AlmightySnoo š¢š®š±šŗš¦Good neighborship
OsrsNeedsF2PWell yea, countries keep buying nuclear from France because itās clean, cheap, and they donāt want to suffer the political backlash from the science lacking environmentalists which come forward when they talk about building nuclear on their own land
France has been importing more electricity than exporting in 2022 because their nuclear reactors canāt perform in the heat resulting from climate change. And this is more likely to happen again as each year becomes hotter.
Iām not sure where this fetishism for Franceās nuclear energy is coming from.
Youāre quoting 2022 because >30% of the reactrors were taken offline for maintenance. Their also shutting down nuclear reactors.
This is not an inherant problem with nuclear, but because the French government hasnāt invested since the 70s.
If funding wasnāt cut (due to environmental activists), the output would be more than needed.
Nuclear is still our best bet for combatting climate change and reducing carbon emissions.
Im quoting 2022 because this was last year. As in, the most recent year.
I donāt disagree that we should have phased out coal instead of nuclear first. But what has happened has happened. I do disagree that we need a ānuclear renessainceā now, because neither the economics nor the timelines work out at this point in time. Solar and wind is cheaper, faster to build, and more flexible as you can iterate on their designs MUCH more quickly than nuclear plants. Thatās the main reason why solar panel efficiency is going through the roof.
Why cannibalize the investments in what obviously works?
You only solve one part of the problem: what do you use when thereās no sun and no wind? Coal? Gas?
As far as I can tell, there is no time with no sun AND no wind: ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ā¦/index.php?title=Energy_stā¦
In fact, there are multiple studies claiming that you can very well supply base load with renewables, for instance this one:
ceem.unsw.edu.au/ā¦/MarkBaseloadFallacyANZSEE.pdf
One other problem with nuclear is that it has to run at a fixed electricity level, and canāt be scaled down if there is eg. lots of solar power being generated. In this case, you have to scale down renewables to make sure you can use the nuclear power, which makes it clash with the eventual goal to power everything with renewables.
I donāt know who, in his sane mind, can claim there will never be periods of time with no sun and no wind at the same time. notrickszone.com/ā¦/plunging-towards-darkness-germā¦
You need a pilotable generator matching renewables. You canāt do without it. The only question is how much of it you need to plan. Existing approaches are storage: batteries, hydro where itās possible (you pump the water up a dam to store back energy) and backup generators: coal, gas, and in some future plans, hydrogen.
None of these is a perfect solution (well, nothing is a perfect solution).
- Hydro: thatās the ideal, but obviously, you need a very large body of water, and heavy construction. But it ends up being a very clean energy with long lifetime.
- Batteries: lifetime considerably reduced, requires very large amount of precious minerals (today, car industry assume theyāll get ~100% of lithium extracted, aeronautic assumes theyāll get as much as they need without counting, and then you have the energy sector counting on very large quantities as well ; there wonāt be enough we can extract for everyone, and lithium mines are all but clean).
- Backup generators: no need to comment on fossil fuel, but hydrogen has a big issue: it is very inefficient, ~30%. So if you need it 10% of the time, you need to plan 30% more capacity of renewable, and thatās assuming you can pilot it all the way from total shutdown to 100% capacity, probably very optimistic. You will need to have it running at some minimum levels, thatās even more renewables you need to keep it running.
It is not completely true that nuclear needs to run at fixed level. Depending on their design, some plants are pilotable and some are not. But I donāt think (Iāll be happily corrected if needed) any had the flexibility you need to be used with renewable (quick large variations).
So the ideal mix is, IMHO, a baseline provided by nuclear, and a mix of renewable and complements to produce the difference.
Bonus: there is a āmethodā promoted by some (ignorant) politics they call āproliferationā (āfoisonnementā, not sure Iām translating that the best). This is utter BSā¦
The idea is there will always be sun or wind somewhere in a super-grid spreading through Europe. If you think about it for 1 minute, that means that small part of Europe where there is wind will power, for a more or less short time, a large portion of the whole Europe?? Not only is that totally insane from the capacity point of view, but it also completely neglects the gridās stability and electricity transportation issue. It is very difficult to transport electricity over very large distances without disturbing the grid. Ask Germany, they spend massively on infrastructures right now without counting on proliferation. That would raise the requirements furtherā¦
Good Post overall, no need to attack my sanity though :-)
I agree with most of this in principle. Having 100% base load with renewables is an aspirational goal - for now - but nevertheless achievable, I believe. You will find that the sun does, in fact, always shine (somewhere on the planet), and that wind almost always blows (somewhere on the planet). Admittedly, wind is more prevalent throughout the day than sun, but still.
There have been recent discoveries of superconductors that might help transport the electricity where it is needed. But again, this is all in the medium to long term future.
But of course, short to medium term, and long term too, energy storage will play a huge role. I expect massive development in this area, as this is being iterated on anyway, eg. for EVs.
Good Post overall, no need to attack my sanity though :-)
I was not targeting you, rather the idea itself. But it came out terrible and there are definitely better way to express an opinion. So my apologies for that one!