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Last year, China generated 834 terawatt-hours of solar power.
Which is more than the G7 countries generated, and more than the US and EU combined. In fact the only country group that generates more solar power than China is the OECD, all 38 countries of it.
Data: @ember-energy.org
Source: https://bsky.app/profile/nathanielbullard.com/post/3lsbbsg6ohk2j
Good on them. The earlier they can shut down those coal plants, the better.
They are going to keep those coal plants as back up but the amount they use then is decreasing.
At the same time they are rapidly moving transport into electricity and they are growing their electrical demand.
This year should be the tipping point where coal and oil usage drops. Capacity and number of coal is meaningless.
They‘ll keep building more coal power plants in the global south and export coal. There‘s a lot of money to be made.
They're also actually still building more coal power in mainland China.
Yep, solar is awesome when you have coal and gas power plants, not so much when you have nuclear ones.
How idiotic.
Do explain, I'm all ears.
I think they don't get that your comment is fighting the same fight by being pro solar & anti coal/gas.
Unless you meant keeping the coal and gas plants, which really should be turned off and ended at this point. They're just sources of lung cancer & emissions
No. We get exactly what his comment is about.
If he was in the renewables camp, there would be no point, in this discussion over solar, to bring up nuclear. It's absolutely unrelated.
What he's doing is pushing the thought into people's heads that nuclear is a good solution, and that's why I'm calling him out for. For being a shill.
I'm with you on solar. We literally have a fusion reactor at the core of our solar system, so there's no point in having ones on earth. And the more we use solar, the more it'll be improved through research.
There's no argument for any carbon based fuels
Actually energy from fusion reactors on Earth does make a lot of sense. Sadly we are advancing slowly there.
And that's your reach apparently - insulting people without anything to contribute whatsoever.
Yes, of course I've meant it in a positive way - a way to replace coal and gas. But solar is not just positive, they are problematic when you couple them with nuclear for the simple reasons that solar is not reliable and you can't throttle nuclear - they are like big ships, they require a lot of time to steer. Furthermore solar energy low price causes problems for nuclear higher prices. Which wouldn't be a problem if solar was reliable and continuous (long winter nights much?). But it's not, but you still need a reliable energy source. And so on. The pro solar panel crowd don't understand many of these implications and go with simple "idiotic" and downvotes.
Why wouldn't solar and other renewables combined with batteries be better?
It's very early days, yet California recently had 98 days on renewables. That started in winter.
What is it about renewables with batteries that you believe will fail, despite the mass adoption that is under way?
Why will the projected, continued decline in battery prices and advances in battery tech not occur?
Why would adjacent solutions, like the massive storage ability of vehicle-to-grid, be worse compared to nuclear?
Why are so many "in the know" getting it so wrong?
What batteries are you referring to? Do you realize the amount of energy those batteries would have to store? Perhaps somewhen in the not so near future, but today? Go ahead and show me a western city able to store a couple of days worth of energy. More realistically a week.
Las Vegas has already achieved 97% storage supply for its needs - a city that barely sleeps at night.
Again, where is your evidence that it is not going to improve across the board, and will all fail?
"It's not all happening right now," is not even close to a convincing answer. If that was the reason to exclude any technology, there'd be none.
And it's an especially ironic answer given that it takes up to 20 years to commission a nuclear power plant. And they are down for scheduled maintenance for up to a month a year, etc.
Hard data is where? And I bet LV heavily relies on hydro and gas powerplants. Solar is a tiny fraction, even though, where is its energy stored?
Instead of trying to pick a fight, please read what I write: "Perhaps somewhen in the not so near future, but today?"
The difference with nuclear power plants is that we have the technology today. Can you say the same for batteries? Also you'd build a surplus of nuclear energy power plants (or have another backup plan) just for cases like you mention. The maintenance frequency varies, i.e. for a Slovene one is once per 18 months. But that's something you know in advance and one plans for.
OP sepcifically mentioned EVs. This sector is deflationary even in US, where better value/performance cars cost less every year. More dramatic deflation in less corrupt countries. Australia home solar costs under 1/3rd of US due to different politico-social corruption levels.
EVs and home solar are a great match that permits going offgrid at substantially lower cost if an EV is parked at home during day. That same dynamic allows a society/community to power itself through solar+batteries, and EVs parked at work. It's not a question of look at our corrupt obstructionist oligarchical monopoly state of societies for examples of lack of economic success as proof that it will forever be impossible.
EVs are rare (in the context of total energy consumption, even more so because not so many models offer this feature), limited to houses (what do you do when you live in a flat?) and not a reliable source - "honey, I need to drive fetch some groceries, you won't have energy in meantime". How many houses with only EVs as energy storage are disconnected from grid? I bet the number is next to 0. OTOH EVs as energy storage can provide buffering to energy grid when properly connected. This feature has its place, but they can't be used for reliable storage.
V2L and V2H are desirable features worth paying for. Grid sharing is not rocket appliances. In other thread, I showed how a 2nd EV that is barely used can pay for itself, but some static batteries are cheaper. 10kwh can power 2-5 homes overnight. Apartment units don't individually pay for exterior flood lighting. Mid to higher end cars have 50-100kwh battery packs. As an overall society, 80%+ of cars are parked somewhere at any time. The point of powering one house, applies to sharing for 1m houses.
That's why we have all that power available, right? You guys keeping listing various technologies but ~~it isn't~~ they aren't available nowhere at scale. Even this feature is not that common among the cars of today. And 10kWh is nowhere enough during winter (and perhaps summer with A/C), perhaps for single not big house with heat pump. Good luck with big cities.
The idiot digs deeper, and shows his true colours. Asinine.
No. I type less.
Solar and nuclear work just fine together. Nuclear is expensive (and most cost effective if kept running all the time, rather than switched on and off) but it reduces the cost of solar (lower proportion of solar means you don't need as much storage) and hedges against bad weather.
You can't just switch it off and on. It runs at more or less full power all the time. So tell me, at what power is that taking into consideration that sun doesn't shine during night + mornings and evenings when days are short or cloudy?
I don't understand what you're asking, sorry.
The question is simple. If you have installed solar power of 40% your country peak use, how much nuclear power you need - assuming simplified you have only these two power sources.
Not really enough information. I will assume that by "installed solar power" you mean peak generation when the sun is shining, and that instead of peak use, you mean 40% of average use, i.e. let's suppose that at an average moment the country consumes 100GW and, if the sun is shining, generates 40GW from solar.
Assume further the sun is up for half the year and the sky is clear for half the year, meaning the total amount of your yearly electricity you can generate with solar is 10% assuming typical weather. Then you would be able to reliably power the country with a combination of nuclear totalling 90% of average use (90GW) and enough storage that you can ride out cloudy periods.
Yes, something like that. Now, while you can theoretically install that many solar panels, the kicker is that you don't have nowhere enough storage. And even if you had that 10%, you could increase solar all you want, but the nuclear would be still running at 90MW because of the storage, or better, the lack of it. And because you would have a surplus of cheap solar power energy during the day - assuming more solar panels than 10%, it would erode more expensive nuclear one to become even more expensive. Basically if we solve storage, we can get rid of nuclear, but not before.
I mean the UK has 6% of its energy over the year come from solar, and 30% from wind, and installations are only accelerating, so this amount of installed solar is far from unrealistic.
Installing storage approximately doubles the LCOE of solar energy, so this is also feasible from a cost point of view as we get rid of dispatchable gas turbines.
I am not saying we should get rid of nuclear. I am saying we should keep some nuclear, also once we have got less gas and more storage. Does this resolve some things in this discussion for you?
Yep. No issues there. The core problem is storage here. And until we have a solid plan how to deliver with proven technology present today, we have to build new and run existing nuclear power plants. The other option is gambling.
In a market or effincient economy, where peak occurs mid hot summer day, 100% solar dominated renewables makes sense. In Spring and fall, EVs can absorb daily oversupply and profit from trading back at night. Winter is when solar can fail to meet heating and electricity needs, and so either backup energy sources or having much more than 100% peak demand in order to make green H2 that can be exported to where it gets cold is needed.
0 new nuclear is best amount of nuclear for any economy.
If you trade too much EV energy during night, then you can't drive during the day. And again, EVs capacity is not reliable at all. As per green H2, please show me a production and a storage capable of providing energy to a city. Or at least a real project that's building it. Storing H2 is a big problem, like a huge one. If nothing else, Hindenburg tells a story. The fact that energy loss is at more than 50% when producing green H2 is a minor problem compared to storage.
You need H2 only after solar + EVs provides more than 24 hours of needed energy in an area. Although H2 does save on transmission costs for medium to long distance. One of the remarkable aspects of BYD Dolphin, now under $9000 for 32kwh battery is that the battery value alone is $260/kwh capacity, and if you never drove it, but sold electricity 2.6c/kwh higher at night than you pay at day, then you pay for the car in its entirety. Just batteries can be sold under $100/kwh in China, and you could make 200% ROI from 3c/kwh price differential. EVs and batteries can be paid by private sector instead of utility investment markup model.
H2 technologies are advancing, including storage and pipes. Electrical transmission is more than 10x more expensive than transmitting gas/H2, and saves money on that end relative to efficiency loss. Surplus solar with input cost at 2c/kwh or less achieves under $2/kg H2 target which is equivalent driving distance to $1/gallon gasoline, and 10c/kwh electric only value delivered energy, and 6c/kwh combined heat and electricity value.
Only if it was fully charged, you don't drive with it and you live in a house. And thus are not a reliable energy source at all, even less for general energy problems.
~~All technology is~~ All technologies are advancing, but do you have a solution today? And even with advancements, you'll hardly solve H2 flammability. Even keeping it contained is problematic.
???
Huh? No