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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.

  • Iceblade@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    3 days ago

    The main argument for nuclear is not its individual cost, neither for remewables. The main argument is that we need to rid ourselves of fossil fuels.

    When planning for a future global energy system w/o fossil fuels, nuclear power has a key role to play as the most reliable source of clean, dispatchable electricity. This allows it to punch far above its equivalent capacity by massively reduce the need for expensive grid scale storage solutions.

    Source 1: IEA (2019), Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/nuclear-power-in-a-clean-energy-system, Licence: CC BY 4.0

    Source 2: NEA (2019), The Costs of Decarbonisation: System Costs with High Shares of Nuclear and Renewables, OECD Publishing, Paris https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_15000

    • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      3 days ago

      dispatchable electricity.

      I really don’t get this. Nuclear isn’t dispatchable. It never was and never will be. You have to create heat from the fission reaction, use that to turn water into steam, and use the steam to drive turbines to generate electricity.

      All of that takes time to ramp up which makes nuclear non-dispatchable. Compare it with a battery or pumped hydro where you can get power flowing anywhere from milliseconds to seconds.

      Furthermore, nuclear is so expensive that it makes no economic sense to build new nuclear that would run as close to 24/7 as possible, let alone as a dispatchable source.

      So this begs the question, did you already know this?

      • Iceblade@lemmy.worldEnglish
        31·
        3 days ago

        Nuclear isn’t dispatchable.

        This statement is false.

        “A dispatchable source of electricity refers to an electrical power system, such as a power plant, that can be turned on or off; in other words they can adjust their power output supplied to the electrical grid on demand. Most conventional power sources such as coal or nuclear power plants are dispatchable in order to meet the always changing electricity demands of the population. In contrast, many renewable energy sources are intermittent and non-dispatchable, such as wind power or solar power which can only generate electricity while their primary energy flow is input on them.”

        Source: EnergyEducation.ca (Provided by the University of Calgary)

        Either you don’t know what you’re talking about, or are actively deceptive. I sincerely hope it is the prior. As such, I suggest that you educate yourself on the topic before commenting further to avoid spreading disinformation.