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Germany shutting down last nuclear power plants on April 15th
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Siwastaja:

--- Quote from: nctnico on April 14, 2023, 11:30:12 pm ---All the elasticity needs to come from hydrogen storage (as batteries are too expensive for storage that needs to bridge >8 hours; just google that).

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I'm saying this again, but a lot of elasticity can and will come from distributed thermal storage of heating/cooling buildings and hot water. This is a truly low-hanging fruit which is still not being fully picked. In many cases, the storage resources exist, and it's only control systems that are lacking (disclosure: we are manufacturing and selling such things.)

Industrial processes can't flex, but industrial, commercial and household heating/cooling can. Cost for storing energy into hot water or just building materials is ridiculously small compared to both hydrogen and li-ion solutions, and the time constants that can be had are easily around 24 hours.

This still won't solve the "it's cold and the wind is totally standstill for 10 successive days" condition, the time constant is too just long. You still have to burn fossils - or store excess renewable production as hydrogen as you suggest - to bridge that gap. But this condition does not happen every winter at all. In total, this is below 1-2% of annual energy.

All attempts to oversimplify the energy solutions of humanity fail. The solution is a large palette of sources, and a large palette of storage / load management systems, because every system has different drawbacks compared to others. Even just simple averaging enables synergy; with explicit control and planning, even better.
Simon:

--- Quote from: tom66 on April 14, 2023, 08:54:28 am ---
--- Quote from: daqq on April 14, 2023, 08:35:23 am ---Capacity is not the same as power. Installing 100GW of renewables capacity is not the same as being able to shut down 100GW worth of other sources.

See attachments (yes, possibly cherrypicked data, but quite realistic scenarios):

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Yes of course, you cannot use renewables only.  This is why you combine renewables with storage (hydrogen looks like a possible contender, but other options are available).  You use the stored energy during periods with less wind/solar/etc.  And combine that with long HVDC links that can move power across the European continent or from north Africa, or repurpose suitable gas transmission systems to move hydrogen. 

Once you have an 'overbuilt' network you have huge incentives to use that energy instead of storing it because using it is cheaper than storing and using it later.  So there come certain incentives to use energy when it's most available,  you can imagine aluminium smelters for instance following wind or solar patterns with their shifts, or electric vehicles which spend most of their time parked up charging on excess energy at low cost.


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there is gas and then there is gas. You cannot automatically put hydrogen into methane pipes, you see that carbon atom in the CH4 is huge, needs a big hole to get through. Hydrogen is one of the smallest attoms, seals that keep methane in will let hydrogen leak. To use hydrogen the network would need rebuilding.
Simon:

--- Quote from: nctnico on April 14, 2023, 11:37:57 pm ---
--- Quote from: asmi on April 13, 2023, 10:05:51 pm ---ALL energy we receive ultimately came from the Sun in one way or another. But energy consumption will only grow, because that is the metric of civilizational development, so at some point it will overtake anything that Sun can provide us no matter how large that amount is. If you want a proof that energy consumption will only ever grow, look at entire history of humankind. All technological advances hinged on using more and more energy. There is no historical precedent when that wasn't the case.

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Bollocks. You can't fit enough people on earth to consume the amount of energy that the sun delivers to our planet. Over a 24 hour period, the sun supplies the earth with average amount of 160Watt per square meter. Now calculate the number of square meters of our planet and multiply.

If you analyse how much energy 'we' consume, you'll see that the Sun supplies the earth with like a million to a trillion times more energy than we consume. Just for kicks look at the pictures of how many solar panels need to be put in the Sahara to supply the world with electricity. The amount of energy the sun produces is insane.

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I didn't bother explaining it to him in the detail you went to. I hoped he'd come back with a rational argument that would have had to say what you just said. Instead he accused me of abusing my power by replying to him perhaps pointing out that he was just running around trolling the thread with nonsense. He's been doing the typical thing of shifting the point to keep going without answering any points.
Traceless:
FWIW I think it is a very good decision to get rid of all NPPs. Gas should be substituted by hydrogen and the coal plants should be shut down ASAP as well of course and only serve as backups.
tom66:

--- Quote from: james_s on April 14, 2023, 11:15:55 pm ---
--- Quote from: tom66 on April 14, 2023, 10:25:22 am ---Well, aluminium can be made anywhere.  But EU should apply a carbon tax on any aluminium that is not made with renewable energy.  Such policies are already in discussion at committee level - imported carbon tax etc.

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How do they know?

China can always say "oh yeah this alminum you're buying was made with 100% renewable energy" and since it's half the price of the "same" thing offered by anyone else, somebody buys it.

I'm all for trying to keep the environment clean, but I do think a lot of our efforts to do so result in just moving the pollution somewhere else. Arguably better for us than having it in our own town but not really better for the planet as a whole.

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Same as anything that relies on trust.  You have auditors and chains of trustworthy organisations and paperwork.  Yes fraud can happen but if you make it difficult and with significant consequences (e.g. being barred from trading) then it becomes too difficult to pull off.
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