> I'm willing to be clued-in. This isn't an ideological fight for me. I have nothing against solar and wind. I want what you want. Ideally, if you could point me to an example of 100% or near 100% renewable smart grid that is running primarily on wind and solar - the discussion would be over.
You are giving the "nothing can ever happen for the first time" argument.
Grids right now use fossil fuels. This does not mean that a fossil-fuel free grid is impossible, or that IF fossil fuels were excluded, renewables could not do the job. It just means that the policies to ban fossil fuels are not yet in place.
If you model what it would take to produce a 0% fossil fuel grid, using plausible numbers for the costs, you will find in most cases that nuclear gets optimized right out of the picture. It's just too expensive. Instead, some combination of wind, solar, possibly hydro if available, short term storage (like batteries) and long term storage (like hydrogen) is cheaper.
Your focus on what exists now is irrelevant to what I was talking about, which is what would be cheapest in a ground-up fossil-free grid using costs as they exist today. The nuclear plants in Ontario are sunk costs. They would not be built today as new plants. As historical remnants, they will eventually disappear, and likely will not be replaced with more nuclear.
>This does not mean that a fossil-fuel-free grid is impossible, or that IF fossil fuels were excluded
We know fossil-fuel-free grids are very possible. Hydro/Geothermal (if you can get it) and Nuclear can enable it. Today.
What is clear is that wind and solar cannot create a fossil-fuel-free grid because both wind and solar need base-load backup - which today is natural gas in most places. Everything else like molten-salt, kinetic, Li-ion batteries are either unproven or will never work (such as Li-ion batteries being used for long-term grid-scale backup). And proponents will usually equivocate and just assume we can invent our way out of this.
>You are giving the "nothing can ever happen for the first time" argument
No. But did you ask yourself: Why isn't it happening? Why is it taking Germany decades to get that 'first time'? Maybe it just doesn't work but so many people are so emotionally invested, they don't want to hear it. So much so, that they actually think that burning wooden pellets is an energy source of the future because that's one way to provide carbon-neutral base-load for solar.
> What is clear is that wind and solar cannot create a fossil-fuel-free grid because both wind and solar need base-load backup
That does not prevent wind and solar from providing an all renewable grid. And as I explained, for plausible near term costs figures, dealing with intermittency via proper system design makes the all-renewable grid cheaper than one including nuclear.
That the backup "today, is natural gas" is not relevant to that question.
Use of Li-ion batteries for long term storage is a strawman brought up by persons who are attempting to throw shade on renewables. But that would be idiot system design. Long term storage would be much better done with hydrogen (trading lower efficiency for lower capital cost).
> But did you ask yourself: Why isn't it happening?
Because the effective CO2 tax isn't high enough yet, particularly to cause the shutdown of existing fossil fuel plants for which capital costs are sunk. I could well ask "why isn't nuclear displacing natural gas?"
You seem to be arguing that wind/solar have to displace fossil fuels without any Pigouvian taxes (or the equivalent) on the latter. By this standard, nuclear also won't displace fossil fuels.
>That does not prevent wind and solar from providing an all-renewable grid.
Yes, it does. Which part of "there is no alternative to natural gas for base-load" are you purposely ignoring?
>That the backup "today, is natural gas" is not relevant to that question.
It is if there is no path past natural gas. What if there is no other alternative?
What if there is no path past natural gas. What if natural gas is not an intermediate technology on the path to utopia, but it is the end-state. Germany certainly acts like that is true because Germany inked a multi-decade deal with Russia to build pipelines and import their gas for the next 5 decades.
>Use of Li-ion batteries for long term storage is a strawman brought up by persons who are attempting to throw shade on renewables.
It's a strawman to you but there are people who really truly believe that Li-ion batteries can provide long-term grid-scale storage. And they will argue with you as vehemently as you argue for hydrogen. Every renewable proponent has its pet unproven technology as the saviour. It's a necessary part of the renewable religion
>Long term storage would be much better done with hydrogen (trading lower efficiency for lower capital cost).
Hydrogen is not a solution, or it's as much a solution as any other unproven pipe-dream. It is not used today because hydrogen for long-term grid-scale storage is an insanely challenging proposition both from generation to storage (Hydrogen needs to be stored under high pressures, thereby requiring reinforced/heavy containers). But every proponent of renewable religion will have their favourite Saint they can pray too. For some, it is Li-ion batteries. For you, it's hydrogen storage.
>Because the effective CO2 tax isn't high enough yet
That's your personal assessment? How about the fact that there is no proven natural-gas alternative to base-load? The laws of thermodynamics don't care about carbon taxes. Taxing carbon only works if there is an alternative to move to. You can tax airplane fuel as much as you want, but airplanes will continue to use fossil fuels because there is no alternative.
> to cause the shutdown of existing fossil fuel plants for which capital costs are sunk
We (NA and Europe) have no issues shutting down coal. But we sure as heck are not shutting down natural gas.
>I could well ask "why isn't nuclear displacing natural gas?"
I wish I knew. I really do. It's part of the irrationality of all of this. My guess is that nuclear suffered from 50 years of FUD from environmentalists (helped by Chernobyl and Three Mile Islan), over-regulation and cheap natural gas. So much of the entire green movement is irrational and religious. But to be clear, if it wasn't for CO2 emissions, natural gas would be a perfectly adequate power source.
I'm not concerned about Nuclear costs either, because even though Nuclear is expensive, it is not overly expensive. I think governments should subsidize nuclear. I would say the same about solar/wind if I believed they could actually make a difference.
I leave you with this: Imagine if we doubled-down on nuclear in the 70s to the same level as France did ... Think of the trillions of tons of CO2 emissions that wouldn't have been emitted. It would have bought us maybe an extra 50 years.
> Yes, it does. Which part of "there is no alternative to natural gas for base-load" are you purposely ignoring?
I'm not ignoring it. I'm telling you it's false. I've pointed out to you how one can design a 100% renewable grid without natural gas. You believe something that's just not so.
It's not possible to have an intelligent conversation with you when you're the moral equivalent of a Flat Earther.
As pointed out below, hydrogen would not be stored in containers, but rather underground, as natural gas already is.
>I've pointed out to you how one can design a 100% renewable grid without natural gas. You believe something that's just not so.
Can you please provide an example of the energy mix of a 100% renewable grid? I don't even know what it looks like in theory.
> You believe something that's just not so.
Because there isn't one and not without trying. Germany is a perfect example. A very rich, progressive country with a massive budget surplus .. and yet they aren't doing it. In fact, they are building NEW natural gas pipelines from the authoritarian nations and a geopolitical rival. How does that happen? How do you make sense of it in your head?
>It's not possible to have an intelligent conversation with you when you're the moral equivalent of a Flat Earther.
Are you sure you're not the Flat Earther? You just claim things that are in direct contradiction to what is happening in the real world. There is NO country right now, that either implemented or is on the path to 100% renewable-based grid that isn't based on hydro, geothermal or nuclear. None. That is a fact of reality. This means that every country that is at 100% or near 100% non-fossil-fuel energy generation did it with either hydro, geothermal, or nuclear. Those are all facts. I see that and I read your arguments, and it looks like gaslighting to me.
> Can you please provide an example of the energy mix of a 100% renewable grid? I don't even know what it looks like in theory.
It's not hard to imagine, if you allow yourself to think about it (which I suggest you do so you can cease embarrassing yourself here.)
For Germany, one can just look at simple model outputs, using real weather data. The site I often point to, https://model.energy/ allows you to find optimum solutions to the problem of producing a steady amount of power. This ignores seasonality of demand, but it good for addressing the "but nuclear" fanboys, since nuclear reactors produce near steady output. The assumed 2030 cost for H2 electrolysers there is already well above current costs; decline has been more rapid than expected.
If you go to that site and ask for solutions for Germany, you get a mix that includes wind, solar, batteries, and hydrogen (about 6 hours of battery storage, and about a week of hydrogen storage.)
This solution does NOT include thermal storage, which would be very large for many applications, as it is extremely cheap. In particular, underground storage of low grade heat would likely be used for district heating.
> Because there isn't one and not without trying. Germany is a perfect example. A very rich, progressive country with a massive budget surplus .. and yet they aren't doing it
They aren't doing it because the CO2 cost needed to make it happen isn't in place yet. An argument very similar to yours was made about them getting off coal. "Look at Germany, still burning all that coal." Yet when the European CO2 market was tweaked to increase the cost of CO2 credits, coal use in Germany began to rapidly decline. It wasn't high because coal is essential and irreplaceable, it was high because the market signals made it high. Change those signals and other solutions are adopted.
You are confusing what is currently cheapest with what is physically possible or practical. These are not the same thing.
> Are you sure you're not the Flat Earther?
Yes, absolutely. You're the one engaging in shoddy and illogical arguments, the "it hasn't happened yet therefore it can't happen", the one ignoring the repeated refutations of your clear logical errors and misconceptions.
The storage capacity is 84.8 PWh-H2 in Europe across all known formations. This is a very large number and likely far exceeds demand. It's safe to say we will not struggle with hydrogen storage if or when we need it.
In particular, the optimum solution for a steady supply of renewable power for Germany (from https://model.energy) for their current average grid power demand would involve about 0.1% of this as hydrogen storage.
And that's just salt caverns. Hydrogen can also be stored in aquifers and spent oil fields.
So why is Germany building NEW pipelines from Russia to import their natural gas? It sounds like there's no point in investing in natural gas when you could spend those same billions just building hydrogen storage. What are they missing?
The cost of CO2 is not yet high enough to make the CO2-free alternative less expensive. This is the same reason Germany's coal use didn't start rapidly declining until recently, when the European CO2 market was tweaked to raise the price of CO2 credits. It's not because the CO2-free alternatives aren't possible.
(It's also possible they're adding pipelines for security reasons, to avoid cutoff by intermediaries. I don't know if that's actually the case though.)
>Hydrogen can be stored underground in the form of salt caverns or domes.
And is it? On a grid-scale? And if not, why not? Is it because there are major technical hurdles that need to be overcome, and it's a completely unproven approach?
This is what happens with these renewable discussions. Proponents will just throw out theories as facts and non-existent technologies as ready for prime time and gloss over intrinsic technical hurdles ... meanwhile in the real world, even though there is desperation to move from fossil fuels, somehow those ideas aren't implemented. Why is Germany building NEW natural gas pipelines, instead of building hydrogen storage? The Syrian conflict is partially exacerbated by geopolitical jockeying between Russia and Turkey and others for the right to build future pipelines into Europe. What do they all know that we don't know?
It is happening since hydrogen is used in oil refining and other industries. Not at the scale needed, but there is definitely large quantities of hydrogen being stored this way.
Broadly speaking, it is not much different than storing natural gas.
It's not happening yet because the cost of CO2 is not high enough yet to make it competitive. Having said that, Germany is putting a lot of money into hydrogen, and this is driving down the cost of electrolysers, the same way Germany drove down the cost of PV a decade ago.
You are giving the "nothing can ever happen for the first time" argument.
Grids right now use fossil fuels. This does not mean that a fossil-fuel free grid is impossible, or that IF fossil fuels were excluded, renewables could not do the job. It just means that the policies to ban fossil fuels are not yet in place.
If you model what it would take to produce a 0% fossil fuel grid, using plausible numbers for the costs, you will find in most cases that nuclear gets optimized right out of the picture. It's just too expensive. Instead, some combination of wind, solar, possibly hydro if available, short term storage (like batteries) and long term storage (like hydrogen) is cheaper.
Your focus on what exists now is irrelevant to what I was talking about, which is what would be cheapest in a ground-up fossil-free grid using costs as they exist today. The nuclear plants in Ontario are sunk costs. They would not be built today as new plants. As historical remnants, they will eventually disappear, and likely will not be replaced with more nuclear.