The military coup in Niger has raised concerns about uranium mining in the country by the French group Orano, and the consequences for France's energy independence.
@MattMastodon@Sodis Again: that demand is lower at night is already factored in. Roughly 40% of demand can be directly met by volatile sources. You may think nuclear is slow to deploy, but it’s still much faster than anything that doesn’t exist.
The gap is 60%. Gas is a fossil fuel. Varying use is mostly a euphemism. If you hurt industry, you won’t have the industry to build clean energy sources.
@MattMastodon@Sodis If you include construction and disposal (and transport and so on…) it is called lifecycle costs. First image shows that per energy produced (sorry german, »AKW neu« is new-built nuclear).
Uranium comes from all over the world. Second image shows the situation a few years ago. Niger is place 5, Russia place 7.
@MattMastodon@Sodis We’re going in circles. Volatile sources can only supply 40% of current demand for £50/MWh. The question is what fills the rest.
If storage, then the price goes up immediately by at least two conversion losses from/to storage, in addition to the cost of storage itself. Which doesn’t exist at the needed scalability.
Pointing to single projects is not meaningful, as we need to build a fleet anyway, which has its own dynamics.
OK so I have googled the men capacity factor and of course #nuclear has nearly 100% and #renewables only 40%.
But this just means it produces on average 40% of it’s capacity. You’d need a sunny windy day to get 100%
What I’ve read about is a #SWB (Solar wind and battery) system with massive overcapacity
So biomass, hydro and battery can take up the slack when needed. Or gas - which has a very low mean capacity factor <10% but is usually used as a last resort
Well you haven’t explained the 40% or I’ve not understood you.
The fact remains the Hinkley, my local #nuclear reactor is turning out to be very expensive.
This, will make it hard for any government or investor to put the case for a second #reactor, let alone a slew of them. After all, if #EDF can’t deliver, who can?
I’ll try to explain the 40%, sorry for the parts that you already know.
Electric energy is always produced at the same time (and »place« roughly) as it is consumed. (You can’t pump electricity into some reservoir to be consumed later, you always need a different energy form for storage.)
The problem with volatile sources is that they mostly (more than half) produce energy at the wrong time and/or the wrong place, and at other times produce nothing.
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⇒ Aside: the »place« problem is that you can’t build solar panels and wind turbines just anywhere, and they need a lot of space. E. g. Germany has now the problem that the wind blows much better in the north, but the industry is more in the south. So, you need a lot more/stronger transmission lines. Same for offshore wind: more wind at sea, but you need a lot of cables.
The more wind and solar you already have, the more the good places are already taken.
⇒
@MattMastodon @Sodis Again: that demand is lower at night is already factored in. Roughly 40% of demand can be directly met by volatile sources. You may think nuclear is slow to deploy, but it’s still much faster than anything that doesn’t exist.
The gap is 60%. Gas is a fossil fuel. Varying use is mostly a euphemism. If you hurt industry, you won’t have the industry to build clean energy sources.
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deleted by creator
@MattMastodon @Sodis If you include construction and disposal (and transport and so on…) it is called lifecycle costs. First image shows that per energy produced (sorry german, »AKW neu« is new-built nuclear).
Uranium comes from all over the world. Second image shows the situation a few years ago. Niger is place 5, Russia place 7.
deleted by creator
@MattMastodon @Sodis We’re going in circles. Volatile sources can only supply 40% of current demand for £50/MWh. The question is what fills the rest.
If storage, then the price goes up immediately by at least two conversion losses from/to storage, in addition to the cost of storage itself. Which doesn’t exist at the needed scalability.
Pointing to single projects is not meaningful, as we need to build a fleet anyway, which has its own dynamics.
@Ardubal @Sodis
OK so I have googled the men capacity factor and of course #nuclear has nearly 100% and #renewables only 40%.
But this just means it produces on average 40% of it’s capacity. You’d need a sunny windy day to get 100%
What I’ve read about is a #SWB (Solar wind and battery) system with massive overcapacity
So biomass, hydro and battery can take up the slack when needed. Or gas - which has a very low mean capacity factor <10% but is usually used as a last resort
Cheap #zero #CO2
@Ardubal @Sodis
Fascinating information though, I do love a good graph.
@Ardubal @Sodis
Well you haven’t explained the 40% or I’ve not understood you.
The fact remains the Hinkley, my local #nuclear reactor is turning out to be very expensive.
This, will make it hard for any government or investor to put the case for a second #reactor, let alone a slew of them. After all, if #EDF can’t deliver, who can?
And #renewables only get cheaper.
I get the point about #batteries but batteries are great at smoothing sharp peaks in demand. Everyone making tea at 8am…
@MattMastodon @Sodis
I’ll try to explain the 40%, sorry for the parts that you already know.
Electric energy is always produced at the same time (and »place« roughly) as it is consumed. (You can’t pump electricity into some reservoir to be consumed later, you always need a different energy form for storage.)
The problem with volatile sources is that they mostly (more than half) produce energy at the wrong time and/or the wrong place, and at other times produce nothing.
⇒
@MattMastodon @Sodis
⇒ Aside: the »place« problem is that you can’t build solar panels and wind turbines just anywhere, and they need a lot of space. E. g. Germany has now the problem that the wind blows much better in the north, but the industry is more in the south. So, you need a lot more/stronger transmission lines. Same for offshore wind: more wind at sea, but you need a lot of cables.
The more wind and solar you already have, the more the good places are already taken.
⇒