Germany lays out a path to quit coal by 2038

Re:Germany lays out a path to quit coal by 2038 by oska on Saturday January 26, 2019 @08:31PM (#19009843)

Germany does not have a single wind turbine in a single location. It has vast numbers of them across many locations, many of which are situated in areas with near near constant wind. Across the whole portfolio of this production resource there is a certain minimum level of production which is consistently maintained. And, unlike a coal plant, there is almost zero risk of the whole system failing. In my country (Australia) we frequently see coal power plants 'trip' (breakdown), particularly in hot weather. [1]

And on the question of the definition of base-load, it was originally defined in terms of supply (production). Yes, the meaning has spread to demand but the idea that base-load demand must be supplied by 'base-load' power plants such as coal or nuclear is a piece of sophistry that quickly dissolves when it is examined closely. Just one reason being that their supply is not guaranteed (as I have described above).

[1] https://medium.com/@TheAustraliaInstitute/gas-coal-power-has...

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Re:Germany lays out a path to quit coal by 2038 by dwd on Sunday January 27, 2019 @04:03AM (#19010984)

Not only trips in the heat as happened with Loy Yang B last summer; Loy Yong A was offline last week for maintenance right in time for the hottest day of the summer so far.

There are plenty of good places for turbines in Victoria such as near "Windy Warrnambool". At around 38° south it gets nearly constant westerlies.

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Re:Germany lays out a path to quit coal by 2038 by zeroname on Sunday January 27, 2019 @12:32AM (#19010473)

> Germany does not have a single wind turbine in a single location. It has vast numbers of them across many locations, many of which are situated in areas with near near constant wind. Across the whole portfolio of this production resource there is a certain minimum level of production which is consistently maintained.

Yes, but it's a fraction of total output and it's nowhere near enough to supply the actual base load.

> Yes, the meaning has spread to demand but the idea that base-load demand must be supplied by 'base-load' power plants such as coal or nuclear is a piece of sophistry that quickly dissolves when it is examined closely. Just one reason being that their supply is not guaranteed (as I have described above).

What quickly dissolves into sophistry is the idea that wind energy is remotely comparable to coal or nuclear in terms of supplying base load. Yes, an individual coal plant doesn't have 100% reliability, but it's still massively less volatile than wind.

> [1] https://medium.com/@TheAustraliaInstitute/gas-coal-power-has....

Okay, let's look at Australia: https://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Disap...

What's that big grey part that is "dispatchable"? It's mostly natural gas, which Australia has plenty of (7% of exports), but Germany would need to import. Australians can pat themselves on the back for not using any more coal in the grid, but they still ship it off (16% of exports) for someone else to burn it.

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Re:Germany lays out a path to quit coal by 2038 by oska on Sunday January 27, 2019 @03:25AM (#19010885)

Batteries and pumped hydro can also deliver dispatchable and Australia is embracing and building both. The focus of today's markets is on flexibility and response time of supply, not on lumbering, inflexible baseload. Batteries are the most rapid and flexible, as the big battery constructed in South Australia has amply proved.

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Re:Germany lays out a path to quit coal by 2038 by zeroname on Sunday January 27, 2019 @04:04AM (#19010987)

Flexibility is not the crucial issue. It's just what that large Tesla battery is good at, which is why everyone highlights it. In terms of capacity, it's next to nothing. No proponent wants to talk about that.

If you just look at the graph you'll see that dispatchable makes up almost 100% of base load during significant periods of time. Do the math on how many batteries and how much pumped storage you would need. It's simply not happening without fossils.

Australia uses natural gas so it can pull down CO2, but the coal is still exported and burned by someone else. It's a wash. Germany only has coal. If storage was feasible they wouldn't be standing there with their pants down on their CO2 goals. They would've built the best batteries and storage pumps the world knows.

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