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Old 2011-03-24, 04:12   Link #12681
Vexx
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ithekro View Post
"Germany is determined to show the world how abandoning nuclear energy can be done."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42239367...world_business

I'm not entirely sure if this is viable, or just a scam to get Germans to pay more money. Depends entirely on what they think they can come up with for renewable power sources, and if they also plan to get rid of their rather dirty coal fired power plants. Solar and wind require a huge amount of area to generate the power needed to power Germany, and I'm not all that sure the countruy has the areas needed for it.
They (and most others) are probably better off introducing EFFICIENCIES in the usage end of the grid.... thus reducing the amount of power generation needed in the first place. More and more US power companies are "discovering" this amazing (or.. duh!!!!) way of saving operational costs.
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Old 2011-03-24, 04:30   Link #12682
sneaker
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Germany is already pretty low on consumption, with only about half the per capita consumption of the US.
Especially the solar subsidies are just a waste of money - and they cost billions every year.
But we might have to wait a few decades before we see who proves to be correct - Germany or the rest of the world. We also shouldn't forget that the same people who want to shut down the nuclear (and coal) power in Germany also want to switch to electric cars rendering any attempts to lower the consumption futile.

I don't think it will play out for Germany.
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Old 2011-03-24, 05:18   Link #12683
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Thanks to switching off the oldest nuclear plants for now, yesterday (a sunny day) the overall solar energy production in Germany exeeded the total amount of the remaining nuclear plants with 12GW.

The thing is, it's not always sunny around here. There are certainly better places in the world for building solar power. But we can't move the country...
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Old 2011-03-24, 05:40   Link #12684
sneaker
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky View Post
Thanks to switching off the oldest nuclear plants for now, yesterday (a sunny day) the overall solar energy production in Germany exeeded the total amount of the remaining nuclear plants with 12GW.
Too bad we can't just turn them off as quickly as the sun comes out. So the regular plants still run and we just waste money.
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Old 2011-03-24, 07:32   Link #12685
JMvS
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GundamFan0083 View Post
Correct me if I'm wrong SaintessHeart, but didn't the Russians model their Czarist culture around the Byzantine Empire model?
Not only that, the czars considered themselves the very prolongation of the Empire: Moscow being the Third Roma, not only trough the continuation of an Imperial autority, but also as the new center of the Orthodox Church, and even trough the continuation of the Byzantine Empire bloodline (IIRC, a niece of the last byzantine Basileus married into the czar's family).
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Old 2011-03-24, 14:02   Link #12686
ganbaru
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Gaza rockets strike deeper inside Israel
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...72N48A20110324
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Old 2011-03-24, 14:56   Link #12687
bladeofdarkness
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Join Date: Dec 2007
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ganbaru View Post
Gaza rockets strike deeper inside Israel
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...72N48A20110324
*Sigh*...
time to start airing out the Uniform
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Old 2011-03-24, 14:58   Link #12688
Ithekro
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Weird. In our mock UN convention in the early 90s we figured out having Palestine as two split territories was a bad idea. West Bank only. Gaza needs to go, either to Israel or Egypt.
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Old 2011-03-24, 15:01   Link #12689
bladeofdarkness
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ithekro View Post
Weird. In our mock UN convention in the early 90s we figured out having Palestine as two split territories was a bad idea. West Bank only. Gaza needs to go, either to Israel or Egypt.
we're willing to take the territory of Gaza provided Egypt takes the people.
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Old 2011-03-24, 16:15   Link #12690
NameGoesHere
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sneaker View Post
Too bad we can't just turn them off as quickly as the sun comes out. So the regular plants still run and we just waste money.
Not quite how it works, actually. There 3 load types. Structurally, most renewable sources are baseload (I think it may all be sold as baseload in Europe). Baseload naturally fluctuates, some fluctuations are secheduled, some aren't. Excess from baseload can be adjusted for by peakers and intermediates (to a lesser degree). A lot of forecasting and trading goes into balancing the grid.

But this is also why renewable sources are not yet a plausible answer for an entire centralized grid. Running everything efficiently off of baseload is impossible...at least, as long as demand-side control is politically unfeasible...
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Old 2011-03-24, 16:28   Link #12691
sneaker
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Which renewable sources are you talking about?

At least solar energy and wind power are not baseload.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia
Baseload plants are the production facilities used to meet some or all of a given region's continuous energy demand, and produce energy at a constant rate
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Old 2011-03-24, 16:34   Link #12692
NameGoesHere
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sneaker View Post
Which renewable sources are you talking about?

At least solar energy and wind power are not baseload.
Quote:
Baseload plant, (also baseload power plant or base load power station) is an energy plant devoted to the production of baseload supply. Baseload plants are the production facilities used to meet some or all of a given region's continuous energy demand, and produce energy at a constant rate, usually at a low cost relative to other production facilities available to the system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed-in_Tariff

Baseload just means the plant operators would want the plant to be operating at full power all the time (because the cost was sunk into construction). Laws in Europe basically make all renewables de facto baseload plants, and they are sold as such. The Wiki classification is very generalized.

Edit: I cede that you can argue the point as what the term means is subject to interpretation, but the fact remains that the grid is balanced even when renewables produce more energy than expected.
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Old 2011-03-24, 17:29   Link #12693
sneaker
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NameGoesHere View Post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed-in_Tariff

Baseload just means the plant operators would want the plant to be operating at full power all the time (because the cost was sunk into construction). Laws in Europe basically make all renewables de facto baseload plants, and they are sold as such. The Wiki classification is very generalized.

Edit: I cede that you can argue the point as what the term means is subject to interpretation, but the fact remains that the grid is balanced even when renewables produce more energy than expected.
Every plant operator wants his plant to run at full power all the time. What's the point?
I get what you are trying to say, but you are making up your very own definition of baseload here.

And yes, the power won't go out if we produce more energy than we use, but if the sun shines and the wind blows that doesn't mean we can just save the corresponding amount of coal, just a fraction. So even graphs showing that wind or solar energy fed this or that percentage of electricity into our grids are highly misleading.
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Old 2011-03-24, 17:32   Link #12694
Jinto
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NameGoesHere View Post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed-in_Tariff

Baseload just means the plant operators would want the plant to be operating at full power all the time (because the cost was sunk into construction). Laws in Europe basically make all renewables de facto baseload plants, and they are sold as such. The Wiki classification is very generalized.

Edit: I cede that you can argue the point as what the term means is subject to interpretation, but the fact remains that the grid is balanced even when renewables produce more energy than expected.
You could for example generate H2 when there is an energy production peak/ energy demand low. The H2 could be used for gas powerstations if production is low and demand is high. One could think of other such power storage strategies, like pumped storage power station (none of them are ideal, because there will be a lot of waste energy but it can help to even out the peaks, and give the energy grid some stability).
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Old 2011-03-24, 17:43   Link #12695
NameGoesHere
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sneaker View Post
Every plant operator wants his plant to run at full power all the time. What's the point?
I get what you are trying to say, but you are making up your very own definition of baseload here.

And yes, the power won't go out if we produce more energy than we use, but if the sun shines and the wind blows that doesn't mean we can just save the corresponding amount of coal, just a fraction. So even graphs showing that wind or solar energy fed this or that percentage of electricity into our grids are highly misleading.
This is...actually...not true...? Peakers are called peakers because their fuel costs are dominant (as opposed to their upfront costs). Intermediates have fuel, operating, and investment costs at about the same level. If the grid has enough power there may be no benefit in running the peaker, and in some cases the intermediate. Why else would there be any other designation besides baseload?

I'm not sure where I said anything that is along the lines of "we should replace coal with renewables", merely that there is a balancing mechanism...

As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that I stated it is currently not feasible to run an efficient grid on pure renewables...

Edit: First Google result I got

Quote:
Peaker plants generally run only during peak periods when utilities will pay higher prices for electricity because it is more expensive to produce electricity by burning natural gas.
I'm not really sure what to say? Not all plants want to run at full power all of the time...

Edit 2: So I read further down on the Wiki article, and it does say how designation is determined.

Quote:
Economics

Power plants are designated baseload based on their low cost generation, efficiency and safety at rated output power levels. Baseload power plants do not change production to match power consumption demands since it is more economical to operate them at constant production levels. Use of higher cost combined-cycle plants or combustion turbines is thus minimized, and these plants can be cycled up and down to match more rapid fluctuations in consumption. Baseload generators, such as nuclear and coal, often have very high fixed costs, high plant load factor and very low marginal costs. On the other hand, peak load generators, such as natural gas, have low fixed costs, low plant load factor and high marginal costs.[5] Typically these plants are large and provide a majority of the power used by a grid. Thus, they are more effective when used continuously to cover the power baseload required by the grid.
Combine that with feed-in tariff, and it should be enough to understand why renewables are de facto baseload.

Last edited by NameGoesHere; 2011-03-24 at 18:10.
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Old 2011-03-24, 18:20   Link #12696
sneaker
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NameGoesHere View Post
This is...actually...not true...? Peakers are called peakers because their fuel costs are dominant (as opposed to their upfront costs). Intermediates have fuel, operating, and investment costs at about the same level. If the grid has enough power there may be no benefit in running the peaker, and in some cases the intermediate. Why else would there be any other designation besides baseload?
I was basing my argument on the assumption that each kWh produced earns additional money for the plant owner and did not take the situation in which production costs are higher than market price into account. My bad.

Quote:
Originally Posted by NameGoesHere View Post
I'm not sure where I said anything that is along the lines of "we should replace coal with renewables", merely that there is a balancing mechanism...

As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that I stated it is currently not feasible to run an efficient grid on pure renewables...
You did not. But you made up the definition that renewables are baseload and you said that the grid was still balanced with fluctuating renewables, while lots of the energy is merely produced twice as the planning and control of peak and intermediate is not able to keep up. That's not what I'd call "balanced". (But maybe I'm misreading because of my bad English?)
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Old 2011-03-24, 18:23   Link #12697
sneaker
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NameGoesHere View Post
Edit 2: So I read further down on the Wiki article, and it does say how designation is determined.



Combine that with feed-in tariff, and it should be enough to understand why renewables are de facto baseload.
So renewables which cost a multiple of the market price for electricity are low cost? I cannot agree.

From your quote:
Quote:
Baseload power plants do not change production
The opposite is true for wind and solar.
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Old 2011-03-24, 18:43   Link #12698
JMvS
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The whole point is that solar and windmill, because they by no means can qualify for peak, are treated as baseload.

Maybe they should have created a new category especially for them: erratic.

The not so funny thing, is that to ensure a baseline supply from windmills, supplementary coal (=> baseline), and gas (=>peak) power plants have to be built. So, in the end, you get to build (and pay for) twice the virtual capacity you need (and anyway, you'll never get that double effective capacity).
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Old 2011-03-24, 18:46   Link #12699
NameGoesHere
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sneaker View Post
So renewables which cost a multiple of the market price for electricity are low cost? I cannot agree.
Feed-in tariff. It is subsidized, but that does not change its designation. The point is that the operators would run the plant at full capacity whenever possible. I did not make up the definition. The plants that Wiki lists are by no means an exhaustive listing. It is merely what most plants of one type fall into because of the way the plant operates. Nuclear being considered baseload does not mean it can't operate as a peaker plant. It would simply wear down the equipment, and be unprofitable. I'm sorry if I was not clear.

Quote:
Economics

Power plants are designated baseload based on their low cost generation, efficiency and safety at rated output power levels. Baseload power plants do not change production to match power consumption demands since it is more economical to operate them at constant production levels. Use of higher cost combined-cycle plants or combustion turbines is thus minimized, and these plants can be cycled up and down to match more rapid fluctuations in consumption. Baseload generators, such as nuclear and coal, often have very high fixed costs, high plant load factor and very low marginal costs. On the other hand, peak load generators, such as natural gas, have low fixed costs, low plant load factor and high marginal costs.[5] Typically these plants are large and provide a majority of the power used by a grid. Thus, they are more effective when used continuously to cover the power baseload required by the grid.
Quote:
to match power consumption demands
Quote:
Originally Posted by sneaker View Post
while lots of the energy is merely produced twice as the planning and control of peak and intermediate is not able to keep up. That's not what I'd call "balanced". (But maybe I'm misreading because of my bad English?)
I'm not sure what this means. But please remember that power lines don't end at political borders, and that plant operators will have attempted to forecast times where their renewables operate above capacity.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JMvS View Post
The whole point is that solar and windmill, because they by no means can qualify for peak, are treated as baseload.

Maybe they should have created a new category especially for them: erratic.

The not so funny thing, is that to ensure a baseline supply from windmills, supplementary coal (=> baseline), and gas (=>peak) power plants have to be built. So, in the end, you get to build (and pay for) twice the virtual capacity you need (and anyway, you'll never get that double effective capacity).
Word you're looking for is stochastic. But its use is limited.

Last edited by NameGoesHere; 2011-03-24 at 19:04.
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Old 2011-03-24, 19:02   Link #12700
sneaker
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Sorry, I cannot agree.
The baseload article clearly defines baseload plants as plants that "produce energy at a constant rate", not as plants that always run at full power. You won't find the word "baseload" in the "Feed-in tariff" article a single time. Those two are unrelated.

And the costs for the wind and solar are high. That's why they need to be subsidized to compete. Not the other way round.
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