It is always claimed that the conversion to 80-100% renewable energies fails because of "non-existent" & "too expensive" storage options. At the same time, most arguments against #VisionZero are reduced to lithium-ion batteries, their costs and their environmental balance. Here is an overview of chemical and mechanical storage options that are affordable & feasible with current technology.
ETH Zurich Energy Storage Handbook: "From today's perspective, the Energy Strategy 2050 is technically feasible. The necessary storage technologies are available - today on the market, marketable or demonstrably realisable."
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000445597
Keeping the grid reliable as solar photovoltaics and wind power (both with accurately forecastable but large variations in output) come to dominate electric generation requires changes in markets, institutions, operations, habits, and mental models. This has proven feasible in both theory and practice, as illustrated by national statistics’ reports of 75 percent renewable coverage of annual electricity consumption in Scotland (2018), 72 percent in Denmark (2017, domestic production only), 67 percent in Portugal (2018), 40 percent in peninsular Spain (2018), and 38 percent in Germany (2018). Most such grids sometimes achieve over 100 percent renewable supply, just as Japan’s southern island of Kyushu reported 76 percent peak solar coverage on 23 April 2017 1008, and Shikoku 102 percent on 3 May 2018 1009, despite Japanese utilities’ insistence that far smaller renewable fractions will crash the grid. No “storage miracle” is needed, though some seem to be emerging. Whether solar, fossil-fueled, or nuclear, no generator needs 100 percent backup, because one generator does not serve one load; rather, all generators serve the grid, which in turn serves all loads. The grid is designed to back up failed plants with working plants, so varying solar and wind power output are backed up by a diversified portfolio of other variable renewables, dispatchable renewables, or other resources. Solar and wind power don’t need massive batteries so they can produce power steadily like big thermal plants; rather, at least eight classes of grid flexibility resources (A) besides bulk electrical storage and fossil-fueled backup are proven, available, cost-effective, and sufficient.(B) We don’t and needn’t yet know all details of their ultimate mix as renewables rise toward 100 percent of generation; for now, we need only know that ample and affordable integration options exist.(C) As climatologist Prof. Ken Caldeira says, “Controversies about how to handle the [electricity] endgame should not overly influence our opening moves.”
(A) Efficient use; 2. unobtrusively flexible demand; 3. modern forecasting of variable renewables’ output (often more accurately than demand); 4. diversifying those variable renewables—wind and solar PV—by type and location; 5. dispatchability—integrating wind and solar PV portfolios with the other renewables (not counting big hydropower, which could also be integrated more effectively than now and with cogeneration that must run anyhow to satisfy its thermal loads; 6. distributed thermal storage worth buying anyway, or managed thermal storage in buildings’ existing thermal mass; 7. distributed electrical storage worth buying anyway (e.g. smart charging and discharging of electric vehicles bought to provide mobility); 8. hydrogen, now most likely from renewable electricity.
Nuclear power plants are not “carbon free.” They do not emit carbon or other greenhouse gases as they split atoms during the fission process, but their carbon footprint must be assessed on the basis of their complete nuclear fuel life cycle. Significant amounts of fossil fuel are used indirectly in mining, milling, uranium fuel enrichment, plant, and waste storage construction, decommissioning, and ultimately transportation and millennia-long storage of waste. There is plenty of carbon in that footprint that is rarely acknowledged, computed, or mediated. You can read that
Additionally, the industry’s rhetoric masks the astronomical costs for thousands of years of storage that could be better invested in rapidly developing renewable fuels with a lower carbon footprint such as solar, wind, geothermal, and Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, without any potential side effects.
The prospects for SMRs are poor. Here’s why.
*Economics and scale*
Nuclear reactors are large because of economies of scale. A reactor that produces three times as much power as an #SMR does not need three times as much steel or three times as many workers. This economic penalty for small size was one reason for the early shutdown of many small reactors built in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s.
*Mass manufacturing aspects*
If an error in a mass-manufactured reactor were to result in safety problems, the whole lot might have to be recalled, as was the case with the Boeing 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner jetliners. But how does one recall a radioactive reactor? What will happen to an electricity system that relies on factory-made identical reactors that need to be recalled?
*SMRs and the climate crisis*
The climate problem is urgent. The IPCC and other international bodies have warned that to stop irreversible damage from climate change, we need to reduce emissions drastically within the next decade. The SMR contribution in the next decade will be essentially zero. The prospects for SMRs beyond that are also bleak, given that entire supply chains would need to be established after the first ones have been built, tested and proven in the field.
*Other concerns*
Water use is another concern that is expected to intensify in the future. Nuclear plants have very high water withdrawal requirements. A single 300 MW reactor operating at 90 percent capacity factor would withdraw 160 million to 390 million gallons of water every day, heating it up before discharge. Reducing the demand for water by using air cooling will require the addition of a tower and large electric fans – further raising the construction cost and reducing output of electricity by up to 7 percent of the capacity of the reactor.
Finally, SMRs will also produce many kinds of radioactive nuclear waste, because the reactors are smaller in physical size and because of refueling practices adopted for economic reasons. SMRs based on light water designs, such as NuScale, will also produce a larger mass of nuclear waste per MWh of electricity generated. The federal government is already paying billions of dollars in fines for not fulfilling its contractual obligations to take possession of spent fuel from existing reactors. The legislative plan in the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act was for a deep geologic disposal repository to open in 1998. After nearly four decades, that plan has come to naught.
No. Its not total power generatian its only nuclear energy's share of electricity generation in Germany from 2000 to 2020.
From 2000 to 2009, 6 years were below 30%, 5 years below 28% and 2 years below 27%, with a low of 25.9% and a high of 32.1%. If you take the 32.1% as the maximum value with 100%, that is a little over 20% fluctuation with a clear, negative trend.
It is always claimed that the conversion to 80-100% renewable energies fails because of "non-existent" & "too expensive" storage options. At the same time, most arguments against #VisionZero are reduced to lithium-ion batteries, their costs and their environmental balance. Here is an overview of chemical and mechanical storage options that are affordable & feasible with current technology.
ETH Zurich Energy Storage Handbook: "From today's perspective, the Energy Strategy 2050 is technically feasible. The necessary storage technologies are available - today on the market, marketable or demonstrably realisable." https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000445597
Siemens Gamesa ETES: Electric Thermal Energy Storage https://www.siemensgamesa.com/products-and-services/hybrid-a... https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/heute/vulkansteine-als-stroms... With these storage systems, in which electricity is converted into heat and this heat is converted into electricity via steam, significant parts of existing power plants can continue to be used!
DEMIKS - Decentralised energy storage by means of integrated kinetic rotational mass storage (in connection with wind turbines) Long name, proven concept increased to 500 kilowatt hours https://www.energiesystem-forschung.de/forschen/projekte/dem...
Pumped storage power plants. Normal in Austria, Switzerland, Norway, for Germany only in a roundabout way https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/technologie/nordlink-su....
Continue building pumped-storage power plants: https://twitter.com/senortenor/status/1450777953844006913?s=...
https://www-ingenieur-de.translate.goog/fachmedien/bwk/energ...
Storage
Keeping the grid reliable as solar photovoltaics and wind power (both with accurately forecastable but large variations in output) come to dominate electric generation requires changes in markets, institutions, operations, habits, and mental models. This has proven feasible in both theory and practice, as illustrated by national statistics’ reports of 75 percent renewable coverage of annual electricity consumption in Scotland (2018), 72 percent in Denmark (2017, domestic production only), 67 percent in Portugal (2018), 40 percent in peninsular Spain (2018), and 38 percent in Germany (2018). Most such grids sometimes achieve over 100 percent renewable supply, just as Japan’s southern island of Kyushu reported 76 percent peak solar coverage on 23 April 2017 1008, and Shikoku 102 percent on 3 May 2018 1009, despite Japanese utilities’ insistence that far smaller renewable fractions will crash the grid. No “storage miracle” is needed, though some seem to be emerging. Whether solar, fossil-fueled, or nuclear, no generator needs 100 percent backup, because one generator does not serve one load; rather, all generators serve the grid, which in turn serves all loads. The grid is designed to back up failed plants with working plants, so varying solar and wind power output are backed up by a diversified portfolio of other variable renewables, dispatchable renewables, or other resources. Solar and wind power don’t need massive batteries so they can produce power steadily like big thermal plants; rather, at least eight classes of grid flexibility resources (A) besides bulk electrical storage and fossil-fueled backup are proven, available, cost-effective, and sufficient.(B) We don’t and needn’t yet know all details of their ultimate mix as renewables rise toward 100 percent of generation; for now, we need only know that ample and affordable integration options exist.(C) As climatologist Prof. Ken Caldeira says, “Controversies about how to handle the [electricity] endgame should not overly influence our opening moves.”
(A) Efficient use; 2. unobtrusively flexible demand; 3. modern forecasting of variable renewables’ output (often more accurately than demand); 4. diversifying those variable renewables—wind and solar PV—by type and location; 5. dispatchability—integrating wind and solar PV portfolios with the other renewables (not counting big hydropower, which could also be integrated more effectively than now and with cogeneration that must run anyhow to satisfy its thermal loads; 6. distributed thermal storage worth buying anyway, or managed thermal storage in buildings’ existing thermal mass; 7. distributed electrical storage worth buying anyway (e.g. smart charging and discharging of electric vehicles bought to provide mobility); 8. hydrogen, now most likely from renewable electricity.
(B) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10406...
(C) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403211...
https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/The-World-Nuclear-Industr...