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Days before President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office and took actions to stall the transition to clean energy, a disaster unfolded on the other side of the country that may have an outsize effect on the pace of the transition.

A fire broke out last Thursday at the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in California, one of the largest battery energy storage systems in the world. The fire raged through the weekend, forcing local officials to evacuate nearby homes and close roads.

Battery storage is an essential part of the transition away from fossil fuels. It works in tandem with solar and wind power to provide electricity during periods when the renewable resources aren’t available. But lithium-ion batteries, the most common technology used in storage systems, are flammable. And if they catch fire, it can be difficult to extinguish.

Last week’s fire is the latest and largest of several at the Moss Landing site in recent years, and I expect that it will become the main example opponents of carbon-free electricity use to try to stop battery development in other places.

  • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    52·
    3 days ago

    this will be my last reply only to reply specifically to LCOE since you put so much effort into finally typing some kind of semblance of an actual argument. Yes, nuclear is expensive (partly because we haven’t been DOING it), we have already covered that. I assume the unstated premise you are operating on is that we can supply our entire energy needs with cheap renewable, but that is NOT the case, especially as we use more computing and electrified transportation in the future.

    Renewable energy sources are all geographically limited. Solar and wind takes up a lot of space and are are highly variable, so they require lots of grid storage as stated already (did you factor grid storage into your cost analysis?). I’m not even arguing against them, by all means we should be using them as much as possible. But we need to be realistic about their limitations and true LCOE.

    Also the cost of nuclear can be greatly reduced by directly replacing coal plants with them where all the grid connections already exist. You can’t do that with solar or wind.

    So your entire premise that nuclear isn’t viable because renewables are cheaper is a non-sequitur. The choice isn’t between renewables or nuclear, the choice is between renewables and coal. In that context, nuclear is absolutely economically viable because we know coal is not.

    I have read plenty and know what I’m talking about, but I’m not here to participate in lopsided conversations. I know a sea lion when I see one, and I look forward to your arrogant 5-word disrespectful reply.

    edit since a citation was requested:

    https://www.mackinac.org/blog/2022/nuclear-wasted-why-the-cost-of-nuclear-energy-is-misunderstood

    Mark Nelson, environmentalist and managing director of Radiant Energy Fund, explains that LCOE was developed as a tool to describe “the cost of energy for power plants of a given nature.” But this tool fails when it attempts to compare the different energy sources needed to provide reliable, 24/7 electricity supply.

    …

    The problem of cost is therefore one that is both exaggerated by critics and exacerbated by overzealous regulation. In other words, not only is the problem not as bad as it is often portrayed, but there’s far more significant room for improvement.