countries. The research disagrees with you. See the recent study on Denmark which found that nuclear power needs to come down 85% in cost to be competitive with renewables when looking into total system costs for a fully decarbonized grid, due to both options requiring flexibility to m…

Again, why are you talking about cost, when the real question is viability ? How does the study you linked plan to accommodate intermittency? The answer is just a vague statement about storage mechanisms: > Storage of energy is an important element of 100% RE systems, especially when using large shares of variable sources like solar and wind [14], [40]–[42], and it can take various forms [43]–[45]. Batteries can supp…

Love that you try to avoid the issue of cost. Yeah, in the land of infinite money and resources you can do anything.

In the real world the energy crisis was a cost crisis. But you seem to no care the slightest about massively increasing the ratepayers bills and by that creating a new self made energy crisis. This time fueled by nuclear subsidies.

So you skipped the first two studies. I suppose because you found nothing to complain about in them. Good to know.

Then you go on a meta-analysis on the entire field and demand them to produce a TWH figure for some energy system you can't even specify.

You truly are grasping for the straws.

Here's the quote you missed:

> Much of the resistance towards 100% RE systems in the literature seems to come from the a-priori assumption that an energy system based on solar and wind is impossible since these energy sources are variable. Critics of 100% RE systems like to contrast solar and wind with ’firm’ energy sources like nuclear and fossil fuels (often combined with CCS) that bring their own storage. This is the key point made in some already mentioned reactions, such as those by Clack et al. [225], Trainer [226], Heard et al. [227] Jenkins et al. [228], and Caldeira et al. [275], [276]. However, while it is true that keeping a system with variable sources stable is more complex, a range of strategies can be employed that are often ignored or underutilized in critical studies: oversizing solar and wind capacities; strengthening interconnections [68], [82], [132], [143], [277], [278]; demand response [279], [172], e.g. smart electric vehicles charging using delayed charging or delivering energy back to the electricity grid via vehicle-to-grid [181], [280]– [282]; storage [40]– [43], [46], [83], [140], [142], such as stationary batteries; sector coupling [16], [39], [90]– [92], [97], [132], [216], e.g. optimizing the interaction between electricity, heat, transport, and industry; power-to-X [39], [106], [134], [176], e.g. producing hydrogen at moments when there is abundant energy; et cetera. Using all these strategies effectively to mitigate variability is where much of the cutting-edge development of 100% RE scenarios takes place.

> With every iteration in the research and with every technological breakthrough in these areas, 100% RE systems become increasingly viable. Even former critics must admit that adding e-fuels through PtX makes 100% RE possible at costs similar to fossil fuels. These critics are still questioning whether 100% RE is the cheapest solution but no longer claim it would be unfeasible or prohibitively expensive. Variability, especially short term, has many mitigation options, and energy system studies are increasingly capturing these in their 100% RE scenarios.

With the conclusion based on the meta-analysis:

> The main conclusion of the vast majority of 100% renewable energy systems studies is that such systems can power all energy in all regions of the world at low cost. As such, we do not need to rely on fossil fuels in the future. In the early 2020s, the consensus has increasingly become that solar PV and wind power will dominate the future energy system and new research increasingly shows that 100% renewable energy systems are not only feasible but also cost effective. This gives us the key to a sustainable civilization and the long-lasting prosperity of humankind.

Since the study was released in mid 2022 has it become easier to harder to create 100% renewable energy systems? Easier.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#747

Post by Manuel_D »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #746
Manuel_D wrote: post #745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, why are you talking about cost, when the real question is viability ? How does the study you linked plan to accommodate intermittency? The answer is just a vague statement about storage mechanisms: > Storage of energy is an important element of 100% RE systems, especially when using large shares of variable sources like solar and wind [14], [40]–[42], and it can take various forms [43]–[45]. Batteries can supp…

Love that you try to avoid the issue of cost. Yeah, in the land of infinite money and resources you can do anything. In the real world the energy crisis was a cost crisis. But you seem to no care the slightest about massively increasing the ratepayers bills and by that creating a new self made energy crisis. This time fueled by nuclear subsidies. So you skipped the first two studies. I suppose because you found nothi…

> Here's the quote you missed:

Nowhere in that quote does it list how much of each type of storage is required. Again, they just list a range of storage systems, most of them never deployed at scale, and just don't even bother to lay out a concrete plan. The quotes you're posting are fitting this pattern of vague statements about storage and a total absence of concrete plans.

How many TWh of batteries? How many TWh of pumped hydro? How many TWh of some more exotic storage systems like compressed air or hydrogen? There's a reason why plans for a renewable grid don't go into this detail and stick to vague statement: actually sketching out how much storage would be required would show just how infeasible it really is.

Like I said, proponents of a mostly renewable grid don't have a plan to address intermittency. Or rather their plan is, "assume something solves storage, and don't worry about it".

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#748

Post by ryan93 »

bruce511 wrote: post #289
ryan93 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like 44% of your economy is government spending. lol

This is not as crazy as it sounds at first glance. The % is less important than where they are spending that money. An "economy" is just a measure of the overall movement of money. If the bulk of that spending is internal, then that is contributing to the economy. Govt workers are consumers, local companies are providing goods to govt etc. USaid for example spent a lot of money on food. And a lot of that was purchase…

Yeah but you can see how the endless British bleating about “austerity” is a little overwrought?

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#749

Post by cupcakecommons »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #744
Manuel_D wrote: post #743

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the third time, I never said nuclear was cheaper than contuing to burn natural gas. It has the distinction of being the only non-intermittent source of carbon-free electricity besides geographically contrained sources like hydroelectricity and geothermal power. It is the only viable path to decarbonization for most countries. What's the alternative to nuclear power for reaching a carbon-free grid? No doubt, your…

Why do you keep trying to alter what you said? Can't you stick to the truth? > It is the only viable path to decarbonization for most countries. The research disagrees with you. See the recent study on Denmark which found that nuclear power needs to come down 85% in cost to be competitive with renewables when looking into total system costs for a fully decarbonized grid, due to both options requiring flexibility to m…

You are being purposefully aggravating here because your argument is weak but it's been socially supported for some time now. Nuclear power lagged behind renewables due primarily to proliferation fears and subsequent over-regulation in most of the world, not technical flaws, missing out on innovations like modular reactors. China’s pushing ahead with 150 GW by 2030, leveraging nuclear’s advantages: it’s compact (1-4 sq mi/GW vs. solar’s 10-20), reliable, and resilient to extreme (and simply changing) weather, without reliance on rare earths or massive storage (with their own host externalizations and supply risks). Costs can drop to $50-100/MWh with new tech and long lifespans, rivaling renewables when accounting for their hidden expenses (storage, grid upgrades). Proliferation risks exist but can be managed with oversight. Nuclear remains the best bet for scalable, clean energy.

Re: How the U.K. broke its own economy

#750

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #747
ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love that you try to avoid the issue of cost. Yeah, in the land of infinite money and resources you can do anything. In the real world the energy crisis was a cost crisis. But you seem to no care the slightest about massively increasing the ratepayers bills and by that creating a new self made energy crisis. This time fueled by nuclear subsidies. So you skipped the first two studies. I suppose because you found nothi…

> Here's the quote you missed: Nowhere in that quote does it list how much of each type of storage is required. Again, they just list a range of storage systems, most of them never deployed at scale, and just don't even bother to lay out a concrete plan. The quotes you're posting are fitting this pattern of vague statements about storage and a total absence of concrete plans. How many TWh of batteries? How many TWh o…

I have already given you all that but you keep dodging instead single mindedly focusing on what is outside the scope of a meta studie of the entire field.

Trying to frame it like you disprove something when you truly don’t. You can go and read the individual studies it sources the statements from, which are then used to build those arguments arguments.

But I suppose that is too hard when you gotta find any possible straw to grasp instead of accepting reality.

Lets go back to the to studies you’ve decided to completely ignore. Likely because they answer your complaints and you haven’t found any nitpick to paint as the end of the world.

So again:

See the recent study on Denmark which found that nuclear power needs to come down 85% in cost to be competitive with renewables when looking into total system costs for a fully decarbonized grid, due to both options requiring flexibility to meet the grid load.

> Focusing on the case of Denmark, this article investigates a future fully sector-coupled energy system in a carbon-neutral society and compares the operation and costs of renewables and nuclear-based energy systems.

> The study finds that investments in flexibility in the electricity supply are needed in both systems due to the constant production pattern of nuclear and the variability of renewable energy sources.

> However, the scenario with high nuclear implementation is 1.2 billion EUR more expensive annually compared to a scenario only based on renewables, with all systems completely balancing supply and demand across all energy sectors in every hour.

> For nuclear power to be cost competitive with renewables an investment cost of 1.55 MEUR/MW must be achieved, which is substantially below any cost projection for nuclear power.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192...

Or the same for Australia if you went a more sunny locale finding that renewables ends up with a grid costing less than half of "best case nth of a kind nuclear power":

https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2024-25Co...

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