Prediction: Coal has fallen. Nuclear is next then Oil.

[Raffy.Roma]

The AMOC decline would seem to be the biggest variable.

Not only the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) collapse is the biggest variable, but also according to Climate Experts a thing to be avoided at any cost because of the serious consequences that it would have on the Earth’s Climate.

 

[tmoz]

I stand corrected.

Having worked in server farms for over 2 decades, I was going to make a point about how minimum consumption is within 60% of peak consumption isn't very "peaky", because a server's energy consumption does NOT scale with its load: https://www.researchgate.net/figure...hape-in-2007-Summer-and-Winter_fig2_255215593. "Cranking" that AWS EC2 instance isn't going to do squat for your friend's energy consumption.

But then I realized that the periods of high load are during the daytime when AC loads are highest, which as you pointed out, are also when renewable energy is most abundant (thus cheapest) and batteries can buffer that. This type of usage cycle is terrible for a grid, but not as bad for a datacenter/solar+wind+geothermal+hydro-farm site.

As for the Bitcoin farm in TX, that only works because they're part of a mining pool, where other miners come online as the the TX ones shut down. Miners are needed to process transactions at ALL hours of the day, NOT only when electricity is cheapest for them.

Tech never stands still: Quantum computing may make bitcoin mining trivial, or it might break the entire current encryption/decryption method, which would be replaced by I don't know what.

 

[fhteagle]

But then I realized that the periods of high load are during the daytime when AC loads are highest,

I hear that and immediately wonder about "base load" sources like nuclear, geothermal, etc, especially air cooled ones. Build a data center of X MW, build a corresponding plant or plants of X+10% MW output at worst daytime temperature, and run them hard during the day to cover the data center and finance the power plants. But at night (when air cooled is also working better anyway) sell the X -40% production to the grid at large for additional revenue to bridge when solar isn't kicking. There might also be a synergy to use the fluids that have just been air cooled to help take heat away from the data center, and shove it back down the geothermal hole.

I know air cooled plants are limited to low tens of megawatts, and data centers are approaching GW scale. But I don't know of any reason why a big GW scale data center couldn't be broken up into more smaller centers. Sure there are certain computation tasks that really do need all the computers physically close together, but most of the other tasks can be distributed just fine AFAIK...

Also, I'm definitely showing my biases living in an arid, high solar, low overnight wind location, but I don't care.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

I hear that and immediately wonder about "base load" sources like nuclear, geothermal, etc, especially air cooled ones. Build a data center of X MW, build a corresponding plant or plants of X+10% MW output at worst daytime temperature, and run them hard during the day to cover the data center and finance the power plants. But at night (when air cooled is also working better anyway) sell the X -40% production to the grid at large for additional revenue to bridge when solar isn't kicking. There might also be a synergy to use the fluids that have just been air cooled to help take heat away from the data center, and shove it back down the geothermal hole.

I know air cooled plants are limited to low tens of megawatts, and data centers are approaching GW scale. But I don't know of any reason why a big GW scale data center couldn't be broken up into more smaller centers. Sure there are certain computation tasks that really do need all the computers physically close together, but most of the other tasks can be distributed just fine AFAIK...

Also, I'm definitely showing my biases living in an arid, high solar, low overnight wind location, but I don't care.

The problem with that thinking is with demand pricing, overnight prices are going to be at wholesale rates, making that X-40% a very poor source for ROI. BEV's charge when electricity is cheapest, and solar makes that time from 9am-3pm. Combine that with workplace charging and you can forget about BEV's to sop up that excess night time power. So the ROI calculations will definitely rule out nuclear. Geothermal might not pencil out either due to the build-out costs.

You'll probably need to pair a datacenter with all 4 - solar (daytime peak usage), wind (for afternoon-evening transition), batteries (to buffer the solar+wind), and geothermal (for overnight baseload and to slowly recharge the batteries for the morning rush). Combine them with pumped hydro for seasonal shifts in solar+wind production.

 

[mspohr]

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-demand-set-peak-by-2029-major-supply-glut-looms-iea-says-2024-06-12/

Global oil demand will peak by 2029 and begin to contract the following year while the U.S. and other non-OPEC countries add to supply, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday, resulting in a major surplus this decade. The IEA, which advises industrialised countries, moved forward the date for peak oil demand after having said in October that it would occur by 2030. Its view contrasts with the outlook of oil producer group the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which sees demand rising long after 2029 in part due to a slower shift to cleaner fuels and has not predicted a peak.

This report's projections, based on the latest data, show a major supply surplus emerging this decade, suggesting that oil companies may want to make sure their business strategies and plans are prepared for the changes taking place," IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said.

 

[mspohr]

Rare cancers, full-body rashes, death: did fracking make their kids sick?

Pennsylvania families worry about rising cases of rare cancer with well pads near homes and stalled House bills

www.theguardian.com

Some of the health risks associated with fracking, such as asthma, pre-term births and heart problems, have been established for years. However, cancer is both rare and slow to progress, which means that it can take many years to produce a meaningful study connecting it to relatively novel environmental hazards, like fracking, said Nicole Deziel, a researcher at the Yale School of Public Health. “In epidemiology, we need a certain number of cancer cases in order to statistically evaluate a link with confidence,” she said. But research linking proximity to unconventional wells and developing certain types of cancer is gradually emerging. In 2022, Deziel published a study that found Pennsylvania children between ages two and seven who lived within 1.2 miles of unconventional wells at birth were two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

 

[eevee-fan]

LOL, slam on Oil loving freedumb fighters.

 

[mspohr]

Gas wiped out by renewables as new US fossil power all but vanishes | Upstream

Just 67 MW of once-dominant generation source enters service in first part of year, says regulator, as President Joe Biden’s policies spark solar boom

www.upstreamonline.com

Fossil fuels all but vanished as a source of new US power generation installations in the first four months of this year, highlighting the dominant role of solar largely because of federal climate law incentives that give it a cost and speed-to-market advantage.

Natural gas additions were just 67 megawatts versus 5.1 gigawatts in the same period last year for a technology that represents 43.5% of the country’s 1.3 terawatts of available installed generation capacity, according to latest data from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

By contrast, project developers installed 7.9 GW of solar capacity, 80.6% of total additions for all technologies, versus 3.8 GW a year earlier. Wind accounted for 1.8 GW, down from 2 GW. Other capacity sources totaled 12 MW, Upstream’s sister publication Recharge reported.

 

[eevee-fan]

Oil Companies in Trouble as Renewables Suddenly Mean They're Producing Way Too Much Oil

Lower price = less investment = less extraction. Good, keep it under ground, it's not like oil is gushing out on its own.

 

[eevee-fan]

Gates begins building smaller, cheaper nuclear reactors - Times of India

US News: Kemmerer, Wyoming: Outside a small coal town in southwest Wyoming, a multibillion-dollar effort to build the first in a new generation of US nuclear p.

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Air cooled nuclear plant. Great, more carbon-free global warming machines. LOL

 

[fhteagle]

Great, more carbon-free global warming machines.

My first reaction is "dafuq?". Nuclear plants have among the lowest, if not _the_ lowest lifecycle carbon emissions of all electricity sources, depending on who is doing the accounting.

The fact that it's air cooled is negligible vs an equivalent water cooled thermal power plant. In fact you can easily argue that air cooled is better than stealing water from over drawn Western rivers...

So, I'll assume you are instead referring to the rejected heat of the plant being a factor in anthropogenic warming of the earth? Sure, it's a factor the same way a busload of kids peeing in the ocean contributes to sea level rise.

The earth receives around 2 x 10^17 W from the sun at the surface. Assuming an industry lagging 30% thermal efficiency, this plant would reject something like 6 x 10^8 W. Or 1/400000000 of the heat falling on earth.

If you're hating on this plant just because it's nuclear, the rejected heat values amount from an equivalent output geothermal plant would be greater than from a nuclear plant due to Carnot's law and the lower efficiency of the lower hot side of a geothermal plant.

There are plenty of great reasons to criticize Gates, TerraPower's design, and how they are going about building it, but calling it a "global warming machine" really isn't a valid one.

 

[mspohr]

Renewable Energy Provides 99% of New Generating Capacity in Both April & YTD - CleanTechnica

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News! Solar + Wind Now Exceed 20% of Total U.S. Generating Capacity A review by the SUN DAY Campaign of data just released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) reveals that the mix of ... [continued]

cleantechnica-com.cdn.ampproject.org

A review by the SUN DAY Campaign of data just released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) reveals that the mix of renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) provided nearly all new U.S. generating capacity in April as well as year-to-date (YTD). Renewable energy sources are now nearly 30% of total capacity. Moreover, for the eighth month in a row, solar was the largest new source of generating capacity.

The latest capacity additions have brought solar’s share of total available installed utility-scale (i.e., >1-MW) generating capacity up to 8.56%, further expanding its lead over hydropower (7.84%). Wind is currently at 11.77%. With the inclusion of biomass (1.13%) and geothermal (0.32%), renewables now claim a 29.62% share of total U.S. utility-scale generating capacity. Installed utility-scale solar has now moved into fourth place – behind natural gas (43.58%), coal (15.79%) and wind – for its share of generating capacity after having recently surpassed that of nuclear power (8.06%). [1]

 

[mspohr]

Watch: North Sea platform blown up as Britain’s oil industry declines

A 48-year-old former North Sea oil platform has been demolished as a looming Labour tax raid on the sector drives a slump in fossil fuel activity in British waters.

finance.yahoo.com

Businesses have been cutting investment or quitting the North Sea because of the Government’s windfall tax and Labour’s threats to increase it. The Government introduced a windfall tax on oil and gas profits two years ago, which has raised the marginal tax rate to 75pc. Labour wants to increase it further to 78pc and has said it would ban new oil and gas exploration in British waters. The demolition of Northern Producer coincided with the publication of Labour’s manifesto.

More than 200 oil and gas wells were plugged last year, eight platforms removed and 8,000 tonnes of subsea structures were taken out of the ocean. Another 180 of the UK’s 284 oil and gas fields will close down by the end of the decade.

 

[nwdiver]

My first reaction is "dafuq?". Nuclear plants have among the lowest, if not _the_ lowest lifecycle carbon emissions of all electricity sources, depending on who is doing the accounting.

The fact that it's air cooled is negligible vs an equivalent water cooled thermal power plant. In fact you can easily argue that air cooled is better than stealing water from over drawn Western rivers...

So, I'll assume you are instead referring to the rejected heat of the plant being a factor in anthropogenic warming of the earth? Sure, it's a factor the same way a busload of kids peeing in the ocean contributes to sea level rise.

The earth receives around 2 x 10^17 W from the sun at the surface. Assuming an industry lagging 30% thermal efficiency, this plant would reject something like 6 x 10^8 W. Or 1/400000000 of the heat falling on earth.

If you're hating on this plant just because it's nuclear, the rejected heat values amount from an equivalent output geothermal plant would be greater than from a nuclear plant due to Carnot's law and the lower efficiency of the lower hot side of a geothermal plant.

There are plenty of great reasons to criticize Gates, TerraPower's design, and how they are going about building it, but calling it a "global warming machine" really isn't a valid one.

Agreed. The fact nuclear plant have to pay to dump nearly 70% of the energy they pay to produce is irrelevant to global warming.

But it could be argued they contribute to AGW by being a black hole for finite capital. Diablo Canyon is projected to cost ~$8B - $12B over the next 6 years. That. Is. In. Sane.

Even the low number of $8B could buy 8GW of solar producing ~230,000GWh or 40GWh of batteries reducing curtailment of renewables by >200,000GWh or 8GW of wind producing >500,000GWh. But no. It's $8B for ~115,000GWh from nuclear. Why?

 

[mspohr]

Gates begins building smaller, cheaper nuclear reactors - Times of India

US News: Kemmerer, Wyoming: Outside a small coal town in southwest Wyoming, a multibillion-dollar effort to build the first in a new generation of US nuclear p.

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Air cooled nuclear plant. Great, more carbon-free global warming machines. LOL

Actually, when you do a full life cycle analysis of nuclear power (construction, mining, operation, dismantling, etc.) it produces about 117 gm/kWh CO2.
This is less than all fossil fuels but more than all renewables. (PV 33 gm/kWh, wind 8 gm/kWh, hydro 4 gm/kWh)

 

[fhteagle]

Agreed. The fact nuclear plant have to pay to dump nearly 70% of the energy they pay to produce is irrelevant to global warming.

But it could be argued they contribute to AGW by being a black hole for finite capital. Diablo Canyon is projected to cost ~$8B - $12B over the next 6 years. That. Is. In. Sane.

Even the low number of $8B could buy 8GW of solar producing ~230,000GWh or 40GWh of batteries reducing curtailment of renewables by >200,000GWh or 8GW of wind producing >500,000GWh. But no. It's $8B for ~115,000GWh from nuclear. Why?

$8-12B to extend the life of Diablo for how long? 20 yrs? 40?

And 8GW solar creates ~16,000GWh / year in the best of conditions in the California desert, according to kWh/kWp ratio from globalsolaratlas.info . Where did you get your numbers from? Or were you quoting total production for the whole life of $8B with of solar plants?

But we can't compare solar (intermittent, quarter of the day generation) vs nuclear's all day every day power without a "conversion", aka adding the cost of storage in pumped hydro, batteries, etc. So, let's spend ~$8B, 50% on solar generation AND (not or) 50% on storage (dubious ratio, but let's make the math easy). So, you'd get ~8200GWh / year production backed by ~4000GWh / year storage and release if cycled to 80% DOD once and day every day. Or ~16000GWh/year from a ~2GW nuclear plant like Diablo running at 90% capacity factor.

Yes, Diablo isn't a new build. Even if you repeat the exercise using new build numbers from the project management disaster that was Vogtle, it comes out pretty similar. Pay for renewables AND storage, or pay for nuclear, and end up with similar figures in actual GWh of _firm_ power as nuclear. In other words, if the goal is firm power, yes nuclear is very expensive up front but pays off in the long term.

 

[fhteagle]

it produces about 117 gm/kWh CO2.
This is less than all fossil fuels but more than all renewables. (PV 33 gm/kWh, wind 8 gm/kWh, hydro 4 gm/kWh)

What are your sources for these numbers?

 

[nwdiver]

$8-12B to extend the life of Diablo for how long? 20 yrs? 40?

And 8GW solar creates ~16,000GWh / year in the best of conditions in the California desert, according to kWh/kWp ratio from globalsolaratlas.info . Where did you get your numbers from? Or were you quoting total production for the whole life of $8B with of solar plants?

But we can't compare solar (intermittent, quarter of the day generation) vs nuclear's all day every day power without a "conversion", aka adding the cost of storage in pumped hydro, batteries, etc. So, let's spend ~$8B, 50% on solar generation AND (not or) 50% on storage (dubious ratio, but let's make the math easy). So, you'd get ~8200GWh / year production backed by ~4000GWh / year storage and release if cycled to 80% DOD once and day every day. Or ~16000GWh/year from a ~2GW nuclear plant like Diablo running at 90% capacity factor.

Yes, Diablo isn't a new build. Even if you repeat the exercise using new build numbers from the project management disaster that was Vogtle, it comes out pretty similar. Pay for renewables AND storage, or pay for nuclear, and end up with similar figures in actual GWh of _firm_ power as nuclear. In other words, if the goal is firm power, yes nuclear is very expensive up front but pays off in the long term.

Agreed. The fact nuclear plant have to pay to dump nearly 70% of the energy they pay to produce is irrelevant to global warming.

But it could be argued they contribute to AGW by being a black hole for finite capital. Diablo Canyon is projected to cost ~$8B - $12B over the next 6 years. That. Is. In. Sane.

Even the low number of $8B could buy 8GW of solar producing ~230,000GWh or 40GWh of batteries reducing curtailment of renewables by >200,000GWh or 8GW of wind producing >500,000GWh. But no. It's $8B for ~115,000GWh from nuclear. Why?

 

[nwdiver]

yes nuclear is very expensive up front but pays off in the long term.

No. It really doesn't and it's getting worse. If Diablo Canyon shutdown CAISO isn't losing ~48GWh/day (2GW)(24hrs). They're losing ~32GWh/day since renewables are increasingly meeting ~100% of demand for ~8+ hours/day. That number is only going to grow as batteries are deployed. So for ~$600M/GW/yr you're getting fewer and fewer and fewer GWh/yr. Why not just spend $20M/GW/yr on gas turbines and invest ~$1B/yr you're saving in more solar, more wind and more batteries?

 

[mspohr]

What are your sources for these numbers?

Fact check: Is nuclear energy good for the climate? – DW – 11/29/2021

Supporters of nuclear energy say it can help us wean our economies off polluting fossil fuels. No surprise, it's a heated issue. But what about the facts? Can nuclear power really help save the climate?

www.dw.com