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Comment by rapsey | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately you can't just turn on/off coal at will. Gas is easier but still takes some time. This is why renewables solve very few problems. They are not really a replacement for anything.

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I know facts do not matter in this debate, but both types of coal have significantly decrease since 2016. 2023 will end as a record low for decades.

Source: https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE...

Solar and Wind are absolutely pushing out Coal generation on top of Gas generation.

Coal capacity is sitting idle more and more. Significantly.

You can convince yourself of this by looking at these charts and comparing coal generation from week to week. https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c...

Nothing at grid scale is as easy as flipping a lightbulb on or off, but even so grids can and do switch coal plants on and off.

At least the UK coal plants do this, so there's no reason German ones can't.

I don’t think that’s true:

https://www.nowtricity.com/country/germany/

Of course of we look at yearly figures getting rid of nuclear and increasing coal usage after the start of the war didn’t really help.

Greens (the world over) aggressively attacking nuclear is quintessentially that meme of the cyclist shoving a stick between his own spokes.

In 25 years, when we still have to keep coal plants turned on because we couldn’t magic enough battery capacity into existence to compensate for base load, those coal plants should have giant billboards next to them with this generation’s green politicians.

Thanks for tying a concrete block to our feet.

Don't talk such nonsense. The capacity additions in renewables are so enormous that by 2030 most European countries will run so much surplus during summer that we will likely not know what to do with it. TFA talks about tripling in solar in Germany until 2030!

The only chance for needing any more coal in 2030 will be as a contingency if Putin is still fighting in Ukraine at that point.

A surplus is useless without storage, and with projected battery production capacity having enough grid storage is a pie in the sky. Every western country + China will be clamoring for batteries, on top of virtually every industry.

The only solution I hear from “green” people is the “future battery technology” MacGuffin.

The surplus in summer during noon isn't useless bit rather means that during morning and early evening we need less fossils. This is the main point of all of this, remember?

A surplus also leads to reduced prices which enables novel uses such as charging an electric vehicle for very little money. This replaces CO2.

The market will be clever to profit from the available cheap electricity.

The surplus is already so bad that residential solar gets automatically turned off en-masse to protect the grid.

Overall, economics is killing nuclear not greens.

energy is the economy and france hast the most affordable energy in europe which would give a competitive advantage if its leader didnt plan a global european price destroying its own nuclear industry thanks to german and green party influence that hated the competition.

> we couldn’t magic enough battery capacity into existence

"My Little Investment: The Invisible Hand Of The Free Market Is Magic"

UK has mostly shut down coal. Has one single plant hanging around just in case. In 2020, Britain went 5,202 hours free from coal electricity generation, up from 3,665 hours in 2019 and 1,856 in 2018.

And that's without significant quantities of batteries, because there's more than one way to store energy and more than one way to fuel backup generators if those storage systems aren't sufficient.

If the UK can do it, basically everyone can.

> because we couldn’t magic enough battery capacity into existence to compensate for base load

Lets look at California's ISO supply page right now.

   Renewables: 14.3GW.
   Nat Gas: 3.5GW
   Nuke: 2.2GW
   Imports: 1.3GW
   Batteries: -3.5GW (Charging)

All the utility grade battery capacity was added in the last three years.

What's kind annoying about solar, wind and batteries is we could have done a moon shot program in the 70's to develop the industry but we didn't. So we wasted 40 years and trillions on fossil fuels and nuclear. If we had taken the money spent on nukes in the 50's and 60's we would have been switching over in the 70's.

Is battery storage cheaper than nuclear though?

> annoying

Wasn’t nuclear supposed to be the “moonshot” of the 50s and 60s? I guess another problem is that they would’ve had to solve both solar panel and the battery issue at the same time.

My dad said when he was a young engineer nuclear and space was going to be the future and it didn't pan out. Friends dad was a nuclear engineering professor and said I retired just in time.

I think battery storage costs something like $100/MWh or 10 cents per kwh. (Don't quote me/find a reliable source). Batteries increase demand when there is excess supply and increase supply when there is under supply. The result is lower price swings. The price differentials are higher than the cost of storage which makes them balance sheet profitable. The notable thing is the buy low sell high cycle is 24 hours, not weeks or months. From an arbitrage point of view that's exceptionally attractive. Better than buying wheat futures in the spring and trying to offload them in August and sometimes losing your shirt.

https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-insights/buy-l...

No.

I’ll just copy my comment from elsewhere verbatim:

Projected battery production capacity makes this a a pie in the sky. Every western country + China will be clamoring for batteries, on top of virtually every industry.

The only solution I hear from “green” people is the “future battery technology” MacGuffin.

> Every western country + China will be clamoring for batteries, on top of virtually every industry.

Yes, which by the power of "hey look there's a lot of demand for that, we should invest in some factories to make money servicing that demand" means a lot of people make battery factories. And mines. And processing plants.

Which is why it's clear that if…

> The only solution I hear from “green” people is the “future battery technology” MacGuffin

You're not listening to the sound of money being made.

Imagine we build 3kwh worth of batteries per world capita. Or 8 billion people. And the batteries cost $100/kwh. That's 2.4 Trillion/Year. No ones leaving that kind of money on the table.

Indeed, and despite that being not too dissimilar to annual fossil fuel costs, that figure also assumes the batteries have to be replaced each year, it's probably more like every three to ten years.

The main reason why Germany increased coal usage last year was because they exported it to France. Because their (french) nuclear plants were in maintainace or lacking cooling water.

And why is everyone always looking at the momental situation? Look at yearly tendencies if you want to see what happens.

Edit: since people are down voting, here is a fun fact for you.

Power generated from nuclear: France 2016=415TWh; 2023(ongoing)=312TWh Germany 2016=80TWh;

So optimistically for France -95TWh/a, Germany -80.

Sources:

https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=FR...

https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE...

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