Red wrote: ↑Sun Sep 15, 2019 6:30 pm
Isn't storage of entire grids ridiculously expensive and possibly bankrupt the country?
Basically yes.
Unless everybody has electric cars, and we use a network of electric car batteries to smart power the grid. It's... possible. But it's also a kind of logistical nightmare. That's the only way you get it to make economic sense, but the technical and infrastructure challenges are pretty incredible. We'd need to start forcing auto-makers RIGHT NOW to integrate the technology needed for electric cars to feed power back into the grid on demand and connect with the grid authorities for orders... under some heavy encryption of some kind. It's a serious vulnerability to hacking, since these devices usually aren't as secure as computers, and a simple virus could pretty much destroy the grid. We'd also need to incentivize car owners to keep their vehicles plugged in...
Red wrote: ↑Sun Sep 15, 2019 6:30 pm
I brought that up, they didn't believe me. They assert that the costs of the technologies are far more expensive.
In France state covered insurance cuts the cost something like in half:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_e ... rce#France
And no, the technology isn't so expensive. The facilities are expensive. We're talking about large compounds with huge cement and steel bunker domes that can survive a plane crashing into them, massive cooling towers, etc.
Only one of those includes storage, so it's not at all a fair comparison when something doesn't give you any power at night.
But look at the nuclear more closely: see that little orange diamond way to the left? That's how much it actually costs to keep running the plants.
See, what they do for the levelized cost is they take the cost of building the facility and they divide that by some kind of expected lifespan. For nuclear, the lifespans of the plants are ridiculously short. Nuclear reactors REGULARLY perform well based the life spans they were originally licensed for, because they're still working just fine.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... tors-last/
Today's reactors, most of which were built in the 1960s and 1970s, were initially licensed for 40 years. Half of them have won NRC approval to operate for another 20 years, and the rest are expected to do the same.
The bottom line is that it's too conservative, and even dishonest, to divide the cost of nuclear facilities by 40 years. They should be divided by 60 at minimum and possibly even 80 years. That would cut those costs IN HALF, putting the actual costs much closer to that little orange diamond and FAR FAR under the costs of solar technologies.
Taking that into account, the actual costs would be 70 - 135, which is on the order of geothermal (an excellent technology that doesn't suffer intermittency issues).
Maths (because they're probably skeptical):
Code: Select all
28 + ((112 - 28)/2) = 70
28 + ((189 - 28)*(2/3)) = 145.3333...
The only solar technology with storage that comes close to being that cheap are solar thermal towers.
Solar is great for some things. If you have small lights that you don't want to waste resources and money wiring to a grid? Solar + batteries is brilliant.
I once saw a garbage can trash compactor design using solar power -- brilliant.
Solar is even good for some of the additional load that may crop up during the day, particularly in reliably sunny areas.
Solar thermal systems are brilliant for pre-heating hot water. The tanks on your roof are insulated and can store hot water ALL NIGHT. Again, it's about storage, and avoiding solar cells saves a lot of energy (the light directly into heat is very efficient).
There's a lot of space for solar, but expecting it to carry base load energy is not reasonable or realistic right now.
Red wrote: ↑Sun Sep 15, 2019 6:30 pmbrimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sun Sep 15, 2019 6:09 pm
Speaking of fossil fuels, these renewables are also manufactured with them, and have much lower EROEI so they're burning through a lot more gas or coal that isn't covering its externalities too. Renewable energy can't bootstrap itself in the time-span we have to go green.
I brought that up, they kinda pushed it aside.
The fact that we can't bootstrap things like solar easily without burning through a lot more fossil is really crucial. When do they want to be off fossil fuels by exactly?
Nuclear power has an EROEI sufficient to build nuclear power plants. OR if you're afraid of meltdowns, use nuclear power out in the middle of nowhere to manufacture solar panels. Win-win. Except storage which is another issue... but at least you can make enough solar panels, and fast, without having to release so much more greenhouse gas.
And it's worth noting: a cheap nuclear pile without all of the safety measures would cost almost nothing. Basically build em' like Chernobyl; cheap and dangerous, but if they're in the middle of nowhere it doesn't really matter. So it would cost $20-something, cheaper than any other energy source. Operate it with robots at the North Pole or something.
brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sun Sep 15, 2019 6:09 pmWhen the government picks up the insurance bill, nuclear is cheaper.
Red wrote: ↑Sun Sep 15, 2019 6:30 pmHow does that happen exactly though?
The government just has to say "hey if there's an accident we'll cover it, you (the company) are off the hook", in the U.S. you'd just be talking about dipping into FEMA funds if anything happened, and indemnifying the company in court.
The government probably isn't actually paying out anything to an insurer, but rather acting to cover the costs if there's an emergency: acting AS the insurer. In economic terms just like the government often has to cover the costs of damage from coal plants that are more spread out, but it would be a lot cheaper to cover nuclear since it's safer than coal for the population.
Apparently it's not fully covered in France? (
http://www.assuratome.fr/en/19-reinsura ... lear-risks), but they have a system in place to mitigate costs. I'm not familiar with all of the details of how they work it out. Maybe you can ask a French speaker to help sort it out? A lot of this stuff isn't in English.