Comment by throwaway100773 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway100773 | Hacker News Reader

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throwaway100773

Natgas can’t and won’t die in the short term. It is necessary to balance the intermittency of renewables in electrical generation, at least until there is viable utility scale battery storage. I’m not sure there is another good alternative at the moment. Even if loads were to decrease dramatically (unlikely in my opinion) it would still set the marginal price for electricity in most areas.

There is a massive oversupply globally of natgas at the moment, which is why the long term investment outlook looks bad. It has been overproduced via copious debt, increasing efficiencies have made the extraction price very low, and it’s a pesky byproduct of oil production in some areas (and pricing reflects that in those areas with prices actually going negative at some times). Perhaps if the environmental externalities of extraction were priced in, it would be more expensive but it’s a big reason why the US has been able to retire so much coal over the past decade. Arguably this is a huge net win environmentally speaking.

Sealed nuclear reactors [1] will likely play a big role here. They are much safer and far less expensive than nuclear tech currently in operation (which dates back to the 70s or earlier). The astronomical cost of building a nuclear power plant has been a huge barrier to adoption, but that should come down significantly over the next decade.

[1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu...

I hope you are right. I think nuclear power is probably the best thing that can be adopted. The new build costs are astronomical compared to natgas though and I’m not entirely sure why. We’re talking almost an order of magnitude the last time I looked - 1200/kw for gas vs 8000/kw for nuke. Gas costs have come down dramatically over the years while nuclear costs have increased. I hope this trend can reverse. Don’t know anything about the sealed reactor that you’re discussing though.

Renewable + storage, for intermittent supply, is already cheaper than a natural gas peaker plant for intermittent supply.

I think this is wrong in terms of new build cost. Especially if you take away subsidies. As far as I know, local factors aside, wind gen costs around 1500/kw without storage. Solar is similar, and gas is around 1000-1200 for a combined cycle and 800 for a simple ct (which would likely be a peaker). If I am remembering correctly, Duke energy recently completed a combined cycle plant that came in significantly under cost - around 900/kw.

If you add utility scale batteries, you’re looking at much more for renewable. I’m not sure what type of storage you have in mind though. Add to that, the capacity factors are very high for gas, while notably low for renewable. This impacts payback severely and I’m not even sure if you can sell capacity against a renewable plant - I may be wrong here.

What type of renewable are you talking about and what type of storage? Also what are the new build costs you are referencing? Or are you simply saying that a utility scale battery costs less than building a peaker?

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