[zozbot234]

> It's usually windy when it's dark and cold and vice versa.

Usually, but not always. You can have many days or weeks, e.g. in mid-winter of overcast weather and very little wind. This is a real problem for renewable energy sources, they're not comprehensively viable unless supplemented by alternatives like gas peakers or perhaps nuclear.

[bryanlarsen]

Or geographic interconnection. There hasn't been an hour in the past 30 years where there was no wind or sun somewhere in Europe.

[sapiogram]

Winter nights are long and dark everywhere in Europe, wind speeds definitely correlate somewhat, and transmission losses exist. Unless you're planning to massively overbuild wind power, you do need alternative power sources capable of satisfying almost all your power demand for shorter periods.

[ben_w]

The length of winter nights in Europe vary from 14.3[0] hours to 52 days[1].

Transmission losses are subject to engineering, and can be as low as you're willing to spend money to get them — as in, if the world all suddenly (magically and unrealistically) decided to be friends, you could put a girdle around the world with only 1 Ω resistance using existing manufacturing capacity[2].

[0] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Tarifa+Spain+sunrise+21...

[1] https://www.finavia.fi/en/newsroom/2023/what-polar-night-exp...

[2] ~ 12 months global aluminium production, but you could do it

[pydry]

Maybe look at some data before FUDding.

This model posits 97% carbon free generation in Australia with 5 hours of storage using actual real world weather data:

https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g...

>You can have many days or weeks

Maybe cite actual data.

>alternatives like gas peakers or perhaps nuclear.

Nuclear isnt a peaker. Or rather, it can theoretically be used as a peaker but burning literal $100 notes may be more cost effective in the long run than using it as a peaker.

Batteries and pumped storage are cost effective peakers. I find it's better when modeling renewable energy generation scenarios to try not to pretend they dont exist.

[zozbot234]

Pumped storage is cost effective but it's also built out, there's little if any scope for growth. Battery storage is entirely speculative so far. Whilst nuclear is a proven baseload source that can provide enough power for the most critical needs even when renewables aren't producing.

[pydry]

>Pumped storage is cost effective but it's also built out, there's little if any scope for growth

You're confusing pumped storage with river dams. The geography for pumped storage is abundant, river dams not so much.

>Battery storage is entirely speculative so far.

In 2012 maybe. These days grid level battery plants are deployed routinely.

>Whilst nuclear is a proven baseload source

At 5x the cost per kwh, according to lazard.

Baseload also means "requires peakers". That means gas or...batteries.

When french nuclear plants go down for maintenance the country chews through ungodly amounts of gas. Some of their plants have capacity factors of like ~80% - not much better than high performing wind farms.

[jeffbee]

> Battery storage is entirely speculative so far.

Battery systems installed in the last 5 years in America are 15 times more powerful than all the fission reactors built in the same time. Meanwhile, US reactor capacity is now lower than it was in 1990. One of these power sources is "speculative" and the other is a rapidly-growing, practical and economical way to store and distribute energy.