>The usual argument I keep seeing is that with the exponential cost reduction in solar and green hydrogen we will have in the future a combination that will be cheaper than the nuclear costs of today.

Thats what its like today. That's probably why the nuclear PR articles almost never try to compare costs or speed of construction with demand shaping + solar + wind + storage. It does not stack up well.

The average cost of green hydrogen is 6 euro per kg, putting the price per kw/h around 18 cent. That is about 7 times more than the cost of nuclear per kw/h.

No one is burning green hydrogen commercially for grid power, through a lot of people would be happy to pay the average nuclear cost (~3 cent per kw/h) if you want to provide it. Selling green hydrogen for $1 per kg would be very welcome in Europe right now, with a basically bottomless demand if someone would be willing to provide it at current nuclear prices.

Demand shaping + solar + wind + storage is not economical viable in Northen Europe, but if you have any evidence to support the opposite then provide them. The fact is, if it was then the crisis that currently exist would not be a crisis, it would be an investment rush.

Of course, if you personally want to offer green hydrogen for $1 per kg this winter, and sign a liability contract for supplying the many tons needed, then sure. Lets do it!

"Green hydrogen" is probably the least efficient form of energy storage talked about. The only reason it gets talked about at all is again, PR - because gas companies are keen on extending the life of their rather expensive capital investments. It's currently in the hypothetical stage and, being realistic, the gas companies promoting it probably just want to produce grey hydrogen for use with "green hydrogen" infrastructure and string us along with false hopes that theyll go 100% green soon. Not an unexpected development from the same people who covered up global warming for decades.

Pumped storage + (to a lesser extent) grid scale batteries (e.g. in hawaii) are actually real, being used and economic. The lobbying and PR muscle behind each is a bit less though - especially boring old pumped storage.

>Demand shaping + solar + wind + storage is not economical viable in Northen Europe

It very much is. It's already being done. In fact a lot of that storage in the alps has been used for excess nuclear power from France.

Please provide a link to a pumped storage that buy green wind power when the price is low and sell it when the price is high. I would be nice to have a working example of how much wind they buy and at what price point they sell, and how they managed to finance it (ie, how much subsidies was involved). The cost per kw/h is of particular interest.

Grid scale batteries work great when you got 365 charge cycles. Each day it charge, each night it sell and generate profits. Current economics makes it worth having a few hours of capacity, and after a few years of daily charge cycles you got profits. Wind doesn't have day and night cycles like that, but rather have periods lasting weeks or months of either good wind or poor wind. You need capacity to last the whole period, and you get maybe a 10 or so charge cycle each year.

> A lot of that storage in the alps has been used for excess nuclear power from France.

Since nuclear is presented as being the most expensive method to create energy, if you then store it in pumped hydro and add this additional storage cost, how in the world would that be economical viable?

Looking at the European report on energy storage, the answer is that it is not. Pumped storage is not used for that purpose in the alps. It is used to balance the grid when power plants ramp up or down, a role which gas and oil power plants usually do. For this, nuclear energy can be used since the profits are not from buying low and selling high, it is from the utilization of keeping the grid balanced when power plants are ramping up and down. They get paid for the service, which makes the economics of it very different from selling capacity to the market during periods of low wind.

>Please provide a link to a pumped storage that buy green wind power when the price is low and sell it when the price is high.

Not sure what you mean here. Like, a link to fengning? Kaprun? Snowy 2?

Also you dont buy "green power" on the grid. You just buy power.

We dont have much pumped storage right now coz (at least until feb) basically nothing could compete with gas as a peaker. Some is under construction though in anticipation of it being economic in a few years. With the subsidies nuclear eats for breakfast we could accelerate and bring online even more stable power than nuclear possibly could at lower cost.

>Wind doesn't have day and night cycles like that, but rather have periods lasting weeks or months of either good wind or poor wind.

It tends to anticorrelate with solar production which has a smoothing effect. Also the idea that whole months go by with little to no wind is a myth. Offshore in particular is a lot more stable than its reputation, topping out at 67% capacity factor, which is only slightly below France's 71% for its nuclear plants in 2020 (frances plants are getting decrepit).

Pro nuclear articles almost invariably avoid delving into this and comparing the economics and focus almost exclusively on safety because this isnt an argument it can really win.

>Since nuclear is presented as being the most expensive method to create energy, if you then store it in pumped hydro and add this additional storage cost, how in the world would that be economical viable?

Coz France subsidized the shit out of its nuclear industry in the 70s in reaction to the oil crisis. You can make anything economic if you throw subsidies at it. Whether those subsidies were well spent is another matter.

If you assume construction is a sunk cost, existing nuclear plants are economically competitive which is partly why new US nuclear legislation is focused on extending plant life. However, running decrepit old nuclear plants until the bitter end isnt particularly safe.

Hence why it's important to prime the public to think that it is with all those "nuclear power is the future!" articles. Consent must be manufactured.

> Not sure what you mean here. Like, a link to fengning? Kaprun? Snowy 2?

Provide a source that shows a company which business model is to buy renewable energy when the price is low and then sells it when the price is high, recovering the cost of investment and operations by the margin between the low and high price point.

Shouldn't be hard. I can provide a link of a company which business model is to buy groceries at a cheap price and then sell them to customers at a higher price. Buy low sell high is one of the most simplistic business model that exist.

What does not count is a pumped storage that operate as a grid balancer, where the profits is not from the margins between price points but rather to provide a service of keeping the grid balanced when other power plants are ramping down or ramping up. They don't get paid per kw/h, and they don't sell just when the price is high.

> Also the idea that whole months go by with little to no wind is a myth

There is statistics about this if one do a few searches. The risk that you get a whole month with little to no wind is a statistical probability higher than 0. More commonly there are periods of low wind lasting weeks to months, with individual day that have slightly more or slightly less. Just as there can be unusual stormy weather a few months, there can be months with unusual calm weather.

>Provide a source that shows a company which business model is to buy renewable energy when the price is low and then sells it when the price is high, recovering the cost of investment and operations

If you read the literature of any of the three projects I just mentioned it will give the numbers.

>What does not count is a pumped storage that operate as a grid balancer, where the profits is not from the margins between price points but rather to provide a service of keeping the grid balanced when other power plants are ramping down or ramping up.

The 350GWh of storage provided by, for example, snowy 2 puts it just a little bit beyond what would be required for adjusting the frequency of the grid.

>There is statistics about this

Yeah, this is an interesting conversation that only ever seems to happen seven thread layers deep into the 1,543rd article about how nuclear is totally truly 100% the future and just like, so safe.

It definitely deserves its own thread.

>More commonly there are periods of low wind lasting weeks to months

More like days. We dont need months of storage. Anyway, whilst Id love to refute the same FUD i encountered two weeks ago on a complex topic six levels down in Yet Another Hacker News link started about how Nuclear Power is Just The Best Thing Ever im afraid I am rather busy today.

If you scroll through my history you should see that i have addressed this before though and posted research.

I have read multiple literature from projects like those and they are all very similar. In the future, when there is overcapacity of renewables energy and the price is right, then it may become financial viable to operate the storage for renewable energy and sell the energy when demand is high. Until then however, for financial and practical reasons, they don't.

Snowy 2 is expected to come into operation in 2024. The key role, published on their website: System security and reliability – Snowy 2.0’s on-demand energy generation can respond within minutes to changing market needs.

They also have feasibility studies:

3. Commercial (omitted) 4. Business Analysis and Modelling (omitted)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A5ol58HEbqSaKG9D21CVGt-ntWx...

It will still be an interesting project to keep an eye on once it get online. If they can operate beyond doing grid system security and reliability, then it might become a proof of concept for renewable storage solution.

So do you got any source for a current operated pumped storage that buy renewables when supply is high, store the renewable energy, and then sell the supply when supply is low? If pumped storage for renewable is a solve and currently economical viable solution then surely a single example should exist? Rather than talking about FUD or "thread layers deep into the 1,543rd article", just link to an existing company doing pumped storage for renewable and be done with it. Do they exist or do they not?

If the answer is no, they don't exist but they may in the future then that is that. It is good that they try. It is good that they built infrastructure that may be used in the future for this purpose. Continue with the experiment and proof of concepts. With energy prices going up in many places they might very fast be working for this purpose, or at the very least replacing gas based generators that exist to create system security and reliability.

This is the problem with nuclear. It was the answer in the 1990s, but renewables have proven themselves.

Now sure, if you could snap your fingers and build a new nuclear plant tomorrow, that would be great. But you can't. By the time a plant breaking ground today starts generating power, it will be too late to make sense.

And, if you could, it would still be massively more expensive. For the price you get many times as much renewable generation.

We've kicked the can so far down the road that the cost isn't really a factor any more -- both Nuclear and Renewable are less than the cost of doing nothing. The question is what

Sadly nobody in charge seems to be bothered. Europe should have been plating the Iberian peninsular in solar for the last 10 years, especially after Crimea. Germany was doing great with solar until about 2015, when it pretty much stopped. From 2009-2014 solar went from 1% of electric consumption to 6%. From 2014-2019 it went from 6% to 8%, not even the same increase let alone continuing on the exponential line.

But while the best time to be building out like your civilisation depended on it was 10 years ago, the second best time is now. Especially with Europe's reliance on Gas from Russia, it should be building everything it can, no moaning about planning permission or people complaining about the scenery etc. Every kWh of solar, or wind, generated is 1kWh of gas not used. More high voltage interconnections should be built to shift power everywhere, especially from Southern Spain, Siciliy and the Penlopenese (where solar should be going), and from Denmark/Netherlands for offshore wind, funded from ECB loans.

Overproduction is not a problem, it can be dumped into green hydrogen generation if nothing else (although again places like Finland are making strides with hot sand storage).

Germany seems to have been building out a fair bit of wind.

Enough? No, but more than others.

Germany is big in Solar, but it should have been increasing not decreasing.

Denmark is good with wind, but should be generating 150% of its usage from wind over the course of the year by now

The biggest thing pro-carbon afficiandos complain about is that renewables require storage. No they don't. If you need to use gas or oil for 30 days a year due to cloudy windless winter days, that's 90% of your energy use with renewable, that's a massive benefit.

Until there's a significant problem for a month or two with excess renewable energy in the EU, and the vast majority of home heating system has been converted from gas to electric, and the same with transport (both cars and trains) then there is a demand for increased renewable production even without storage.

If renewables in the EU had continued the 2005-2010 growth it would be generating 36% of Europe's electricity by now instead of 22%. That rate should have increased from 2010, not decreased. It should be aiming for well over 100%, with excess dumped into electric cars, green hydrogen generation, hot sand, etc.

Renewables need to increase 10-fold across the EU to offset energy imports.

But instead short term thinking won out, as it always does in democratic countries.

The market is free to make their decisions. With a global ban on fossil fuels in the European grid countries should choose for themselves if they want to build multiple cheaper renewables or build more expensive nuclear. Voters will then say theirs. Countries can always trade with each other so that which ever strategy end up as a winner will spread to the others.

Everything is a win-win scenario as long fossil fuels stays in the ground.

I think a lot of governments are keen for this not to happen.

For nuclear powers, a civilian nuclear industry is a strategic asset that sharply brings down the cost of maintaining nuclear weapons/subs/carriers. This is partly through skills exchange and partly due to the presence of a shared industrial ecosystem.

For certain non nuclear powers (sweden, iran, south korea) an overpriced civvie nuclear industry is kind of like buying an option on quickly becoming a nuclear power which theyd like to keep in case of geopolitical emergency.

Countries that dont see a necessity for MAD and arent nuclear powers almost universally cant be bothered with the expense and will just build something else.

This is why the nuclear industry/the US government are so keen to coopt the green movement to support throwing more subsidies after nuclear plants in the name of solving global warming. Also why theyre so keen to foment a split between the traditionally united antinuclear and green groups.

Well again, countries can choose between the non-fossil fuel options. I strongly doubt that nuclear powers will effect the choice in any major way. The biggest factor will be price.

Either renewable + storage will be cheaper, renewables + nuclear power, or renewables and dependency on trade, or renewable + nuclear + storage + trade.

Yes, governments are keen for this not to happen. Gas, oil and coal is still much cheaper than any of the alternatives listed above. Energy prices in Europe as can be seen here (https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/energy-prices), are crazy high. It is expected to climb further as gas and oil prices continue to rise. Governments will step in and subsidize whatever they can to prevent a catastrophic collapse of the grid.

Gas, oil and coal still need to stay in the ground. The green movement could easily stop being fragmented by joining behind that statement, but for some it is more important to be anti-nuclear than keeping gas, oil and coal from being burned. They can continue to be anti-nuclear for as much I care as long they don't advocate to keep gas, oil and coal power plants operational. Thus we need a law that sets a specific date when gas, oil and coal is no longer allowed in the grid.

>Well again, countries can choose between the non-fossil fuel options. I strongly doubt that nuclear powers will effect the choice in any major way.

The media is, in general, oblivious about the connection between civilian nuclear power and military nuclear requirements in the west. They dont explicitly deny it but it would tend to be mentioned in passing in, like, congressional hearings not propaganda targeted at the general public (like the OP's link).

However, you might have noticed that when Iran tries to build a nuclear industry for peaceful purposes the propaganda outfits argue vociferously that We Definitely Do Not Believe Them.

And of course, they were entirely right. Iran did want a civilian nuclear industry for not entirely peaceful purposes - their economics didnt stack up either.

And that is why the cynical attempt to foment a split between anti nuclear campaigners and the green movement goes on. They want greens to be, well, pro nuclear-weapons as a condition of them being seen to be "green".

This propaganda attempt has been quite successful. Not a day goes by on hacker news when somebody doesnt take a dump on anti nuclear campaigners/the german green party while Poland's enormous coal industry that isnt going anywhere is ignored by the very same propaganda/people who listen to it.

They don't need to be pro-nuclear in order to be green. They just can't be sitting in political debates being on the side of the table that is arguing to keeping gas, oil and coal power plants.

They just need to say: "Lets close this fossil fuel power plant".

If people then ask them about nuclear they can be just as anti-nuclear they want. They will get follow up question about what to do when energy demand exceed that of supply, but that is a separate debate between them and those arguing in favor of nuclear.

To take a example out of Swedish politics this last winter. The right movement wanted to replace an oil power plant by reopening a closed nuclear generator. The oil power plant is operating in the south of Sweden, and the plant is also the single largest contributor of green house gases in that area. To quote from memory, the green representative said "Oil power plants is a natural part of the reserve energy plan in Sweden, and there is nothing strange that it need to burn oil when demand exceed supply".

There is something broken when the highest representatives of the green movement is standing in public debates saying that oil power plants are a natural part of the grid. If that is caused by propaganda then the people who is listening need to stop doing it.

They could have said "No, lets replace that oil power plant with a green hydrogen plant". Or they could have said "No, lets replace that oil power plant with a pumped hydro storage". It would make following discussion about costs a bit more difficult, but they would still be the green movement arguing in favor of the environment. Instead they argued in favor of keeping the oil power plant running.

It really is as simple as that. No propaganda, no plot by a pro nuclear-weapons organization trying to turn the world MAD. Just politics where everything the other side say must be countered. If pro-nuclear want to close fossil fuel plants and replace them with nuclear then the anti-nuclear people want to keep the fossil fuel plants.

Keep the gas, oil and coal in the ground. It used to be slogan of the green movement. It should be again. It is a statement that both pro and anti-nuclear people could agree on if they wanted to.