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0 pointsmbgerring8mo ago0 comments

This is how you know these people are not serious:

> Prioritize the interconnection of reliable, dispatchable power sources as quickly as possible and embrace new energy generation sources at the technological frontier (e.g., enhanced geothermal, nuclear fission, and nuclear fusion). Reform power markets to align financial incentives with the goal of grid stability, ensuring that investment in power generation reflects the system’s needs.

None of these are "dispatchable power sources." Grid-scale batteries, for which technology and raw materials are abundant in the United States, are dispatchable power sources, and are, for some reason, not mentioned here.

What they will actually do is eviscerate regulations to allow for more construction of natural gas power plants, but they won't mention that here, because any sane person would immediately identify that as a terrible idea.

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twright8mo ago

Additionally, the DOE has been pulling funds from interconnect projects that have been years in the works! Apparently there is a modest gas turbine shortage so even natural gas won’t get that far. I’d say it’s a great way to hit a hard wall fast but again, they are not serious. We’re gonna get nowhere fast, maybe even drift backwards a bit.

zamadatix8mo ago

Nuclear fission is most often categorized as dispatchable, though it's typically in with the slowest of that group when it is. Of anything out of this administration, a push for more fission power might be the thing I agree with the most as well though, so perhaps that's biasing my read.

Commercial nuclear fusion is just a dream at this point. We might as well debate whether my private island has enough room for an airplane runway or not instead. But hey, I'm not against continuing fusion research if that's all they mean.

EGS I'm far less familiar with but it'd be odd for the current admin to agree with the previous admin unless they had to https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-09/EERE-ES-E... and it would, on the surface, make sense one could design these systems to support flow rate variability?

Grid scale batteries are power storage, not power sources. I do agree it's a damn shame they aren't brought up elsewhere in the report though. Same as anything else about renewables missing in tandem with that.

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