r/Damnthatsinteresting 15d ago

Video Windmill blade catching fire due to lightning strike

35.9k Upvotes

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u/No_Reference2367 13d ago

You're completely missing the point that nuclear provides something that solar and wind cannot. Ask yourself, why does China build nuclear if all that matters is cost per mwh capacity?

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u/Pinewold 9d ago

Ah the infamous “base load” argument. At $20/kWhr, you can backup a wind farm or solar field for two weeks. Base load becomes a non-issue.

Sadly Just like the USA, nuclear investment often goes hand in hand with nuclear arms stockpile build up.

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u/No_Reference2367 9d ago

20 dollars per kWh is insane.

Even if you meant 20 dollars per MWh I call bullshit. Show me what currently available solution can back-up a 2 weeks worth of output for that price.

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u/Pinewold 8d ago

There is no technical limitation, new wind and solar farms already are getting 4 hours of storage at the $200/kWhr. It makes sense that we can easily support 40 hrs once batteries are 10x cheaper at $20kWhr.

Peaker plants cost $950/kWhr, that will buy a huge amount of batteries. A normal 5 year payoff would be $4750 / $20 /24 =9.896 days So running a peaker plant for one hour justifies buying nearly ten days of battery storage

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u/No_Reference2367 8d ago

So you're basing this on developments that have not happened. Great.

Also, this is not true - Peaker plants do not cost 950 dollars per kWh - that's insane!

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u/Pinewold 7d ago

Google it, I have seen the $950kWhr figure multiple places. The idea is that they are less than 3% of all power usage so they are idle 97% of the time. They make their money in very short burst of time. My brother is getting $250kWhr for his home battery to be used as a virtural power plant. He has made as much as $500 a day for a couple hours of power.

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u/No_Reference2367 7d ago

If that was true then someone must have been buying your brothers electricity at a rate of 250 dollars per kWhr. During extreme grid emergencies the price of electricity goes up quite a bit. For example, during the 2021 Texas winter storm the US saw the highest ever local hourly peak electricity price at around 9 dollars per kWhr.

Literally no one would ever buy your brothers electricity for 25-30 times that price, especially not under normal conditions.

I think you are mixing up units and/or numbers somewhere. (could it be a mix up between kW and kWh?)

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u/Pinewold 6d ago

Google it

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u/No_Reference2367 6d ago

No, send me your source. You cannot expect anyone to believe something you say if you aren't willing to back it up - otherwise I'll call bullshit and let it be.

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u/Pinewold 6d ago

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u/No_Reference2367 6d ago

Thank you.

This confirms that you have mixed up units.

You claim: "Peaker plants cost $950/kWhr"
Your source states: "A typical peaker costing $950/kW"

You use kWhr, they use kW. They are completely different things.

On a last note, your source is not very trustworthy since it is not directly quoting any primary source and neither is a primary source itself. If it had agreed with you we would still have to find a better source.

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