3 ms·
Nuclear power does not play well with renewables. It's a steady baseload source, but solar and wind are highly variable and need something that can switch on or
by dangjc 8y ago
Nuclear power does not play well with renewables. It's a steady baseload source, but solar and wind are highly variable and need something that can switch on or off to fill in the gaps. You can't turn on and off a nuclear plant throughout the day. So even though (ignoring disposal challenges), nuclear is a clean source of energy, it probably has no place in a highly VRE dominated future.
- fastball 8y agoYou're approaching it from the wrong angle. Solar and wind don't need on-demand electricity to cover the gaps, they need better storage solutions. Then, you have nuclear as the base for large metros / regions, and local wind/solar with good storage solutions for peak demand.
- fulafel 8y agoYou can do load following fine with nuclear, that's how they run a lot of it in France and to an extent in Germany. http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/load-following-npp.pdf http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/load-following-npp....
- DoctorOetker 8y agodo you know where one can find typical frequency or impulse response plots? both for total input control to energy network or partial (control -> heat, heat -> turbine etc) responses would be interesting, for real/typical systems