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A comment on The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without increasing consumer bills. Parent comment

Re:The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without in... by Retric on Saturday June 20, 2020 @01:02AM (#23581827)
Natural gas costs more than solar power under 50% utilization. As in the fuel it’s self costs more than solar power plants that waste half of all power produced at current prices. This means a vast over abundance of supply is part of any rational minimal cost strategy. Storage costs are so high it further makes solar tracking arrays cost effective for mitigation of the duck curve.

Also, hydro is a massive part of the energy mix going forward and excluding it gives meaningless results.

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Re:The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without in... by hairytrog on Saturday June 20, 2020 @01:27AM (#23581925)
since hydro is basically constant, any analysis can just subtract it from the total demand. the dynamic analysis can proceed without considering hydro.
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Re:The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without in... by hebrox on Saturday June 20, 2020 @01:55AM (#23582047)
Reading the description on Wikipedia, I would say it can be part of the dynamic analysis. "With a dam and reservoir it is also a flexible source of electricity, since the amount produced by the station can be varied up or down very rapidly (as little as a few seconds) to adapt to changing energy demands." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity
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Re:The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without in... by Retric on Saturday June 20, 2020 @10:03AM (#23583990)
Exactly, large scale hydro is extremely flexible, shifting production not just on a hourly basis in many cases across months. Hydro’s rapid response is why pumped storage was initially developed.

Environmentally, rivers need variable flow rates to minimize silt buildup so doing so is actually good for the environment. Comparing the costs of constructing a dam with the cost of extra generating capacity, this flexibility is also extremely cheap. They do maintain a minimum flow at all times it’s generally a low fraction of average let alone maximum capacity.

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