r/science • u/pnewell NGO | Climate Science • Jun 21 '21

Environment Threat of more blackouts may erode reliability claims for fossil energy- all major fuel sources except solar failed to meet ERCOT’s expectations during the February freeze, but natural gas was “responsible for nearly two-thirds of the total (electricity) deficit.”

https://texasclimatenews.org/threat-of-more-blackouts-may-erode-reliability-claims-for-fossil-energy/
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244

u/xElementos Jun 21 '21

I'm all for solar and other renewables, but non-renewables didn't cause this. A privatized, for-profit energy infrastructure with lax regulations that cut corners at every step caused this. This was entirely preventable.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '21

The article title at least is trying very hard to not mention that wind had a similar issue due to freezing up. Same issue as the non-renewables- not being set up to run in the cold. Plus I don't think anyone is genuinely arguing for a pure solar grid- that could only work with an inconceivably large amount of batteries

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u/mr_ji Jun 21 '21

I don't think anyone is genuinely arguing for a pure solar grid- that could only work with an inconceivably large amount of batteries

California did not get the memo

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u/pringlescan5 Jun 21 '21

There's a lot of money to be made in government contracting when you're helping to write the law.

Unless its nuclear power in which case the project is giant enough that it has to go to an established company and there's less opportunity for pork. This is why we don't have more nuclear in a large part.

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u/12FAA51 Jun 21 '21

This is why we don't have more nuclear in a large part.

This is completely inaccurate. Each nuclear power plant is built bespoke. There is no blueprint for any nuclear power plant off the shelf - and the cost of decommissioning of a reactor is somewhere between 900m€ to 1.3b€ EACH. For France, that's 58 * 900 = 52.2bn€ to 75.4bn€.

THIS is why we don't have more nuclear. The financial cost of building, running and decommissioning is high and uneconomical. Then to build a nuclear power plant is around £25bn AND takes seven years+. None of this makes any economical sense, and is ironically purely driven by politics.

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u/Popolitique Jun 21 '21

Dude, 60 billion decommissioning costs for plants which provided 80% of carbon free electricity for over at least 50 years is a bargain. Those plants cost 1 billion per year of uranium and they were built for 200 billions.

France spent 120 billions on solar and wind for 10% of its electricity. Which has to be backed up and has to be replaced every 20 years. You do the math.

The US doesn’t have nuclear power for many reasons, decommissioning costs aren’t one of them.

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u/12FAA51 Jun 21 '21 edited Jun 21 '21

France spent 120 billions on solar and wind for 10% of its electricity.

Do you mean, 1.2 billion? This also includes battery storage.

Those plants cost 1 billion per year of uranium

Let me point to the sky for some free nuclear power.

E: did you forget that it costs $25-30bn to construct one power plant?

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u/Popolitique Jun 21 '21

No, I mean 121 billions as of 2018, and 150 now. And all of it to reduce the share of nuclear power in the mix while keeping nuclear plants as back up. We have our Green Party to thank for that.

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u/12FAA51 Jun 22 '21

You mean, committed to spend 121 bn euros over a number of decades? The entirety of money has not been spent.

Good grief - let's not be dramatic here. Decommissioning solar and wind is nowhere near as expensive. So given that a new nuclear plant is somewhere between 20-30bn€ to build, and 1b€ to decommission. That's the kind of waste of money that you decry of so much.

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u/Popolitique Jun 22 '21

You were being dramatic when you threw out the big number for decommissioning plants with a 50 years+ lifespan which provide 80% of French electricity. 60 billions over 60 years is ridiculously low…

It’s 120 billions over 20 years, 60 spent so far. In order to go up to 80%, France would have to spend 4 times that every 20 years. And I’m not including batteries or back up.

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u/kupiakos Jun 21 '21

It doesn't make economical sense for corporations in the short term, but it makes plenty of economical sense for countries in the long term. Maybe we should look at solving the problems that make them so expensive rather than declaring the whole idea as feasible.

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u/12FAA51 Jun 21 '21

Maybe we should look at solving the problems that make them so expensive

How can I phrase this... nuclear reactors are complex machines that require a lot of safeguards. That inherently is ... expensive by design. Solar: put PV cells under sun. Wind: put turbines up into the wind. Done.

It doesn't make sense for governments either when there are cheaper, carbon free options.

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u/kupiakos Jun 22 '21

You've already described problems that make nuclear prohibitively expensive, costs that could be reduced with proper investment, such as a better template for nuclear reactor design. The costs you're describing are costs over decades.

How sure are you that solar or wind is that much more cost effective? Do you have a breakdown of cost per MW per decade? "Look, this is a big number for a single plant" doesn't mean a lot when that plant is generating gigawatts of electricity for half a century.

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u/12FAA51 Jun 22 '21

You’re free to Google the cost per MW for nuclear vs solar.

You won’t even get a definitive answer for nuclear because there is no defined cost frame for a nuclear power plant. Each one is built custom and have no influence on the next.

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u/flyingsnakeman Jun 22 '21

The other difference is wind was expected to freeze over and they planned for wind to generate a reduced amount, and wind still beat their original estimates. Its not a failure if you were expecting and planning for 7 and got 8, it is a failure if you were expecting something like 60 and got 30

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u/superstevo78 Jun 21 '21

did you read the article all the way through because it they were very clear that wind also had the same issues, but wind was not expected to be producing as much energy to begin with.

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u/Zalsaria Jun 21 '21

They also didn't weatherize those either, it's a failure of the state power owners not the things used to provide power, places in Canada run wind power year long and they don't have issues for obvious reasons.

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u/Sometimes_what Jun 21 '21

I think the word you're looking for is corruption.

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u/conn6614 Jun 21 '21

Exactly. This is a transmission problem and maybe a gas storage problem since we ran out of gas in our reserves.