The assumption of $1000/kW for electrolyzers is the killer here. China is reported to be under $300/kW for these, btw.
How much do you think electrolyzers will cost by the time they are actually needed for the last few percent of the grid? They are the kind of thing (like batteries and PV) that can be expected to have aggressive experience curves.
mpweiher•8mo ago
China also builds 1400 MW nuclear for $3,5 billion.
China is generating 4x as much electrical energy from solar+wind as it is from nuclear, and solar+wind are growing much more rapidly. Nuclear generation as a fraction of total is at best flat.
Hydrogen hype is dying for things like vehicles where it is poorly suited, now that batteries are so cheap. But for niches like long term storage it's the last nail in the coffin for nuclear. This may not be apparent when natural gas is still burnable to provide that final backup, but to get to a 100% non-fossil grid hydrogen can be very useful.
mpweiher•8mo ago
What do Solar and Wind have to do with this?
We were talking about Hydrogen. The reason I brought up nuclear is that you seem to think that Chinese prices translate 1:1 to Western European ones. This tends to not be the case, or are you claiming it is the case?
Or is it the case only for technologies that you like?
Batteries are not cheap, and neither are electrolyzers, never mind the rest of a hydrogen energy system.
Everywhere projects are being cancelled, because costs were much higher than expected or hoped for, and projections for future costs are being revised upward.
And yes, you need to build Solar and Wind much more quickly than nuclear for the same targeted generation. Partly because of the low (and falling!) capacity factors, never mind the minuscule guaranteed generation, but also because nuclear power plants last so much longer.
pfdietz•8mo ago
Hydrogen is intimately connected with solar and wind, because it's a way to counter long term variability in the output of solar and wind. It's this long term variability that's the last desperate argument the anti-renewable propagandists are clinging to. It's also because the link ("Implications of Battery and Gas Storage for Germany's National Energy Management") you posted to start this thread includes hydrogen in its anti-renewable argument.
It's also the case that China's experience, far from being an argument for nuclear, is actually evidence nuclear is losing, even in China. Nuclear bad faith arguers like to point to China as evidence for nuclear but it has become the opposite.
Capacity factor doesn't matter if the LCoE is much lower and if intermittency can be dealt with properly.
Europe's problem at this point is not that nuclear is better, it's that Europe's place in the world is built on a foundation of fossil fuel use. In a post-fossil fuel, solar-powered age Europe will be an energy ghetto, and nuclear won't fix that.
mpweiher•8mo ago
Renewbros cling to various magic technology fixes for the inherent problems with intermittent renewables, Real Soon Now™
None of these are working now or have any reasonable chance of ever working.
That's why the entire industrialized world is doing nuclear power.
The UK just today approved Sizewell C and chose Rolls Royce to supply SMR.
And even of the 10 countries that once had decided on a nuclear phaseout, 7 so far have rescinded that decision: Japan, South Korea, Sweden, Holland, Italy, Belgium, and Taiwan. That's more than a 2/3 majority!
2 more are close: Switzerland has said it will rescind the prohibition of building new nuclear, and at least one Kanton has just demanded permission to build more nuclear power plants. Spain's energy minister, after the catastrophic #Spainout, has said that she is open to keeping the nuclear power stations running. In addition, parliament has passed a resolution demanding rescinding the ban, as well as various mayors. Oh, and the grid operator has made absolutely certain to keep rotating masses (Gas + Nuclear + Hydro) at a minimum of 40% to keep the grid stable after the #Spainout.
I ask you: if that's the "stable mode", what was the mode before?
Anyway, with Spain and Switzerland, that would then be 9 out of 10. Germany is completely alone in sticking to its backward, out of touch, and catastrophic ideology.
And mind you, that's just the countries that once shared Germany's ideological path, going from a high-tech, dependable, safe and cheap electricity source to a weather-dependent one like before the Industrial Revolution. Most countries with nuclear power never went down that road, because it was always irrational.
And of course more countries are adding nuclear power: Poland is starting to build, Egypt and Turkey are finishing their first nuclear power plants, grid connection likely in 2026. And even renewables champion Denmark has dropped their ban and in seriously looking into adopting nuclear power.
Oh, and of course capacity factor matters, because it dramatically increases required overcapacity. And as overcapacity increases, capacity factors drop further, because all this overcapacity cannibalizes each other. This is starting to happen in Germany, with renewables generation actually lower in Q1 2025 than in Q1 2024 despite significant increases in capacity.
The house of cards that is the German "Energiewende" is unraveling.
ZeroGravitas•8mo ago
Oh an "independent researcher". We should probably google in case that means "climate change denying crank". And it does:
pfdietz•8mo ago
How much do you think electrolyzers will cost by the time they are actually needed for the last few percent of the grid? They are the kind of thing (like batteries and PV) that can be expected to have aggressive experience curves.
mpweiher•8mo ago
And no, they are expected to remain expensive.
Hydrogen Hype is Dying, And That's a Good Thing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awN2w3sGj1w
pfdietz•8mo ago
Hydrogen hype is dying for things like vehicles where it is poorly suited, now that batteries are so cheap. But for niches like long term storage it's the last nail in the coffin for nuclear. This may not be apparent when natural gas is still burnable to provide that final backup, but to get to a 100% non-fossil grid hydrogen can be very useful.
mpweiher•8mo ago
We were talking about Hydrogen. The reason I brought up nuclear is that you seem to think that Chinese prices translate 1:1 to Western European ones. This tends to not be the case, or are you claiming it is the case?
Or is it the case only for technologies that you like?
Batteries are not cheap, and neither are electrolyzers, never mind the rest of a hydrogen energy system.
Everywhere projects are being cancelled, because costs were much higher than expected or hoped for, and projections for future costs are being revised upward.
And yes, you need to build Solar and Wind much more quickly than nuclear for the same targeted generation. Partly because of the low (and falling!) capacity factors, never mind the minuscule guaranteed generation, but also because nuclear power plants last so much longer.
pfdietz•8mo ago
It's also the case that China's experience, far from being an argument for nuclear, is actually evidence nuclear is losing, even in China. Nuclear bad faith arguers like to point to China as evidence for nuclear but it has become the opposite.
Capacity factor doesn't matter if the LCoE is much lower and if intermittency can be dealt with properly.
Europe's problem at this point is not that nuclear is better, it's that Europe's place in the world is built on a foundation of fossil fuel use. In a post-fossil fuel, solar-powered age Europe will be an energy ghetto, and nuclear won't fix that.
mpweiher•8mo ago
None of these are working now or have any reasonable chance of ever working.
That's why the entire industrialized world is doing nuclear power.
The UK just today approved Sizewell C and chose Rolls Royce to supply SMR.
And even of the 10 countries that once had decided on a nuclear phaseout, 7 so far have rescinded that decision: Japan, South Korea, Sweden, Holland, Italy, Belgium, and Taiwan. That's more than a 2/3 majority!
2 more are close: Switzerland has said it will rescind the prohibition of building new nuclear, and at least one Kanton has just demanded permission to build more nuclear power plants. Spain's energy minister, after the catastrophic #Spainout, has said that she is open to keeping the nuclear power stations running. In addition, parliament has passed a resolution demanding rescinding the ban, as well as various mayors. Oh, and the grid operator has made absolutely certain to keep rotating masses (Gas + Nuclear + Hydro) at a minimum of 40% to keep the grid stable after the #Spainout.
I ask you: if that's the "stable mode", what was the mode before?
Anyway, with Spain and Switzerland, that would then be 9 out of 10. Germany is completely alone in sticking to its backward, out of touch, and catastrophic ideology.
And mind you, that's just the countries that once shared Germany's ideological path, going from a high-tech, dependable, safe and cheap electricity source to a weather-dependent one like before the Industrial Revolution. Most countries with nuclear power never went down that road, because it was always irrational.
And of course more countries are adding nuclear power: Poland is starting to build, Egypt and Turkey are finishing their first nuclear power plants, grid connection likely in 2026. And even renewables champion Denmark has dropped their ban and in seriously looking into adopting nuclear power.
Oh, and of course capacity factor matters, because it dramatically increases required overcapacity. And as overcapacity increases, capacity factors drop further, because all this overcapacity cannibalizes each other. This is starting to happen in Germany, with renewables generation actually lower in Q1 2025 than in Q1 2024 despite significant increases in capacity.
The house of cards that is the German "Energiewende" is unraveling.