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The hydro power is actually pretty fascinating in what it might mean for usage of unstable renewables like solar and wind. Hydro is a giant, slowly recharging b
by mabbo 7y ago
The hydro power is actually pretty fascinating in what it might mean for usage of unstable renewables like solar and wind. Hydro is a giant, slowly recharging battery. It's perfect to pair with wind and solar because it can deal with their highly variable generation and our society's highly variable needs.
But we don't have enough hydro-battery storage to allow for solar and wind to provide our base load. That's where nuclear shines, and why Ontario uses it so much.
Until we can come up with a way to store something like a week's worth of power, it's going to be very difficult to ever phase out of nuclear. But given how clean nuclear is compared to the alternative base-load energy sources (gas, coal, etc), I think that's just fine.
- Retric 7y agoIt might seem that way, but minimum and maximum power demand are generally so far apart when you include seasonal differences, solar and nuclear need about as much peaking power to supplement each other. That’s why even with huge exports Frances nuclear power stations hover around 77% utilization where US nuclear can hit 92%. Nuclear can clearly play a role, especially near the poles, but it’s just really expensive. In the end Ontario is in an unusual situation that stops working as the rest of Canada scales either nuclear or wind power. It’s working for them and their electricity is mostly carbon neutral, it just does not scale. PS: That’s not to say nuclear can’t scale to 100%, nuclear subs make it work with wildly swinging demand. However, low capacity factor directly results in higher costs.
- Jedd 7y agoThanks mabbo, Retric. Given 10-15 years ago there were very definite plans to build new plants, but these [1] all appear to have lapsed or been deferred indefinitely, this further supports my original point -- even seemingly enlightened & pro-nuclear societies / governments are pulling back on their nuclear fission build-out plans. [1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/canada-nuclear-power.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...