| ▲ | wg0 6 hours ago |
| Now please bring back solar + nuclear energy and stop pretending that burning oil is cleaner. |
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| ▲ | eigenspace 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Why mention nuclear but not wind? Wind has nearly as low an LCOE as solar, and is still dropping too, and wind power is anti-correlated with solar power, meaning we get more wind at night and in the winter. |
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| ▲ | wg0 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yeah wind too. | |
| ▲ | dgellow 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The north, where I live, has lots of windmills and more is being built | |
| ▲ | cbmuser 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Wind has nearly as low an LCOE as solar Because production costs aren't what's setting the prices, supply and demand is. Cheap solar and wind power doesn't help when it's not available. | | |
| ▲ | mejutoco 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | How much less of a problem is this as batteries improve? Honest question, I never saw this quantified. | | |
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| ▲ | Zigurd 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| One of these things is not like the other. You can have solar next week at a reliable price and you'll be able to buy insurance for your solar array on the private market. Nuclear isn't going to happen no matter how many data center projects get hyped. No nuclear project will be complete before we're all talking about data centers like we talk about the Metaverse. |
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| ▲ | sharpshadow 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Good luck with solar in Germany when you will be paying a fee for feeding in energy to the grid during solar peek time from 2027 onwards. |
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| ▲ | 1718627440 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Why would that be unreasonable? Generating some power somewhere, sometime isn't hard. Generating the right amount at the right time in the right location is. (In other words logistics.) So yeah the cost is in moving and storing the electricity by maintaining and expanding the infrastructure. | |
| ▲ | mejutoco 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Do you have a source? Can you "waste" that energy instead of feeding it in? | | |
| ▲ | fc417fc802 25 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | It's solar so you can literally just unplug it. Although at the scale of an individual house you can just unplug (or otherwise deactivate) pretty much anything. It's the industrial scale stuff that can't be adjusted on a dime. | | |
| ▲ | artisinal 16 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I could probably make a small PCB with a light sensor, that disconnects the solar panels (through a relay) once sunlight hits the sensor. So you aren't paying any fees for supplying the grid with energy. |
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| ▲ | martin_a 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Why not store it in small and large battery systems and use it later? | | |
| ▲ | mejutoco 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Much better yes. I am just thinking that worse case one could burn it to not have to pay, so in reality having to pay would not be a problem. |
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| ▲ | soco 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Added 17GW solar in the last 12 months, reached 129GW: https://solarzubau.de/deutschland/ |
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| ▲ | BlackRabbit1 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| We are currently busy building new gas turbines. lol. |
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| ▲ | eigenspace 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Even if the number of gas turbines will increase (it's not increasing nearly as much as you'd think if you just look at the number being built, because old ones are also being decomissioned), the amount of gas being burnt on an annual level is going to be going down. These gas plants are for bridging gaps left open by wind and solar which cannot yet be covered by batteries. If you believe in the transition to renewables, Germany fundamentally does still need gas turbines to make that happen, more than we currently have. | |
| ▲ | bryanlarsen 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That's not inconsistent. A robust grid will have enough capacity of any sort to cover peak demand during a dankelflaute but enough zero-emissions generation and storage to cover generation at all other times. And that's exactly what Germany is doing. Their natural gas plants only run ~15% of the time. Usage is going down faster than capacity is going up. https://unpopular-truth.com/2024/07/05/natures-influence-on-... | | |
| ▲ | Tomte 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Because everyone copies it: the word is Dunkelflaute. U, not a. | |
| ▲ | KyleTheDev 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | TIL Dankelflaute, a time when it is too dark with too little wind for either solar or wind energy generation. Thank you for this amazing word. | | |
| ▲ | bryanlarsen 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | It has to be scoped by area. A Dankelflaute that covers the European continent has never been observed. OTOH, a Dankelflaute that covers only Germany is a regular occurrence. | | |
| ▲ | cbmuser 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | So, you're telling me there is daylight in Spain when we have night in Germany? Also, have you ever done some research on how winds work? They're usually blowing (or not blowing) across the whole continent. So, yeah, Dunkelflauten usually cover the whole continent. | | |
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| ▲ | e2le 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm sceptical that more gas turbines doesn't create a more vulnerable grid. The possibility of gas shortages this winter is on the horizon and if the UK were to cease exports for whatever reason it would be a disaster for the rest of Europe. Ed Conway released a video on the UK's gas network and disaster planning[0]. As shown in their documentary, a shutdown of exports to Europe would only require 2 or 3 failure events (low production from wind/solar, high-usage of gas for power/heating, disruption or cessation of imports via gas-tankers, well-placed damage to the gas network, extreme weather in the north sea). To maintain pressure in the gas network, they would begin shedding the largest loads first, exports to mainland Europe is #1 on that list. Let's also not forget Nordstream and the disaster that caused when it mysteriously blew up. Before those pipelines exploded, there were protests in Germany because people were struggling to heat their homes. Nuclear isn't vulnerable to any of these issues, we're very lucky that construction and investment has continued these past decades. /s [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKDnZz4wypI | | |
| ▲ | bryanlarsen 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Capacity isn't the problem, usage is. If Europe reduced its usage to about 10% of current usage, full tanks would last a full year. Nuclear is unsuited for this problem. Europe needs something that will supply approximately all of its power needs for only a few days a year. Europe already has enough natural gas storage to do this. If you built enough nuclear to cover all its power needs for a few days a year you'd have enough nuclear to supply all its power needs 365 days a year. That would work great, but it would cost tens of trillions. | | |
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| ▲ | cbmuser 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | We have to build new gas turbines since wind and solar do not provide dispatchable power. | |
| ▲ | rdudek 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I hear there is a shortage of blades for the turbines. | | |
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