There is no shortage of bullshit from budding energy companies.
Comment on Nuclear energy is more expensive than renewables, CSIRO report finds
CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work 1 year ago
Just read the article again and it’s kind of suspicious the way the article ends by saying that natural gas will have to be part of the future energy mix. Seems like there might be some co-optation going on, or at least a failure to consider the costs of trying to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from the power supply using just wind and solar.
chitak166@lemmy.world 1 year ago
IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world 1 year ago
“It’s a good technology for filling in the gaps around renewables, as well as storage and other methods for making sure that power’s still reliable…”
This does make some sense, like having a diesel generator in your home for the few times a year the power goes out. It’s also useful for shutting up the, “sometimes the wind doesn’t blow and there’s no sun at night” crowd.
CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work 1 year ago
It’s also kind of a slight of hand. Fossil fuels shouldn’t be part of the mix at all, but the article just accepts the premise that they must. If natural gas or other fossil fuels aren’t allowed, then then the economic case for nuclear power is stronger.
As for needing needing natural gas to “fill in the gaps”, that’s just fossil fuel industry propaganda. It’s a non-issue with nuclear power. Whenever electrical demand drops you can just divert the power to make hydrogen/ammonia to store the extra energy or produce zero-emission fertilizer.
barsoap@lemm.ee 1 year ago
The article says “gas”, not “natural gas”. Australia already has plenty of gas infrastructure including pipelines so the situation might be similar as to Germany: First, use natural gas as the one fossil fuel that you’re using precisely because gas plants regulate fast and natural gas can be replaced by synthesised gas, then, once you have enough renewable capacity, actually do the switch. And boy oh boy has Australia potential for renewable generation, they’ll also want to produce tons of hydrogen anyway to smelt (and stop being a 3rd-world style economy that’s exporting raw ore).
CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work 1 year ago
The article says “gas”, not “natural gas”.
Is this “gas” not a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane?
Australia already has plenty of gas infrastructure including pipelines so the situation might be similar as to Germany: First, use natural gas as the one fossil fuel that you’re using precisely because gas plants regulate fast and natural gas can be replaced by synthesised gas, then, once you have enough renewable capacity, actually do the switch. And boy oh boy has Australia potential for renewable generation, they’ll also want to produce tons of hydrogen anyway to smelt (and stop being a 3rd-world style economy that’s exporting raw ore).
Sounds like an excuse to perpetuate the fossil fuel racket.
dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
The only people writing articles about energy are lobby groups.
Tibert@jlai.lu 1 year ago
Well the issue with renewable power like wind and solar, is that they are not stable.
Having a battery in order to store the energy and release it when the demand is higher than production is one part of the solution.
But what happens when there wasn’t enough solar and wind to replenish the batteries if those batteries aren’t enough for the demand? Power shortages, which are pretty bad to get.
One of the solutions to this is natural gas for a simple reason : it’s very fast to start generating power or to stop. It’s also not very expensive, at least when there isn’t a war… The co2 equivalent emissions aren’t as high as coal either.
Nuclear power on the other hand is very hard to stop. Having a surplus of power on the grid is also very bad. Some of it could be used to recharge the batteries, but there would be some loss at some point.
Wilzax@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Except that H2 can be electrolyzed from water and is an emerging carbon-free fuel source. The nuclear power can just stay on all the time and we let H2 production drop a little when the wind is low and the sky is dark.
Tibert@jlai.lu 1 year ago
It’s another solution, now there is also issues with costs. However with time the costs can be reduced.
For hydrogen based on this video : youtu.be/M0fnEsz4Ks0 there could be some hope for large hydrogen storage for a smaller cost (not used in cars tho, due to the weight).
Hydrogen production however is/was very ineficient. However there is also some hope for this youtu.be/m0d6iljzzEI
So with this, maybe it could be an interesting solution to store energy.
Tho I’m not sure how efficient it would be to produce energy from that stored hydrogen, and how efficient it could be for the entire hydrogen production/storing/electricity production chain.
CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work 1 year ago
Even if the current technology for producing zero-emission hydrogen is relatively inefficient, that’s not really such a problem since it’s a zero-emission process.