Nuclear power

[doug]

And even more people are injured fainting when they realize they can produce their own power on their roof and save money doing it compared to paying billions for utility nuclear power.

If so many people are falling off roofs with solar, there must be a lot of local jobs in solar...that can't be a bad thing now can it?

You're confusing more to mean many. It doesn't necessarily. The point is the deaths both from rooftop solar and from nuclear, per unit energy produced, is rather small. Though IIRC rooftop solar has more fatalities (per unit energy) by maybe a factor of 10. (Again, 10 times a small number is still a small number.) Still there seem to be about 100 fatal falls from solar a year. By far the worst is coal in terms of deaths per unit energy produced. The most deaths all at once is from hydro, due to dams failing and wiping out whole towns.

I only mentioned it because it looks like that guy in the photo could use a safety harness.

 

[nwdiver]

I only mentioned it because it looks like that guy in the photo could use a safety harness.

You missed the zoomed out picture... it's a 7' slide followed by a 2' fall...

 

[mspohr]

Interesting news today. The merger of Exelon and Pepco has been denied.
Exelon gets most of its power from nuclear and has fought renewable energy as a threat to its nuclear power plants.
After 4 States Approved A Big Utility Merger, DC Shocked Everyone By Denying It Over Clean Energy | ThinkProgress
This seems to reinforce the claim that renewables will start to displace nuclear power.

 

[eledille]

I never proposed that reliability would be provided for free... Germany and Australia already require PV inverters to be capable of curtailment and reactive power control. I'm sure California is only a few years away. With the rest of the world not far behind.

That just reduces the risk of overgeneration. It doesn't improve availability at all.

My whole premise is that if you allow people and businesses the option to generate their own power... and the cost of distributed generation is ~$1.50/w and still falling ~10%/yr... then building generators that cost ~$7/w is a non-starter.

I agree to that, of course. But that situation will not continue indefinitely.

Currently, there is still extra balancing capability in the grid, so backup on a grand scale is not yet necessary. That will quickly change if the rollout of intermittent generation continues. At some point the party is over, and someone will have to pay, either for storage or to keep other generation ready to take over.

The utilities used to sell electricity, and the reliability was taken for granted. When you generate your own power, what you get is electricity without any reliability at all. You still need to get the reliability from somewhere, and the cost of that will have to be paid for somehow. You're not including that cost.

It's not possible for a backup system which will just be sitting there most of the time to break even only by selling energy. But it has to be ready, and it has to be paid for. The only way I can think of to fund it is to handle it like vehicle liability insurance - those who want to generate intermittent power would be required to contribute their share of the cost.

What will happen if we just carry on like now? When you reach the point where intermittent sources can meet demand in good conditions, you have to start curtailing production. At that point, installing more intermittent power will begin to push the capacity factor down. Also, wind and solar doesn't have a fuel cost, so the only time they earn money is when something that pays for fuel or personnel is operating, thereby pushing the price above zero! As long as production capacity is curtailed, the price will be zero, or even negative. So after this point, installing more intermittent power will cause capacity factors to fall and earnings to drop like a rock. But most of the energy will still come from non-renewable sources.

I've already explained the most likely outcome... but you're unable to accept the reality that batteries do in fact get cheaper.

As I showed earlier, most places need weeks of storage, while batteries capable of delivering a single day of storage costs about the same as a nuclear PP per watt. That's about a factor of 100 too expensive.

One day is about 1/30 of a month. You said nuclear has too high capital costs, but batteries cost about the same per day of capacity. Let's say nuclear is three times as expensive as it should be. That makes batteries a factor of 90 too expensive, which is pretty close to 100. And even then, the cost of the storage system comes on top of the cost of about 4 GW of PV or wind nameplate capacity.

Exactly how much storage is needed will vary from place to place, depending on how long unfavorable conditions can persist in the worst case. But sufficient storage capacity to power the grid for weeks is not going to be possible anytime soon, if ever.

Batteries can, however, be used to smooth the daily demand curve. I suspect Elon is out to kill a certain duck.

 

[nwdiver]

I agree to that, of course. But that situation will not continue indefinitely.

One day is about 1/30 of a month. You said nuclear has too high capital costs, but batteries cost about the same per day of capacity. Let's say nuclear is three times as expensive as it should be. That makes batteries a factor of 90 too expensive, which is pretty close to 100. And even then, the cost of the storage system comes on top of the cost of about 4 GW of PV or wind nameplate capacity.

Exactly how much storage is needed will vary from place to place, depending on how long unfavorable conditions can persist in the worst case. But sufficient storage capacity to power the grid for weeks is not going to be possible anytime soon, if ever.

Batteries can, however, be used to smooth the daily demand curve. I suspect Elon is out to kill a certain duck.

Good; I'm glad we have some small amount of common ground..... :frown:

Yes, the CF of wind and solar will begin to fall as they're used to fill in smaller and smaller niches of demand. This is ALREADY occurring to some extent; The 15.6kW array I just finished is tied to an 11kW inverter and faces SW not S. This results in a lower CF overall but the net return is a higher ROI since more energy is 'self-consumed'. This is another reason I really like the power wall. You could add a DC coupled battery system and 'liberate' some of that stranded energy.

You can afford curtailment if you're paying <$0.50/w. $0.25/w is possible by 2020. We're not talking BOS (Balance of system) here. You're slapping PV modules on walls to increase the existing inverter output in the mornings, evenings and winter. Sure, the CF of those vertically mounted modules might be <10% but if additional modules + racking/labour is ~$0.50 that's still ~$5/w.

I doubt we'll need 'weeks' of storage. Elon pegged the number at ~16TWh for the US... that's about a day and a half. In 4 years with solar PV there has never been a day that I didn't produce at least ~25% of what I needed. In NM there has never been a 4 day period that I didn't produce 100% of what I needed. If I had a wind turbine in my backyard there would be zero days since every time there wasn't sufficient sun there was plenty of wind;

Note: Please just accept wind/solar timing for what it is.... I don't think I can take another 7 page debate on what 'compliments' who :crying:

ANYWHO..... you can search the CAISO database for yourself... there's never a week that wind + solar is <20% of average. The wind/solar over build you were referring to will help tremendously in this scenario. All the excess solar that was curtailed in the summer helps support the grid in the winter months.

Let's suppose we can't cost-effectively store 2 weeks of energy and that's the magic number we need... that's a 4% CF... your nuclear power plant would need to sell power for ~$1.50/kWh. As Robert mentioned... gas turbines are going to be the short term winners. They cost ~$1/w, so they can be operated at a CF of ~4% and sell power for <$0.30/kWh.

Using curtailed renewables to split water will probably be the long-term solution.

 

[aesculus]

... Germany and Australia already require PV inverters to be capable of curtailment and reactive power control. I'm sure California is only a few years away. With the rest of the world not far behind.

Just as a point of reference:

Specifically, Germany and Italy have observed that allowing DER systems to trip‐off prematurely during voltage or
frequency anomalies can actually exacerbate those problems, possibly causing unnecessary
outages

From:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricit...ents_for_Inverters_in_DER_2014-02-07-CPUC.pdf

 

[AntronX]

I think we need to accept that nwdiver lives in magic state of New Mexico where sun and wind perfectly complement each other year round and let him be. Arguing with this guy is waste of time.

 

[nwdiver]

I think we need to accept that nwdiver lives in magic state of New Mexico where sun and wind perfectly complement each other year round and let him be. Arguing with this guy is waste of time.

I've got solar PV in Wa too. Seattle is known for its sun...right? The point is that nuclear is a poor choice to fill the niches that are going to remain as solar/wind expands...

Ok Antron... YOU answer this....

As solar continues to expand... how does it not displace other forms of generation? As other forms of generation are displaced how does the Capacity Factor of Nuclear not fall? As the Capacity Factor of nuclear falls how does a plant with a business model depending on a high CF stay in operation? There are really only 3 options...

- We don't build nuclear plants
- We HEAVILY subsidize nuclear plants
- We restrict the growth of competition to nuclear plants

I've always agreed that the last little bit... the 'few weeks' eledille keeps referring to will be the biggest challenge; As I posted last year... the most likely solution to this issue is hydrogen. As Mspohr posted, Excelon is already struggling to compete with wind... what happens when solar begins encroaching in the other time slots? Everyone agrees that nuclear needs a high CF; Everyone agrees we have a right to self-generate; Sorry... those two are mutually exclusive. Even in 'sunny' Seattle I can get by ~70% of the year without the grid and ~20kWh of batteries. You cannot operate a nuclear plant at 30% CF... Yes, Solar will begin to curtail itself... and available storage will stifle it's acceleration... but that's long after nuclear power has suffocated.

Phase 1 (Today - ~2020)
Where we are now is REALLY easy... you just slap some panels on your roof, no need to worry about storage or "self-consumption". To the grid your PV array just looks like reduced load.
Solar is cheaper per kWh than nuclear... even today.

Phase 2 (~2020 - ~2035)
Hawaii and Germany are either here now or getting close... When peak power is 80%+ of demand you're still <20% of total generation. Most grid-tie inverters CANNOT regulate voltage and frequency. They are on or off; they are inverting 100% of what's available from the panels or they produce nothing. This would need to change to expand past ~20%. Germany has "smart" inverters that can be active participants in grid stability. When frequency gets too high they can curtail power or preferably divert power into a battery bank. Demand Response and small amounts of storage become critical. SMA has already developed solutions. They are starting to bundle inverters with a 4kWh battery pack and they've got what's called the "Sunny home manager" http://www.sma.de/en/home-systems/so...tem-smart.html I wrote an anti-net-metering blog and this is why... we've got to dump "net-metering" LONG before "phase 2" Investments in "smart home" technology are worthless with "net-metering" in place. Solar "would" start to lose it's cost advantage with nuclear... but as the capacity factor of nuclear falls the capital costs increase on a per kWh basis.

Phase 3 (~2035 - ~2050)
IMO going from 80% => 100% wind/solar is probably going to be harder than 0% => 80%. My prediction is that we'll likely have sufficient solar PV installed to completely displace fossil fuels but be unable to due to a lack of storage and the disparity between summer/winter insolation... but... unlike nuclear, so long as it's cheaper to install solar than import power from the grid we will continue to build out solar PV FAR beyond what is 'needed'. The path to >80% solar/wind is probably the day when we've got so much excess energy during the summer months that there's nothing better to do with that extra energy than split water. The hydrogen can then be stored for later use.

Keep in mind that the cost of equipment will likely continue to fall... even though "smart" inverters will be more sophisticated than the grid-tie inverters we're using today I would expect the cost to be the same or lower. Similarly even though we'll need an overabundance of solar in "phase 3" with module prices expected to fall <$0.30/w in 2020 that won't be a problem.

While my premise has always been that solar is cheaper than nuclear the fact I'm 100% certain of is that there IS an economically viable path to 100% solar/wind while there IS NO path to any reasonable expansion of nuclear... let alone >50%. 100% nuclear could in fact be cheaper than 100% solar but with the cost point of solar where it is there's no way for nuclear to expand. The window for nuclear expansion was in the 70s, 80s and 90s... cheap solar has slammed that door HARD.

 

[AntronX]

Ok Antron... YOU answer this.... As solar continues to expand... how does it not displace other forms of generation? As other forms of generation are displaced how does the Capacity Factor of Nuclear not fall? As the Capacity Factor of nuclear falls how does a plant with a business model depending on a high CF stay in operation? There are really only 3 options...

I can see natural gas that ramps quickly being displaced somewhat. Capacity factor of nuclear will not fall because solar/wind will be curtailed first. That's the most logical thing for grid operator to do. What happens to uncaptured solar capacity is not their concern. Both sources generate carbon free electricity. Solar can easily turn on and off. Big steam turbines be it nuke or coal cannot, but they are backbone of the grid due to their sheer mass and reliable output.

We don't build nuclear plants

Game over for climate.

We HEAVILY subsidize nuclear plants

Probably not heavily, but we will put a price on reliability and pay big plants for that. Be it nuclear, gas or coal. I prefer nuclear for the sake of the climate.

We restrict the growth of competition to nuclear plants

I sure hope so. Nuclear's competition is coal and gas. Anything else is misdirection. Gas has grown tremendously.

what happens when solar begins encroaching in the other time slots?

You mean by storing and releasing power after sunset using batteries? That would be great actually. That would displace inefficient gas peakers. But I don't know anyone who can make enough storage capacity for that to be feasible on grid scale today. Maybe after Elon builds his 11th giga factory.

Everyone agrees that nuclear needs a high CF; Everyone agrees we have a right to self-generate; Sorry... those two are mutually exclusive. Even in 'sunny' Seattle I can get by ~70% of the year without the grid and ~20kWh of batteries.

Sure, more power to you. Self generate all you want. But keep in mind that as self-generation grows, there will be a time when you are no longer allowed to backfeed the grid anytime you want and get top dollar for that. You can self-generate and self-consume all you want. That is your right. You don't have a right to back feed the grid.

You cannot operate a nuclear plant at 30% CF...

You can, France does it. It's a pain but technically it can be done.

...but that's long after nuclear power has suffocated.

Stop. You talk like an evangelical. I can't take you seriously.

 

[nwdiver]

1) Capacity factor of nuclear will not fall because solar/wind will be curtailed first. That's the most logical thing for grid operator to do. What happens to uncaptured solar capacity is not their concern. Both sources generate carbon free electricity. Solar can easily turn on and off. Big steam turbines be it nuke or coal cannot, but they are backbone of the grid due to their sheer mass and reliable output.

2) I sure hope so. Nuclear's competition is coal and gas. Anything else is misdirection. Gas has grown tremendously.

3) You can, France does it. It's a pain but technically it can be done.

1) On utility scale possibly... but in open markets like TX wind & sun is free... nuclear while cheap still costs $$$. The utility would also have a hard time forcing a business or residence to curtail production and buy power... if the utility can simply curtail this encroachment... why are they fighting it so hard?

2) Nice dodge; Let me be more specific... solar is already nearly ~10% in California with the rest of the nation not far behind; 20% is more than likely before 2020 at current growth levels. That means that solar can carry most of the grid for ~6 hours/day. Without counting for wind curtailment that's a daily curtailment of ~25%. Since you can't refuel a reactor in ~6 hours that ~25% comes out of the current ~90% for an average of ~65%.

3) Technically? Sure... you can probably find a way to run a reactor at 10%... but spend ~$7B on a nuclear plant and run it with a CF of <60% and you're now operating a charity. Your LCOE of ~$0.075/kWh just went to ~0.12/kWh. At ~30% CF that's $0.23/kWh. That's called the 'death spiral' you raise rates to stay in business which makes your competitors more attractive with forces you to raise rates.... If solar PPAs are being signed for ~$0.05/kWh... how do you sell power for >$0.12/kWh?

Sure... give more credit to load following generators that provide stability... you know who scoops that up? $1/w gas turbines... which we'll use less and less and less. Like I said a year ago... hydrogen storage is infinitely scalable if other storage solutions come up short. We could even convert our gas turbines to run on Hydrogen... for the ~2 weeks/yr we might need them. We've go a long way to go before then...

We know the power pack will be ~$0.10/kWh if it has the same life as the MS pack. That means that Solar + Storage parity with nuclear occurs today... if nuclear is curtailed to ~70%. Batteries and Solar are only getting cheaper... nuclear just keeps getting more expensive....

Trying really hard to see a positive future for nuclear growth... but reality is kind of getting in the way :crying:

 

[eledille]

A suggestion for generating electricity without CO2 emissions:

The problem that needs to be solved is to always be able to meet demand exactly, without emitting CO2, with as small an environmental impact as possible, and it needs to happen as soon as possible.

Base load can be handled by plants that are incapable of varying their output. Load following plants must be able to vary their output, but they don't have to be able to do it very quickly. Demand peaks must be met by plants that are capable of varying their output very quickly.

LWRs don't emit any CO2, but are not usable for load following, at least not without modifications. The French are using LWRs for load following, by assigning reactors with relatively fresh core loads to this role. They control them with modified, so called grey control rods, which absorb neutrons less efficiently than the standard ones. This allows them to run at partial power without impacting core lifetime significantly. Doing this in the US would probably not be possible, as the NRC would spend a decade calculating every possible and impossible impact of this radical modification before they could say yes or no, thirty years of French operating experience notwithstanding. So let's assume that LWRs in the US can only be used for base load.

Not using LWRs for base load creates an insurmountable storage problem. No other existing technology can supply constant power indefinitely without CO2 emissions. Ignoring this would be very unwise.

So LWRs can handle the base load. Load following is a more difficult problem, as the LWRs can't handle that, or at least not for a long time.

There are several Gen IV reactors that can operate in a load-following mode. Two examples are molten salt reactors and the IFR. I believe the IFR is sufficiently responsive to handle even the peaks. None of them will be available until 2025 or so.

Until then, load following and peaking plants must be a mix of renewables, storage and gas turbines. High capacity storage systems are too costly to be feasible. Gas turbines have relatively low capital costs, but are expensive to run, and they pollute. So to minimize cost and pollution, I believe we would have to rely on gas turbines for long term backup, and minimize their use as much as possible with renewables and reasonable amounts of storage.

Storage systems that can store a day or so of the non-baseload demand are costly and large, but possibly not prohibitively so, given carbon pricing. They could greatly reduce gas turbine pollution, we would only have to fire up the gas turbines when weather conditions stay unfavorable for more than one day. As Gen IV reactors become available, we would be able to retire the gas turbines. If nuclear reactors still can't handle the peaks directly, they could do it indirectly by recharging the storage systems.

This very ambitious scheme would require a large amount of renewables to handle as much of the variable load as possible. But renewables, storage and nuclear would work in concert, instead of renewables undermining nuclear. Prices should stay relatively predictable most of the time, as much of the renewable output would go straight into storage. I think it would be economically and technically possible, and it would initially reduce emissions greatly, before ending carbon emissions from electricity completely. Further growth in electricity consumption can be handled by new Gen IV reactors, and then we can get rid of the spent LWR fuel too.

I think it may be possible to coax the market into doing it for us, by A) rewarding guaranteed long-term availability, B) putting a sufficiently high tax or price on carbon C) rewarding high and controllable ramp rates and D) require intermittent sources to contribute to short term storage and GT-based long term backup. A and B would make LWRs attractive. B would make renewables attractive. C would encourage short term storage, and D would allow gas turbines to survive even though they rarely operate. A, B, C and D would together make Gen IV nuclear so attractive that they might actually become reality fairly soon. By tweaking the parameters, a situation where all the components cooperate to provide a reliable grid and CO2 emission reduction should be achievable.

If storage systems prove too costly to handle even the daily intermittency of just enough renewables to cover only the non-baseload demand, we would still get very significant carbon reduction early. That's very important, early carbon emissions have more time to cause damage. The all-renewables utopia requires much more storage, and breaks down completely without it.

But unbuffered intermittency is a fracker's best friend, so I'm not optimistic.

 

[nwdiver]

So... let me see if I've got a good understanding of our disagreement...

We agree that solar, wind & others such as hydro + storage can carry the grid cost effectively on a daily basis for most of the year (~95%)... where we disagree is what should carry the grid for the maybe ~2 weeks/yr that wind and solar simply don't generate enough energy... is that about right?

So the real question at the root of this debate is... 'What's the best energy source to provide power for ~5% of the year...' Is that about right?

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

If shortfalls from intermittent generation is only ~5% of total production, just buy a bunch of powerwalls/equivalent (~12c/kWh of storage is Tesla's warranty is accurate)/overbuild some solar/wind (~6c-8c/kWh LCOE in areas where they're strong) and call it a day. That electricity will be expensive, ~18c-20c/kWh, but at 5% of total generation, it'll increase residential electricity from ~12.6c/kWh to ~12.9c/kWh.

 

[nwdiver]

If shortfalls from intermittent generation is only ~5% of total production, just buy a bunch of powerwalls/equivalent (~12c/kWh of storage is Tesla's warranty is accurate)/overbuild some solar/wind (~6c-8c/kWh LCOE in areas where they're strong) and call it a day. That electricity will be expensive, ~18c-20c/kWh, but at 5% of total generation, it'll increase residential electricity from ~12.6c/kWh to ~12.9c/kWh.

Well... it's not quite that simple... ~12.6c/kWh to ~12.9c/kWh is based on frequent cycling... not annual use... to have ~200TWh of storage sitting around for ~50 weeks would be a little more expensive; Which is why IMO hydrogen or some other electrons to fuel approach is going to be a key component. It will probably be more cost effective to store some energy as a fuel not in a battery.

Another part of the solution to the '200TWh problem' would be trans-equatorial transmission. Winter in the North is Summer in the South and vice versa. HVDC costs ~$200k/km per GW. A series of transmission lines capable of filling that ~200TWh ~2 week gap would cost ~$1T.

There are literally dozens of storage, transmission and generation technologies we can use to support our grid; Precisely how these develop as demand for them grows is difficult to predict. There are really only 2 things I'm certain of... solar will get cheaper.... and nuclear will get more expensive. No need to go spending ~$7/w on centralized generation when there are so many other options.

As a point of reference... there are two concerns here... energy and power. The US uses ~4000TWh/yr but peak demand is ~760GW. ~100GW of nuclear can support ~20% of US energy use but it can only support ~13% of peak demand. To support refueling and have a reserve you would need ~1TW of nuclear in the US... with a capital cost of ~$7T.

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

Generating H2 to be burned in a CC gas power plant (would probably need to be modified) isn't that much more expensive. I mean, it would double the cost, but going to ~13.2c/kWh isn't that bad.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/50408.pdf

 

[eledille]

So... let me see if I've got a good understanding of our disagreement...

We agree that solar, wind & others such as hydro + storage can carry the grid cost effectively on a daily basis for most of the year (~95%)... where we disagree is what should carry the grid for the maybe ~2 weeks/yr that wind and solar simply don't generate enough energy... is that about right?

So the real question at the root of this debate is... 'What's the best energy source to provide power for ~5% of the year...' Is that about right?

Not quite.

If you agree we need nuclear for baseload, then we're getting close to agreement.

My position is that we need nuclear for baseload, renewables with storage for load following where licensing nukes for that role is too expensive, renewables with storage for peak demand, and gas turbines to back up the renewables + storage.

If you look at a typical demand curve, you will see that about two thirds to three quarters of the energy is baseload (the area below the curve is energy). By using nuclear for that, you can reduce the storage/backup problem by a factor of three to four. This means that if you use only nuclear and gas turbines, without any renewables at all, you have already reduced CO2 emissions to around 20 % of the situation today, assuming coal is displaced by nuclear. This is important, it means that we can achieve large CO2 reductions even if storage and renewables turn out to be difficult to implement. Renewables can improve the situation further, if one makes sure they displace gas turbine usage only. Renewables can displace gas turbines more and more as we add storage. But they can only displace gas turbine energy, the gas turbines themselves will remain, because very high capacity storage is infeasible.

If we try to remove nuclear also, then we have a much larger storage/backup problem, and we have gained little if it can't be solved. The size of the required storage is now so large that V2G and demand control don't have much impact. There is also a large effect on how much energy is moving into and out of storage, and then storage efficiency becomes critical - the storage round-trip efficiency and storage energy flow determine how much extra generation capacity you need to make up for the losses in the storage system. I'll look into that too. Bear with me, it takes time.

I'm not familiar with the weather in California and New Mexico, but in Europe, we're facing much more than two weeks of shortfall per year. That cannot be the average case in the US either.

 

[nwdiver]

If you agree we need nuclear for baseload, then we're getting close to agreement.

Why do we need nuclear for baseload ~March-October? The storage requirements during this part of the year would be minimal. Not much more than would be required to buffer nuclear.

 

[mspohr]

Not quite.

If you agree we need nuclear for baseload, then we're getting close to agreement.

My position is that we need nuclear for baseload, renewables with storage for load following where licensing nukes for that role is too expensive, renewables with storage for peak demand, and gas turbines to back up the renewables + storage.

If you look at a typical demand curve, you will see that about two thirds to three quarters of the energy is baseload (the area below the curve is energy). By using nuclear for that, you can reduce the storage/backup problem by a factor of three to four. This means that if you use only nuclear and gas turbines, without any renewables at all, you have already reduced CO2 emissions to around 20 % of the situation today, assuming coal is displaced by nuclear. This is important, it means that we can achieve large CO2 reductions even if storage and renewables turn out to be difficult to implement. Renewables with storage can improve the situation further, if one makes sure they displace gas turbine usage only.

If you try to remove nuclear also, then you have a much larger storage/backup problem, and you have gained little if it can't be solved. The size of the required storage is now so large that V2G and demand control don't have much impact. There is also a huge effect on how much energy is moving into and out of storage, and then storage efficiency becomes critical - the storage round-trip efficiency and storage energy flow determine how much extra generation capacity you need for recharging. I'll look into that too. Bear with me, it takes time.

I, for one, don't agree that we need nuclear for baseload.
I came across this interesting paper:
The Base Load Fallacy
and other Fallacies disseminated by Renewable Energy Deniers
Dr Mark Diesendorf
Energy Science Coalition <www.energyscience.org.au>
http://www.energyscience.org.au/BP16%20BaseLoad.pdf
From the paper:

The refutation of the fallacy has the following key logical steps:
• With or without renewable energy, there is no such thing as a perfectly reliable power
station or electricity generating system. Both coal and nuclear power are only partially
reliable.
• Electricity grids are already designed to handle variability in both demand and supply. To do
this, they have different types of power station (base-load, intermediate-load and peak-load)
and reserve power stations.
• Wind power and solar power without storage provide additional sources of variability to be
integrated into a system that already has to balance a variable conventional supply against a
variable demand.
• The variability of small amounts of wind and solar power in a grid is indistinguishable from
variations in demand. Therefore, existing peak-load plant and reserve plant can handle small
amounts of wind and solar power at negligible extra cost.
• Some renewable electricity sources (e.g. bioenergy, solar thermal electricity with thermal
storage and geothermal) have similar patterns of variability to coal-fired power stations and
so they can be operated as base-load. They can be integrated without any additional back-up,
as can efficient energy use.
• Other renewable electricity sources (e.g. wind, solar without storage, and run-of-river hydro)
have different kinds of variability from coal-fired power stations and so have to be
considered separately.
• Single wind turbines cut-in and cut-out suddenly in low wind speeds and so can be described
as ‘intermittent’.
But, for large amounts of wind power connected to the grid from several wind farms that are
geographically dispersed in different wind regimes, total wind power generally varies
smoothly and therefore cannot be described accurately as ‘intermittent’. Like coal and
nuclear power, wind power is a partially reliable source of power (Sinden 2007). However,
its statistics are different from those of coal and nuclear power.
• As the penetration into the grid of wind energy increases substantially, so do the additional
costs of reserve plant and fuel used for balancing wind power variations. However, when
wind power supplies up to 20% of electricity generation, these additional costs are relatively
small.
Conclusion
Combinations of efficient energy use and renewable sources of electricity can replace electricity
generation systems based on fossil fuels and nuclear power, provided our governments
implement effective policies (Diesendorf 2007a, b and 2010). With renewable sources, base-load
electricity can be provided to the grid by bioenergy; solar thermal electricity with thermal storage
in water, molten salt, graphite, and thermochemical systems; hot rock geothermal; and wind
power with a little back-up from gas turbines. Natural gas and coal seam methane can also
substitute for some base-load coal-fired power stations, although supplies of these gases for
domestic use are limited in eastern Australia. The demand for base-load power can be reduced by
efficient energy use, energy conservation and solar hot water. Intermediate-load power can be
supplied increasingly by solar PV electricity without storage, as it becomes less expensive. When
natural gas supplies become scarce, gas turbines used for peak-load supply can be fuelled by
liquid or gaseous biofuels produced sustainably.





... Interesting read...

 

[eledille]

I, for one, don't agree that we need nuclear for baseload.
I came across this interesting paper:

That paper is not interesting, it's sad. It's so full of errors I don't know where to begin.

• With or without renewable energy, there is no such thing as a perfectly reliable power
station or electricity generating system. Both coal and nuclear power are only partially
reliable.

Nonsense. Wind and solar are prone to common mode failures in entire continents at a time. The phenomena causing this are so common as to have their own traditional names: "lull" and "cloudy". I might add "winter", too. Nuclear and coal do not have this problem. See "common mode failure".

• Some renewable electricity sources (e.g. bioenergy, solar thermal electricity with thermal
storage and geothermal) have similar patterns of variability to coal-fired power stations and
so they can be operated as base-load. They can be integrated without any additional back-up,
as can efficient energy use.

Hmm, so there is such a thing as base load, after all.

Biomass is too scarce. All we can hope to produce will be needed to power aircraft and long haul trucks. See MacKay.

Geothermal replenishes too slowly to be called renewable. It can be mined, but then you have to drill and frack another well in a couple of years. See MacKay.

Solar thermal works, but only intra-day. If the sun is gone for a week, you're in big trouble.

But, for large amounts of wind power connected to the grid from several wind farms that are
geographically dispersed in different wind regimes, total wind power generally varies
smoothly and therefore cannot be described accurately as ‘intermittent’. Like coal and
nuclear power, wind power is a partially reliable source of power (Sinden 2007).

This is just flat out wrong. Real data proves irrefutably that wind can and will fail across vast areas at the drop of a hat. Even in Australia.

With renewable sources, base-load
electricity can be provided to the grid by bioenergy;

Too scarce (MacKay)

solar thermal electricity with thermal storage
in water, molten salt, graphite,

Doesn't work for longer periods

hot rock geothermal;

Very rare and not sustainable anyway (MacKay)

and wind
power

Wind and solar complement each other in much the same way that two unreliable cars do. If you have a car that's broken 50 % of the time, will you get reliable transportation by buying another one like it? No. You just get another 50 % shot.

The demand for base-load power can be reduced by
efficient energy use, energy conservation and solar hot water.

Yeah. I'm sure the peoples of China, India and Bangladesh will immediately recognize that they need to start conserving energy, once they read this paper. I'm not implying that they're not intelligent. I'm implying that they're hardly using any energy, so how can you expect them to conserve? Their consumption will double several times before they're at our level. I didn't even mention Africa, because their consumption is not growing much yet.

World average electricity consumption per capita is about 300 W. US consumption per capita is about 2000 W. Electrification will double it. Brace for impact.

Intermediate-load power can be
supplied increasingly by solar PV electricity without storage, as it becomes less expensive. When
natural gas supplies become scarce, gas turbines used for peak-load supply can be fuelled by
liquid or gaseous biofuels produced sustainably.

This guy is relying entirely on natural gas. Biomass will be needed for other purposes, and there's not enough of it anyway.

 

[nwdiver]

This is just flat out wrong. Real data proves irrefutably that wind can and will fail across vast areas at the drop of a hat. Even in Australia.

.... here's a challenge for you...

This is ~5 years of daily data from California... find the lowest wind/solar day... it never drops below ~10% capacity. Even on overcast days solar PV still produces.

You're conflating two separate issues here; I partially agree that conventional storage (batteries) will probably not be a cost-effective approach to the '~2 week problem'... I've ALWAYS agreed with that; In my post last year I suggested we won't get past ~80% renewables until we start storing energy as Hydrogen.

But... if you have sufficient energy available in a ~12 hour period... which is ~95% of the year... batteries should have no problem serving as 'baseload'.

I predict that Solar PV CF will probably fall to ~5% on the DC side in ~20 years... simply to provide more power when insolation is low... but in ~20 years module prices will also likely be <$0.20/w. That's still ~$4/w adjusting for CF. Following the nuclear cost trend... nuclear power will likely be well on its way to ~$15/w.

I mean.... let's take a step back and look a the reality of the situation here... solar and wind are doubling every ~2 years and costs are falling faster than anyone predicted. Nuclear is in dire straights...

- even discounting Japan capacity is stagnant at best,
- the EDF is bankrupt getting bailed out by Europe
- Voglte unit 4 may not even get finished due to cost/demand problems

Here's what the market thinks of nuclear... this is the cost of SWU (nuclear fuel)...

Too bad the plants are expensive... 'cause the fuel is dirt cheap...

What turns this tide? A carbon tax would drive wind/solar; Paying for reliability would drive $1/w gas turbines. Even with a carbon tax + reliability fee paying $1/w for gas + $2/w for wind/solar is cheaper than paying $7/w for nuclear.

Even if the cost of natural gas goes up due to a carbon tax the bulk of energy is coming from wind and solar... you're not paying for energy... you're paying for availability/reliability/power; with a gas turbine that's ~$1/w... with nuclear it's $7/w. As you've pointed out... reliability (power) becomes more of a concern than energy. More and more energy will come from wind/solar with gas turbines filling in the gaps @ $1/w. At some point that gas will be Hydrogen...