Ultimately the only way to supply the constant power consumption demanded by data centers and keep consumer prices reasonable will be to build more fission power plants. This approach has several serious cost and safety issues but it's the only thing we're certain will work.
Except in this example she lives in Phoenix, so yes sometimes it absolutely does. At times the overnight low temp in the summer doesn't go below 90 degrees.
Nothing, not even nuclear, has 100% coverage with 100% reliability. And anything less than 100% can be handled with statistics. The goal is 99.99%, because that's the grid reliability so there is no significant benefit for going over that. 99.99% reliability with a combo of wind, solar and batteries is cheaper than nuclear.
The cheapest is 95% solar/wind/batteries and 5% natural gas.
I am of the attitude that even with no additional fossil fuel infrastructure constructed, we would be fine if we made an effort.
A mix for new generation of something like 70% solar/wind/batteries, 10% better grid interties, 10% expanded peaking hydro, and 10% a better system of load modulation, works just fine.
Load following with a market rate for things like water heaters, car chargers, and various industrial processes is something that's been implemented in other countries half-seriously, but only treated as an epithet or a scam here. To actually work, you can't just "Charge people a market rate" and expect them to fiddle with the breaker box, you have to actually integrate that feed into a decision-making algorithm run by home automation, which can make distinctions like "We need the car to be 90% full by 7AM, but we can adjust between charging at 1KW and charging at 6KW to minimize expected billing based on a minute to minute rate schedule. The water heater can range between 130F and 160F as required due to a mixing valve. The average dew point in the HVAC system needs to stay between 40F and 60F on a three-hourly basis, but can be modulated in ten minute increments according to demand." These sorts of interfaces need to be simple enough that Grandma can establish them conversationally.
Grid interties allow Los Angeles to sell Boston sunlight and Chicago to sell Houston wind.
Peaking hydro is just pumped storage minus the new pump and the new dam. An existing hydroelectric dam just gets refitted for twice as many generators and starts running on a 50% duty cycle, while allowing more variation in the water level.
- the carbon intensity of pretty much every country's grid has dropped dramatically in the last 25 years. First by replacing coal with natgas, then by adding renewables.
- nuclear cost France $2/W in 1982 dollars ($6.50 today). solar+batteries cost California $4/W in 2023 dollars.
- the late 70s was a lot more than 30 years ago. (I was born in the 70's, I wish I was still in my 30's).
And at $150/kw of panels, $100/kw of inverters & copper, $100/kw of mounting, $100/kw of install labor, and $100/kw of real estate...
And at a 1W : 1kwh/yr (11%) duty cycle (my area should be 50% over that, but let's use conservative assumptions for low-maintenance vertical mounts)
And a level of conservativeness around power supply that reserves 60 hours of battery bank...
...
I can run a steady 1kw load (a GPU, let's say) for ~9kw of panels ($4950) + 60kwh of batteries ($6000), or $10,000. Capital cost of $10/watt.
Vogtle 3 and Vogtle 4 are going to end up averaging about 2.1GW for an estimated construction cost of perhaps $34 billion by the time everything is complete, or a capital cost of about $16/watt.
There is reason to expect the nuclear construction industry to drop in costs as it ramps up in size, but solar is already cost competitive here and it does not require the government to take over various costs like insurance, nor require the same political capital, approval process, or long financing period before initial payoff.
With that little battery you’re going to need to keep some natural gas plants running to be able to survive a few cloudy days in a row without a blackout.
Or just buy electricity from one state to the north or south where they didn't catch the same storm as you.
Or start running a nearby hydroelectric dam at 300% of average flow rate.
Or stop smelting aluminum in your attached aluminum smelter. Or equivalently, your bitcoin mine.
Batteries and panels continue to rapidly drop in price.
As your PV+battery system gets bigger in relation to your load, chance of a failure mode drops much faster than linearly; Not only are you looking at the far end of a bell curve from battery capacity alone, you're also generating more PV on the cloudy days.
>you're also generating more PV on the cloudy days
Or this: >chance of a failure mode drops much faster than linearly