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darth_nadoma OP t1_iyumxrp wrote

Two large renewable power plants are to be built in Egypt providing over one million people with the cheapest electricity in Africa.

560 MW Abydos Solar plant would be located in the Southern Aswan Governorate.

While 505 MW Amunet Wind power plant would be located in the Suez governorate in the north-east.

Solar plant is expected to be completed in 18 months, and the wind project will be operational in 30 months.

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jadrad t1_iyvdupz wrote

Way cheaper and faster than any nuclear plant could ever be built, and way more secure than a nuclear plant in a region racked by terrorism - but watch how this sub of fission circlejerkers whine about it.

Edit: it’s also funny how nuclear circlejerkers pretend either solar doesn’t exist or wind doesn’t exist when attacking one or the other.

Also funny how they don’t acknowledge the existence of continental grids, battery farms, pumped hydro, and green hydrogen when they want to pretend renewables can’t provide reliable baseload.

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Truth_is_Liberal t1_iyvl5v7 wrote

Not sure why anyone would circlejerk about this. It's an obvious solution in a desert nation with far more sun than average. Plus, most people recognize that the LCOE for solar is amazing now, even for sub-optimal climates.

Pro-nuclear people just recognize the fact that the nuclear threat is overblown, and that nuclear makes great baseline power generation. Coal kills more people every year than nuclear power has killed in all of the last 80 years - including all five serious nuclear power accidents. A single coal ash cleanup probably exceeds all US nuclear cleanup for all of time (in cost).

Coal is the enemy. LNG is the quiet enemy, though better than coal.

We don't have to choose between nuclear and solar. We should absolutely be pursuing mostly solar/wind, but with a safety backbone of nuclear fission (and later fusion).

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Mirdclawer t1_iyw418t wrote

To be fair most people online don't even know what the LCOE is and maybe only are 0.0001 as knowledgeable as you are. Everywhere I see a lot of myths and nonsense "renewables are a scam, they're worse for the climates, nuclear is underrated and only kept down due to people being stupid/sleeping on it/overly cautious".

Just saying that renewables is cheap makes people's brain implodes even though it's a fact.

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Truth_is_Liberal t1_iyyacpi wrote

Yeah it's really unfortunate that a lot of exceptionally dumb myths persisted over the years. I love the "a Hummer is better than buying a new Prius" myth. It was such an apples to oranges comparison of costs; I honestly think that argument was a "Chewbacca defense" for stupid giant SUV's. Just utter nonsense meant to elicit a non-response.

This has carried forward into renewables, where some people think PV and wind are still as expensive as they once were.

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TennisADHD t1_iz0e3s8 wrote

It's almost as if giant corporations that rely on fossil fuels have incentives to influence skepticism.

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Truth_is_Liberal t1_iz0ifmr wrote

... and thus spent 60+ years lying to us (specifically about climate change).

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momentimori t1_iyxjzvo wrote

PVC efficiency drops significantly in higher temperatures. They require regular cleaning to remove dust or their efficiency tanks as well.

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ArandomDane t1_iyy1kmt wrote

> and that nuclear makes great baseline power generation.

While it is true nuclear power is great for baseload power generation. Sadly, that is a nice way of saying this form of power production sucks at load following.

Which is a problem in grids with sufficient solar and/or wind doesn't need baseload power production. It require complimentary power supply/production.

Sufficient, meaning enough VRE to there being enough variable production that there at times the full power production of the nuclear power plant isn't required.

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CloneEngineer t1_iyyfu57 wrote

Agree with your comments. There is a very vocal pro-nuclear majority that seems to think this is the best technology to deploy for power. The tough part of nuclear is that it's super expensive. And even though we've been building PWR reactors for 50 years, the cost to build new reactors isn't coming down. Over building renewables / batteries is more cost effective than building fission reactors.

Maybe fusion or SMRs can change that, but nuclear is just too expensive to build as a primary power source.

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yyytobyyy t1_iyz8bea wrote

Last week europe hit some highest electricity spot prices partly because there was no sun and no wind for few days. What would you suggest we do on these days in winter?

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Truth_is_Liberal t1_iz0sjr4 wrote

This is why I think we need nuclear (hopefully fusion within 15 years), but also we need to continue pursuing energy storage methods for those nations or regions that cannot construct nuclear or hydro power generation.

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SirGlenn t1_iyvms5g wrote

We have plenty of flat hot desert landscape in the U.S. politics and greed is why the U.S. is so far behind in it's solar energy, when it should be at least in the top 5? several countries are occasionally reporting: "all the electricity used today, was solar or wind power"

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Truth_is_Liberal t1_iyvnjwa wrote

Oh my yes. We're so far behind where we could and should be in the US. Some people will say that the "economies of scale just weren't there," but that's reductive. The fact is, we've been subsidizing the wrong power sources for the last 30 years. Every single dollar spent on coal, LNG, or oil has not only been wasted, but I consider them "throwing good money after bad." That is, we've not only lost the missed tax revenue, but we've lost the potential gains from making the switch sooner.

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Not_just_bikes t1_iyvfnov wrote

If you lived in a dictatorship that didn’t need to worry about permits or land acquisition nuclear plants would be built a lot faster as well

Also surprise surprise a nation that’s 90% desert has a lot of sunlight, most nations aren’t in that situation

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FriendlySockMonster t1_iyw6etj wrote

Solar also makes more sense in Egypt compared to Europe due to the much greater annual amount of sunlight per day. Greater return on investment etc.

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Tree-farmer2 t1_iyvwja9 wrote

>but watch how this sub of fission circlejerkers whine about it.

You're the one who brought it up by the way.

Solar and nuclear play different roles and the energy they produce has different value.

You'd never want 100% solar because you still need energy when the Sun's gone down.

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FalloutNano t1_iyx4131 wrote

Wind power has serious waste management issues, but solar is cool. Nuclear where necessary, geothermal where available, and solar make a great trio. Wave generators are cool too.

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Obi_Wan_can_blow_me t1_iyx6j4m wrote

I'm Curious, what is the waste management issues for wind power? Grease or something?

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FalloutNano t1_iyx7qlv wrote

The blades have a fairly short lifespan, far shorter than I thought, and are very difficult to recycle. Basically, they create a lot of landfill waste.

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StumbleNOLA t1_iyxvlrk wrote

What are you talking about. They have a lifespan of about 20 years. That means a turbine (3 blades) adds about 375 POUNDS of plastic waste a year. It’s not nothing but it isn’t much compared to the benefit.

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SkateIL t1_iyxm3my wrote

Wow I'm sure those dumb terrorists won't be able to figure how knock that solar grid out in 30 seconds.

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Words_Are_Hrad t1_iyxp6mz wrote

Knocking out a solar grid doesn't cause a nuclear accident with decades long consequences now does it?

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SkateIL t1_iyxpko6 wrote

Tell the poor people with no power there's no consequences.

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Words_Are_Hrad t1_iyxoi2w wrote

>Way cheaper and faster than any nuclear plant could ever be built, and way more secure than a nuclear plant in a region racked by terrorism - but watch how this sub of fission circlejerkers whine about it.

As compared to the anti nuclear circle jerkers that come in threads and start preemptively attacking people before they even comment?? Okay loony tune you do you!

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bleachedsharkfur t1_iyv5fg3 wrote

I have a noob question: Building solar in the desert makes sense because there is a lot of sun-supply. But I see two obstacles and I don't know how there a dealt with:

  1. heat: solar gets less effective with heat. --> do the panels require cooling? If yes, how?
  2. sand everywhere. Sand will probably cover up parts of the panels reducing efficiency. Using water sounds wasteful --> How do they clean the panels?
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seanbrockest t1_iyv6abx wrote

You're right the heat is a little bit of a barrier, but it's a trade-off. The areas that produce the most sun, also produce the most heat. The panels are tuned to do their best. There are cooling options, but I have yet to see many places implement them. If you have fresh water nearby, you can certainly liquid cool them, but then you start to cut into your power production.

Yes the dust is also an issue, there are automated ways to take care of it, and they're automatic ways to take care of it. It's also a trade-off. Sometimes the wind is sufficient to blow the sand on and off again.

It's all part of the calculations they do before approving a project like this.

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SirGlenn t1_iyvnax5 wrote

India, a bit in the U.S. and a few other places are realizing the potential of covering water canals with a metal cover, solar panels on top, the cooling effect from the evaporating keeps the panel temperatures about seven degrees cooler than the surrounding land scape, which allows more power to be had from the panels on top.

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mmaramara t1_iywpzos wrote

I guess you could have very very efficient water cooling by using similar techinque that's used for both heating and cooling buildings here in Finland: earth-heating or whatever it's called. They drill a hole, like 200-400m deep to have a small pipe in. You run water in the pipe to ether gather heat or get rid of heat, depending on the situation (heating in the winter, cooling in the summer) I don't know the numbers for cooling, but for heating you get like 6kW heating-power for 1kW of electricity used to run the system. For cooling inside air for comfort, the cooling is practically 0 energy spenditure.

It costs around 15-20 k€ for a residential building here. Majority is labour cost including the drilling.

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FuturologyBot t1_iyup7ry wrote

The following submission statement was provided by /u/darth_nadoma:

Two large renewable power plants are to be built in Egypt providing over one million people with the cheapest electricity in Africa.

560 MW Abydos Solar plant would be located in the Southern Aswan Governorate.

While 505 MW Amunet Wind power plant would be located in the Suez governorate in the north-east.

Solar plant is expected to be completed in 18 months, and the wind project will be operational in 30 months.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/zc3nqu/egypt_to_add_11_gw_in_solar_wind_power_with/iyumxrp/

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