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To substitute a single 4GWe nuclear plant, one would need ~96 GWh storage, which there is no technology for, plus ~48GW wind farm, while UK has ~22GW installed
by lstodd 7y ago
To substitute a single 4GWe nuclear plant, one would need ~96 GWh storage, which there is no technology for, plus ~48GW wind farm, while UK has ~22GW installed total now..
And you talk of overprovisioning. Crazy.
If anything, we must invest into making nuclear cheaper.
- Retric 7y agoWind is variable but it never has zero output days. Further in many cases you can select peak output periods based on specific sites local conditions. On top of this you can massively over provision and still be cheaper than nuclear.
- lstodd 7y agoIt has zero output days. If only because storms can blow off the blades if you don't feather them.
- ncmncm 7y agoCertain places have zero days. But not the same day as all the neighbors.
- Retric 7y agoEngland does not get 24 hour wind speeds of 55mph (a common wind turbine cut out speed). Specific locations can get close to that, but as a system some areas are getting lower wind speeds and generating lots of power.
- detritus 7y agoHi, do you have any sources for your calculations - I'm not challenging you, I'm simply interested to know more about the realities of trying to go non-carbon (especially when we're looking to electrify our transport network down the line..). Thanks for any pointers!
- lstodd 7y agoI'm afraid you'd have to research this youself, if you wish to really understand. Current designs of PWR reactors are about 1000-1200 MWe, constant, and not really throttable. This makes them the best baseline supply one can wish for, for a comparably meager investment once the idiotic regulation premium is subtracted. If we had bulk energy storage it would have been so much cheaper to just pump it with electricity from nukes than that from wind or solar. Since we don't have the storage tech, the question is moot. Wind or solar is useless for the grid, period.
- ncmncm 7y ago> Wind or solar is useless for the grid, period. That must come as an awful shock to everyone already driving their grid with increasing fractions of wind and solar.
- lstodd 7y agoAnd it does come as such.
- ncmncm 7y agoVery gradually, evidently.
- lstodd 7y agoA comfy, nice, slowly creeping death of a grid might be preferrable to some. Problem is, when the grid fails it's not like you can throttle down the load. Too late for that. It just goes out.
- ncmncm 7y agoCuriously, with all the grids taking wind and solar power, this has not happened. It's almost as if the operators of power grids have engineers on staff who have figured out how to keep them up, and do.
- pjc50 7y agoThe UK 's largest current nuclear plants are 1.3GW, which makes the 4GW number look unrealistic. I'm not sure where you got the worst case capacity factor numbers from either. > invest into making nuclear cheaper People have been talking about this since the 1950s. How much will it cost and how long will it take?
- lstodd 7y ago4GWe is a stock design for a PWR nuclear power station, 4 reactors of 1GWe each, sharing the infrastructure. UK lagged behind the times, yes. Doesn't mean it shouldn't catch up skipping ye olde misdesigns.
- cygx 7y agoGiven these numbers, how was it possible for Germany to cut nuclear energy production from 156TWh in 2002 to 72TWh in 2018? (source: https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm?source=all-sources&period=annual&year=all https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm?source=all-sources&p...)
- XorNot 7y agoThey buy their baseload from France, which at this point has one of the most vibrant nuclear industries in the world (and no surprise, fought hard to make sure ITER was on French territory).
- cygx 7y agoIn 2018, Germany imported 10TWh of electricity from France, while it produced 545TWh. That's not even 2% - how are you supposed to cover baseload with that?
- pjc50 7y agoA lot of people seem to be saying "baseload" when they mean "peak". That's the benefit of the international links - countries not having their peak consumption at the same time of day can average it out between each other.
- lstodd 7y agoCan't send power over thousands of kilometers without losing half of it, sorry. Not to mention oceans. It is just not happening.
- macspoofing 7y agoThat's the problem with solar and wind. During peak times you get very good generation capacity and nothing or too little off-peak.
- ZeroGravitas 7y ago" The French government just announced a plan to power 95 percent of the country with solar and wind energy by 2060. And by doing so, the government would spend about $44.5 billion (39 billion euros) less than it would if it maintained its current energy infrastructure. To get there, the government would need to cancel plans to construct 15 new nuclear power plants, and instead replace its aging nuclear reactors with renewable infrastructure over the next several decades, according to a new report published Monday by the French environmental agency."
- imtringued 7y agoI don't understand this "which there is no technology for" argument. There is no shortage of energy storage technologies. We have battery storage, we have hydro storage, we have thermal storage, we have hydrogen storage, we have hydraulic hydro storage. We have enough options from the MWh range to the TWh range. Some technologies have pretty crazy scalability. Hydraulic hdyro storage capacity grows faster than the radius^4 but the costs only go up by r^2. I also don't get where you have youe numbers from. Wind power generally has a 60% capacity factor therefore replacing a 4GW nuclear plant requires 6.6GW of wind power.