The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 19/05/2021 09:53, NY wrote:
How much of the country will need to be covered in wind turbines?

All of it.

I mean when you run the numbers the whole thing is completely insane.

What is actually happening is that while windmills and solar panels take
the headlines, behind the scenes massive work on SMR nuclear power is
going on ready for the time the public realises 'renewables dont work'

Renewables work.

But you have to maintain a "basket" of power supplies,
a reliable baseline supply that meets all constraints,
as well as a variable (but basically free) dynamic source.

You can't run a country with only windmills.

That's where all those "natural gas peaker plants" came from.

Power companies here, can tell you "current windmill percent"
and "max possible windmill percent" - there is an apparent
method for working out what the mix should be. Even your
own power authority should be providing these numbers
to the users, to give some idea how poorly managed it is.

Texas could have been well managed - it probably had
sufficient infrastructure to "look good" when challenged,
but the devil was in the details.

Nukes cost money to fuel. They burn more fuel the
more you use them. Good nuke designs support
continuous fueling, so the reactor continues to run,
while fuel is loaded in deactivated zones of the
reactor, then those sections are brought online again.
A robot on the reactor, loads the fuel. If the reactor
is switched off, some of the cost of operation is saved
as the fuel isn't being burnt.

If you have a windless day, that's when the reliable
baseline is switched on.

I don't know what a headline looks like, but a well
managed power utility has some common characteristics
in terms of public disclosure. Usually you can find
a plan, detailing when the system is going to enter
a rough period (30% of nukes need to be replaced all at
once). Something has to finance that, and as the
Toshiba example shows, the companies doing the work
need financial guarantees. Projects that fail half
way through, can spell the end of the contractor
doing the work. The various schemes to deflect the
financing details, those have a price.

Like when a certain bridge was built here, and
some nitwit borrowed Deutsch marks to finance it.
Basically placing the citizens in debt, forever.
(The toll charged to cross the bridge, pays for the
interest on the loan. Seemingly no payment of principle.)

Poorly planned borrowing to finance projects, has
at times, a very big cost. A lot of utility projects
are loaded with very bad terms, in the financing.
Like a "free" source of energy, where one of the
terms of the financing, "gives" the free power for
practically nothing, to a third party for 35 or 50 years.
That's the kind of stuff that goes on behind the scenes.

Any energy source with astronomical financing, the
citizens are going to take a screwing on it, one
way or another.

Paul