New Study: A Zero-Emissions America is Now Pretty Cheap (arstechnica.com) 240
"Until recently, it was unclear whether variable renewable energy, nuclear, or fossil fuel with carbon capture and storage would become the main form of generation in a decarbonized electricity system," argues a recently-published analysis titled Carbon-Neutral Pathways for the United States.
"The cost decline of variable renewable energy over the last few years, however, has definitively changed the situation."
Ars Technica reports: In many areas of the United States, installing a wind or solar farm is now cheaper than simply buying fuel for an existing fossil fuel-based generator. And that's dramatically changing the electricity market in the U.S. and requiring a lot of people to update prior predictions. That has motivated a group of researchers to take a new look at the costs and challenges of getting the entire U.S. to carbon neutrality.
By building a model of the energy market for the entire U.S., the researchers explored what it will take to get the country to the point where its energy use has no net emissions in 2050 — and they even looked at a scenario where emissions are negative. They found that, as you'd expect, the costs drop dramatically — to less than 1 percent of the GDP, even before counting the costs avoided by preventing the worst impacts of climate change. And, as an added bonus, we would pay less for our power...
The researchers estimate that the net cost of the transformation will be a total of $145 billion by 2050, which works out to be less than one-half percent of the GDP that year. That figure does include the increased savings from electrical heating and vehicles, which offset some of their costs. But it doesn't include the reduced costs from climate change or lower health care spending due to reduced fossil fuel use. These savings will be substantial, and they will almost certainly go well beyond offsetting the cost. Due to the reduced cost of renewable generation, the authors project that we'll spend less for electricity overall, as well... Part of the reason it is so cheap is because reaching the goal doesn't require replacing viable hardware. All of the things that need to be taken out of service, from coal-fired generators to gas hot-water heaters, have finite lifetimes. The researchers calculate that simply replacing everything with renewables or high-efficiency electric versions will manage the transition in sufficient time...
The scenarios with additional constraints produce some odd results as well. The only scenario in which nuclear power makes economic sense is the one in which land use is limited.
"The cost decline of variable renewable energy over the last few years, however, has definitively changed the situation."
Ars Technica reports: In many areas of the United States, installing a wind or solar farm is now cheaper than simply buying fuel for an existing fossil fuel-based generator. And that's dramatically changing the electricity market in the U.S. and requiring a lot of people to update prior predictions. That has motivated a group of researchers to take a new look at the costs and challenges of getting the entire U.S. to carbon neutrality.
By building a model of the energy market for the entire U.S., the researchers explored what it will take to get the country to the point where its energy use has no net emissions in 2050 — and they even looked at a scenario where emissions are negative. They found that, as you'd expect, the costs drop dramatically — to less than 1 percent of the GDP, even before counting the costs avoided by preventing the worst impacts of climate change. And, as an added bonus, we would pay less for our power...
The researchers estimate that the net cost of the transformation will be a total of $145 billion by 2050, which works out to be less than one-half percent of the GDP that year. That figure does include the increased savings from electrical heating and vehicles, which offset some of their costs. But it doesn't include the reduced costs from climate change or lower health care spending due to reduced fossil fuel use. These savings will be substantial, and they will almost certainly go well beyond offsetting the cost. Due to the reduced cost of renewable generation, the authors project that we'll spend less for electricity overall, as well... Part of the reason it is so cheap is because reaching the goal doesn't require replacing viable hardware. All of the things that need to be taken out of service, from coal-fired generators to gas hot-water heaters, have finite lifetimes. The researchers calculate that simply replacing everything with renewables or high-efficiency electric versions will manage the transition in sufficient time...
The scenarios with additional constraints produce some odd results as well. The only scenario in which nuclear power makes economic sense is the one in which land use is limited.
Land? (Score:4, Informative)
"The scenarios with additional constraints produce some odd results as well. The only scenario in which nuclear power makes economic sense is the one in which land use is limited. "
There always the sea for wind energy, no land needed.
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True, but building and maintaining windmills at sea is a bit more costly, I think.
But it's so worth it - you can use much bigger turbines and the wind is a lot more reliable/constant.
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Case in point:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#... [nullschool.net]
IIRC energy gained is the square of the wind speed so the differences between wind speed over land and over speed are greatly amplified as energy output.
http://ele.aut.ac.ir/~wind/en/... [aut.ac.ir]
Wind energy goes as velocity cubed (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC energy gained is the square of the wind speed
You recall incorrectly.
Energy per unit time in wind is proportional to area times velocity cubed.
(the mass of wind flowing through a unit area is proportional to velocity, and energy is mass times velocity squared).
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I hear the windmills supplying Manhattan are likely to be mainly offshore. It require some work to get the electricity back on shore.
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I hear the windmills supplying Manhattan are likely to be mainly offshore. It require some work to get the electricity back on shore.
If only a proven technology for transporting electricity existed. Like pipelines for oil and gas, but for electricity.
Re: Land? (Score:4, Informative)
There are many long-distance undersea electricity cables already in operation in Europe. Some have been operational for well over 10 years. A new one was recently commissioned between France (Cherbourg) and the UK. They use DC transmission.
The USA is years behind the rest of the world in offshore power generation.
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I hear the windmills supplying Manhattan are likely to be mainly offshore. It require some work to get the electricity back on shore.
If only a proven technology for transporting electricity existed. Like pipelines for oil and gas, but for electricity.
Well, if we base it off of oil technology we could build tanker ships with special "electric tanks" that can visit each of the windmills and fill up their "electric tanks" with the generated electricity and haul it back to land where it can be pumped into giant "electric tanks" where it can be processed into alternate voltages and then transferred to smaller truck mounted "electric tanks" to be hauled across the country to "electric stations" where individuals can go and fill up their vehicles "electric tan
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Two huge offshore wind projects were greenlit summer of 2019, with more to come.
https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/All... [ny.gov]
=Smidge=
Re: Land? (Score:3, Funny)
"I want to save the planet but I don't want to be the one to give up my toys."
You spoiled brat.
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I see no reason to give that up...what exactly do I gain personal by this sacrifice?
Re: Land? (Score:5, Interesting)
We could keep at least some people cooking on gas using biobags. Instead of holding animal waste flushed out of feedlots in open ponds, you put it into big bags — the same ones they use as water tanks now. Or more ideally, into big tanks. A membrane is used to separate methane from the other gases coming out of the decomposition process. It's an ecologically friendly method of producing natural gas. If allowed to escape the methane is a much more potent GHG than CO2, and it persists in the environment for about a month and then breaks down into mostly CO2 by mass. Skipping the period where the methane is in the atmosphere is an improvement.
If we had enough cheap renewable energy, we could use electrolysis to split hydrogen from water and then use that as a cooking gas. You can actually buy hydrogen welding torches which work on this principle right now.
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You made a lot of good points, but methane does not break down in the atmosphere in about a month, it's more like a decade.
Re: Land? (Score:4, Informative)
Have you tried induction cooking? You can buy a pretty beefy induction cooktop cheaply these days.
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I currently have a gas stovetop and range, and at some point I want to swap it out for induction stovetop. First of all, a while back when my crappy toaster oven died, I bought a decent (Breville) countertop oven, the medium sized version. That has literally replaced all of my regular gas oven usage except for thanksgiving and a couple other big dinner parties. I'll keep a full sized electric oven for those purposes in the future
The induction cooktops are fast. In this simple boiling water test the ind
Re: Land? (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess you have not head the pleasure of living near a windmill yet. The low frequency hum and flashing of its shadow is pretty terrible. Bad enough for me to move anyway. I doubt people in Manhattan would accept it.
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Who knew that RFK Jr [wikipedia.org] was a Republican?
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Who knew people could get so excited by a 175MW windfarm?
Note that it will take about 6 windfarms such as described in your link to replace an average nuclear power plant.
Caveats: the windfarm described isn't necessarily "typical", and if there's a nuclear power plant that is "average", it's just blind luck...
Re: Land? (Score:2)
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and solar after-a-sense. Have you ever looked up an OTEC? With modern improvements the design has potential and would directly combat rising ocean temperatures since it exploits the delta between surface temperatures and deep water temperatures. Transporting the energy was suggested in the form of hydrogen. With advances in hydrogen storage and capture, it would off-shore some energy production. One group went as far as to suggest that with the nutrient rich deep ocean water being brought to the surface, th
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There always the sea for wind energy, no land needed.
Germany has a lot of shallow water offshore, so they have been able to mount turbines off their windy North Sea coast.
Most of the US has a steep continental shelf dropoff offshore. Only in a few select places is there wind over shallow water. One example is Massachusetts, where after thirty years of wheedling for permits a whopping 119 MWe is now being generated:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Land? (Score:4, Informative)
Most of the US has a steep continental shelf dropoff offshore. Only in a few select places is there wind over shallow water.
The BS brigade rides again! The entire East and Caribbean coast [wikimedia.org] of the U.S. has a wide continental shelf. So that "few select areas" is almost everywhere. Conveniently most U.S. electricity demand is on the East Coast as well. There are at least 10 GW of East Coast wind farms currentl being planned. It is only the West Coast that has a steep drop-off near shore, but even there is a technical solution under development - floating turbines.
Re: Land? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hurricanes could present a bit of a problem along parts of the East coast and Gulf. As for the article, as usual it only examines the direct costs, and completely ignores all the jobs and businesses which are tied to fossil fuels most of which don't simply transfer to renewables.
Ah. The tried and true Buggy Whip Argument(tm).
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As for the article, as usual it only examines the direct costs, and completely ignores all the jobs and businesses which are tied to fossil fuels most of which don't simply transfer to renewables.
It examines direct costs because its focus is on the question "Is this financially viable?". It did not ignore the social issues related to the switch away from oil, in fact it specifically mentioned them:
"Deep decarbonization entails a major shift in the U.S. energy economy. The variable costs of fossil fuels will be replaced by the capital cost of low-carbon technologies. Incremental capital investment averaging $600B per year represents about 10% of current U.S. annual capital investment of $6 T in all s
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https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10... [nrel.gov]
According to your government there is a little over 1000GW of capacity in shallow (60m) waters. As the technology develops it will get cheaper to access that additional capacity.
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Sorry, less than symbols mangled my post... Trying again.
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10... [nrel.gov]
According to your government there is a little over 1000GW of capacity in shallow (less than 30m) waters around the United States. It says that 60% may be unusable for various reasons. Assume a capacity factor of 50%, a reasonable estimate based on experience in Europe.
So you have around 1,700TWh/year available. Annual consumption of the entire United States is about 4,200TWh/year, so just the shallow waters can cover
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I don't get the bias against nuclear energy. We have come 40 years since 3 Mile Island. If funding is thrown at it, we could have thorium reactors with short-lived radioactive by-products as our base energy sources. There is a place for nuclear energy with regards to zero emissions and getting rid of fossil fuels. It is definitely something to keep researching and designing until nuclear fusion is working.
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What it basically means is that if you can cut down any trees you want
Turns out that much of the land area of the Earth is not covered with forest. Who knew?
and place windmills and solar wherever you need
I'm not even sure what your point is. You seem to be agreeing with the article that if land use use is limited, nuclear makes sense.
and don't care about the environmental impact and maintenance of their installation,
Solvable problems. Turns out that, despite a massive campaign by fossil fuel companies to say solar energy is enviornmentally irresponsible... turns out it's not.
then nuclear doesn't make economic sense. And that is true, if you as a homeowner or farmer have space to put solar panels or windmills, then putting up your own nuclear generator doesn't make sense.
What? Now you're off in fantasy land. In general, homeowners are not going to put up hundred megawatt wind turbines, sorry, no. We'
Lower cost increases consumption (Score:4, Interesting)
What will be the unintended consequences of using more electricity?
If electricity prices fall then consumption will go up. Today people buy energy star appliances and take other meager steps to limit electricity use as a means to control utility costs. If electricity is so cheap, then self-control will be reduced.
On Slashdot, we often note that as computing power has gone up the efficiency of code has gone down. When CPU cycles were expensive, precious, every bit of code was scoured and refined to be efficient. Now that there are frequently spare Ghz lying around unused, the need to refine code to superb efficiency is an after thought.
Re: Lower cost increases consumption (Score:3)
Right now, cost is too high. It limits people. So if anything, it would lead to people being more relaxed and not having to use less than they normally would.
As in: People would be happy to pay less, while getting the same amount of electricity. And not so interested in going back to paying too much, to be wasteful.
So it's more a going from -1 to 0, than a going from 0 to +1.
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Today people buy energy star appliances and take other meager steps to limit electricity use as a means to control utility costs. If electricity is so cheap, then self-control will be reduced.
I imagine there's somebody out there who's clever enough to tax it appropriately and avoid that.
(...to make up for the lost revenue in gasoline taxes, or is gasoline subsidized? I can never remember.)
Re:Lower cost increases consumption (Score:5, Insightful)
What will be the unintended consequences of using more electricity?
If electricity prices fall then consumption will go up.
Which is not an issue if it's renewable.
Re:Lower cost increases consumption (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is not an issue if it's renewable.
In fact, not only is it not an issue, it's good to use more (within reason), because energy is what allows us to make our lives easier.
E.g. I get by without air conditioning at home, but if energy was cheaper and renewable, I'd sure as hell use it to make my apartment a bit more pleasant during the 2-3 months it's really hot here. A bigger, more powerful car would be much nicer on the highway, etc. Currently we try to minimize this due to costs and environmental impact, but if everything would be renewable, there'd be no issue. It's better for the consumer and for the economy as well.
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The good is in doing more of those things without using more energy.
Re:Lower cost increases consumption (Score:5, Insightful)
You're moving the goalposts. The statement was that it's fine if we use more power because it's cheaper if it is renewable.
It is not a problem for the planet if people use more power, if it is renewable.
The statement was perfectly fine as it is.
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Well, I have to disagree.
Do you? You should have that looked at.
If power consumption goes up, and power generation is not unlimited (which it never is), the amount of power plants must increase.
Power plants are not fungible commodities. They differ dramatically.
The only thing that's really true is that if consumption goes up, there must be sufficient and timely production to cover consumption. That's not the same as your statement.
If you are only going to change the car in order to become emission-free, it is probably better to wait for the end of life of the old car, if you include manufacturing emissions in the equation.
Well, we're not going to only change the car. If you get near a point, make it.
Re: Lower cost increases consumption (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Lower cost increases consumption (Score:4, Interesting)
i dont buy energy star appliances because they save me money. In all honesty the difference in cost of a hot water heater at varying levels of electrical cost is pretty damn negligible. People spend significantly more on a daily basis getting their Starbucks fix. I buy energy star appliances because the engineer in me is obsessed with efficiencies. Those efficiencies translate into more than lower costs. Some money-saving ideas suck though. I built my house in 2002, and some of the water saving designs of its era are just horrible. I hate low-flow toilets. They are the only toilets I have ever dealt with that require regular plunging. They get backed up from things that just never back up other toilets. Im not talking things that you shouldnt flush. Im talking about the body stuff that is meant to be flushed. It doesn't save any water at all. In fact I would say it takes more water to make these damn things flush than a pre-2000 toilet that was not low-flow. The only time they reduce water is when they flush just pee and there are plenty of after-market 2-setting flush valves that let you differentiate between a #1 and a #2 for flushing. For things like appliances like AC units, hot water heaters, stoves, etc. Those efficiencies manifest other benefits as well such as hot water lasting longer, quieter homes due to the AC unit having to run less, and so forth. Although its not touted as energy efficient, i will never buy a Charbroil grill over a Weber after having owned a Weber genesis for several years. That heavy duty hood keeps in more heat resulting in less propane, but more importantly, higher cooking temps, food that is not dried out, and better tasting food as a result of those two benefits.
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can you even find a full flow toilet these days? Commercial toilets require more water pressure and are not gravity fed, so that rules those out as the water pressure for residents is rather lacking where I live. I'd be happy with a full-flow gravity tank toilet and those 2-stage flush valves where you go halfway for a #1 and full flush for a solid waste flush.
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What is full flow, anyway?
When I started designing plumbing systems (1980) there were still Water Closets in use that used 4 or 5 gallons per flush. The WCs using 3 to 3.5 gallons per flush were "water-saving". Then they came out with the 1.6 gallons per flush, which is the maximum water usage mandated today, at least in the USA. They were pretty crappy at first (no pun intended) but are good at flushing wastes out now. We now regularly spec out Water C
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so everything i read says Gen-1 low flow toilets were very problematic. And my house being built in 2002 puts itself in that era of toilet. My first thought was to just replace the toilet. Ive re-done the floor in one of the bathrooms so removing an installing a toilet is not a big deal for me. However, when browsing through lowes and home depot, it seemed regardless how expensive a toilet was or wasnt, there were always complaints of it doing a poor job. Its not something I want to trial and error on. If y
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What's a simple, low-maintenance/high-reliability system for dealing with grey water reclamation? Kitchen sinks and bathroom drains will pump out a lot of soap scum, hair and food waste.
My gut says you might get away with a silt tank -- flow into the bottom which allows particulates to settle out, but you're still going to need a filtration stage to prevent the grey water supply from producing sludge build up in toilets, in addition to dealing with the settled sludge. The latter seems relatively easy, a
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my thought went to the biologic life that grows in water tanks. Grey water from showers, aside from soap, would also contain dead skin cells which would be food for airborne bacteria to start colonies in the cistern. The potable (drinking/fresh) water we made onboard ships was combined with morpholine to prevent that, and most of the nuts and bolts for those tanks used a copper-nickel alloy to prevent rusting.
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I think any household grey water reclamation is going to wind up being about as complicated as a marine water maker system. You'll need to dose the shit out of it to keep pathogens at bay and filter it extensively for particulates and other first-use byproducts (soap, etc).
It sounds good, but I think really we're better off doing this at some industrial scale with dedicated solar or wind energy and pumping the output back into the source water system. Really, this is just an additional cleansing stage to
Re: Lower cost increases consumption (Score:2)
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It's been done on large projects where water is scarce, but it's expensive. If you get any decent amount of rain, you'd be better off storing it and pumping rainwater for non-potable use like flushing toilets, rather than using grey-water.
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If you possibly can, install a rock layer in your grill, between the flavorizers (or instead of them) and the grate. I put mine in because I hate dealing with grease (it gets trapped in the rock and burns off instead of running out), but the side benefits are even better. The rocks, being closer to the burners, get super hot and then give that heat back over time. You get superior searing and more e
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great tip (no pun intended)... I've been using Grill Grates lately which creates a radiant heat and cuts down on convection. With steak I still do the direct/indirect combination using the sear station, but with chicken I can take those mutant sized chicken breasts that weigh in at 1.5lb each and put them on the grill grates on low, 12min each side, and have super tender chicken. Normally chicken comes out pretty dry on the grill due to the convection. These breast are fully cooked to 170F and are so juicy
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Any time I grill chicken, I'm making sticky BBQ chicken. My girlfriend's grandpa used to make it for her, and she loves it that I've been able to duplicate the experience for her. Coat one side with a slurry of BBQ sauce and honey. You want WAY more honey in the mix than you'd find in store-bought "honey BBQ" sauce. Place that side down on the grill, then coat the other side. Every 90 seconds or so, flip and then coat the top. Keep going until the edges and ends are blackened and crusty and the thermo
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The consequences are our lives get better.
Computing performance has gone up, but power consumption has come down. The incredibly powerful phone in your pocket sips energy compared to PDAs and especially desktops in the 90s. Just because energy gets cheaper doesn't mean you are going to switch back to using a CRT or a Pentium 4.
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On Slashdot, we often note that as computing power has gone up the efficiency of code has gone down. When CPU cycles were expensive, precious, every bit of code was scoured and refined to be efficient. Now that there are frequently spare Ghz lying around unused, the need to refine code to superb efficiency is an after thought.
You're talking about "other people" but are you prepared to pay 1000 times the cost for software that has 1% of the functionality?
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That is skipping to an assumed conclusion without any evidence. The real national average retail cost of electricity has been stable since the mid 1960s, 55 years, and per capita use peaked around 1980 and has since declined, and part of that decline has been since 2010. As technology improves and becomes more energy efficient the intensity of use declines. And technology is not going backwards.
But in the future electricity use per capita will increase not because we will say "let's just waste it, why the h
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With the use of heat pumps (which will become very common) electricity consumed for heating is only 25-30% of the heat output
I've been pretty happy with ours. Wintertime is SO much cheaper with it than using resistive heating.
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Deregulation (Score:2)
In areas with a deregulated electricity market, customers don't need the incumbent utility to pass on the reduction; the distribution of electricity is distinct from the generation of electricity. Customers can choose a variable rate or lock-in a longer term rate from players in a competitive market.
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Germany is way ahead of the USA in renewable energy consumption. Look how cheap electricity is there, compared to America.
Heaven forfend that people should have better and more comfortable lives because of cheap renewable energy! We must lead narrow, pinched, controlled lives, merely for the sake of doing so! Back to the caves, I say!
Probably not (Score:2)
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What will be the unintended consequences of using more electricity?
If electricity prices fall then consumption will go up. Today people buy energy star appliances and take other meager steps to limit electricity use as a means to control utility costs. If electricity is so cheap, then self-control will be reduced.
Well, the price isn't going to plummet until demand stabilizes. It will go down a bit, consumption will rise, and that will slow the price drop.
But what will they be rolling, instead of coal? (Score:2)
Lightning?
Re:But what will they be rolling, instead of coal? (Score:5, Funny)
Fuck yeah.
Pickup truck with a huge Tesla coil on it. Ride the lighting, bitches!
As a bonus, it'll be louder than the loudest open header exhaust you could ever get short of a top fuel dragster.
Rednecks would love it, assuming they're not convinced it's literally witchcraft.
=Smidge=
Optimism (Score:4, Insightful)
The scenarios with additional constraints produce some odd results as well. The only scenario in which nuclear power makes economic sense is the one in which land use is limited.
Did they also consider the situation where certain people maintain their pollution-spewing mechanisms even though it is financially sub-optimal purely because "muh freedoms" and "muh liberty"? Normally intentional regression wouldn't be a factor but we already see certain people that destroy anything environmentally friendly simply because it is emotionally associated with democrats and "leftists".
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Did they also consider the situation where certain people maintain their pollution-spewing mechanisms even though it is financially sub-optimal purely because "muh freedoms" and "muh liberty"? Normally intentional regression wouldn't be a factor but we already see certain people that destroy anything environmentally friendly simply because it is emotionally associated with democrats and "leftists".
Yep. This will be the biggest impediment in the USA.
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Right, and I have bridge to sell you.
The reality is there is highly visible group but pretty tiny group that uses these things as status symbols. They rest may even like "pickup truck culture" but they'll buy an truck if it looks nice and otherwise meets their needs.
Give most of Americans a pickup truck that is priced like an F150, can tow, carry loads, has enough range to compete with a tank of gasoline doing the same work load, and has the same or lower maintenance costs per 300k miles - and I assure you
"transformation will be a total of $145 billion (Score:2)
The irony being, it would *always* be cheaper... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you are a sceptic or downright denier that mankind is tipping the natural climate change balance through co2 emissions, even if renewables were 10x more expensive than they currently are ... it would be cheaper.
Keeping the status quo is quite simply pushing the problem further down the line, with ultimately catastrophic impacts and an associated cost that will be off the charts.
Really hoping that the USA pulls this out of the bag in a MASSIVE way, that it generates MORE jobs than lost to the fossil fuel sector and that the USA can be seen as a shining light, after this period of darkness.
Make it happen!
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The problem is for that to to work (Score:2)
As for a large scale government response (what the kiddies call "The Green New Deal") that's probably not going to happen. We've been told for years that when the government doe
Cost Calculations (Score:2)
Mathematician 4
Engineer 4.000000
Accountant answers. What would you like it to be?
I find all these forward calculations are like that miss a variable here or there add more importance to another and you get whatever figure you like to spin the story that lay people believe perfectly.
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A mathematician might check which field those numbers are in first.
After all the answer might be 1.
Nuclear is cheap (Score:3, Informative)
A zero emissions country involving nuclear has always been cheap. It is especially cheap for the consumer
The ars technica article and the linked paper are pro gas. The article fails to provide a viable solution to intermittency. They also rely heavily on biomass for the 100% solutions. Even they admit a zero carbon society will be expensive making the headline bullshit.
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" In this analysis, reliable capacity came mostly from thermal generation using gas without carbon capture "
So there solution does involve natural gas. In fact they are arguing that we do not even need carbon capture on natural gas.
In other words they do not have a zero-emissions solution to intermittency.
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It's not even close to as cheap as renewables. Renweables are now not only cheaper to build, but also cheaper to operate and cheaper to maintain. Nuclear's insane cost of construction has always been due to insanely pointless regulatory overhead, but nuclear's cost of operation and maintenance has not, and then there's the Abex cost that is completely ignored in the lifecycle.
I'd love more nuclear, but it's not going to happen, the full lifecycle cost of it is insane.
Re:Nuclear is cheap (Score:4, Insightful)
I think they wished in Japan that they had more "pointless" regulatory overhead prior to Fukushima.
It's not safe if you let the plant owner decide what's safe.
Re:Nuclear is cheap (Score:5, Insightful)
Regulatory overhead wouldn't have fixed the problems which occurred Japan. There was enough actual engineering pointing to it being safe from the event that ultimately caused problems. Putting in more people that would green light something doesn't fix the issue.
Here's a hint: regulators and the entire safety lifecycle isolates specific hazards. They deal with them in isolation and rarely if ever consider double jeopardy events. The standards are set such that any single event is mitigated. And each in isolation was deemed perfectly fine even in Japan's case.
We come at this with the benefit of hindsight, but if you start compounding the what-if scenarios to include the word "and" you'll never again build anything, be it nuclear or otherwise. Additional regulation wouldn't have made the seawall any higher, it would just have added additional signatures to the piece of paper. Additional regulation wouldn't have considered that emergency pumps would be under water (why would they be, there's a sea wall), it would just have added additional signatures to the piece of paper.
Regulation doesn't work when the underlying engineering assumptions are inaccurate. More regulation doesn't fix this deficiency, better engineering and better understanding does.
As a sidenote: overregulation in the nuclear industry has actually fueled these incidents. Thanks to the insane cost of construction and the delays regulation has brought reactors are being operated way longer than originally intended. Unit 2 and 3, both ancient Mark 1 designs were both due to be replaced by Unit 7, a Gen 3 design which wouldn't have suffered from the issue which caused the explosion at Unit 2 and 3. I wonder if reduced pointless regulation wouldn't have accelerated the much needed move away from these ancient out of date franken reactors we are keeping alive long past their use by date.
Only $145 billion? (Score:2)
Clearly, they aren't taking into account the graft, lobbying fees, regulatory compliance fees (basically the same thing), and all the other bullsh*t costs. Multiply that by 10 or 20 and you might be in the ball park. Then, of course, there will be the time to implement which will always be 5 to 10 years away. Meanwhile, everything gets more expensive because regulation costs nothing to create and a crapton to comply with.
In the long run? Maybe. (Score:3)
The primary problem is getting over the initial financial "kick in the chest".
And the question of recycling at EOL is still an issue.
Not to mention that the carbon footprint to mine, process, build, and all the intermediate transportation is a seriously non-zero sum.
Not to mention the non-carbon environmental impacts of these various technologies and their implementation.
It's really easy to pretend there are no downsides and problems with solar/wind/etc.
Additionally, we STILL have the problem of it not being a global solution.
As has been said, we could bring the country to zero emissions TOMORROW, and it wouldn't make a difference. China and India would just continue producing.
And before someone jumps on with the stupid "per capita" numbers, WE ALL LIVE ON THE DAMN PLANET TOGETHER. And you CANNOT section off the atmosphere. So their overall production numbers are a problem for the whole planet.
And all of this ignores the fact that local, regional and national grids need to be almost completely rebuilt to accommodate this type of generation scheme.
And we'll be freezing in the dark. (Score:2)
https://transmission.bpa.gov/b... [bpa.gov]
When the wind is blowing there can be 3 GW on that graph.
No wind and no sun for a week in winter. And you were going to charge the batteries how? We have the dams for backup. What about places that don't? More transmission lines? Prepare for a fight with the environmentalists.
I have a solar panel on a remote tank level indicator. On a sunny day it puts out an amp. Light over cast it's half that. Typical overcast PNW day it's about 110 ma. Heavy over cast, 60 ma. And you ge
What is missed is national security (Score:2)
However, we NEED other energy such as geothermal and nuclear for national security reasons. It nothing else, look at how venezuela did for last several years with unexpected drought hitting their major source of electricity: hydro.
In addition, it is only with adding new 4th gen nuclear reactor s that we can solve the nuclear waste issue. We need to complete the nuclear cycle so that w
Possible??? (Score:2)
Does someone have a pointer to some good studies that prove the total output of say a solar panel, or a wind generator in it's lifetime is greater then the total amount of power needed to create , install and maintain the same device. (including batteries and the other related infrastructure if possible).
I'd like to have it on hand for reference.
Re:Possible??? (Score:4, Informative)
Bunch of links to various sources here, with links to primary studies under those:
https://cleantechnica.com/2018... [cleantechnica.com]
land use IS limited (Score:2)
But land use IS limited. Hydro is an eco-disaster. Solar needs to be in places with good sunlight. Geothermal only works around fault lines et al.
Re: Do the scenarios fully account for aircraft us (Score:2)
Maybe you should stop spraying poison on food then, how about that??
Farms don't need dusting unless you are too stupid or too greedy for natural solutions that don't invole spraying that shit on our food. PROTIP: Plants grew just fine before humanity arrived to destroy and poison and irradiate and ruin literally all the things. They also tasted much MUCH better than your bags of mostly watee.
It's already banned or unused in Europe and I don't see them starving or importing their food.
Re: (Score:3)
Farms don't need dusting unless you are too stupid or too greedy for natural solutions that don't invole spraying that shit on our food. PROTIP: Plants grew just fine before humanity arrived to destroy and poison and irradiate and ruin literally all the things. They also tasted much MUCH better than your bags of mostly watee.
Could you sustain Earth's population of 10b with plants growing "fine before humanity arrived"?
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They also tasted much MUCH better than your bags of mostly watee.
I find that heritage vegetables lack the sweet gamey tang which I so crave.
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Go try crop-dusting a field which has a windmill every few 100m. I dare you.
The scenario is total bollocks because it assumes that you can stick windmills on farmland.
Gee, I wonder how crop dusters ever deal with things like trees.
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Wind turbines are absolutely enormous compared to most common trees so you'd have to fly much higher and wider around them. I'm sure by the time we get to this problem you'll just use drones instead.
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Sure, but they're both just "obstacles". The avoidance techniques are the same.
One of them will cost you a lot of money if you hit it so the incentive to avoid it is higher.
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I'm still not sure why you think they'd be forced to do that.
(put turbines in the middle of their fields)
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The study explicitly says that nuclear only makes sense when land use is limited, which implies that wind turbines would not be limited to places like "far enough from crop fields to be convenient for farmers". Giant spinning blades make crop-dusting flights much harder to do safely, whether they are inside or around fields.
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You do know that there are crop-dusting drones right now, right?
Re:Do the scenarios fully account for aircraft use (Score:5, Insightful)
Crop dusting by manned aircraft is declining as it is imprecise (banned for pesticides in many areas) and not necessarily cheaper than ground application methods. Drone application is rapidly replacing manned aircraft and GPS guided drones can fly around any obstacle.
This is really scraping the bottom of the barrel to try to gin up problems. And act of Luddite desperation.
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But how will we defeat the aliens without highly trained alcoholic yokel crop duster pilots?
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WTF you guys still dust crops? What do you harvest with a scythe as well? Come join us farming like a modern civilisation, and drag Australia with you.