5 ms·
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 pr
by hugh3 16y ago
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
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.