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Bosco_is_a_prick t1_j6n791p wrote

European countries have been adding more more intermittent renewable energy generation year after year.

Showing building grids around intermittent renewable energy backed by gas is a cost effective way in reducing carbon emissions.

Yet detractors keep saying that the intermittent nature of wind and solar make them unsuitable for mass adoption.

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Saffra9 t1_j6nhmxi wrote

The intermittent nature of wind and solar is a real problem but not one that would stop them from giving a good average power output for the year. It instead means we still need a large capacity of energy generation with load following, which Europe had with oil and coal. A good baseline also helps which Europe has in some places with nuclear.

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RedditIsShit9922 t1_j6nx6gn wrote

Nuclear does hurt more than it helps, since its insane costs could be put into more cost-effective options.

It also cannot be used to compliment renewables because it cannot be used for dispatchable power generation. Thus it directly competes with renewables for every Dollar/Euro being spend on the energy sector.

People who are truly concerned about the climate catastrophy ought to oppose nuclear power in favor of renewables and storage.

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Saffra9 t1_j6oam63 wrote

Only the up front costs are insane, reactors pay for themselves in 30 years then keep going for another 30, then get extended for another 20.

Baseline power does support renewables, if it’s not nuclear it’s more fossil fuels. You need to generate four times as much energy if you are going to store it, for example as potential energy, then turn it back in to electricity again.

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RedditIsShit9922 t1_j6oqlxp wrote

They do not pay for themselves ever if you include all the externalities which currently are conveniently paid for by society. Nuclear power is a taxpayer scam where profits are privatized and costs are socialized.

>You need to generate four times as much energy if you are going to store it

Renewables are much cheaper power generators. Nuclear power costs about 5 times more than onshore wind power per kWh. Nuclear takes 5 to 17 years longer between planning and operation and produces on average 23 times the emissions per unit electricity generated.

So if you want to generate lots of energy for storage, you would be a fool to go for nuclear rather than renewables, even from a purely economical perspective.

And I rather have no electricity at all than nuclear power.

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DrLemniscate t1_j6ovswe wrote

We can easily get rid of coal, that's just stable baseline load.

The tricky part is that gas is currently needed to regulate the variability of renewables, to match to demand. We will need some big advancements and adoption in battery storage to replace gas entirely.

There is a thing called the "duck curve" where Solar drops off shortly before peak usage hours, this leads to massive ramp rates needed as demand increases and solar supply drops off. Currently, we see a lot of Gas units turned on just for their ramp speed, and turned off after an hour, very inefficient.

The EU is also helped by being a larger energy collective, less inefficiencies from having seperate utilities like parts of the US.

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nyaaaa t1_j6oqo75 wrote

Energy cost goes down, grid cost goes way up.

But if your country has a failing grid, they gotta rebuild it anyway.

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