Solar + Battery (covering 97% of demand) is now cheaper than coal and nuclear
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I you live where sun is abundant all year round… In which case (Las Vegas?) I would question the choice of having humans living in a fucking desert in the first place. But man I wish I could cover my needs between October and March here in Europe but no battery will help me store so much for so long
"bad" solar areas are actually amazing for 9 months, and if you heating needs are met by other means, then winter can keep the lights on and still do cooking. The path to meeting winter heating needs is hot water and "heated dirt/sand" storage with hydronic floor heating (where more water is delivered at 30C is easier to manage than radiators at 80C) that can be stored during ample fall solar with no heat or cooling load.
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Vogtle added 2 AP1000 reactors for $35 billion. Future deployments might be cheaper, but there's a long way to go before it can compete with pretty much any other type of power generation.
They had to switch halfway through which is what added the cost that’s not a realistic cost per reactor
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solar today is warranteed for 30 years. No reason to replace before 60 years compared to adding more beside it.
Batteries and panels degrade over time. So if you are trying to maintain a specific amount of power you would need to keep investing in order to maintain the same amount of power generation
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I saw a video where a guy was claiming vertical solar panels can effectively generate more power more often. They can catch a little something when the sun is low in winter , or on the shoulder hours of sun-up/down, where traditional solar can’t, and they don’t get snow buildup
Panels are also cheaper than most fencing, and easy to DIY install.
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This is still more polluting to mine than going nuclear, even accounting for nuclear waste.
absurd. Uranium mines need huge exclusion zones. In fact the biggest ones have large enough exclusion zones that more solar energy could be harvested than the energy content of the uranium underneath.
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Batteries and panels degrade over time. So if you are trying to maintain a specific amount of power you would need to keep investing in order to maintain the same amount of power generation
I mean there are ongoing costs with any form of power generation. Obviously there's fuel costs for most, but even other renewables have maintenance costs.
You'll also need to keep investing anyway as power demands increase over time. So newer solar installations eventually replace the old. -
absurd. Uranium mines need huge exclusion zones. In fact the biggest ones have large enough exclusion zones that more solar energy could be harvested than the energy content of the uranium underneath.
What's the exclusion zone of rare earth mines ? Of the terrible chemicals required to extract those products ? Same question with the batteries. What's the impact of the shade on agriculture ? How about all the steel, concrete and composites on the environment, how do they degrade ? Is it in micro plastics ?
I didn't say nuclear energy was good, just that solar panels are worse. The perfect energy source doesn't exist but currently all the data I've come across points to the direction that nuclear is significantly better than all other renewables and don't require significant battery storage.
Also if anti-science ecologists hadn't blocked so many fast neutron reactors, we'd be further along to a tech that can burn existing thorium stockpiles for 8000 years without further mining and while producing significantly less dangerous waste than current reactors. I guess we'll just buy the design from China and Russia who didn't stop the research and have currently operating reactors right now.
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I mean there are ongoing costs with any form of power generation. Obviously there's fuel costs for most, but even other renewables have maintenance costs.
You'll also need to keep investing anyway as power demands increase over time. So newer solar installations eventually replace the old.Yes, what I am saying is that cost is being shown for nuclear and not shown for solar due to using an intentionally small window of time. It’s like comparing an ICE to an EV and talking about the refueling costs of gas and treating electricity like it’s free.
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What's the exclusion zone of rare earth mines ? Of the terrible chemicals required to extract those products ? Same question with the batteries. What's the impact of the shade on agriculture ? How about all the steel, concrete and composites on the environment, how do they degrade ? Is it in micro plastics ?
I didn't say nuclear energy was good, just that solar panels are worse. The perfect energy source doesn't exist but currently all the data I've come across points to the direction that nuclear is significantly better than all other renewables and don't require significant battery storage.
Also if anti-science ecologists hadn't blocked so many fast neutron reactors, we'd be further along to a tech that can burn existing thorium stockpiles for 8000 years without further mining and while producing significantly less dangerous waste than current reactors. I guess we'll just buy the design from China and Russia who didn't stop the research and have currently operating reactors right now.
solar panels don't use rare earths. They use sand. Rare earths and lithium are not radioactive. Thorium is more expensive than Uranium processing and molten salt reactors have never lasted long.
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Vogtle’s numbers are incredibly biased considering they made an entire design and then had to redo it halfway through that’s not a realistic cost that can be expected for future projects. We also have vogtles design be approved now so that new plants can be built for a fraction of the cost. Also where did you see they did amortization of solar?
Also where did you see they did amortization of solar?
I'm just familiar with Lazard's LCOE methodology. The linked paper talks about LCOE, so that's just how that particular cost analysis works.
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They had to switch halfway through which is what added the cost that’s not a realistic cost per reactor
Ok, current projections are still for the next two AP1000s at Vogtle to be something like $10 billion. That's just not cost competitive with solar/wind. And it's also not very realistic to assume that there won't be cost overruns on the next one, either. Complex engineering projects tend to run over.
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Ok, current projections are still for the next two AP1000s at Vogtle to be something like $10 billion. That's just not cost competitive with solar/wind. And it's also not very realistic to assume that there won't be cost overruns on the next one, either. Complex engineering projects tend to run over.
Next two? After you mentioned it I tried googling and can’t find anything about current projections for new AP1000s at vogtle.
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97% sounds impressive, but thats equivalent to almost an hour of blackout every day. Developed societies demand +99.99% availability from their grids.
The diagram shows that they fall short on winter mornings
My own modelling to decide what size battery I want for my house says it's easy almost every day, but when you have three rainy and overcast days in a row you need a battery far larger or an alternative. For me the alternative is the grid; at grid scale it's gas generators
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I you live where sun is abundant all year round… In which case (Las Vegas?) I would question the choice of having humans living in a fucking desert in the first place. But man I wish I could cover my needs between October and March here in Europe but no battery will help me store so much for so long
theres also nothing much going on LV too, limited schools and and private physicians.
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Yeah, they do, and they pretend to be wise adults while doing it. Like they're the only ones who thought of this.
EVs, too. No, we don't have to wait until they can all do 1000 miles and charge in 5 minutes. 350 miles and 20 minute 10-80% charge is fine for the vast majority of the market.
Urgh, the ones that say "well my ice car can do 700 miles on a tank so until EV can do that I'm not doing it" annoy the hell out of me.
I know damn well they're never driven that far without stopping at least once
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The diagram shows that they fall short on winter mornings
My own modelling to decide what size battery I want for my house says it's easy almost every day, but when you have three rainy and overcast days in a row you need a battery far larger or an alternative. For me the alternative is the grid; at grid scale it's gas generators
If somebody has to keep that gas generator serviced only to run it on winter mornings, that electricity is going to be very pricey.
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Funny enough lots of people hate that. Lots of people have binary thinking, it's either 100% coal or 100% solar.
No, but I don't think you're appreciating how difficult it would be to fill that 3%. It's not just about having 3% more power from something. It's having it at the right time. It needs to be on demand. Having something on demand that has to cover all it's costs selling just 3% isn't easy.
It's more resilient to have mixed supply where multiple types of generation take a proportion. Then when one falls short another can scale up a little.
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Yeah but that would not account for the electricity need: in winter we need between 1000/1300 kWh mainly for heating / domestic hot water. Other months under 250 even if we use air conditioning. So if you cover the 7 nice months you still get absolutely wrecked by the dreaded 4 in the winter cost wise…
They just assumed a constant draw I think.
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If somebody has to keep that gas generator serviced only to run it on winter mornings, that electricity is going to be very pricey.
Indeed, but cheaper than enough batteries to cover those times
In the off grid home scale one I'd size and set the generator to run for several hours in a row to fully charge the battery on days when the battery was at a sufficiently low charge entering the night, at least that's what my current modelling suggests. Diesel gensets work best when running fully loaded for at least long enough to warm up
I guess at grid scale you find the sweet spot where most years the gas power station and batteries are balanced to provide cheapest power averaged over the year
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No, but I don't think you're appreciating how difficult it would be to fill that 3%. It's not just about having 3% more power from something. It's having it at the right time. It needs to be on demand. Having something on demand that has to cover all it's costs selling just 3% isn't easy.
It's more resilient to have mixed supply where multiple types of generation take a proportion. Then when one falls short another can scale up a little.
I understand, but other people lose their shit at not having that 3% and basically equate it to being 100% coal. I basically hear:"We're still burning coal, so it was a complete and total failure! B b both sides same."
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