Do you believe renewables are the solution?

Do you believe renewables are the solution?

  • Yes, we need to ditch the fossils

    Votes: 70 24.1%

  • No, fossil fuels are still the best option for SA

    Votes: 33 11.4%

  • The answer lies someplace in between

    Votes: 169 58.3%

  • Other

    Votes: 18 6.2%
  • Total voters
    290
Tomtomtom said:
Which nuclear power station has ever done that?
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Huh? Chernobyl.
Permanently destroyed for all current generations. Plenty of lives destroyed one way or another.

Let's not get into splitting hairs, some of us won't trust authority in this country with the possibility no matter how slight. They have yet to show any real maturity despite the many opportunities to grow.
 
Tomtomtom said:
It's the "smart grid" that's the red herring imo.

This hand-wavy stuff comes down to "renewables require sacrifice", and the problem is the consumer just won't accept that.

Progress in every other domain means we get more stuff for less money. Why are we going backwards on energy?

Besides the unpriced negative externalities of fossil fuels which I think does have some merit, the only explanation is we've been absolutely stupid about pushing ahead with nuclear.

It's soon going to be cheaper and easier to go to the moon than to build a nuclear power station. How ridiculous would that look to someone from the 1960s?
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I agree that nuclear has been neglected -- there are many promising directions for nuclear, I am just not sure building "traditional" nuclear plant is the way to go for SA at the moment. Hopefully internationally get going with the modular reactors and fuel recycling.

In terms of "smart grid" requiring sacrifice ... means that the grid is not smart enough. Most people don't care when their geyser runs as long as they have warm water when they open the tap. Same with pool pumps. Industrially there are lots of processes which can be flexible. In fact with real smart technologies it won't be a sacrifice --- your life will be beter.
 
Brian_G said:
Huh? Chernobyl.
Permanently destroyed for all current generations. Plenty of lives destroyed one way or another.

Let's not get into splitting hairs, some of us won't trust authority in this country with the possibility no matter how slight. They have yet to show any real maturity despite the many opportunities to grow.
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How many nuclear power facilities in the world
 
Athos said:
You need to generate base load. Whether it be from fossil fuels or nuclear you cannot power a country without base load.

When the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing you need base load to carry you through.

At the moment the vast majority of our base load is generated by burning fossil fuels. Without a move towards nuclear generation, this won't change.
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Can you not store energy to use then the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing?

I actually do this on a daily basis.
 
BBSA said:
Can you not store energy to use then the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing?

I actually do this on a daily basis.
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Yes, BESS systems are becoming very popular at wind and solar plants with typically between 1 to 4 hours of back up power in reserve.
 
BBSA said:
Can you not store energy to use then the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing?

I actually do this on a daily basis.
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Molten sand is most promising these days but not the kind of capacities needed.

I think @Lupus might have better detail to share.
 
Johand said:
Most people don't care when their geyser runs as long as they have warm water when they open the tap.
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I agree geyser timers/relays are important but they're not "smart" - hasn't joburg had them for decades?

And this kind of thing is not a benefit to the consumer, just, at best, not an extra cost.

I maintain we're contorting ourselves to see a silver lining or something in what is basically a devastating regression. We're going backwards on energy.
 
Brian_G said:
You're splitting hairs, as predicted... we're talking about this kak country.
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Energy and electricity is a global issue at the moment, every country is facing the same decisions
Are you even aware of the kak Europe are in at the moment, and its not only due to the war
 
Spizz said:
Yes, BESS systems are becoming very popular at wind and solar plants with typically between 1 to 4 hours of back up power in reserve.
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And this is useless. My router UPS has longer runtime. Taxpayers and grid operators are being swindled - although at least they have actually started asking for storage, which is an improvement on ~10 years ago when you could sell a "100 MW" solar PV plant as if it were equivalent to 100 MW nuclear baseload, and everyone was like "wow isn't that a good price for a MW."
 
Pak Fa Fui said:
Energy and electricity is a global issue at the moment, every country is facing the same decisions
Are you even aware of the kak Europe are in at the moment, and its not only due to the war
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You will not be able to use that argument to win nuclear support in this country. Strange you can't see that.

/done
 
rh1 said:
Where?
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Where is natural gas found in South Africa?

Back to News In early February 2019, a massive gas reserve was discovered off the coast of South Africa by French energy conglomerate, Total. The gas field, called Brulpadda Block, covers an area of 19 000 square kilometres under the Indian Ocean between George and Jeffreys Bay.
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Currently we've got Greenies holding up the works.
 
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I believe that redundancy is the solution so yes, we need renewable energy in all it's various forms, and Nuclear, and fossil fuels.
 
Brian_G said:
Molten sand is most promising these days but not the kind of capacities needed.

I think @Lupus might have better detail to share.
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Currently we don't really have a decently sized storage for power produced via wind or solar, people pointed to CSP but that failed, ended up costing to much per mW/h as you also still need to keep the salt liquid, I kind of see this problem happening with molten sand, gravity batteries were just a really odd idea.
If, if you could build it near pumped hydro dams, you could use it to pump water back up to "store" the energy.
Renewables the idea is punted as the great saviour but how? It ends up costing consumers more, most places that deployed it have higher carbon footprints.
For Africa and third world countries we need to get our power sorted out first, rolling out renewables will not solve those issues. Maybe in a few years when reliable storage comes available, but currently there just isn't enough of that.
 
Tomtomtom said:
And this is useless. My router UPS has longer runtime. Taxpayers and grid operators are being swindled - although at least they have actually started asking for storage, which is an improvement on ~10 years ago when you could sell a "100 MW" solar PV plant as if it were equivalent to 100 MW nuclear baseload, and everyone was like "wow isn't that a good price for a MW."
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I'm not sure what your point is. How is harnessing say, 400MWh from a 100MW PV or wind farm useless?
 
Spizz said:
I'm not sure what your point is. How is harnessing say, 400MWh from a 100MW PV or wind farm useless?
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Possibly cause that nuclear plants 100MW would be there all the time, so instead of 400MWh you're getting 2400MWh a day, that would be a big factor.
 
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