guyrocket,
guyrocket avatar

Price of onshore wind is about as low as solar.

I'd like to add wind to my solar eventually. Multi-modal makes a lot of sense to me. Pretty sure my solar installers don't do that and I have no idea who does do that...if anyone. I'll investigate someday.

deegeese,

There is no home wind power industry because unlike solar, wind power is only cheap when you go big.

TowardsTheFuture,

To be fair home solar is also not $89 for a Mwh. Least not here.

PeleSpirit,
deegeese,

Very cool, but not cheap.

agitatedpotato,

Oh man, If I was inclined to dox myself online I’d have a guy for you. A local construction company here has a green energy side company and they do both public and private installations of wind and solar, from large owners of open land, to farmers, to even residential. Hopefully theres something near you like that.

guyrocket,
guyrocket avatar

Unfortunate that DMs don't work very well here in the fediverse.

deegeese,

Pretty clearly shows why there’s no future for nuclear power.

Even for filling gaps in renewables, peaker plants are getting cheaper and don’t take 15 years to build.

Vendetta9076,
@Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works avatar

This is always a weird take to me because it always ignores the fact that nuclear has been screwed continuously for decades. If any other tecbology, renewable energy or not, had the same public and private blockers did it would also have no future.

deegeese,

Nuclear has been screwed by its own track record.

Why do you think its had such a wide coalition of public and private opponents?

Vendetta9076,
@Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works avatar

Well that’s simply false. Its been screwed by ignorancez propaganda and fear mongering.

deegeese,

You clearly don’t understand the other side.

Vendetta9076,
@Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works avatar

Sure buddy. And you clearly do.

deegeese,

Actually I do. I was a nuclear booster in the 1990’s because it means cheap limitless pollution free power.

Except that they don’t actually deliver on that promise. You can have safe nuclear or cheap nuclear, but if it’s safe it’s not cheap, and the public rightfully won’t accept something that can require evacuating hundreds of square miles for decades.

So wise one, where are those cheap safe nuclear power plants we keep hearing about since 1950?

moomoomoo309,
@moomoomoo309@programming.dev avatar

In France. They standardized the designs so each one isn’t a one-off and they trained more people to work in the field.

deegeese,

Those are not at all cheap and are subsidized by enrichment for weapons purposes.

France is trying to extend their service lifetime beyond what they were designed for because they can’t face the bill to replace them with newer reactors.

grue,

and are subsidized by enrichment for weapons purposes in order to reprocess the waste into new fuel

FTFY. That’s a good thing and we should be doing it here in the US, too.

moomoomoo309,
@moomoomoo309@programming.dev avatar

Uhh, I was referring to the new ones France has been building, not the old ones…

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

Those are not at all cheap and are subsidized by enrichment for weapons purposes.

they aren't, and the whole anti nuclear power movement is just people who don't understand science not being able to tell the difference between a bomb and a power plant. I mean science education wasn't that great in midcentury america but today we can easily know better

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

indeed. just order like 100 SMRs and all the problems go away. problem is the psychos would rather build gas plants and fund dictators

Vendetta9076,
@Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works avatar

So the user above me actually gave the the answer so kudos to them but to further answer your question, there are no actually cheap reactors because the fight to actually build one is so insanely expensive. Where I live they’d been trying to build a reactor for over a decade. Constant lawsuits and legal battles after already obtaining permits and everything. Its ballooned the cost by tenfold. Why? Because of constant NGO pressure from the likes of greenpeace. So congrats, you win. They aren’t cheap cause of the hell we’ve made for ourselves.

deegeese,

You’re blaming everyone else for nuclear’s failures.

Why are even French nuclear plants badly over budget and late? Answer: Nuclear is expensive as fuck.

Vendetta9076,
@Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works avatar

Are you unable to read or are you just ignoring what I’m saying on purpose. I told you why they’re badly over budget and late. This clearly is a dead conversation as you lack either a) reading comprehension or b) the ability to discuss in good faith.

grue,

Frankly, bad-faith arguments (and lawsuits) are basically the entire problem with nuclear.

Vendetta9076,
@Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works avatar

Ain’t that the truth

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

that is a big problem anti-nukes have, don't they?

Vendetta9076,
@Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works avatar

I think its a problem that a lot of people have when they argue. Pretty sad honestly.

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

of course I'm blaming the real problem: relentless attack by the fossil fuel industry

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

high speed rail and subways have the same problem. it's not inherently expensive, rich people sue and sue until it's too expensive

Vendetta9076,
@Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works avatar

NIMBY’s are a cancer

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

the other side is big oil

deegeese,

LOL. It’s “big solar” that’s eating their lunch.

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

yeah but I want the power to work between 4 pm and 8 am

deegeese,

Batteries.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yeah, that doesn’t scale well at all. Batteries are expensive, dangerous (so lots of safety measures at scale), and consumable, which is why very few places actually try to store energy at any kind of scale.

Until we have a good, cheap way to store energy, solar will be a supplemental power source to help with peak demand in the daytime. So we’ll need something that’s reliable and inexpensive to provide power the rest of the time. For many areas, that’s coal or gas, but it could be nuclear. If people just accepted that nuclear is safe and effective, costs would come down.

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

the most dangerous part of nuclear power is not using enough nuclear power

sugar_in_your_tea,

Agreed. If people truly understood just how safe it is, we could make it so much cheaper.

I’m stoked about mini reactors, which should make remote factories and whatnot far more reasonable.

dinckelman,

“I’ve ignored and circumvented every known safety measure, and everything went wrong” - Whoever the fuck said that, 2023

deegeese,

Making up straw men to defeat?

dinckelman,

We have extensively documented history supporting exactly what you’re trying to argue against

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

if you cite chernobyl that's exactly what you're saying. it'll never happen again because no one's that dumb

deegeese,

Fukushima happened in “smart” Japan because it was cheaper to put the backup generators in the basement than to build a concrete podium taller than the tsunamis that previously hit the site.

Capitalism will always choose cost over safety. Even then nuclear ends up going way over budget.

irmoz,

Then we shouldn’t leave energy security and the climate in the hands of capital. Energy should be nationalised.

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

indeed. also chernobyl and fukushima aren't comparable, really. I'd support a law that all new power reactors need to have passive cooling relying on the laws of physics, not relying on external power, but that's not a high bar and many designs already have it. remember that most currently operating reactors were built all at once in the mid 20th century and even then their safety record has been great. we can do better with new construction

lemann,

Has there been a scenario where the technology itself is to blame? The contamination aspect of nuclear waste is well known and preventable, if costs are being cut on radioactive waste disposal (or in the case of a certain Japanese power company, ignoring warnings from the government on how to reduce ocean contamination in the event of an earthquake) a nuclear installation’s fate is sealed…

As far as I can see, the only downsides with nuclear IMO is that it takes multiple decades to decommission a single plant, the environmental impact on that plant’s land in the interim, and the initial cost to build the plant.

In comparison to Solar it sounds awful, but before solar, nuclear honestly would have made a lot of sense. I think it may even still be worth it in places that have a high demand for constant power generation, since Solar only generates while the sun’s about, and then you’re looking at overnight energy storage with lithium-based batteries, which have their own environmental and humanitarian challenges

Welt,

Uranium powered fission technology, not all nuclear. Look into Thorium

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

yeah you can do throium, and there are some compelling reasons to, but uranium is fine enough. anti-nuke isn't about actual technical enlargements. the anti nukes hate nuclear fusion too

MrEff,

world-nuclear.org/…/plans-for-new-reactors-worldw…

“Today there are about 440 nuclear power reactors operating in 32 countries plus Taiwan, with a combined capacity of about 390 GWe. In 2022 these provided 2545 TWh, about 10% of the world’s electricity.”

world-nuclear.org/…/safety-of-nuclear-power-react…

There have been two major reactor accidents in the history of civil nuclear power – Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi. Chernobyl involved an intense fire without provision for containment, and Fukushima Daiichi severely tested the containment, allowing some release of radioactivity.

Yes- a track record of one plant failing due to Soviet incompetence and political blunders; and the second failing due to checks notes a 9.0 magnitude almost direct earthquake and ensuing 133 ft tsunami.

Xavienth,

Worth noting that the Fukushima disaster would have been prevented if they heeded warnings in a 2008 report that said their sea walls were too short, so again incompetence.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

That’s the problem with nuclear: Even the smartest best engineers are still human and make mistakes.

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

the earthquake didn't even damage the plant, they thought of that. the tsunami knocked out the power lines and bad generator placement led to loss of power for cooling. build reactors to passively cool themselves (which should just be a mandatory safety feature on new reactors tbh, it's not a big ask and improves safety a lot) and fukushima type accidents become impossible. that plant was so old that the original operating license was going to expire a week after the quake and the only guy who died had a heart attack. fukushima-sized death tolls happen in the rooftop solar installation industry every year, totally unreported.

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

you mean the part where it generated a shit ton of carbon free reliable power while killing fewer people per watt-hour what any other method? with outdated 60's technology too? yeah sure sounds like a failure

xeekei,

This.

grue,

it always ignores the fact that nuclear has been screwed continuously for decades

On the contrary: I’d say it implicitly relies on that fact, which is why the argument that it takes 15 years to build is valid. Because nuclear has been screwed, there’s no pipeline of under-construction plants coming online any sooner than that.

It may not be fair that nuclear’s been screwed, but that doesn’t change history. The only thing that matters is what’s better when construction is starting in 2023.

Vendetta9076,
@Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works avatar

While I don’t think it relies on that fact, you are correct with the rest.

monobot,

And it is always a question how they calculated handling of nuclear waste.

There are options, we can use coal and natural gas for on demand power to fill the gaps in renewables, we don’t have to quit all at once. New ideas for energy storage and comming around, some of them might be useful for small towns, others for remote places.

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

nuclear waste, by definition of being radioactive, is the only wast that goes away on it's own if you leave it sit for long enough

Knusper,

I was considering whether this is just a shitpost, but your other comments suggest that you’re completely serious. It does not go away. Radioactive decay causes multiple transitions between radioactive elements until it ends up as lead, which does not decay further.

Of course, it should also be said that it’s better to have no waste than waste that eventually turns into lead.
And that it’s still better to have waste than waste which also happens to be toxic.

BaldProphet,
BaldProphet avatar

Waste from solar and wind is significantly more environmentally problematic than nuclear waste, which is safely stored in missile-proof caskets above ground. Solar panels cause all sorts of toxic compounds and heavy metals to be leeched into groundwater, and wind turbine blades have short lifespans before being buried or piled in heaps.

Uranium3006,
Uranium3006 avatar

right, but when it lands at lead it's no longer radioactive waste, which is the part everyone's scared of. chemical waste doesn't just go away like that.

TropicalDingdong,

there is very very very little nuclear waste.this is complete handwringing. it can be buried and forgotten.

Bigger issue is the carbon costs and pay back periods. Nuclear (unless you’ve got sources otherwise stating) is green in it’s planning phase but not as often in execution. A shit ton of concrete is used, and the plants rarely operate at the capacity they are expected to (or have in the past). Open to revision but that’s my current understanding.

They are a massive upfront carbon cost and only become carbon neutral or negative relative to fossil fuels 20+ years down the line.

LetMeEatCake,

Do you have data on that? A modern nuclear power plant is going to be in the 500-1000+ MW range. I have a hard time imagining that even operating at half capacity that they do not offset the carbon used for concrete within a relatively short order. But if that is in fact the case I’d love to see data saying so, so that I can correct my thinking.

hswolf,
@hswolf@lemmy.world avatar

Kyle Hill has a nice video about power plants waste disposal, one of cleanest methods there is.

edit: he actually went to the plant and showed how it’s done

bionicjoey, (edited )
Instrument_Data,

deleted_by_author

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  • Uranium3006,
    Uranium3006 avatar

    indeed. when you kill nuclear, the reality is natural gas and sometimes coal is the real replacement

    usrtrv,

    I think that’s too simplistic of a view. Part of the high cost of nuclear is because of the somewhat niche use. As with everything, economies of scale makes things cheaper. Supporting one nuclear plant with specialized labor, parts, fuel, etc is much more expensive then supporting 100 plants, per Watt.

    I can’t say more plants would drastically reduce costs. But it would definitely help.

    deegeese,

    They’ve had 75 years to get the cost down. It’s still going up.

    Uranium3006,
    Uranium3006 avatar

    because of oil funded fear pushing pseudoscience based restrictions

    SaltySalamander,
    SaltySalamander avatar

    Congratulate yourself then. The propaganda you and your ilk continue to spew is the reason for this.

    deegeese,

    Oh it’s just the meanies keeping the poor nuclear industry down! 😆

    Uranium3006,
    Uranium3006 avatar

    big oil pushes this stuff, by the way. because they know the reality that when nuclear plants get shut down, natural gas replaces it

    Knusper,

    The source article actually talks about this and measured data suggests nuclear cost actually went up, despite more capacity being built.

    This is the first time, I’ve read this anywhere. More sources/studies would be really important. And there is lots of interpretations to be had on the why, but assuming the article isn’t completely off the mark, that’s cold, hard data suggesting that your (perfectly reasonable) assumption is actually wrong, after all.

    usrtrv,

    Interesting, I’ll have to look at the source article.

    But as far as I’m aware the total amount of nuclear power has been decreasing in recent years. This might change with China’s future plants.

    I’ve also read about small modular reactor designs gaining traction, which would help alleviate the heavy costs of one off plants we currently design and build.

    Not saying the source is wrong, just saying that’s what I used to form my opinion.

    Uranium3006,
    Uranium3006 avatar

    china's been building dozens of reactors, all of a common design which is the correct way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hualong_One

    Uranium3006,
    Uranium3006 avatar

    bullshit regulatory costs can increase infinitely without nay change to the underlying engineering or economics. that's 100% the cause of the price increses

    Knusper,

    Possible. But well, whether these regulations actually are bullshit or not, kind of doesn’t matter. A dumb solar panel won’t ever need to be regulated as much. If that’s what makes it cheaper, it still is cheaper.

    Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
    Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar
    hswolf,
    @hswolf@lemmy.world avatar

    Of course It is, the incompetent and ignorant people that try to hinder it’s use is the problem

    deegeese,

    The nuclear industry is 100% responsible for the operational record of the nuclear industry.

    Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
    Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

    So the people who built that reactor were incompetent and ignorant?

    SaltySalamander,
    SaltySalamander avatar

    Reading comprehension isn't really your strong suit, eh? "The incompetent and ignorant people that try to hinder it’s use is the problem"

    Turun,

    If you are hired to do a task and then overrun the budget by 14B$ I wouldn’t exactly call it furthering the cause. More like incompetence and/or trying to detail the project.

    Uranium3006,
    Uranium3006 avatar

    the most dangerous part of nuclear power is not using enough

    gmtom,

    Cool, so you’re either going to have to completely get rid of all the nimbys and people that don’t understand nuclear, then build a massive population of qualified workers to build them and staff them and then fund them in the hundreds of billions for at least 2 decades to build up the knowledge base required to be able to build them quickly and efficiently.

    Or accept the reality that nuclear is dead in the water.

    bouh,

    This chart is worthless, so it doesn’t show anything. Like 2 data points for this? Seriously? And there was a pandemic and a war since then…

    ieatpillowtags,

    So what has changed?

    Rooskie91,

    It doesn’t matter how cheap solar is. Fossil fuels are still more profitable, because once a fossil fuel plant is built, it needs fossil fuel to run. You can’t do the same with sunlight. We literally cannot shift away from fossil fuels under the current profit driven model.

    Knusper,

    More profitable for fossil fuel companies, sure. And they will lobby to stay in business.

    But no one needs fossil fuel companies. If you can sell 1 MWh power, that’s a fixed amount of income. If you have less costs to cover (what the graphic shows), then that’s more profit for you.

    Rooskie91,

    I’m speaking from an American perspective, but what you’re describing is part of the problem. Power companies are legally not allowed to make a profit from selling electricity here. They make a profit from the government giving them money to expand their services (this model was developed following world war 2 to encourage post war growth).

    Again, under America’s current model, solar is not profitable, especially not for large corporations.

    Knusper,

    Hmm, interesting. Here in Germany, power companies are partially privatized and I always thought, whomever came up with that nonsense took inspiration from the turbo-capitalism in the USA. Apparently not.

    Do they need to be profitable, though, in your model? It mostly sounds like a traditional public service, where the government could just tell them to use the money for solar…

    Rooskie91,

    The power companies here are privately owned, and America has a lot of laws dealing with what the government can and can not tell private companies what to do. Most of the laws deal with what the government cannot do. Basically, the company sells electricity at cost, then sends the government a letter that’s like, “Hey, we need $$$ for repairs, upgrades, and stock holders. Here’s all the upgrades we want.” And the government is like “Sure, this is America, gotta turn a profit,” and gives the utility companies whatever they ask for. Then the utility companies just give all the money to the stock holders, perform the bare minimum repairs to operate, and just lie to the government about what they did with the money. There is an especially egregious case in South Carolina where a utility claimed for years that they were going to build a nuclear plant to help meet energy demands in the area. Well after an audit, turns out the owner just pocketed all that money. That guy was punished, but see how bad it has to get before anything happens?

    This video does a much better job at explaining it than I ever could. It’s long, but they explain how utilities make a profit in the first 15 mins. youtu.be/2n_au5Hje_E?si=S9e8o7QQpFjueZta

    RecallMadness,

    Is this just the cost per raw Watt produced?

    Is it a fair comparison vs conventional fuel-based power (coal/nuclear)?

    Ie: if you wanted to build a plant capable of producing continuously, 24 hours a day, you would need some multiple of solar panels to produce an excess during daylight, and storage.

    Not that drastic drops in solar costs aren’t bad, just what would the cost-per-watt be if you had to power an average city on just solar for a year?

    rbesfe,

    Look at the subtitle on the chart, it’s levelized cost over the generator’s lifetime. So not including storage for any intermittent source like solar or wind

    interdimensionalmeme,

    And not including the financing cost of buying up an this upfront.

    I’m buying 36kWh solar array and it will be home made diy, used.parts and maximum jank and don’t paid upfront because that’s the only way it makes economic sense and that’s hoping it works for more than 7 years (break even point at my insolation level and and grid price (8.8$cad/kWh) and it only works with net metering)

    Professorozone,

    In my area, you don’t get any government incentives unless it is professionally installed. They get you coming and going.

    interdimensionalmeme,

    Yes, I never even considered the subsidies, I know it’s not for me.

    RaoulDook,

    Anybody can claim the tax credit though. When you file the taxes it’s a box you enter a number into.

    They don’t ask for proof, but you’d better keep your receipts just in case.

    Professorozone,

    Hmmmm, interesting. Thanks.

    Pipoca,

    Levelized cost averages the fixed costs over the lifetime of the generation

    They’re generally comparing utility scale installations, not home rooftop solar though.

    corship,

    Well you’ll never get a “fair” comparison, because the environmental effects are never properly priced into the consumer price.

    TheAnonymouseJoker,
    @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

    Off-grid living is becoming more and more enticing.

    interdimensionalmeme,

    As far offgrid as fiber will go!

    richms,

    The installation just keeps getting higher. Now to add onto mine I need a load of additional equipment that was not required when my first lot of enphase inverters was installed. Also what was quoted for the labour and materials that are not the panels and inverters has almost tripled in 4 years. Have to get the roof sorted before I go ahead with it and the higher output panels and inverters mean that I would get about another 1.5kw in the same space compared to my first installation.

    bradorsomething,

    To ballpark some numbers on the contractor side, I charge about $100/hr to install it now - 4 years ago that might have been $60/hr.

    frezik,

    Rooftop solar is the most expensive way to do it. The graph above is for utility scale systems. Roofs are always custom jobs and they’re priced accordingly. Utility scale uses racks that are all the same for an entire field.

    If rooftop was priced alone on the chart in OP, it’s be around the price of nuclear.

    ASeriesOfPoorChoices, (edited )

    Really depends on where you are, sadly.

    Where I am, a normal 6.6kw system (panels + inverter + installation) can cost as low as about $1,950usd nothing more to pay. Good for 25 years. (Higher end panels and such can go up to about $4500usd for a 6.6-7kw system)

    Grass,

    Damn it’s like 9k to 10k cad where I live.

    ASeriesOfPoorChoices,

    Yikes, yeah, that sounds sadly normal for a lot of places.

    Sanyanov,

    What surprises me, in a way, is that photovoltaics are literally 3,5 times cheaper than just mirrors reflecting light onto a tower. It got REAL cheap. Wish it’d go further!

    devils_advocate,

    The mirrors are the not the expensive part.

    Sanyanov,

    What is? Thermal to electricity conversion?

    Revan343,

    Yup. Steam turbine generators have a lot of moving parts, and moving parts break

    Sanyanov,

    Got it, thanks

    JJROKCZ,

    Sweet, now get the panels and installation cheaper so I can afford to put it on my house

    FriedCheese,

    We had a solar salesman come by once and told us he could lower our electricity bill the same amount as it would cost us to install the solar panels.

    I knew there was something up with this but I decided to let him continue to talk anyways. He does this whole presentation with solar panels and how great they are for a good 30 minutes.

    Finally we get to the money part and he keeps emphasizing that they will lower my electricity bill so the cost of them will be made up there. I push him for the total cost of them plus installation and I about died.

    $30,000??? They literally wanted me to pay for these for 30 years. As long as my mortgage! Aaaaah!!!

    penquin,

    Just to save $100 a month.

    Hexadecimalkink,

    100x12x30

    interdimensionalmeme,

    If I save 100$ a month, sign me up

    penquin,

    But they will still have to make the monthly payments for the solar panels. So, their real savings will only start after they paid off the loan in 30 years. lol

    bradorsomething,

    Some companies in my area are installing them for free, and taking the utility difference. It’s a novel approach.

    interdimensionalmeme,

    I want a discount on my electricity if I have to have a solar array on my land. Even if it were otherwise free.

    WetBeardHairs,

    I had a few come over and I was already in the market for solar so I entertained them for a minute. I told them “OK, give me some invoices for your other customers so I know what you charge. Black out the names, I dont care - I just want the prices of your services and materials”. These idiots would not stop calling me or coming over to my house for months. I kept telling them “Unless you give me actual, real world dollar amounts, I won’t consider it”.

    Those solar sales guys are worse than used car salesmen.

    JJROKCZ,

    Similar here, got a quote from a company that wanted $45,000 to only cut my bill in half. Said my roof having so many levels due to being a 1.5 story made it hard to install and get good coverage. Guess I get to just burn coal power then because that price is ridiculous

    RaoulDook,

    That’s about 10 times the price it costs to have a full system installed in other parts of the USA.

    I put in a small solar backup power system myself for $1500. It’s not enough to power HVAC or any big appliances but it is enough that I can have my fridge, freezer, TV, and Internet going off the grid whenever there’s a power outage.

    frezik,

    Further lowering panel cost isn’t going to significantly cut that price. Cost of labor is the major part of that.

    People always focus on rooftop solar, but it’s horribly expensive compared to a field of panels. The economics of scale will almost certainly keep it that way.

    What we should be looking at is community solar, where neighborhoods invest in a solar field together.

    BaldProphet,
    BaldProphet avatar

    Field solar has serious environmental implications as long as the ground over which the panels are placed isn't already developed for a different use. Covering parking lots, big box stores, and freeways with solar is much more environmentally sound.

    Uranium3006,
    Uranium3006 avatar

    covering already used land with solar is very compelling. either do that or a green roof

    cyclohexane,

    Wouldn’t that be a less sustainable use of land?

    I guess maybe not if we are talking tall building, where the roof surface area may not be sufficient for the entire building. But it would be a waste not to make use of all the unused rooftops

    ours,

    Yeah, in some countries, land is at a premium. No way would it be wasted on just solar panels. Rooftop installations make the most sense.

    They are even testing putting them afloat on dam reservoirs.

    Grass,

    I’ve always thought that in the neighborhoods where everyone lives in townhomes and mini apartments a shared multi floor parkade with solar and maybe also wind on top should be a thing. Even if the solar is just covering the parkade’s power usage.

    palal,

    Thanks, China.

    DrFuggles,

    And Germany!

    fosforus,

    Will it plateau at some point though? This makes me not want to buy solar cells on my home until that happens.

    h4wk3y3,

    The components only cost around 3.000-6.000€ (depending on amount) without battery. The rest is installation and margin. I would argue that as for components it does not make a lot of sense to wait. If you cannot find a reasonable installer, waiting for a time when their schedules are not as packed might work.

    m3t00,
    @m3t00@lemmy.world avatar

    my bill has gone up 89%

    HiddenLayer5, (edited )

    Well the electric exec’s kid needs a third Ferrari to go with the third Lamborghini they got last year! You’re not gonna be so heartless as to deprive a 32 year old child of their birthday wish are you?

    Trollivier,

    I wish hydroelectricity was there.

    Socsa,

    Gas peaker? I hardly know her!

    RememberTheApollo_,

    Cool…but where’s offshore wind?

    where_am_i,

    dat place called Scotland?

    RememberTheApollo_,

    No, silly. That’s onshore. Scotland, see? Land means, y’know, on shore? I want to know about the windmills in the ocean.

    (Do I have to put this here? /s)

    where_am_i,

    Kind sir, with the current tendencies in overall temperatures that excite changes on the far north and south, you simply have to be patient till onshore become offshore just as you desire.

    Knusper,

    I’m not quite sure, why it was left out of that graph, maybe they didn’t have matching data, but it is shown here (from the same source article):

    https://ourworldindata.org/images/published/3-Learning-curves-for-electricity-prices_1350.webp

    Tvkan,

    Clearly nuclear is the future!

    sunbeam60,

    You do realise solar and wind gets pricier and pricier to integrate as the level of steerable capacity decreases?

    What you are looking at here is “cost to install ‘rated capacity * load factor’”. A big part of the reason renewables are still cheaper is that we have a lot of backup steerable capacity, mainly in the form of gas plants in the west and coal plants everywhere else.

    Renewables dump electricity onto the grid and then say “here, buy this!”. And the only reason the grid can respond and say “sure” is that it can tell the steerable gas and coal plants “turn off for a bit, these other plants are dumping a crap tonne of capacity onto the grid”.

    Given the insane challenge in building enough storage and/or enough transmission capacity, you are going to need some steerable capacity beyond 70-80% renewable to continue to have cheap integration of intermittent renewables. Do you want that to be based on fossil fuel?

    If we wanted to treat renewable capacity in the same way as we have treated other generators, we should say “I want steerable capacity between 0-1200 MW” from this field of wind turbines!”. That would force the currently externalised cost of guaranteeing generation onto the builders of renewables.

    Right now, a lot of the real cost is hidden elsewhere in the grid - so it’s no wonder it looks so cheap.

    Please don’t misread my comment as being against renewables, which we need a lot more of. I’m against crappy accounting.

    phorbi,

    However, your point also goes ageinst nuclear as this technology is not really steerable either. It produces a base supply. The lack of quick control of nuclear plant output even led to highways beeing lit in the night in Belgium (way back) to burn off the over supply.

    The only technologies that can be quickly adjusted up and down are, to my knowledge, gas, hydro an battery storage. In a strictly renewable scenario (0 fossil, 0 nuclear fisson) it is imperative to have a lot of controllable reserves. Currently the plan is to use a mix of (pump) hydro, h2 and biomass powered gas plants and batteries in all shapes and forms (li-Ion, reflow, heat…) to be able to compensate peaks. This all is way more costly than just using wind and solar and hope supply will always be higher than demand.

    For those interested I always recommend the yt channel “just have a think”. It has really awesome content about green technologies and the current state of affairs concerning the long and hard journey to 0 carbon.

    sunbeam60,

    That is honestly an urban myth that nuclear isn’t steerable. It’s not steerable in the second, but it is extremely steerable in the hour or the day, which is more than plenty given that renewables output change by the hour or day, rather than the second.

    Yes it’s not frequency management - for that we have pumped storage and batteries. But it sure as shit is steerable enough for matching up with renewables. The wind doesn’t goes from Beaufort 6 to Beaufort 1 within a second.

    phorbi, (edited )

    This is a very interesting rabit hole you sent me into. Thanks for that!
    Btw. I don’t get why you’re beeing downvoted. This is a civilised discussion and your comments are fair and well presented!

    I started searching a bit about steering nuclear.

    So as usual it doesn’t seem to be quite so simple. I found a paper from 2017 (in German publikationen.bibliothek.kit.edu/…/121070976 ). interesting parts translated through deepl/chatGPT:

    “The operating manuals of the NPPs show that they [nuclear power plants] exhibit considerable flexibility:
    In the range close to full load (above 80/90% of the nominal Power), the output can be increased or decreased by up to 10% of the nominal output per minute. In the upper load range (above 50/60 % PNenn), the power plants can be regulated at 3.8-5.2 %/min (for some reactor types, this is reduced to around 1 %/min if individual fuel rods are defective).

    For comparison: In lignite-fired power plants, this value is around 3 %/min, 4 %/min for hard coal-fired power plants and 6 %/min for natural gas steam or combined power plants 6 %/min. Only gas turbines, at 12 %/min, are significantly faster.

    The lower load range (between 20 and 60%) is also possible, but in discussions with power plant operators it became clear that this has not yet been used in regular operation (apart from start-up and shutdown operations) and is not used in regular operation.”

    Also it seems that changing output puts stress on the whole systen. As well cited from the paper:
    “Another factor is the number of cycles that the plants can undergo. Each load cycle stresses the material and, with frequent repetition, leads to signs of material fatigue. Nuclear power plants were designed for a specific maximum number of cycles during their construction. In the upper load range – for example, a reduction in power from 100% rated power to 80% and back (100-80-100) – coolant temperature and pressure hardly change. Therefore, the power plants are designed for up to 100,000 cycles of such nature. However, in the lower load range, the alternating stress on the components increases, and the maximum cycle count decreases significantly. The cycle 100-40-100, for instance, is allowed only 12,000 repetitions. For the cycle rated load-zero load-hot-rated load (100-0-100), a maximum of 400 cycles is specified. Assuming a plant lifespan of 40 years, this would correspond to 10 of these events per year.”

    So there seems to be considerable flexibility but you don’t want to shut it off completely or run below say 50% of nominal power. Also start-up times from 0 seem to be very long (1-2 days). This might not be the perfect match for running together with renewables, but there are definitively possibilities. Even when it’s windy and the sun shines, renewables would need to be shut down and the more expensive nuclear plant would run and burn fuel.
    Therefore, my opinion still stands: the ultimate goal should still be 0 burning stuff, 0 nuclear.

    sunbeam60,

    Hey, likewise, thanks for a sensible debate.

    I definitely think 0 nuclear is possible, just a lot expensive than “mostly renewable with some nuclear.”

    I’ve commented extensively on this before here on Lemmy, let me copy pasta here:

    Here’s a couple of good papers and articles on the topic:

    A systematic review of the costs and impacts of integrating variable renewables into power grids - a large meta-study from Nature Energy showing that the externalised additional cost of integrating 1 MW of renewable production hits £40/MWh between 75% to 85% renewable penetration. Beyond that no studies have been done, but already at this level, renewable would be more expensive than nuclear (at auctioned build-prices today).

    Real-World Challenges with a Rapid Transition to 100% Renewable Power Systems - finds that even if you set the Value of Lost Load to £40,000/MWh in a 100% renewable grid, you’ll still get power outages after 2030. It’s not equivalent to externalised cost of renewable integration, but is a heavy indicator that without forcing massive fines on renewable providers, the reserve capacity won’t be provided (it’ll be cheaper for them to just pay the fine). The study finds that a fine of £4 million (!) per required-but-not-fulfilled MWh is needed to encourage providers build the reserve capacity (through distribution, storage etc.).

    How much can nuclear power reduce climate mitigation cost? - shows that nuclear will lower the cost of getting to zero carbon electricity product by 40%+, compared to refusing to use nuclear energy production.

    Burden of proof: A comprehensive review of the feasibility of 100% renewable-electricity systems - shows some of the challenges of the assumptions that people make in thinking renewables will get us all the way there.

    Projected Costs of Generating Electricity - shows that, all costs considered, nuclear remains an extremely cheap way to create energy, even up against renewables.

    Local Complementarity of Wind and Solar Energy Resources over Europe: An Assessment Study from a Meteorological Perspective - shows that at least in Europe, wind and sun don’t anti-correlate (in other words, we’re not going to get energy from the sun on non-windy days and energy from the wind on cloudy days. Also shows there are many periods (days long) in Europe where we have don’t get neither sun nor wind. So storage will have to last us days across Europe.

    Many of these articles refer to many other articles you may find interesting.

    Overall, my point is that it does us (collective “us”, not just “you and me”) no good to argue that “it’ll be alright if we just commit to renewables”. One has to argue against these peer reviewed studies, done by experts in the field, many collecting and meta-reviewing many other studies, to argue that “renewables will be enough”.

    And these are not “cooky studies” in “cooky journals”. Nature, Cell, Joule are some of the most respected journals, with the highest impact ratings and the authors & their reviewers have studied these topics for years.

    I’m all for more renewables! But it won’t be enough!

    frezik,

    Wind and solar complement each other. The sun often shines when the wind isn’t blowing. We have plenty of historical weather data on how long the lulls where neither would work for a given region. That tells you how much storage you need to fill the gap. Pad that out, and you’re good.

    Nuclear does nothing to help this calculation. It’s just expensive.

    Not only that, but we don’t have to do this all at once. The math often works out that getting to 95% renewable is far easier than shooting for 100%, with existing fossil fuel plants making up the remainder. This is fully achievable by 2030, by which point we want to drastically reduce emissions. Then we can worry about the last 5%.

    There is no such plan for nuclear. If you had all the permits signed off and dirt being shoveled right now, then you would not have a single MW of new nuclear feeding the grid by 2030. They take too long to build. Budget and schedule overruns are the norm, and it’s a wonder that anyone is investing money into them at this point.

    In fact, they aren’t. The US federal government has shown a willingness to sign permits for new nuclear plants. Nobody is buying, and there’s no mystery as to why.

    BaldProphet,
    BaldProphet avatar

    The reason nuclear plants take so long to build is because there is so much ignorant opposition to them. The same roadblocks that caused our global housing crisis get in the way of building clean nuclear energy.

    frezik,

    Even if that’s true, what’s your plan to fix it? You cannot ignore NIMBYs. You need a plan.

    Uranium3006,
    Uranium3006 avatar

    the plan is to neuter the NIMBYs power. same problem as housing. you have to defeat the NIMBYs because they're the problem and getting rid of the problem is the solution

    frezik,

    Oh, dear, no. That won’t work at all. You’ve lost already.

    Uranium3006,
    Uranium3006 avatar

    also since fuel costs aren't really a problem for nuclear power, you can just throw away excess generation. not the best idea but perfectly possible in a pinch

    Uranium3006,
    Uranium3006 avatar

    yeah, do a nuclear backup for renewables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Molten_Salt_Reactor this reactor outputs solar salt, which can store energy efficiently for hours and allow load following

    TangledHyphae,

    I just installed a 9.3 kW system with individual microinverters under each panel for grid stability and it is absolutely amazing how much you can power all day without threatening a massive bill at the end of the month. I still import power at night, but the power companies usually have agreements where you get credits for all wattage exported to the grid to cover your imported power at night, because both parties win in that contract.

    Steam-Roller,

    Do you mind sharing what price one can expect for an install that size (or similar)? I’ve been wanting to install a system like that on my house for a couple years. Now that prices on hardware are more affordable it’s becoming very tempting. I’d love to do it myself.

    TangledHyphae,

    It depends, $180/mo for 25 years is the agreement and it’s directly connected to the grid both ways which required additional work from the power company to inspect and approve. I think given the projections it was rated for about 25,000 kWh per year * 25 years (approaching 85% efficiency after 30 years), which is a good amount of total production for my needs. Edit: it’s worth considering what $180/mo will look like in 5 to 20 years… it will probably be significantly cheaper compared to other power sources because it’s generated locally.

    Steam-Roller,

    Yes the time value of money can work heavily in your favor when projecting that far out. The way the housing market is right now, I might be here for a while 🤣 Thanks for the response!

    Dippy,

    Get 800kwh to 1mwh a month depending on sun coverage. Cost me 23k paid in full.

    picnic,

    Well, looking at these prices here listed seems like solar in US is really costly for some reason? I have a 9.8kWp system in europe, installed a year or two ago, and it cost me 12k euros. Out of that, I'll get 2ke back in tax rebates, so 1ke for 1kwp.

    During summertime, I get 1500kWh approx in a month. I have one AC unit and two electric cars, and a 24U server rack, and can live without electricity bills some months.

    Danziga,

    AUS here, I just got a 10kw system installed last month, cost 9.5k AUD for everything. So far monitoring the generation, I’ll be getting paid next time the bill comes around :)

    Blue_Morpho,

    Where are you located and what was the total cost? When I last got quotes 12 years ago, it was insanely expensive ($ 70k ) .

    RagingInside,

    deleted_by_author

  • Loading...
  • Blue_Morpho,

    Is it free standing or rooftop? Many consumer companies didn’t do free standing when I last looked into it.

    mesamunefire,

    I hate that PGE got rid of the export.

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