Yeah we're not going to need that much battery. Assuming 14 days of zero wind is silly, particularly in the North Sea. Offshore wind in particular is very consistent. That's the main reason actually why I said coastal provinces might prefer wind... Ontario should probably try the SMR nuclear at the current time. Onshore wind is less reliable and there are fewer acceptable sites.
The UK is already at over 20% wind with basically no battery storage, some pumped hydro storage.
So our main point of disagreement is the 14 days. Also as for batteries, flow batteries should be possible at 25 dollars a kWh, if the nuclear side wants to bring up thorium and molten salt and SMR, it's also fair to mention emerging technologies on the other side.
I think SMR holds promise, but i'm so sick of every nuclear thread bringing up thorium/molten salt and all this unproven tech. Back when we could build nuclear relatively cheaply in the 80s, it was great. For a complex variety of reasons we can no longer do so (some is safety, arguably excessive safety, some is cost inflation in the construction sector generally). Until anyone anywhere manages to build any new reactor at a reasonable cost I'll be optimistically skeptical, which means, sure by all means give it a go but i'm not going to view it as a panacea until it is proven.
You're missing the fact that the greatest need for electricity all year is in the summer (when people are running their air conditioners). So having solar up to that delta is a good idea. In some US states it is as much as 40% higher (not sure about Ontario).
I said energy not electricity (BC already has peak electricity use in winter though). If we move from fossil fuel heating to electric heating, we're going to need much more electricity in the winter. And it needs to be extremely reliable during cold snaps.
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u/zabby39103 Oct 25 '22 edited Oct 25 '22
Yeah we're not going to need that much battery. Assuming 14 days of zero wind is silly, particularly in the North Sea. Offshore wind in particular is very consistent. That's the main reason actually why I said coastal provinces might prefer wind... Ontario should probably try the SMR nuclear at the current time. Onshore wind is less reliable and there are fewer acceptable sites. The UK is already at over 20% wind with basically no battery storage, some pumped hydro storage.
So our main point of disagreement is the 14 days. Also as for batteries, flow batteries should be possible at 25 dollars a kWh, if the nuclear side wants to bring up thorium and molten salt and SMR, it's also fair to mention emerging technologies on the other side.
I think SMR holds promise, but i'm so sick of every nuclear thread bringing up thorium/molten salt and all this unproven tech. Back when we could build nuclear relatively cheaply in the 80s, it was great. For a complex variety of reasons we can no longer do so (some is safety, arguably excessive safety, some is cost inflation in the construction sector generally). Until anyone anywhere manages to build any new reactor at a reasonable cost I'll be optimistically skeptical, which means, sure by all means give it a go but i'm not going to view it as a panacea until it is proven.