World Trending To Hit 50% Renewables, 11% Coal By 2050: Report (arstechnica.com) 202
Bloomberg New Energy Finance released a new report this week that estimates how electricity generation will change out to 2050. ArsTechnica: The clean energy analysis firm estimates that in a mere 33 years, the world will generate almost 50 percent of its electricity from renewable energy, and coal will make up just 11 percent of the total electricity mix. Add in hydroelectric power and nuclear energy, and greenhouse-gas-free electricity sources climb to 71 percent of the world's total electricity generation. The report doesn't offer a terribly bright future for nuclear, however, and after a period of contraction, the nuclear industry's contribution to electricity generation is expected to level off. Instead, falling photovoltaic (PV), wind, and battery costs will cause the dramatic shift in investment, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) notes. "PV and wind are already cheaper than building new large-scale coal or gas plants," the 2018 report says. In addition, BNEF expects that more than $500 billion will be invested in batteries by 2050, with two-thirds of that investment going to installations on the grid and one-third of that investment happening at a residential level.
33 Years?! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing we will hit 50% much sooner than 33 years based on the improving economics. I wonder what state the grid will be in at that point though; will de-centralized energy take over, will we see interconnected microgrids, or will it be largely the same as today.
I think the only real question is if SMR's will provide a nuclear renaissance, or if that is still "20 years out." From what I read it doesn't seem like the SMR economics are any better on a $/kW basis than traditional reactors on a construction cost basis, although legal risk and financing costs should (theoretically) be reduced.
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In Germany they used to help fund the research and subsidize solar power, etc.
These days they are not doing that anymore, they now are doing that for energy storage. Like: batteries. A pretty famous example of that would be Tesla powerwall.
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The main problem with most new ways of energy generation is that they are fickle wrt the time they give good output. Solar doesn't work at all at night and can have many-days mostly outage when the sky is overcast, wind turbines have 0 output when the wind isn't blowing, etc. On the other hand, hydro and geothermal have constant output which is also not what we want: energy use per time-of-day differs greatly; with a predictable pattern: almost all factories shut for the night, home use is greatest in the
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I'm guessing we will hit 50% much sooner than 33 years
I know how you feel, I sympathize with you, but we need to accept reality. It's 2018 and Trump is president.
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It doesn't matter who's president, simple economics will result in solar power becoming dominant.
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OK, that's cool, but 2050 is not 33 years away.
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I’m not sure if solar will be dominant in energy terms, but power terms of course. Some significant things need to change for it to dominate energy, and is more than batteries.
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Fusion is 20 years out.... still
Well, it was thirty years out in the 1960s, so this is either progress or greater self-delusion.
Predictable arc of history. (Score:3)
As has often been the case in the past our problems are mostly solved by advances in technology and not by politicians or the short term needs of company chairmen. It is arguable that science and technology has given the bulk of society all of the gains in the last 150 years and not our elected or business leaders. You can debate just how much freedom the academic world should have but you can be sure that our problems would be far worse if they did not have any.
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Well, almost all fundamental research is funded by the state (so that would be indirectly the elected politicians).
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How much further has out renewable tech advanced because politicians decided to offer subsidies like fossil and nuclear get?
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because politicians decided to offer subsidies like fossil and nuclear get?
You mean the kind of subsidies where the vast majority of cost comes from compliance to red tape, lacking permits and NIMBYism? If you want a fair comparison, please first demand every coal plant to install giant condoms on every chimney and store their output forever (it doesn't decay), build giant underwater glass domes over all dwellings, animals, vegetation and cultural artifacts that are flooded by hydro dams (incl. damage due to halting river flow cycles), install safety nets to protect birds killed
Read the souce (Score:4, Insightful)
I read the source rather than opinionated drivel on ars technica.
https://about.bnef.com/new-ene... [bnef.com]
#1 and #2 are fudged to the extreme to get the outcome they're gunning for. #4 is equally fudged and is in direct contradiction with #1 and #2. #5 is also in direct contradiction with #1 and #2. #3 is likely true in the assumption on coal, but it's highly unlikely to be replaced with what study claims.
First of all, if you are to try to deploy lithium batteries on world scale as spinning reserve replacement, lithium prices will not just go through the roof - they'll go into outer space. The reason we have cheap lithium now is because we get lithium by literally vaporising water in the driest desert on the planet. If you want to increase production by orders of magnitude, as this kind of project would require, you'd have to go for less economic ways of making lithium. And that means orders of magnitude higher costs. So much for #1 and #2. Not to even mention that solar doesn't scale all that well, because there are too many regions where there isn't enough sun, and energy requirements are at their highest when sunny periods are at their lowest. So linear scaling of low hanging fruit adoption for decades on is literally the infamous xkcd level of "you're getting married tomorrow, so you'll lots of wedding cakes for next year at a linear rate of one a day".
As for the #4, UK makes for a great example here. CCGTs replacing coal, because to meet CO2 targets, you can get roughly twice the energy from natgas that you would get from coal for the same emission of CO2. It's also mutually exclusive with their claims in #1 and #2, showing that whatever model they're using, it appears to contradict itself.
The only things to take away are #3 and #5. #3 will likely be sorta, kinda correct in that we'll probably switch from goal mostly to CCGTs, and #5 is likely correct that as long as "lithium prices go to outer space" scenario of #1 and #2 doesn't happen (another internal contradiction in the model), a significant portion of locomotion will go electric.
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Yeah, bloomberg is a bunch of tree-hugging hippies.
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Nobody said there aren't problems to overcome. And energy storage should be at the top of the list. IF we can do energy storage a lot better (technology and price) than we do now, things will go really fast. But, big IF.
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I'm referencing central claims of this study, not generalist claims.
Re:Read the souce (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to even mention that solar doesn't scale all that well, because there are too many regions where there isn't enough sun
Actually, solar power is the most equally distributed power there is. You won't find ANY region (not a hole in the ground) in the world where there is, say, less than four times the maximum global insolation of ~2700 kWh/m^2. So even the worst place is less four times worse than the best one. Compared to this, even wind variations are much higher. And fossil fuel sites are even more unevenly distributed.
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Solar power won't work in the arctic circle, so it's doomed?
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Try working out how many solar panels are required to power equipment north of the arctic circle -- all year round.
Only a few [akamaized.net], on account of hardly anybody living there.
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Not arguing against solar - just the claim that it is available anywhere on earth.
Even those places are actually included in the "not more than four times worse than the best places" estimate. Their real problem, as you point out, is the seasonal variation.
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One end of the problem you're missing is that there's such a thing as polar night. As in "no Sun at all, even during the day".
Other half is precipitation, which in sub-zero temperatures is snow and icing. Unless you want to spend a lot of energy just clearing your panels of snow and ice, while getting minimal returns because while Sun is up at some point during the day, it only lasts a few hours at best and is so low on horizon, it doesn't produce all that much power even when it's up.
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You make it sound like it's somewhere even in a remote ballpark of 100%. Reality is, it's in low single digits in northern climes during winter. And this discussion is in no way, shape or form about "remote communities", than can be shrugged off with "anyway". You're talking ~million people metropolises.
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You make it sound like it's somewhere even in a remote ballpark of 100%. Reality is, it's in low single digits in northern climes during winter.
While in the summer, it can cover a major amount of the electricity consumed. Still worth it.
You're talking ~million people metropolises.
Yeah, about that...the northernmost one is at the 60N latitude. Solar conditions slightly better than in Berlin, actually.
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>While in the summer, it can cover a major amount of the electricity consumed. Still worth it.
Except it doesn't, and it's not.
>Yeah, about that...the northernmost one is at the 60N latitude. Solar conditions slightly better than in Berlin, actually.
It's just magical in your mind I'm sure.
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Except it doesn't, and it's not.
Any rational argument for that aside from your childish whining?
It's just magical in your mind I'm sure.
What?
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"Assertion made without arguments can be dismissed on the same merits".
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Have you tried reading it above? It's outlined in quite more detail than "single word with no context or argument".
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While in the summer, it can cover a major amount of the electricity consumed. Still worth it.
Let's assume this is true and play it out. So, I own a utility and I need to sell electricity that is cheap and reliable or I go out of business. I figure I can get a majority of my electricity from cheap PV power in summer. The rest is wind and natural gas. Now the sun doesn't shine at night, but demand it lower too, but I'll still need some battery storage to even this out. Not a big deal because solar power is cheap and plentiful in summer.
When winter comes what am I supposed to do? Those solar pan
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Supraconductive wiring that works at Earth surface temperatures would indeed rapidly solve most of world's energy problems.
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less than four times the maximum global insolation
I've apparently mixed my comparisons when figuring out how to phrase it best; as written, it obviously makes no sense. This should have read "less than one fourth the maximum global insolation". Or alternatively, "less then four times worse than the maximum global insolation".
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You'd need some kind of quantitative analysis to support that point.
Many mineral resources are distributed according to a "resource pyramid", where there is vastly more resource available at each step down in ore grade. In which case, an order of magnitude increase in production may require only slightly
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Two problems. One is that we've seen countless papers that suggest it's "economically feasible to mine whatever resource we want from salt water and brine". Essentially all of them never materialise into working technology.
Other is the fact that pretty much everyone and their grandma is currently investing in mining lithium, all while expecting massive price rises because this is a commodity that doubled its price in last six years and is growing at around 20% a year now, on an accelerating growth trend. So
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and energy requirements are at their highest when sunny periods are at their lowest.
It is usually opposite around. Unless you heat with electricity.
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I like how you always start with denying the obvious in your post, and end up contradicting yourself in the end.
At least this time you saved me time of reading several paragraphs of garbage before admitting to my statement being correct. And as usual, cutting the key part from the quote.
Reminder for those that missed the good old greenpeace grade quote master above, the full sentence he partially quoted was:
>solar doesn't scale all that well, because there are too many regions where there isn't enough s
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solar doesn't scale all that well, because there are too many regions where there isn't enough sun, and energy requirements are at their highest when sunny periods are at their lowest.
Again: that is simply wrong.
Again: unless you heat with electricity, which outside of France I'm not aware anyone is doing.
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>Again: unless you heat with electricity, which outside of France I'm not aware anyone is doing.
Thank you for once again sharing with us that you have no clue.
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How can you tell someone is utterly ignorant of how power generation works?
They will site "intermittently able to generate excess power" as relevant.
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Millions of us in the South heat with electricity, either with resistance coil space heaters or heat pumps. Watch the reality show "Life Below Zero" about Alaskans who live near or above the Arctic circle. One town has some small wind turbines and I guess diesel generators and the homes are heated with electric space heaters.
Most of the time in the South it is coldest after a front comes through with clear skys, perfect for solar panels. In the far North the wind blows the most when it is the coldest.
Simple, don't use lithium. (Score:2)
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Like I noted, I'm talking about the study. Study specifically cites lithium batteries. There's always a chance that things like sodium batteries will become acceptable.
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"Weakness of the study" is literally my point in its entirety. I just went for the obvious problems, which were outlined in the study, rather than noting that study also missed items as that is far less obvious.
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Have you noticed why lithium mining came back? At all?
Because its price doubled in last ten years. And it's growing at almost 20% yearly now, at an accelerating pace. Because mining is expensive, and we're running out of easy to access and mine veins rapidly, which keeps driving the costs up in addition to demand.
So yes, we'll have the boom in mining, as indicated by the high risk investor company that you cited. Do you realise that they are confirming my point, in that they're expecting a massive rise in l
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You clearly didn't read the contents of the link. Go and read them.
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Didn't read the contents then. Oh well, can't expect anything else from an AC.
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And you might want to read what I'm arguing against, as you just confirmed my point. Well done.
Predictions (Score:3)
Funny thing about predictions, they're easily able to be BS'ed and in 33 years time, no one is going to remember if they were right or not.
For all we know, there may be an even better technology that comes out that is cheaper and even better than solar energy or wind.
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It's not about being right or wrong, it's about setting out what the likely future is going to be so we can plan accordingly.
That's why once you get past the headline black and white claims most of these predictive reports give probabilities and multiple possible scenarios.
ONLY way this happens is if fossil fuel is stopped (Score:2)
The article is conjecture (Score:2)
this is the image that says it all:
https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp... [arstechnica.net]
Look at the line drawn to signify the "present"... that is where we are now.
Everything beyond that is speculation. You can say "but we have people talking about building X or Y"... sure. And I've seen enough of these projection graphs created for other things to know they're not worth much. They tend to be wildly inaccurate.
I'd throw out a few examples but I can already hear the politicos Reeeing over how embarrassing it is to show predicti
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in the same spirit, my opinion is that it is very important when making predictions to have a clear idea as to how accurate and reliable your predictions are before you do anything.
In this case, they're so unreliable as to be accused of begging the question. That is, they're so unreliable and speculative that they're arbitrary.
You could take the same graph and reverse and it would be just as valid. You could then create an alternative argument based on that reversal.
You could also take the graph and just dr
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Given that the build out of solar and wind is extremely heavily subsidized and extremely political, you really can't draw logistical arguments from what is going on at this point on those numbers. Keep in mind that often wind and solar projects billed as costing X tend to run into serious problems 10 or 20 years later. My state is littered with failed renewable projects that are rusting in the desert as the promises that justifed them ultimately come up short. When all is said and done with them there is ty
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nuclear is not going to happen in non-nuclear power... nuclear is obviously political as well. Because nuclear weapons and lingering cold war politics.
As to solar and wind taking off in africa, I've looked at it and it isn't. There are some projections and some grants offered by the first world to stimulate its construction but it makes up less than 1 percent of production and is basically not considered absent being paid for by third parties.
I sniffed around Egypt, South Africa, and a few other major count
Oh yeah? (Score:2)
Considering global warming and birth rates... (Score:2)
There should be outright international policy that subsidising old fossil fuel operations is outlawed, subsidising renewables encouraged.
If not outright banning installing anything but sustainable.
Would it be bad economically. Yes. But I don't think it would actually be a total crash Wipeout. Within 5 years the costs wood drop very much, tech improvements realised faster.
Could benefit all of us.
We're all too short sighted.
Interesting prediction given.... (Score:2)
They even covered it in the summary. Nuclear is expected to drop off. So what is the prediction based on? I sure hope it's not historic trends given:
% coal used in energy generation in 1997: 38.5%
% coal used in energy generation in 2017: 38.5%
Worse still the percentage of coal in the energy mix along with it's consumption actually rose last year (thanks India).
https://www.bloomberg.com/view... [bloomberg.com]
Time to buy a new car I think: http://madmax.wikia.com/wiki/T... [wikia.com]
Re:Never taken into account by alarmists (Score:5, Interesting)
This is just electricity. Industrialization is still increasing globally and I'm not sure CO2 generation has gone down overall. Coal is burned directly for smelting and there is still a lot of oil and natural gas powering cars and heating homes directly.
Yes. This is not fast enough transition (Score:3)
of energy production and use throughout sectors of economy to get us to global temperature only rising 1.5 degrees Celcius.
We need to be substantially off carbon at or shortly after mid-century, for everything. A little bit of remaining petrochemicals is fine, but other than that, off of the fossil carbon.
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Just so you know... It's already too late.
We blew thru the 1 degree Celsius "budget" a few years ago. We blew thru the 1.5 degree Celsius budget recently. To avoid 2 degrees Celsius increase, we would have to get our carbon output down under 13 gigatons per year immediately and for every year between now and 2100. We are currently at about 26 gigatons per year (which is down about 11 gigatons from 37 gigatons per year back in 2001 but the easy gains have been made).
So we will blow thru the 2.0 degree cel
"Just Electricity" (Score:2)
This is just electricity. Industrialization is still increasing globally and I'm not sure CO2 generation has gone down overall
CO2 generation has gone down in the U.S., but you are right it's not gone down overall.. yet.
But the thing is, in the future everything is electricity. Manufacturing is especially is electricity. But automotive is just at the start of turning that way, the Chinese already have a. ton of small transport things (like practical scooters with storage) in cities, and soon trucking... pl
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But the thing is, in the future everything is electricity
You're not wrong, but I don't know if an efficient way has been found to produce steel without coal. Usually the coal is not only the source of heat, but also the source of carbon.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
You'll find this interesting.
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I thought those were only good for recycling steel.
Carbon fantasies (Score:2)
That is true but technology for scrubbers that prevent CO2 emissions from processes like that is also improving... you would think any such process would be greatly interesting in re-capturing carbon for further industrial use.
"Recapture carbon for further industrial use"? We dump the stuff by the megaton right now and we can literally dig carbon it out of the ground for WAY less money than it costs to capture and reuse carbon. There simply isn't that much demand for carbon even if we had a way to process it economically.
Over time other materials will take the place of steel though, I'm not sure how much longer steel has as a primary material but I'm thinking less than 20 years.
Based on what? Steel is going to remain a vital and first choice metal for the foreseeable future. Certainly for the lifetime of anyone reading this. I don't see any circumstances where this would change. I
Re:Never taken into account by alarmists (Score:5, Insightful)
This inevitable increase in use of alternative energy is never taken into account by climate models that assume an ever increasing generation of CO2.
No that's yoyu making shit up to fit your agenda.
Look at the future extrapolation bit:
https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]
yes, it is sourced.
but sadly that is not how the world works any longer, no one wants real data,
At least you're honest!
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Re:Never taken into account by alarmists (Score:5, Informative)
This inevitable increase in use of alternative energy is never taken into account by climate models that assume an ever increasing generation of CO2.
This is just false. For example, the IPCC reports have a variety of different scenarios each based on different levels of CO2 https://ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/spm/sres-en.pdf [ipcc.ch] is a good place to start. Unfortunately, even given these emissions levels, the damage is going to be severe. We need to do a lot more than we're doing.
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This inevitable increase in use of alternative energy is never taken into account by climate models that assume an ever increasing generation of CO2.
Do you understand that part of this move towards renewable energy sources is because of the danger of climate change? This is in response to it, and many of the models are there to show what would happen if we kept doing what we were doing. So, naturally, if we change how we do things, then we're going to change the outcome, aren't we?
You remember back when there was a big blowback against any aerosol product that contained CFCs, with all the nerds talking about how if we kept doing that then the ozone la
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If you see any story that is even remotely critical of Apple, you can be reliably assured to find several comments from people like SuperKendall or macs4all trying to defend Apple's position at any cost. They'll stop replying when someone makes a point that isn't covered in their How To Defend Apple handbook. Once I see their names enough I just kind of associate their names with blind brand loyalty.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, that's why Trump is announcing the Whale Oil Initiative. To insure diversity of supply. The peat fuel lobby just bought EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt a townhouse in DC, so I expect to hear about the new Peat Fuel Initiative any day now.
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A "Whale Oil Initiative" from a "High Roller"?
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So you are saying that the tangerine overlord is actually from Dunwall?
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Would it surprise you to learn that he frequents the Golden Cat?
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Probably for whiskey and cigars.
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So what they are actually saying is the renewables, only on 2050, will only comprise 50% of the power.
Moving from 13% to 50% over 32 years in your mind is "only"? Power generation is a major part of the national and global economy, with a tremendous amount of existing (yet outdated) infrastructure, and there are many forces making a great deal of money on existing cheap, dirty energy sources that are trying to keep their hands in the pie. They are spending a great deal of money, for example on "public relations" attempts to do things like smear their opponents by calling them names like "envirowackos" or
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"From Existing Generation Resources"
It's a pity, then, than we can't build more "existing generation resources". Because the new nukes are expensive as fuck.
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nuclear is better than most renewables [world-nuclear.org]
Are you referring to the passage reading
Comparing the economics of different forms of electricity generation
In 2017 the US EIA published figures for the average levelised costs per unit of output (LCOE) for generating technologies to be brought online in 2022, as modelled for its Annual Energy Outlook. These show: advanced nuclear, 9.9 c/kWh; natural gas, 5.7-10.9 c/kWh (depending on technology); and coal with 90% carbon sequestration, 12.3 c/kWh (rising to 14 c/kWh at 30%). Among the non-dispatchable technologies, LCOE estimates vary widely: wind onshore, 5.2 c/kWh; solar PV, 6.7 c/kWh; offshore wind, 14.6 c/kWh; and solar thermal, 18.4 c/kWh.
? Since "most renewables" in terms of capacity installed actually means "solar PV, onshore wind, and hydro" (the last of which isn't quantified in that list but is usually very cheap), I don't see how your claim is supported by your source, especially in a view ~20 years into the future where even these figures will be considered hilarious.
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> solar PV, 6.7 c/kWh
Plus the actual number for 2017 in the US was closer to 5 cents, and the outside low-end was 2.99. That makes it, inflation adjusted, the cheapest form of electricity in history.
Its worth pointing out the EIA numbers are two-years trailing, meaning their predictions for 2017 are based on numbers from 2015. They are something of a running joke:
https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/03/13/renewable-energy-growth-again-blows-eia-forecasts-out-water
Because of the rapidly falling costs, the mark
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> Agreed, but how much of the cost is wrapped up in legal/regulatory costs? I
About 15%. Look at the price breakdowns on the WNA web site, they have it all detailed.
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Except that you don't need 100% uptime from a nuclear plant when you already are 50% renewable ... what would you do with the extra power?
Sell it to your neighbours like Germany ... ooops, you don't have the grid for that in your backyard country.
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What do you mean with "duty cycle"? The dreaded capacity factor?
Solar power follows more or less the demand curve. No real need for anything, unless you overproduce and want to store it for the night. On the other hand you most likely soon have enough wind power that you can power the grid at night with wind power alone (Germany can do that now occasionally).
Batteries are an option, e.g. flow batteries, but Germany mostly uses pumped storage, and to a lesser extend hydrolysis and feeds the H2 into the gas g
Re:Hydroelectric power and Nuclear Energy?? (Score:5, Informative)
Lithium is ideal for portable devices because of high energy density, but for a building sized battery permanently connected to the grid size and weight is no longer critical...that means a more abundant element (sodium for example) is a practical, cheaper alternative despite lower energy density.
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Heh, charge/discharge efficiency of nickel-iron battery is only 65% / 85%. Pumped hydro does better with its full cycle efficiency of 70% - 80%.
Pumped hydro has also bigger volumetric energy density if the reservoir height difference is bigger than 22 m (asymptotically with big enough reservoirs).
The batteries are also expensive. They cost around $4.5 - $20 per one litre. I guess you can build pumped storage cheaper per 1 litre.
It does not look good for batteries. Looks like the only good thing about them i
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Having you battery right next to the generator or the source of demand instead of hundreds of km away at a dam dramatically reduces line loss, which can be 10%-20%.
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It tends to require ideal geographical features: aka a steep hill with a large reservoir up top to pump the water to, and streams to replenish the water in the reservoirs that gets lost to evaporation.
It can cause impact on local wildlife (but, I suppose the same it true for most anything)
But it also has a lag in it's ability to provide power on demand. The big one in Bath County Virginia that gets mentioned when the subject comes up still has a five to ten m
Hydro doesn't work everywhere (Score:3)
Heh, charge/discharge efficiency of nickel-iron battery is only 65% / 85%. Pumped hydro does better with its full cycle efficiency of 70% - 80%.
Pumped hydro is geographically restricted and thus not a useful comparison for many/most places. Where I live it is literally impossible to use on any sort of meaningful scale because we don't have large dams anywhere nearby. If you live somewhere near a large dam then yeah, you might find pumped hydro to be a good idea. For most of us it isn't so helpful. Hydro is great except where you cannot get it. (oh and that pesky little problem of screwing up local ecosystems too)
The batteries are also expensive. They cost around $4.5 - $20 per one litre. I guess you can build pumped storage cheaper per 1 litre.
"Per litre"? What does a volum
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> FAR more expensive because we'd have to build a massive man-made reservoir
Really?
Do you *really* think a man-made reservoir costs more than a battery?
Because a man-made reservoir is literally a pile of dirt. I suspect they have dirt where you are.
As the OP noted, once you hit 22m the energy density is the same. I think you can build a 70 foot high berm for very little indeed. I think batteries covering the same area will cost a whole lot more than DIRT.
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> This 'report' comes from BNEF, who stand to make money as advisors and funneling investments
BS. They are a news organization. I'm guessing you're the same know-nothing as on Ars?
> Primarily because solar panel costs lowered due to mass production.
> We have already been mass producing batteries for decades and are already approaching the baseline for LI technology
Pfft, and a techno-illiterate too.
Bell released the first PV cells commercially in 1954.
The first commercial li-ion was sold in 1991. NM
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That may be true for wind turbines, but it's not true for photovoltaic cells. By far the largest energy input for the manufacture of solar cells is electricity. That electricity would increasingly come from other solar cells (and from wind turbines) as the share of coal-fired power in the energy mix declines, albeit gradually.
Wind turbines require large quantities of cement (for their foundations) and steel, and those are produced using gas and coal. However, wind turbines produce at least 20x more energy
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Assuming 33% thermal efficiency of the steam turbines in coal power plants, ... efficiency for memory sake is 42%, if you want to be a pro, it is around 44%.
Why do you assume stuff that can easy be googled and easy be remembered
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