Scrutable

bjn wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 02, 2021 11:43 pm

Summary page from the LCOE report. New build wind and solar are cheaper than other forms of generation; new build wind and solar are also cheaper than the marginal cost of production of coal, they are now nearly cheaper than the marginal cost of production for nukes and CCG.

That’s pretty damming for the cost of domestic PV. I’m sure it can be justified in other ways, but the cost of the energy isn’t one of them. Independence from the grid can be a good argument, but greening the grid is a better argument.

Grumble wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 10, 2021 10:06 am

bjn wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 02, 2021 11:43 pm

Summary page from the LCOE report. New build wind and solar are cheaper than other forms of generation; new build wind and solar are also cheaper than the marginal cost of production of coal, they are now nearly cheaper than the marginal cost of production for nukes and CCG.

That’s pretty damming for the cost of domestic PV. I’m sure it can be justified in other ways, but the cost of the energy isn’t one of them. Independence from the grid can be a good argument, but greening the grid is a better argument.

Not necessarily, as those are costs of generation only and aren't retail prices of electricity, which include distribution costs, return on capital etc.... So if you are paying over $147-$221/MWh (ie: 14.7-22.1c/kWh) retail, then PV can make sense to a homeowner. In a place like Australia, with high electricity prices, lots of sun and an efficient installation process ($1-$1.5/W), rooftop solar is being deployed at insane rates, with 15GWs from over 2.6 million systems to date, with 360,000 installed last year alone.

Installing solar when you build a house or replace the roof will be much cheaper than doing it post-facto, as you have scaffolding and people crawling around up there already. Which is why California has mandated rooftop solar on all new builds.

Here it also makes sense: Residential electricity prices are at the upper end of what you suggest, there's a lot more sun, even in winter, roofs last about 25 years without solar panels protecting them and have to be redone regularly at a cost of ~$10k on a 3 bed house, so installation costs are partially offset, and electricity usage is higher, thanks to AC and heating. Grid feed-in tariffs are also higher.

LISBON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Portugal shut down its last remaining coal plant over the weekend, ending the use of the polluting material for electricity generation and becoming the fourth country in the European Union to do so.

Environmental group Zero said in a statement the Pego plant in central Portugal had been the country's second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, adding that "freeing ourselves from the biggest source of greenhouse gases was a momentous day for Portugal".

The move comes nine years before Portugal's targeted end of the use of the fossil fuel by 2030.

https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/po ... 021-11-22/

I hadn't realised Scotland was so far down the renewables route:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56530424

plodder wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 14, 2021 12:05 pm

I hadn't realised Scotland was so far down the renewables route:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56530424

Small population in a windy location helps alot.

bjn wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 14, 2021 12:20 pm

plodder wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 14, 2021 12:05 pm

I hadn't realised Scotland was so far down the renewables route:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56530424

Small population in a windy location helps alot.

It's also very dark and cold so they use a lot of power

plodder wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 14, 2021 12:27 pm

bjn wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 14, 2021 12:20 pm

plodder wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 14, 2021 12:05 pm

I hadn't realised Scotland was so far down the renewables route:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56530424

Small population in a windy location helps alot.

It's also very dark and cold so they use a lot of power

Mainly FF heating though, not 'leccy.

Sure but I'm willing to bet they have a high-ish per-capita draw on the grid due to the unrelenting grimness of the weather.

They don't grow fruit and vegetables so have higher food miles.

No wait. They don't eat fruit and vegetables so have lower food miles.

lpm wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 14, 2021 3:32 pm

They don't grow fruit and vegetables so have higher food miles.

No wait. They don't eat fruit and vegetables so have lower food miles.

There was the hydroponic farm at Achiltibuie...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achiltibuie

If you look at the National Grid ESO app, northern Scotland is frequently 100% powered by wind and hydro. They produce more wind than they can use, hence big cables to sell some of it on.

lpm wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 14, 2021 3:32 pm

They don't grow fruit and vegetables so have higher food miles.

No wait. They don't eat fruit and vegetables so have lower food miles.

I live in Scotland, and I resemble that remark.

Although I did buy some Peruvian grapes from Tesco the other day, they are huge!

Today isn’t a great day in the energy transition. Less wind power than coal right now, carbon neutral at 19% including 14% nuclear and 2% hydro. It’ll be a long time before still, dark, cold days get a significant amount of carbon neutral power. We need a massive amount more storage, enough to get us through a couple of weeks like this. It’s been 5 days so far since we last had much wind.

The rebirth of fossil fuels: Belgium to replace virtually zero-carbon electricity with high-carbon electricity.

I can see why closing nukes that have reached the end of their lifespan and begun cracking and leaking is the obvious choice.

What boils my piss is that the Belgian government must have known this was going to happen for 40 years, but are still all surprisedpikachuface.png when it actually happens, and have no sensible contingency plan in place.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 24, 2021 5:37 am

I can see why closing nukes that have reached the end of their lifespan and begun cracking and leaking is the obvious choice.

What boils my piss is that the Belgian government must have known this was going to happen for 40 years, but are still all surprisedpikachuface.png when it actually happens, and have no sensible contingency plan in place.

Procrastination, innit!

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 24, 2021 5:37 am

I can see why closing nukes that have reached the end of their lifespan and begun cracking and leaking is the obvious choice.

What boils my piss is that the Belgian government must have known this was going to happen for 40 years, but are still all surprisedpikachuface.png when it actually happens, and have no sensible contingency plan in place.

The U.K. has successfully extended the life of quite a few of our old nuclear plants, but these are AGRs which seem a bit more robust than PWRs. There are problems of cracks in graphite bricks, but not corrosion cracking problems.

Grumble wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 24, 2021 8:02 am

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 24, 2021 5:37 am

I can see why closing nukes that have reached the end of their lifespan and begun cracking and leaking is the obvious choice.

What boils my piss is that the Belgian government must have known this was going to happen for 40 years, but are still all surprisedpikachuface.png when it actually happens, and have no sensible contingency plan in place.

The U.K. has successfully extended the life of quite a few of our old nuclear plants, but these are AGRs which seem a bit more robust than PWRs. There are problems of cracks in graphite bricks, but not corrosion cracking problems.

How much will they cost to fix as opposed to investing the same money on another (ideally low carbon) form of generation? That's the maths someone has a on a spreadsheet somewhere that drove the decision. Also the uncertainty around building/renovating nukes makes any cost estimate financially risky.

Well they f.cked up on the (ideally low carbon) part.

But to be fair they've only had about 30 years to be working on that, rather than 40.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 24, 2021 10:33 am

Well they f.cked up on the (ideally low carbon) part.

But to be fair they've only had about 30 years to be working on that, rather than 40.

Nuclear is very definitely low carbon, it’s one of the things in its favour.

bjn wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 24, 2021 9:22 am

Grumble wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 24, 2021 8:02 am

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 24, 2021 5:37 am

I can see why closing nukes that have reached the end of their lifespan and begun cracking and leaking is the obvious choice.

What boils my piss is that the Belgian government must have known this was going to happen for 40 years, but are still all surprisedpikachuface.png when it actually happens, and have no sensible contingency plan in place.

The U.K. has successfully extended the life of quite a few of our old nuclear plants, but these are AGRs which seem a bit more robust than PWRs. There are problems of cracks in graphite bricks, but not corrosion cracking problems.

How much will they cost to fix as opposed to investing the same money on another (ideally low carbon) form of generation? That's the maths someone has a on a spreadsheet somewhere that drove the decision. Also the uncertainty around building/renovating nukes makes any cost estimate financially risky.

We haven’t got anything like enough renewables built yet to start turning off our nuclear plants. It might be cheaper to build new renewables than run existing old plants, but until they’re actually built it’s necessary to keep running the old ones.

Grumble wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 24, 2021 1:04 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 24, 2021 10:33 am

Well they f.cked up on the (ideally low carbon) part.

But to be fair they've only had about 30 years to be working on that, rather than 40.

Nuclear is very definitely low carbon, it’s one of the things in its favour.

I know. They're not replacing them with new nuclear.

Grumble wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 24, 2021 1:07 pm

bjn wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 24, 2021 9:22 am

Grumble wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 24, 2021 8:02 am

The U.K. has successfully extended the life of quite a few of our old nuclear plants, but these are AGRs which seem a bit more robust than PWRs. There are problems of cracks in graphite bricks, but not corrosion cracking problems.

How much will they cost to fix as opposed to investing the same money on another (ideally low carbon) form of generation? That's the maths someone has a on a spreadsheet somewhere that drove the decision. Also the uncertainty around building/renovating nukes makes any cost estimate financially risky.

We haven’t got anything like enough renewables built yet to start turning off our nuclear plants. It might be cheaper to build new renewables than run existing old plants, but until they’re actually built it’s necessary to keep running the old ones.

Two things, opportunity cost and these things need to be fixed.

From what I understand, these plants need money spent on them to bring them up to spec, unless that is done they won’t be safe to operate. It’s not like they have another 30 years in them and they are being shut down prematurely. I’d hazard a very strong guess that they probably need shutting down to do the relevant fixings. I’d also put money on whatever fixing that needs to be done would take much longer and cost much more than estimated (because, empirically, nukes always cost more than they say they will).

So you can either spend money on fixing turned off plants, or spend money on building new stuff. You could probably even spend money making new generation capacity before you turn them off.

However building CCGT should not be on the table at all.

Grumble wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 24, 2021 8:02 am

The U.K. has successfully extended the life of quite a few of our old nuclear plants, but these are AGRs which seem a bit more robust than PWRs. There are problems of cracks in graphite bricks, but not corrosion cracking problems.

That doesn't mean the AGRs were a Good Idea. Nor always of long life. The Dungeness AGRs closed after a mere 35 years of commercial operation. But their life was shortened due to frequent cycling during 10 years of commissioning as they tried to get the first of class to work. Hunterston B has closed after 45 years of commercial operation.

People talk about modern reactors lasting 60 years, maybe longer, and most modern reactors are essentially PWRs. Few of the PWRs from the mid-70s in France, USA, etc, have closed down yet.