Ardubal

@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

Ah, but historically, France is not an outlier. Here are the largest 10-year deployments of clean energy sources. The green ones are nuclear.

Nuclear doesn't take long.

Here is an overview of historic build times.

The task is not fearing we might get a bad case, but creating an environment in which we get a good one.

@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

And again, nuclear can load follow /just fine/.

@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

Anyway, I don't want anyone to stop building renewables, but I don't want anyone to stop building nuclear either. We need every option.

(Even if nuclear is a safer bet.)

@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

You seem to assume that only one reactor will be built at a time, and nothing learned. But that's not how you do it, and not how France already did it, obviously.

I have a little problem understanding how one can acknowledge the success of the Messmer plan and at the same time claim it unrepeatable.

@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

There are already single events of more than a few hours where sunshine and wind are lacking. But that is only the immediate perspective; you need to integrate over at least several years to see the longer-term shortages that need to be handled as well. And that is quite obviously much more than a few hours. Therefore, I have some problems regarding such studies as credible.

@MattMastodon @matthewtoad43 @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

This is just the fact: there are, at the current state, only two energy sources that can form the backbone of a decarbonized grid, and they have proved it, hydro and nuclear.

Hydro is not available everywhere, however, as it has really large area demand, and geological requirements.

And I repeat: nuclear /is/ very capable of load following.

And I repeat: batteries at the needed scalability don't exist (yet?).

@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

I'm not saying 100% nuclear would be best, but I /know/ that 100% volatiles + storage + transmission are practically impossible.

Up to around 40% volatiles can be compensated by a large grid. The rest can, with current or near-future technology, be nuclear and/or hydro. With middle-future technology, this /might/ be gradually replaced by more volatiles+storage+transmission.

@MattMastodon @matthewtoad43 @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

Sorry to interrupt, but nothing about this is »trivial«.

Also, you must compare the complete system. Let's summarize just two options:

- Nuclear power plants, and the grid as is.
- Wind turbines, solar panels, plus a multiple of the current grid, plus hypothetical storage tech none of which has passed the pilot stage yet.

What is your bet? How do you think decarbonization has /already/ been achieved?

@MattMastodon @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

Yes, shipping in general, especially long-distance, is a huge issue. But it is only solvable through economics. A solution must be at least as effective and efficient (from a business perspective) as the current dirty oil burning, /and/ significantly better at something to overcome inertia.

My bet would be #nuclear power for that: already being done for decades (mostly military though), and the environment seems ideal (no cooling issues).

@MattMastodon @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

Without klicking anything, 61 million € is practically nothing, so I do not expect this to be a big, impactful project. It might be a nice little extra income from surplus hydro power (Norway is almost completely running on hydro).

Then looking into the links, this supports just a small fleet of up to 40 ships. Which is good.

I think it can be a good way for this niche, and it might be one little thing less to worry about.

@MattMastodon @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

A few points to factor in:

- A nuclear power station has a much longer lifetime than batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines.

- You need not only the batteries, but also the panels/turbines to fill them.

- Conversion and storage losses are significant. Attached is a rough overview for H₂.

- Transmission infrastructure costs to/from individual cars are significant.

- 24 h is not enough by far to balance out usual fluctuations.

@MattMastodon @Sodis My thinking about biomass: if we don't burn it, it will not be released as CO₂ to the atmosphere.

I guess the thinking about biomass was: if we only burned biomass, not fossil mass, then we'd have an equilibrium and no problem. But saying that biomass is net-zero gets it backwards. The CO₂ doesn't care where it's coming from. It is our task to produce as little CO₂ as possible. The goal is to get below the amount of CO₂ /captured/ by biological processes.