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US Could Lower Carbon Emissions 78% With New National Transmission Network (smithsonianmag.com)
mdsolar writes with this story from Smithsonian magazine about how building a national transmission network could lead to a gigantic reduction in carbon emissions. From the story: "The United States could lower carbon emissions from electricity generation by as much as 78 percent without having to develop any new technologies or use costly batteries, a new study suggests. There's a catch, though. The country would have to build a new national transmission network so that states could share energy. 'Our idea was if we had a national 'interstate highway for electrons' we could move the power around as it was needed, and we could put the wind and solar plants in the very best places,' says study co-author Alexander MacDonald, who recently retired as director of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado."
It's not even saying that. An improved grid would permit the construction of new solar/wind sources at sites that are currently not cost-effective due to their distance from the point of consumption. The 78% number comes from the replacement of carbon-emitting sources with these to-be-constructed solar/wind sources - they still have to be built, in massive quantities, to achieve that 78% reduction.
If you are rebuilding the transmission network then you can place new lines where they will be best suited for new technologies such as solar, wind, and geothermal. The current grid is built to get electricity from the places that are good for the existing technologies to be located. Mostly these are where large amounts of water are located. Either for hydroelectric dams or for cooling (required for both nuclear and coal fired plants).
However reducing carbon emissions (not energy loss) can also be brought about by removing the zones that exist in the US electric grid to make it easier to sell electricity from one area to another. I believe that Texas has an isolated electrical grid. If a new transmission network was created then when Texas had excess electricity from wind turbines (which have already been installed) then it could easily sell it to another state which could prevent them from burning fossil fuels to meet their needs. The Pacific Northwest has abundant hydroelectric power which could be sold to a greater number of states which would offset using fossil fuels.
Also because Canada is connected into the network we would have more opportunities to sell power. Quebec sells a lot of electricity generated at their dams and Ontario has times when their nuclear plants are producing more than the province requires. BC is also a big hydroelectric producer and could sell into the US. Currently they are limited in the number of states that they can sell because of how the transmission network in the US works.
Nukes don't vary output well. Thus storage is needed in a nukes only system.
This is a common misconception based on old nuclear designs that were designed specifically to be base-load-only. Fukushima was one. Nuclear power is extremely flexible and has minimal constraints due to technological reasons. France is 75% nuclear and has load-following generation III reactors capable of daily load cycling of 50%-100% capacity at a ramp rate of 3-5%/minute.
The new AP-1000 is a gen III+ reactor rated to change from 30%-100% at a response time similar to coal or gas turbines. There are many other different and smaller reactor designs that could easily be used to supplement the large reactors, as a complete power solution.
There are many valid arguments against nuclear, but this isn't one of the stronger ones.
Wrong on all counts.
CA gets only 3% of electricity from coal. (Down 50% in past 10 years)
Solar and wind have increased 300% in past ten years.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
6.4% coal as of 2014.
5.5% large hydro.
8.5% Nuclear
44.5% Natural Gas
20.1% Renewables(Wind, geothermal, Solar, Biomass, small hydro).
15% unspecified.
I don't read AC A human right
You missed the point. The idea is to move electricity that has been generated with 0 carbon emission, wind and solar, to places where it is needed. Even if 25% of the electricity is wasted in transmission there would be no increase in carbon emissions.
The second point is that they propose HVDC lines would would lose much less electricity.
One of the problems with the "solution" is that HVDC does not step up/down voltage or convert into AC efficiently. Another is the cost of building an HVDC grid and grafting it into the existing AC grid. It will not be cheap.