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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."
With new nuclear power generating plants.
O come on! That's done today and would be no different in principle. Besides did you actually read the study & ask the authors on the model they used such that you know they didn't include 'cost of right of way'?
Geez, mdsolar IS an ass but just because he submits something doesn't mean its not an interesting read.
Seriously, the article simply basis the model on the use of HVDC widely...googling the use of HVDC you find out that in fact it is being built out so as its built out it will produce other benefits, some accrue to traditional generation and centralized production models & some may make Wind & Solar economically viable.
Look, I'm a huge proponent of the use of nuclear, I figure the 'greenies' got us in to any current mess with global warming due to their combative position over the last 30 years having stunted its growth...that doesn't mean I'm automatically biased AGAINST Wind & Solar...on their face their not entirely stupid ways of generating energy & when they get reasonably cost effective & useful we should use them more.
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.
Nuclear scales fine. Conventional LWRs however are a different story; they worked fine in a submarine, but it was foolish to scale them so large. The inventors of the technology (Alvin Weinberg and Eugene Wigner) argued against it, and proposed the molten salt reactor as a safer alternative for civilian nuclear power. Unfortunately, politics won over safety, and the rest is history. Decay heat removal in an LWR is extremely difficult at a large scale, and accidents have and can still happen. (However, it is important to note that all accidents combined to date have resulted in very little loss of human life or damage to the environment; certainly far less than the alternatives, solar and wind included.)
Molten salt reactors however, can be scaled up and down, and even load follow. They can be placed near the load using existing transmission infrastructure, and do not require an enormously expensive nation-wide renewable-friendly grid to be constructed. Ironically, small regional grids with reactors already provide a distributed and reliable energy system that the proposed super-grid of renewables is fundamentally incapable of.
MSRs would be sized for flexibility and series manufacturing. (typically < 250MWe) They can be sited virtually anywhere, allowing rapid replacement of existing fossil plants with no other change in transmission infrastructure. In addition to producing safe power, they also solve the "waste" problem, and minimize mining and other environmental impacts.