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Re:White House eyes subsidies for nuclear plants to help mee... by LorenPechtel on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @12:59PM (#27052476)
Batteries aren't going to cut it. The last I checked batteries are an expensive source of power even if you can charge them for free. The cost of the battery / cycles it can deliver is already more than the cost of electricity in most places. We need a major breakthrough in storage before renewables are more than a way to reduce fossil fuel use in powerplants. (You still need the plants, just not as much fuel for them.)

There is also somewhat of a use case for renewables for powering things that can make do with highly unreliable power. Consider, for example, a desalination plant. The heart of the plant is pumping water through membranes--but do you really need to do that? Lets build our plant differently, build a storage system high enough up that gravity provides the pressure. When you have power you run the pumps to fill the storage system, when you don't have power you don't run the pumps. You need bigger pumps and you need a big storage tank but it can be done.

Or flip the scenario--don't pump the seawater in the first place. Place your desalination plant on the ocean floor and use your pumps to extract the fresh water. In this case you need fresh water storage underwater rather than salt water storage up high.

Re:White House eyes subsidies for nuclear plants to help mee... by pfdietz on Thursday May 06, 2021 @08:10AM (#27062026)
Let's look at results from a model.

https://model.energy/

In the 2030 cost model they use, batteries are 142 euro/kWh of capacity and 160 euro/kW of power. This (using 2011 weather data, along with various other assumptions, and also includes use of hydrogen) gives "synthetic baseload" in the US for 53.7 euro/MWh, cheaper than nuclear. The LCOS in batteries and (even more so) in hydrogen is higher than the cost of electricity, but that's ok.

(If you look at other countries, or specific states in the US, the results vary but remain broadly similar. The mix of solar vs. wind can change a lot though. Places like Poland are the worst for renewables in this model.)