3 ms·
France is using some of their nuclear plants to provide peak load, and they adjust the power output of most of their plants over the day to better fit the actua
by pjscott 16y ago
France is using some of their nuclear plants to provide peak load, and they adjust the power output of most of their plants over the day to better fit the actual usage. Their reactors are not ideal for this; there are better ways to design nuclear plants for load-following. But it can certainly be done.
Alternately, you could make enough nuclear capacity to provide your peak power levels all the time, and dump excess energy into some energy-hungry industrial process, like aluminum smelting, or synthetic fuel production, or ammonia synthesis.
So yes, you can do the math. It's just that there are a bunch of different ways to do that math, and most of them involve a lot of cleverness, large budgets, careful engineering, and a fair dose of uncertainty.
- hugh3 16y agoAlternately, you could make enough nuclear capacity to provide your peak power levels all the time, and dump excess energy into some energy-hungry industrial process, like aluminum smelting, or synthetic fuel production, or ammonia synthesis Heck, you don't have to do anything with it, just disconnect your turbines from your generators.
- pjscott 16y agoTechnically, sure. Economically, since most of the cost of nuclear power is the capital cost of building the plants, you want to be running them as close to 100% capacity as you can, all the time. If you can smelt some aluminum while you're at it, that really helps.
- ScotterC 16y agoGood idea on the face but the energy needs to be dumped somewhere and dumping that much excess energy is tough and costly. Used to work in the industry, if the turbines tripped or anything else happened along the way, you SCRAM immediately as a safety precaution.
- fhars 16y agoAnd they buy massive amounts of coal produced electric energy from germany during peak load times in winter.