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jrflo 3 days ago

There will always be a need for on-demand power. Renewables are great, but cannot deal with peaks as easily and capacity is dependent on weather.

dolmen 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Hydro is renewable, can deal with peaks and not directly dependent on weather.

Use its power down when in need of electricity. Bring water up hill when too much electricity is available.

belorn 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Hydro is great, except for a few problems. The biggest is that they are causing extinction for several species. The second biggest in central and northern Europe is that hydro is already used in every place where its reasonable to build them, with practically no space to further expansion.

Right before the last rush to build nuclear, Europe went through an energy crisis where they did also use reverse hydro. In recent time there has been discussion to modernize and reuse those old installations, but the issue is costs. Buying energy to sell it later, while maintaining and operating the hydro power plants and pumps are not cheap (not to mention building out transmission). Even at current fossil fuel prices, natural gas and oil is cheaper and thus reverse hydro is not economical viable.

tremon 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Hydro is not renewable when the basins are being refilled by glacial melt as is the case for most of Europe, and precipitation is also becoming more erratic. For example, Iceland is currently relying on hydro power for 70% of its electricity, but current models predict that glacial runoff will peak around 2060 (or earlier, if the arctic temperature continues its upward trend). After that, the potential power to be generated from hydro will gradually decrease, which is why Iceland is now diversifying towards geothermal and wind.

ImJamal 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Won't climate change lead to more droughts making hydro less stable in the future?

palata 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Countries who can do hydro are pretty much doing as much of it as they can. Like... there really isn't much room to increase hydro unless you start inundating valleys.

ericmay 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Ok... but now we're damaging ecosystems by installing hydroelectric power stations and dams and such in these areas.

Besides, not every country can effectively utilize hydroelectric power.

Germany, like other countries, should be investing in a mix of power sources. You probably want your backbone to be nuclear and then renewables where it makes sense with a goal (at least in western countries) of also eliminating reliance on China for renewables/batteries.

Dogmatism about renewables is self-defeating.

riedel 2 days ago | parent [-]

We should make sure that the indirect cost for CO2 are added to the price of energy and imported products depending on the mix. It is one of the few areas where I think a market can fix things.

frm88 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

That would mean we all pay for the CO2 emissions of the US army since they are the world's largest single institution consumer.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333873233_Hidden_ca...

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/12/elephant-in-the-ro...

ericmay 2 days ago | parent [-]

Yea but all other countries would have to pay for the C02 emissions of their militaries too. I bet many would not be able to afford to have one anymore - might be a good thing.

ericmay 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I’ve always thought that was a decent idea but Americans can’t even stomach higher gas prices because of the Iran war. How are they going to handle $7-$8 per gallon or more?

throw-the-towel 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

But nuclear also can't deal with peaks.

bluefirebrand 3 days ago | parent [-]

Renewables and batteries are great for peaks though. And not very good for base load

Nuclear is great for base load, not great for peaks

Our current situation is we are building tons of renewables and storage but still burning tons of fossil fuels because they cannot replace the base load very effectively. Nuclear replaces the carbon part of the equation

myrmidon 3 days ago | parent [-]

"Base load" is not an actual demand that needs to be satisfied.

Providing base load is a privilege you get to enjoy if your marginal cost is lower than anyone elses (and you want/can keep running basically all of the time).

Renewables ruin former baseload providers (like nuclear plants) because those plants are basically no longer making money whenever the sun shines (so the economics for nuclear plants got much worse).

bluefirebrand 2 days ago | parent [-]

> Providing base load is a privilege you get to enjoy if your marginal cost is lower than anyone elses (and you want/can keep running basically all of the time)

The "if you can keep running all of the time" is actually the more important factor of base load than just price.

I guess if you want to look at it through purely a price point thing, does the solar price effectively go to infinity when there are clouds out or it's night time?

Maybe base load is the wrong term for it, I don't know. All I'm saying is that solar and wind aren't generating all of the time, and building out the storage capacity to completely cover our existing needs seems kind of unfathomable.

grey-area 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

That’s why they mentioned batteries.