3 ms·

France was able to run at 80% fission because they were selling excess production at low domestic demand times to adjacent territories. If you want to use nucle

by smaddox 10y ago

France was able to run at 80% fission because they were selling excess production at low domestic demand times to adjacent territories. If you want to use nuclear for more than base load, you run into similar storage/transmission issues to solar/wind. Either way, we need a larger and more capable grid, so that production and demand can be balanced over larger areas.

KVFinn 10y ago
>Either way, we need a larger and more capable grid, so that production and demand can be balanced over larger areas. Yup. Larger power markets benefits every kind of power: wind, solar, and nuclear. There is a lot of resistance to this though. Every state would prefer wind sites build in their own state, rather than buying power from the windier state farther away. If you had a truly national sized grid then the power distribution between even just wind and solar is remarkably stable.
p0nce 10y ago
Yes we have to support nuclear over-production during summer and store it with dams. Yet this winter we'll be under-capacity, lots of reactors are currently shutdown because of maintenance.
DennisP 10y ago
Modern nuclear plants are able to load follow [1]. The main reason we use them for base load is that nuclear's cost is mainly fixed, so it makes economic sense to run them at full capacity and follow demand with fossil, which has lower fixed costs and higher variable costs. Molten salt reactors would be quite good at load following, because the reaction rate slows down so much as the fuel temperature increases. If you draw less power, you apply less cooling, so the fuel heats and the power output goes down. For example, the IMSR, likely the first MSR to be commercialized, is naturally a load-following reactor [2]. This doesn't mean it wouldn't make economic sense to, say, run nuclear for baseload, add solar for extra daytime demand, and use storage to smooth out the remaining demand mismatch. But that's a matter of economic optimization, not a technical limitation of nuclear. [1] http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2013/02/14/responding-to-system-demand/#sthash.VRgqQpEI.dpbs http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2013/02/14/responding-to-system-de... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSR#Control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSR#Control
- smaddox 10y ago
  IMSR looks like promising technology, but it's not yet proven. I'm hopeful Terrestrial Energy succeeds in commercializing it and competing with existing energy sources (without subsidies). Even if they do, it will not be a one size fits all solution, though. In contrast, we know with near certitude that investment in basic infrastructure, such as a capable and robust power grid, will promote a plurality of solutions and pay for itself over time.

by smaddox 10y ago

KVFinn 10y ago

>Either way, we need a larger and more capable grid, so that production and demand can be balanced over larger areas. Yup. Larger power markets benefits every kind of power: wind, solar, and nuclear. There is a lot of resistance to this though. Every state would prefer wind sites build in their own state, rather than buying power from the windier state farther away. If you had a truly national sized grid then the power distribution between even just wind and solar is remarkably stable.

p0nce 10y ago

Yes we have to support nuclear over-production during summer and store it with dams. Yet this winter we'll be under-capacity, lots of reactors are currently shutdown because of maintenance.

DennisP 10y ago

Modern nuclear plants are able to load follow [1]. The main reason we use them for base load is that nuclear's cost is mainly fixed, so it makes economic sense to run them at full capacity and follow demand with fossil, which has lower fixed costs and higher variable costs. Molten salt reactors would be quite good at load following, because the reaction rate slows down so much as the fuel temperature increases. If you draw less power, you apply less cooling, so the fuel heats and the power output goes down. For example, the IMSR, likely the first MSR to be commercialized, is naturally a load-following reactor [2]. This doesn't mean it wouldn't make economic sense to, say, run nuclear for baseload, add solar for extra daytime demand, and use storage to smooth out the remaining demand mismatch. But that's a matter of economic optimization, not a technical limitation of nuclear. [1] http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2013/02/14/responding-to-system-demand/#sthash.VRgqQpEI.dpbs http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2013/02/14/responding-to-system-de... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSR#Control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSR#Control

smaddox 10y ago
IMSR looks like promising technology, but it's not yet proven. I'm hopeful Terrestrial Energy succeeds in commercializing it and competing with existing energy sources (without subsidies). Even if they do, it will not be a one size fits all solution, though. In contrast, we know with near certitude that investment in basic infrastructure, such as a capable and robust power grid, will promote a plurality of solutions and pay for itself over time.