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It’s not economically viable because renewables are drastically cheaper and also far quicker to build out. So if you want to cut CO2, renewables are the way to go.
Okay and did you add all the extra cost to make that work? Like when talking about nuclear we do not just look at the reactor itself. For example you need lots of storage and distribution to make renewables work.
This is the report where you got that picture from. On page 44 are the assumptions for storage costs: 100 to 400 MWh of storage, assuming they are charged and discharged 315 times per year (so eg. 31’500 MWh storage output per year for 100 MWh capacity). Those do not need to be 100% cycles, but given that a year has hardly more days than 315 and some days even see no production, they need to be cycled pretty much every day the sun is shining. Anyway, what is my point? We need more than a few hours of storage to make it work. But the more storage you have, the less you actually use it, making it disproportionaly more expensive. Note what they say:
Lithium-ion batteries remain the most cost competitive short-term (i.e., 2 – 4-hour) storage technology
We need more than 2 or 4 hours. A single night is already far longer than that. The shorter the storage duration, the cheaper it is. Of course this skewes the numbers. It is like calculating the storage cost of nuclear waste for only 2 years. Of course it looks better.
So even if we assume it is not economically viable… I would rather not have another few billion tons of CO2 just to save some money.
It’s not economically viable because renewables are drastically cheaper and also far quicker to build out. So if you want to cut CO2, renewables are the way to go.
Okay and did you add all the extra cost to make that work? Like when talking about nuclear we do not just look at the reactor itself. For example you need lots of storage and distribution to make renewables work.
Then renewables are still a lot cheaper.
Ah, thanks for that detailed reply, let me try: Nuclear is still a lot cheaper.
Here’s a source. What’s yours?
This is the report where you got that picture from. On page 44 are the assumptions for storage costs: 100 to 400 MWh of storage, assuming they are charged and discharged 315 times per year (so eg. 31’500 MWh storage output per year for 100 MWh capacity). Those do not need to be 100% cycles, but given that a year has hardly more days than 315 and some days even see no production, they need to be cycled pretty much every day the sun is shining. Anyway, what is my point? We need more than a few hours of storage to make it work. But the more storage you have, the less you actually use it, making it disproportionaly more expensive. Note what they say:
We need more than 2 or 4 hours. A single night is already far longer than that. The shorter the storage duration, the cheaper it is. Of course this skewes the numbers. It is like calculating the storage cost of nuclear waste for only 2 years. Of course it looks better.