Lemdro.id

1 point

1 year ago

@MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Ardubal @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis What that means is if you’re going the long term storage / hydrogen or iron-air batteries route, the inefficiency doesn’t matter (but the capital cost does).

On the other hand if you try to reach 100% with minimal demand side interventions even in emergencies, you end up building way more (~3x) renewables than you ideally need. Which has a cost - rare earths etc.

But there are plenty of options for managing intermittency. All of them have problems or costs though. Which is one reason I’m not strongly opposed to nuclear, for instance, but nor am I terribly enthusiastic about its ability to deliver quickly enough.

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https://grid.iamkate.com/

1 point

1 year ago

@MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Ardubal @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Also, which country is that? Look at e.g. today’s UK chart - wind was dominant until 6:30PM. Sadly this service does not include batteries because there’s no data on *charging* them.

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AbolishBorderControlsNow@mastodonapp.uk

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1 point

1 year ago

@matthewtoad43 @BrianSmith950 @Ardubal @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

You got there too quick for me to add this

Here in Europe (yes the UK is still in Europe, brexiteers can’t change geography)

Here in Europe we can help each other out and sice we have such varied #energy systems, Norway with it’s #hydro France #nuclear the UK can easily pick up a few % or lend a few % when needed.

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1 point

1 year ago

@MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Ardubal @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Yup, lots of interconnectors being built/planned in theory, but they seem to take ages. We need more in any case.

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AbolishBorderControlsNow@mastodonapp.uk

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1 point

1 year ago

Deleted by creator

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1 point

1 year ago

@MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Ardubal @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Maybe. It depends where the cars are plugged in at the time. The charging infrastructure to use them all at once would be pretty serious/expensive, especially if it has to support fast charging in e.g. a (potentially systemic) personal emergency as well as efficient slow charging with V2G.

And the transition to EVs is going to stall pretty soon, because a large proportion of people people do not have driveways or garages, and public chargers are expensive and slow.

Also, I’m hoping the peak number of EVs will be somewhat less than the current total number of cars - we get to sustainability faster with fewer cars.

V2G is interesting though, I agree we should make use of that resource.

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1 point

1 year ago

@MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Ardubal @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis IMHO reusing ex-EV batteries as grid storage may be more important in the medium term though.

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AbolishBorderControlsNow@mastodonapp.uk

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1 point

1 year ago

Deleted by creator

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0 points

1 year ago

@MattMastodon @matthewtoad43 @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

Sorry to interrupt, but nothing about this is »trivial«.

Also, you must compare the complete system. Let’s summarize just two options:

- Nuclear power plants, and the grid as is.
- Wind turbines, solar panels, plus a multiple of the current grid, plus hypothetical storage tech none of which has passed the pilot stage yet.

What is your bet? How do you think decarbonization has /already/ been achieved?

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1 point

1 year ago

@Ardubal @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Short term storage already exists. So does wind, solar, at considerable (though inadequate) scale, and cheap (bottlenecked mainly by grid connection). Dynamic demand exists to some degree and so do interconnectors.

Lithium batteries exist at reasonable scale in other countries, notably 2.5GW on California’s grid. There are active trials of V2G but IMHO reasons to doubt how big a contribution it will be. Reusing EV batteries as grid storage exists at a small scale.

Nuclear power plants take forever to build, in recent experience in the UK. Even National Grid doesn’t believe the government’s promised 24GW of nuclear will be done for 2050.

There are uncertainties whichever way you go. So we need several strategies. However, it’s worth pursuing iron-air batteries and possibly hydrogen as well as nuclear. But arguably they are only needed for the last few percent anyway. And I will *not* accept any attempt to slow down installation of renewables in favour of nuclear.

Decarbonisation, in terms of electricity in the UK, has been achieved through both nuclear and renewables. Fossil fuels are down to 40% of total units generated.

Figures for the last year in the UK:
Source GW Percent
Coal 0.32 1.1
Gas 11.30 38.3
Solar 1.38 4.7
Wind 8.82 29.9
Hydroelectric 0.34 1.2
Nuclear 4.44 15.0
Biomass 1.49 5.0

Unfortunately nuclear plants are closing rather rapidly, and it will be some time before replacements are online.

PS IIRC there are plausible sources saying that you only need renewables equal to ~3x plus short term storage. Both aspects of this are technically feasible and proven today. But obviously it means more rare earths etc. More nuclear, or more long term storage, or more interconnectors etc, reduce the cost.

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https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/

1 point

1 year ago

@MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Ardubal @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Africa too - see the Xlinks project: 10GW Saharan solar + battery + 3.6GW interconnector -> UK baseload equivalent to a nuclear power station.

Although that is now dependent on a 20GWh lithium battery, which somewhat stretches credulity. Not to mention the usual questions around appropriation of land and water etc.

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