3 ms·

That's a bummer. Even though the capacity is still in the same neighborhood as the reactor, the cost is greater because you either need a ton of storage capacit

That's a bummer. Even though the capacity is still in the same neighborhood as the reactor, the cost is greater because you either need a ton of storage capacity or some nonrenewable backups. I think that's the problem we ran into here in California. As we've decommissioned nuclear and natty plants we've replaced much of that capacity with wind and solar. Then you end up in the situation we had a week ago: power consumption peaks around 6pm when solar is ebbing. If that happens in conjunction with a period of low winds, there's a very thin margin of error and in some cases you have blackouts.

olau 6y ago
Apparently no: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/08/27/no-renewables-did-not-cause-californias-blackouts/ https://cleantechnica.com/2020/08/27/no-renewables-did-not-c... Real grids are much more complicated than you'd think. Regarding costs of various plants, usually you calculate it as an average per kWh, which is still not quite right as dispatchable is worth more than non-dispatchable. (And yes, you can have renewable dispatchable.) If you compare those figures across technologies and locations, tread carefully, it is really easy to come to the wrong conclusions. For instance, you might be comparing theoretically estimated numbers with (somewhat old) real-world averages.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  I don't really know what to make of that article from cleantechnica. It says that renewables weren't the issue. But the head of the CA grid also said that "If the wind hadn’t run out, we would have been OK"[1]. Maybe this is wrong, but the way I interpret that is "When a fossil fuel plant conked out, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. But the reason that a single power plant failure led to blackouts is a heavy dependence on renewables without adequate storage or backups". [1]: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article245115560.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article2451155...

olau 6y ago

Apparently no: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/08/27/no-renewables-did-not-cause-californias-blackouts/ https://cleantechnica.com/2020/08/27/no-renewables-did-not-c... Real grids are much more complicated than you'd think. Regarding costs of various plants, usually you calculate it as an average per kWh, which is still not quite right as dispatchable is worth more than non-dispatchable. (And yes, you can have renewable dispatchable.) If you compare those figures across technologies and locations, tread carefully, it is really easy to come to the wrong conclusions. For instance, you might be comparing theoretically estimated numbers with (somewhat old) real-world averages.

Rebelgecko 6y ago
I don't really know what to make of that article from cleantechnica. It says that renewables weren't the issue. But the head of the CA grid also said that "If the wind hadn’t run out, we would have been OK"[1]. Maybe this is wrong, but the way I interpret that is "When a fossil fuel plant conked out, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. But the reason that a single power plant failure led to blackouts is a heavy dependence on renewables without adequate storage or backups". [1]: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article245115560.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article2451155...