LouSanous t1_jd9szaq wrote
Reply to comment by Fuzzers in IPCC chart says Solar PV and Wind Turbines are best way to achieve Deep, Rapid, and Low Cost emission cuts before 2030. by DisasterousGiraffe
Baseload is a term used by laypeople that don't understand the grid.
All it means is that you want to have your power system producing enough power to meet the minimum load over a unit of time.
You people act like it's a magical thing that has to come from a particular source.
What you want is dispatchable power. Then it doesn't fucking matter.
Wind and solar aren't dispatchable, but then, neither is nuke.
Instead, have geographically distributed renewables and the transmission assets to move that power to where the demand is. Make enough power that you are always overshooting demand. Take the excess power and do something useful with it, like desalinization, producing fertilizer, whatever useful shit you can. You only need a small amount of dispatchable power to make up any anomalous dips in production met by pumped water, hydropower, batteries, flywheels, geothermal, or other non-emitting dispatchable power sources. You can also do load shedding and many other operations that stabilize the grid.
Baseload is just a nonsense word that laypeople use because they heard it on a documentary somewhere and they think it makes them sound smart.
>solar just isn't there yet in terms of cost feasibility,
Literally every electric utility in the country disagrees with you, so there's that.
Fuzzers t1_jda1hdu wrote
>Baseload is a term used by laypeople that don't understand the grid.
>
>All it means is that you want to have your power system producing enough power to meet the minimum load over a unit of time.
​
>You people act like it's a magical thing that has to come from a particular source.
No, it doesn't HAVE to come from a particular source, but if the minimum isn't met, we have a fucking problem. That's literally why I mentioned solar/wind + storage AS A BASE LOAD, because yes, its possible to use them as a base load, but its absolutely not economically feasible right now compared to a natural gas plant. Hopefully in the future that will change.
​
>What you want is dispatchable power. Then it doesn't fucking matter.
>
>Wind and solar aren't dispatchable, but then, neither is nuke.
Capacity factor of nuclear plants is literally the highest out of EVERY energy source. What are you smoking.
​
>Instead, have geographically distributed renewables and the transmission assets to move that power to where the demand is. Make enough power that you are always overshooting demand. Take the excess power and do something useful with it, like desalinization, producing fertilizer, whatever useful shit you can. You only need a small amount of dispatchable power to make up any anomalous dips in production met by pumped water, hydropower, batteries, flywheels, geothermal, or other non-emitting dispatchable power sources. You can also do load shedding and many other operations that stabilize the grid.
You're not wrong, and the US is absolutely improving its interconnects to move around energy to where demand is needed, but to build out ALL of your grid with renewables would require an absolutely stupid amount of storage and renewables overbuild, which is astronomically more expensive than a natural gas plant at the current time.
I'm a big proponent of hydrogen storage along with vanadium flow batteries, but at the current time they are too expensive as a base load option versus throwing up a natural gas plant. That most likely will change in the future, but for the next decade, its most likely not economically feasible. Hopefully that changes but I'm pessimistic.
​
>Baseload is just a nonsense word that laypeople use because they heard it on a documentary somewhere and they think it makes them sound smart.
>
>solar just isn't there yet in terms of cost feasibility,
>
>Literally every electric utility in the country disagrees with you, so there's that.
Solar + storage. Way to take something out of context.
LouSanous t1_jdaebk9 wrote
What I said:
>All it means is that you want to have your power system producing enough power to meet the minimum load over a unit of time.
What the first sentence of your link says:
>The base load[1] (also baseload) is the minimum level of demand on an electrical grid over a span of time, for example, one week
If that isn't a near perfect paraphrase, then I don't understand English.
>You clearly didn't read the literal definition of base load being the minimum level of demand. Its not a layman term, its a literal grid term. But nice try.
I literally design power systems for a living. I've been doing it for more than a decade. Nobody in the industry refers to "base load". What we concern ourselves with is meeting the loads at any given point in time. We have countless tools at our disposal to do this. Base load is antiquated. It was a much bigger concern before SCADA systems gave us control over power flow and instantaneous feedback about grid conditions on a station by station, line by line basis.
>Capacity factor of nuclear plants is literally the highest out of EVERY energy source
Wow. You are the literal definition of a layperson. Capacity factor is the ratio between nameplate capacity and actual power delivered.
Dispatchability is the ability of a generation asset to ramp up or down quickly to meet the real time variability of loads.
You ought to be embarrassed by how confidently wrong you are.
Capacity factor isn't a meaningful concern. At fucking all. You design your system for the power that will be delivered by any asset. Since this is a known quantity and renewables, even with their CF between .25-.35, still outperform every other generation type in cost.
>ALL of your grid with renewables would require an absolutely stupid amount of storage
No, storage is not a major requirement. It is only necessary if you don't want to overbuild. But having too much energy at any point in time allows for all sorts of technological solutions that can be turned on or off by grid operators. On when we are over producing. Off when demand is approaching production. Things like making fertilizer, desalinating water, using carbon capture technologies, pumping water, recycling and many many other things. It would have huge consequences for reducing production costs of nearly everything and lead to a post scarcity in energy. Overbuild should be the GOAL, not something to be feared. It also ensures that you are ready for future demand increases.
>I'm a big proponent of hydrogen storage
Of course you are. Sigh. You are demonstrating that you haven't really thought about and lack the engineering background to separate the wheat from the chaff. You are literally a walking popular mechanics magazine. Hydrogen will never be a solution to anything but coking steel.
>too expensive as a base load option versus throwing up a natural gas plant.
This is the second time you have brought up the cost of gas plants. The only energy in the world more expensive than nuclear is gas peaker plants.
>most likely not economically feasible
You clearly haven't done the math on any of this stuff. The cost to completely decarbonize the entire US energy and transportation system is in the neighborhood of 7 trillion. That's electricity, gas heating, and meeting the grid needs of a national fleet of only EVs (something that absolutely shouldn't be done, but that's the math). $7 trillion is less than a decade of military spending, less than 3 years of what Americans spend on their personal cars, less than a decade of projected annual climate change costs, and about 2 years of federal spending.
We aren't talking about an insurmountable task here. The only part of it that's insurmountable is the political will to do it, which is no doubt stunted by laypeople throwing their erroneous opinions into the political ring and shouting over the people who actually do this shit for a living.
>Solar + storage. Way to take something out of context.
K. When you show your own math on this, we'll talk. For now, 82% of the new generation coming down the pike is renewables.
butts_kapinsky t1_jdbuy3x wrote
Sadly, this was an informative response to a recalcitrant who is not interested in learning or listening.
Fuzzers t1_jdai7gw wrote
I'd give you a response but based on your asshole of an attitude it's not worth it.
Next time you want to have a civil discussion, try not being a dick - a fellow engineer.
butts_kapinsky t1_jdbusjk wrote
So, if we're keeping track, you came out swinging with a pretty aggressive response to an industry professional who was explaining things in very calm and simple terms, and then when they rightly took you to task for the very basic errors you made, all of a sudden they're being a dick and the discussion isn't civil? Maybe you should try a civil response to begin with and maybe the conversation might head to sunnier pastures, friend?
You certainly aren't a power systems engineer, so why mention your qualifications at all? They aren't meaningful here.
SandAndAlum t1_jdbxvpl wrote
> Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
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