The military coup in Niger has raised concerns about uranium mining in the country by the French group Orano, and the consequences for France's energy independence.
Although that is now dependent on a 20GWh lithium battery, which somewhat stretches credulity. Not to mention the usual questions around appropriation of land and water etc.
@MattMastodon@BrianSmith950@Ardubal@Pampa@AlexisFR@Wirrvogel@Sodis Maybe. It depends where the cars are plugged in at the time. The charging infrastructure to use them all at once would be pretty serious/expensive, especially if it has to support fast charging in e.g. a (potentially systemic) personal emergency as well as efficient slow charging with V2G.
And the transition to EVs is going to stall pretty soon, because a large proportion of people people do not have driveways or garages, and public chargers are expensive and slow.
Also, I’m hoping the peak number of EVs will be somewhat less than the current total number of cars - we get to sustainability faster with fewer cars.
V2G is interesting though, I agree we should make use of that resource.
Sorry to interrupt, but nothing about this is »trivial«.
Also, you must compare the complete system. Let’s summarize just two options:
- Nuclear power plants, and the grid as is.
- Wind turbines, solar panels, plus a multiple of the current grid, plus hypothetical storage tech none of which has passed the pilot stage yet.
What is your bet? How do you think decarbonization has /already/ been achieved?
@Ardubal@MattMastodon@BrianSmith950@Pampa@AlexisFR@Wirrvogel@Sodis Short term storage already exists. So does wind, solar, at considerable (though inadequate) scale, and cheap (bottlenecked mainly by grid connection). Dynamic demand exists to some degree and so do interconnectors.
Lithium batteries exist at reasonable scale in other countries, notably 2.5GW on California’s grid. There are active trials of V2G but IMHO reasons to doubt how big a contribution it will be. Reusing EV batteries as grid storage exists at a small scale.
Nuclear power plants take forever to build, in recent experience in the UK. Even National Grid doesn’t believe the government’s promised 24GW of nuclear will be done for 2050.
There are uncertainties whichever way you go. So we need several strategies. However, it’s worth pursuing iron-air batteries and possibly hydrogen as well as nuclear. But arguably they are only needed for the last few percent anyway. And I will *not* accept any attempt to slow down installation of renewables in favour of nuclear.
Decarbonisation, in terms of electricity in the UK, has been achieved through both nuclear and renewables. Fossil fuels are down to 40% of total units generated.
Figures for the last year in the UK:
Source GW Percent
Coal 0.32 1.1
Gas 11.30 38.3
Solar 1.38 4.7
Wind 8.82 29.9
Hydroelectric 0.34 1.2
Nuclear 4.44 15.0
Biomass 1.49 5.0
Unfortunately nuclear plants are closing rather rapidly, and it will be some time before replacements are online.
PS IIRC there are plausible sources saying that you only need renewables equal to ~3x plus short term storage. Both aspects of this are technically feasible and proven today. But obviously it means more rare earths etc. More nuclear, or more long term storage, or more interconnectors etc, reduce the cost.
@Ardubal@MattMastodon@BrianSmith950@Pampa@AlexisFR@Wirrvogel@Sodis So no, nuclear is not the only proven option by a long way. Nor is it a feasible option on its own IMHO. And new designs increase risk and time. Building multiple reactors to the same design saves time and money, of course.
Nuclear is an option. It probably isn’t enough on its own any more than any of the other options are. There is absolutely no reason to stop building renewables, and slowly scaling up various storage options, today.
@Ardubal@MattMastodon@BrianSmith950@Pampa@AlexisFR@Wirrvogel@Sodis Also on the timescale: Labour have officially said they would reach 100% clean electricity by 2030, starting in 2025. That’s generally seen as challenging, but it may well be possible (albeit at a high cost in lithium and rare earths). There’s no way it can be done with nuclear. In any case we need to move fast; most of the rest of the transition depends on clean electricity. My main objection to nuclear is simply that it will take another 20 years to get maybe 3 more reactors if we’re very lucky.
I’m not saying 100% nuclear would be best, but I /know/ that 100% volatiles + storage + transmission are practically impossible.
Up to around 40% volatiles can be compensated by a large grid. The rest can, with current or near-future technology, be nuclear and/or hydro. With middle-future technology, this /might/ be gradually replaced by more volatiles+storage+transmission.
This is just the fact: there are, at the current state, only two energy sources that can form the backbone of a decarbonized grid, and they have proved it, hydro and nuclear.
Hydro is not available everywhere, however, as it has really large area demand, and geological requirements.
And I repeat: nuclear /is/ very capable of load following.
And I repeat: batteries at the needed scalability don’t exist (yet?).
@MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Ardubal @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Yup, lots of interconnectors being built/planned in theory, but they seem to take ages. We need more in any case.
@MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Ardubal @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Africa too - see the Xlinks project: 10GW Saharan solar + battery + 3.6GW interconnector -> UK baseload equivalent to a nuclear power station.
Although that is now dependent on a 20GWh lithium battery, which somewhat stretches credulity. Not to mention the usual questions around appropriation of land and water etc.
https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/
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@MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Ardubal @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Maybe. It depends where the cars are plugged in at the time. The charging infrastructure to use them all at once would be pretty serious/expensive, especially if it has to support fast charging in e.g. a (potentially systemic) personal emergency as well as efficient slow charging with V2G.
And the transition to EVs is going to stall pretty soon, because a large proportion of people people do not have driveways or garages, and public chargers are expensive and slow.
Also, I’m hoping the peak number of EVs will be somewhat less than the current total number of cars - we get to sustainability faster with fewer cars.
V2G is interesting though, I agree we should make use of that resource.
@MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Ardubal @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis IMHO reusing ex-EV batteries as grid storage may be more important in the medium term though.
@MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Ardubal @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Also, smart tariffs for EV charging (dependent on when there is most renewable energy) already exist, at least two companies doing them. That’s not V2G though.
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@MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Ardubal @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis What would the cost be of fast bidirectional charging points for all those cars though? Both at office and at home? Do you need them to be fast charging, or is V2G at 7.5kW realistic/useful?
You’d be lucky to get 30%. IMHO the resource is somewhat limited depending on how much you put into charging infrastructure.
@MattMastodon @matthewtoad43 @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis
Sorry to interrupt, but nothing about this is »trivial«.
Also, you must compare the complete system. Let’s summarize just two options:
- Nuclear power plants, and the grid as is.
- Wind turbines, solar panels, plus a multiple of the current grid, plus hypothetical storage tech none of which has passed the pilot stage yet.
What is your bet? How do you think decarbonization has /already/ been achieved?
@Ardubal @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Short term storage already exists. So does wind, solar, at considerable (though inadequate) scale, and cheap (bottlenecked mainly by grid connection). Dynamic demand exists to some degree and so do interconnectors.
Lithium batteries exist at reasonable scale in other countries, notably 2.5GW on California’s grid. There are active trials of V2G but IMHO reasons to doubt how big a contribution it will be. Reusing EV batteries as grid storage exists at a small scale.
Nuclear power plants take forever to build, in recent experience in the UK. Even National Grid doesn’t believe the government’s promised 24GW of nuclear will be done for 2050.
There are uncertainties whichever way you go. So we need several strategies. However, it’s worth pursuing iron-air batteries and possibly hydrogen as well as nuclear. But arguably they are only needed for the last few percent anyway. And I will *not* accept any attempt to slow down installation of renewables in favour of nuclear.
Decarbonisation, in terms of electricity in the UK, has been achieved through both nuclear and renewables. Fossil fuels are down to 40% of total units generated.
Figures for the last year in the UK:
Source GW Percent
Coal 0.32 1.1
Gas 11.30 38.3
Solar 1.38 4.7
Wind 8.82 29.9
Hydroelectric 0.34 1.2
Nuclear 4.44 15.0
Biomass 1.49 5.0
Unfortunately nuclear plants are closing rather rapidly, and it will be some time before replacements are online.
PS IIRC there are plausible sources saying that you only need renewables equal to ~3x plus short term storage. Both aspects of this are technically feasible and proven today. But obviously it means more rare earths etc. More nuclear, or more long term storage, or more interconnectors etc, reduce the cost.
@Ardubal @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis So no, nuclear is not the only proven option by a long way. Nor is it a feasible option on its own IMHO. And new designs increase risk and time. Building multiple reactors to the same design saves time and money, of course.
Nuclear is an option. It probably isn’t enough on its own any more than any of the other options are. There is absolutely no reason to stop building renewables, and slowly scaling up various storage options, today.
@Ardubal @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Also on the timescale: Labour have officially said they would reach 100% clean electricity by 2030, starting in 2025. That’s generally seen as challenging, but it may well be possible (albeit at a high cost in lithium and rare earths). There’s no way it can be done with nuclear. In any case we need to move fast; most of the rest of the transition depends on clean electricity. My main objection to nuclear is simply that it will take another 20 years to get maybe 3 more reactors if we’re very lucky.
@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis
I’m not saying 100% nuclear would be best, but I /know/ that 100% volatiles + storage + transmission are practically impossible.
Up to around 40% volatiles can be compensated by a large grid. The rest can, with current or near-future technology, be nuclear and/or hydro. With middle-future technology, this /might/ be gradually replaced by more volatiles+storage+transmission.
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@MattMastodon @matthewtoad43 @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis
This is just the fact: there are, at the current state, only two energy sources that can form the backbone of a decarbonized grid, and they have proved it, hydro and nuclear.
Hydro is not available everywhere, however, as it has really large area demand, and geological requirements.
And I repeat: nuclear /is/ very capable of load following.
And I repeat: batteries at the needed scalability don’t exist (yet?).