Since releasing my oil video I've had so many people claiming that renewables will never work and we need nuclear power instead.
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Energy consumption goes up and down throughout the day, but the "base load" is the minimum amount, even at the lowest point in the day. So nuclear power is good for providing this "base" because it's consistent and always running.
The issue is that renewables sometimes output so much electricity that, especially when it's sunny, the grid makes *way* too much electricity. The electricity consumption of the grid minus renewables is called the "residual load", and it very very often goes NEGATIVE.
@notjustbikes@social.notjustbikes.com I remember that's usually why it's equally important to also have energy storage facilities built with renewables.
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Talking about "China" without a year number attached to what is being said is really hard, because things change rapidly there.
In 2024, China has been deploying new coal plants at approximately the same rate as they have been decommissioning older, dirtier ones.
The new plants have very low utilization rates, and are built as swing capacity. They are also being paid as reserve, base money for the ability to jump in on demand, and then additional money if they are actually needed.
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This was always my understanding of how renewables make the concept of "base load" irrelevant, again, as a person with a literal degree in Electrical Engineering.
But I was gaslit by so many people that I felt the need to research the current situation again today.
This could just be people using out of date information, but I suspect this is anti-renewables propaganda. Otherwise I don't know why so many people would even know what a "base load" is.
@notjustbikes for me, having experienced the Iberian peninsula blackout, base load is what keeps the electric grid stable, imagine a large flywheel on a car
it can be done with batteries, hydro, nuclear or gas
but I'm a software engineer, what do I know?
cheers
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This was always my understanding of how renewables make the concept of "base load" irrelevant, again, as a person with a literal degree in Electrical Engineering.
But I was gaslit by so many people that I felt the need to research the current situation again today.
This could just be people using out of date information, but I suspect this is anti-renewables propaganda. Otherwise I don't know why so many people would even know what a "base load" is.
@notjustbikes Perhaps they just mean, what do you do when it's night time and there's no wind. Certainly covering all scenarios with 100% renewables seems challenging.
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@notjustbikes oh hey, that was actually my missing link as to why fossil fuel companies promote nuclear!
@CIMB4 @notjustbikes they know that nuclear is such a tarpit that it would take decades to get any power out of it, and in the meantime they can carry on selling fossil fuels.
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When I did some reading on the current situation, I found a lot of sites out of Australia that were repeating this "base load" idea, in the context of nuclear power.
I suspect that this is fossil-fuel propaganda.
Fossil fuel companies love promoting nuclear power because they know it takes decades to get a reactor built (if it gets built at all), and in the meantime, everyone keeps using fossil fuels.
It's the perfect way to cripple renewables without being obvious about it.
@notjustbikes isn't one big downside of nuclear energy that the tractors are inert/lazy to react to the load?
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@notjustbikes Perhaps they just mean, what do you do when it's night time and there's no wind. Certainly covering all scenarios with 100% renewables seems challenging.
@mattsqu @notjustbikes battery (or other methods) storage goes a long way, and there's probably lower demand at night
plus most countries have a national grid (even tied into their neighbours) & it's not the same weather everywhere
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@notjustbikes oh hey, that was actually my missing link as to why fossil fuel companies promote nuclear!
@CIMB4 @notjustbikes
This reasoning (waiting for nuclear keeps us using fossil fuels) is nicely explained in the Australian context in this video by @thejuicemedia https://youtu.be/JBqVVBUdW84 -
@mattsqu @notjustbikes battery (or other methods) storage goes a long way, and there's probably lower demand at night
plus most countries have a national grid (even tied into their neighbours) & it's not the same weather everywhere
@patterfloof @notjustbikes Sure but I imagine planning for a few days of heavy cloud cover, in mid winter, with low wind is really difficult. Edge cases will be the expensive part. And probably there will be a place for... something to fill those rare gaps other than eg doubling battery capacity. Maybe turbines and hydrogen? Something cheap but energy dense.
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When I did some reading on the current situation, I found a lot of sites out of Australia that were repeating this "base load" idea, in the context of nuclear power.
I suspect that this is fossil-fuel propaganda.
Fossil fuel companies love promoting nuclear power because they know it takes decades to get a reactor built (if it gets built at all), and in the meantime, everyone keeps using fossil fuels.
It's the perfect way to cripple renewables without being obvious about it.
@notjustbikes as an Australian, I can assure you that the Australian base load thing is hot garbage designed to keep control of energy in centralised corporate hands.
So yup, perfect for arguing against renewable / distributed energy with an authoritative sound that is actually hollow nothing.
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When I did some reading on the current situation, I found a lot of sites out of Australia that were repeating this "base load" idea, in the context of nuclear power.
I suspect that this is fossil-fuel propaganda.
Fossil fuel companies love promoting nuclear power because they know it takes decades to get a reactor built (if it gets built at all), and in the meantime, everyone keeps using fossil fuels.
It's the perfect way to cripple renewables without being obvious about it.
Lots of nuclear trolls/shrills.
Not all of them are real people.Here in Australia, we have lots of mainly uncontrolled rooftop solar.
The sun shines and The commercial solar farms get pushed out.
The constant on "baseload" coal plants lose money with negative prices. They have started to learn to dance. Like the UK coal plants. Ramping their output up and down. But they have their limits. No longer baseload.
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Since releasing my oil video I've had so many people claiming that renewables will never work and we need nuclear power instead.
What's odd is that almost all of the messages mention that nuclear power is the only solution for the "base load".
I have a degree in Electrical Engineering and I took several nuclear science electives. I like nuclear energy. But I received so much "base load" gaslighting that I started to doubt my own understanding of the situation.
sounds like renewables are the culprit here -
@notjustbikes for me, having experienced the Iberian peninsula blackout, base load is what keeps the electric grid stable, imagine a large flywheel on a car
it can be done with batteries, hydro, nuclear or gas
but I'm a software engineer, what do I know?
cheers
@luisfcorreia no, that is totally unrelated. The Iberian peninsula blackout had nothing to do with what we're talking about, and that's not how base load works.
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This means that the concept of "base load" is not really relevant, because there is no consistent base. And when the residual load goes negative, the wholesale price of electricity goes negative as well.
Last year the Netherlands had negative wholesale electricity prices for about 7% of the year, and that amount is only going to grow.
You can't afford to run a nuclear reactor when electricity prices are negative, but you also can't shut it down every day either.
@notjustbikes yeah, and then you’ll have nuclear energy lobbyists coming out of the woodwork and demanding similar coupling like we already have for natural gas with the current merit order model
aka “We need prices to be high in order for our expensive assets to appreciate over time” -
@notjustbikes Solar on suburban homes is a funny thing. At the latitude of Amsterdam, it can lead to demand evaporation for 7-8 months of the year if the home has a sufficiently sized battery.
The solar from a typical suburban home can carry 10-15 kWp of solar, leading to 7-11 MWh production per year in east/west configuration and 13-16 MWh production in a south facing ideal deployment.
There is a 1:10 production difference between January and June, though, so the household likely needs to buy power Nov-Feb, but will likely break even or almost break even in Mar, and not consume any power from the grid in April to September, and begin to load from the grid lightly on October.
Heating with a heat pump will have them but 3-4 MWh during winter.
(Numbers based on our 75 kWh/(year and qm) home, and our demand, but they seem to be applicable on a more general scale, too).
For power producers this means they have to supply power to homes like ours only for winter.
Fortunately wind + battery can actually do that without CO2.
@isotopp
Nachfrageverpuffung, oder wie heißt das auf deutsch? -
@patterfloof @notjustbikes Sure but I imagine planning for a few days of heavy cloud cover, in mid winter, with low wind is really difficult. Edge cases will be the expensive part. And probably there will be a place for... something to fill those rare gaps other than eg doubling battery capacity. Maybe turbines and hydrogen? Something cheap but energy dense.
@mattsqu No, this is totally unrelated to base load.
What you're talking about is "dispatchable power" from "peaker plants" which is the literal opposite of what a nuclear reactor provides.
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When I did some reading on the current situation, I found a lot of sites out of Australia that were repeating this "base load" idea, in the context of nuclear power.
I suspect that this is fossil-fuel propaganda.
Fossil fuel companies love promoting nuclear power because they know it takes decades to get a reactor built (if it gets built at all), and in the meantime, everyone keeps using fossil fuels.
It's the perfect way to cripple renewables without being obvious about it.
@notjustbikes that was literally what the conservative (Liberal & National Party coalition) opposition pulled at the last election here in Australia:
Cancel renewables.
Start up a nuclear program (despite multiple failed attempts).
Throw money at gas and coal.They didn't win the election
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Lots of nuclear trolls/shrills.
Not all of them are real people.Here in Australia, we have lots of mainly uncontrolled rooftop solar.
The sun shines and The commercial solar farms get pushed out.
The constant on "baseload" coal plants lose money with negative prices. They have started to learn to dance. Like the UK coal plants. Ramping their output up and down. But they have their limits. No longer baseload.
So we have a solution.
Give away 3 hours of electricity for free in the middle of the day. When we have the most amount of negative prices and spare solar capacity.
Perfect for charging evs. Or shifting loads away form peak.
Also a big boom in home batteries is also seeing demand reduction in evening peaks. Charge own batteries, rather then export, then use your own electricity in peak. Or sell it back to the grid when it is needed.
The hours the market wants back: Free daytime power, or a fix for solar and wind curtailment?
What does it mean when an offer appears consumer-friendly but is also system-convenient? And what becomes visible when price is placed beside curtailment rather than read in isolation?
Renew Economy (reneweconomy.com.au)
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I used to be very pro-nuclear, but I am now very pro-fusion.
I have a number of remote nuclear fusion receivers on the roof of my house, and they are netting me around 7 MWh/year at zero running cost.
The remote fusion collection contraptions don't have any moving part either. I think this is important, maintenance-wise.
@sgued @notjustbikes -
@patterfloof @notjustbikes Sure but I imagine planning for a few days of heavy cloud cover, in mid winter, with low wind is really difficult. Edge cases will be the expensive part. And probably there will be a place for... something to fill those rare gaps other than eg doubling battery capacity. Maybe turbines and hydrogen? Something cheap but energy dense.
@mattsqu @patterfloof @notjustbikes This is a "letting the perfect be the enemy of the good" objection. We're in a transition, and the best ways to finish it might not be obvious until there's more experience with the whole tech stack. But it's doable: engineers are doing it.
