The head of the Australian energy market operator AEMO, Daniel Westerman, has rejected nuclear power as a way to replace Australia’s ageing coal-fired power stations, arguing that it is too slow and too expensive. In addition, baseload power sources are not competitive in a grid dominated by wind and solar energy anyway.
The alternative for base load is batteries, not wind and solar renewables, since they are intermittent. We don’t have a good idea yet of just how expensive massive grid storage is yet, but the lead time would definitely be shorter.
We do though. The cost is really land and rust. Iron oxide batteries are cheap and long lasting but low power density. Perfect for grid storage in a lot of places.
The alternative to base load is load shifting, just move most loads to when enough power is available. Or in other words, base load is a thing because big power plants like nuclear and coal are slow and someone’s gotta use that power at all times.
Load shifting is the destruction of economic value, because it means people are making choices that aren’t optimal for their own lives.
Time is often written off in economic considerations, but that’s unwise because time is the most limited resource people have.
Most work is done when the sun is shining. Appliances can be remote controlled or automated. Studies have show that only 10% of energy consumption has to be „smart“ to cut off 90% of the duck curve. The rest can be done with batteries and other storage.
Drill a hole and a deper hole and pump/turbine water between them.
That’s really really expensive unless you already have natural upper and lower reservoirs.
It is? More than batteries?
Im surprised.
Based on some numbers I looked up a couple of years ago:
LiPo 15¢/Wh
Flywheel 15¢/Wh
Compressed air 12¢/Wh
Pumped hydro 11¢/Wh
I’ll try to dig up the sources when I get home, but the cost advantage isn’t too large, so digging your own reservoirs would put it as more expensive.
Thanks! I guess the hydro is with natural reservoirs?
Yeah I think so
Just cause lithium ion is pretty subsidied and quite energy dense
No way. Far too expensive.