https://news.mit.edu/2024/cutting-carbon-emissions-us-power-grid-0311

'In another analysis, Gençer and Farnsworth took a closer look at California. In California, about 10 percent of total demand is now met with nuclear power. Yet current power plants are scheduled for retirement very soon, and a 1976 law forbids the construction of new nuclear plants. (The state recently extended the lifetime of one nuclear plant to prevent the grid from becoming unstable.) “California is very motivated to decarbonize their grid,” says Farnsworth. “So how difficult will that be without nuclear power?”

To find out, the researchers performed a series of analyses to investigate the challenge of decarbonizing in California with nuclear power versus without it. At 200 grams of CO2 per kWh — about a 50 percent reduction — the optimized mix and cost look the same with and without nuclear. Nuclear doesn’t appear due to its high cost. At 100 grams of CO2 per kWh — about a 75 percent reduction — nuclear does appear in the cost-optimized system, reducing the total system capacity while having little impact on the cost.

But at 50 grams of CO2 per kWh, the ban on nuclear makes a significant difference. “Without nuclear, there’s about a 45 percent increase in total system size, which is really quite substantial,” says Farnsworth. “It’s a vastly different system, and it’s more expensive.” Indeed, the cost of electricity would increase by 7 percent.

Going one step further, the researchers performed an analysis to determine the most decarbonized system possible in California. Without nuclear, the state could reach 40 grams of CO2 per kWh. “But when you allow for nuclear, you can get all the way down to 16 grams of CO2 per kWh,” says Farnsworth. “We found that California needs nuclear more than any other region due to its poor wind resources.”'

A kind of quasi religious opposition to nuclear over the last several decades has not only assisted and enabled the fossil fuel industry to churn out GHG regardless, when series production of nuclear as in France was perfectly practical, but it looks as though it will now likely make much more difficult to fully transition.

California can store the CO2 and NOx from power plants in empty oil wells in the Bakersfield Elk Hills area, that would be THE quickest most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions this decade.

I'd also add that although I have been a supporter of nuclear more or less all my long life, and dislike at least the irrational end of opposition to it, with for instance nuclear power plants in Germany closed on the off chance that they might be hit by a tsunami on the Rhine, I think that California can do better than the report I have linked without nuclear.

That is mainly due to what can and can't be reasonably included in a substantial report.

They can only really assess relatively established technologies, with a limit to projections.

Random internet users such as myself have no such limitation.

I reckon that we can deal with the main barrier to better utilisation of renewables in areas such as California, as we can do daily storage to spread solar at far lower cost than present methods, which is transformative.

If not up to the standards needed for inclusion in an academic report, my remarks are not without foundation, just a couple of years early.

Energy Dome have demonstrated compressed CO2 storage, and are currently building a full size 20MW/200MW facility, which should come in at perhaps half the cost of battery storage, which is really only for up to 4 hours, not overnight, and is made from industry standard components with high round trip efficiency.

For areas with abundant sunshine and no serious space constraints, such as California, this is likely in my view to be an excellent option.

If you have a look at the report I have linked above, 24/7 storage of solar would be transformative.

We can arrive at a proper assessment with enough certainty for inclusion in academic forecasts within 2 or 3 years.

Davemart references the Farnsworth and Gençer report which emphasizes California's need for nuclear power:

"As the model plays out, under the moderate cap — 50 grams of CO2 per kWh — most regions bring in nuclear power. California and the Southeast — regions with low wind capacity factors — rely on nuclear the most."

California has abundant solar resources. The only reason they would need wind is to balance out seasonal variations in solar energy. In many regions it is windier in the winter than in the summer so that wind can be used for the purpose of seasonal balancing. In California currently existing wind resources actually producer higher output in the summer than in the winter and thus do nothing to help the issue of seasonal balance of energy supply. Seasonal energy storage is a very difficult economic challenge. Current battery technology would be absurdly expensive for this purpose. Hydrogen would probably be cheaper than batteries but still quite expensive. One possibility that I have thought about is storage as low grade heat for space and water heating in some kind of earth storage. Electrical resistance heaters are dirt cheap compared to electrolyzers. The long term equilibrium costs of earth storage are probably pretty reasonable. However, the up front cost of installing this kind of capacity in already built up urban areas would be expensive. We would probably have to sacrifice consumer goods for a period of time in order to be able to afford such an infrastructure build out. The summer time electrical over capacity which we would be using to fill our heat storage system would then increase the winter time electrical capacity.

Hi Roger.

I try to not get into the head of 'arguing the case' for whatever, and consequently denigrating other options.

My view is that we have been fortunate enough to have a number of options which ain't hugely polluting fossil fuels becoming more and more economic, and we should not necessarily throw away any of them based on their competition with each other.

The really expensive option is to pump out CHG into the atmosphere, which for decades have been falsely declared as the 'cheap' option, as the costs are externalised.

Coming back more directly to the point, diversity of resources is in itself a benefit, and the cost is moderated if it is a relatively small part of overall production, whilst enhancing flexibility.

For instance in the event of major volcanic eruptions, solar is going to take a substantial hit.

Nuclear are 10% or so of the mix would provide a considerable emergency cushion.

Recent events with covid and the war in Ukraine have disrupted supply chains, and shown up the limits of the cheap internationalist solution.

Natural systems don't just optimise supposed 'efficiency' but also consider resilience.

That aside, storage of renewables as hydrogen, or perhaps its derivatives such as ammonia or methane, are expensive, compared to what?

The cost efficiency measures are typically given as unit costs, with units of equal value.

Bunging hydrogen, for instance, into abandoned oil wells or other geological formations may on that sort of analysis sound expensive, but would only need to occur for a relatively small proportion of output to cover when there was a cold, still snap with low wind, in winter when there is not much sun.

In Europe, this is known as 'dunkelflaute'
Here is an analysis of the implications for renewables in that region:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355173603_A_Brief_Climatology_of_Dunkelflaute_Events_over_and_Surrounding_the_North_and_Baltic_Sea_Areas

It should be noted that for most of the world where most people live, and will do increasingly in the future, this is hardly relevant, as they are nearer the equator and variation is much less significant.

Such variation is however relevant to the US and some other regions and even more to for Europe, which is a northerly outlier.

But even there 'too expensive' storage solutions are declared such by not noting that they are needed for only a fairly small proportion of output.

Overall systemic costs are manageable.

Hydrogen, ammonia et al can do the job just fine at affordable cost.

Hi Roger.

My comment was not meant as a critique of your own, which is as usual measured and reasonable.

I was rather seeking to put into context, my own often repeated support of nuclear and hydrogen here.

If something better comes up, I am all ears!

But by and large, I like a diversity of options and resources rather than going all in on one.