3 ms·

My read is that it's somehow the inverse of a flywheel. A flywheel means consistent output for variable input whereas this is consistent input leading to variab

• Teknoman117 6y ago
  That's my understanding as well. Rather than ramping the power output up or down with demand, you keep it at a constant power level and basically use the molten salt loop as a battery -> store energy when you're outputting more than is required, draw energy from it when you need more that you are producing. The multi-gigawatt nuclear installations are typically supplemented by natural gas "peaker" plants to deal with higher demand than the reactor output, but lose any extra power produced. If I recall correctly, the naval reactors (submarine and surface vessels) are the only ones that are designed to rapidly shift their power output.
  • littlestymaar 6y ago
    > The multi-gigawatt nuclear installations are typically supplemented by natural gas "peaker" plants to deal with higher demand than the reactor output, but lose any extra power produced. In France, the load variation is directly handled by the nuclear plants themselves[1], even if there are also some natural gas running (and most of the time their output is more regular than the one of the nuclear plants, so their must be drawbacks to big load variations on a gas plant as well). [1] https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix
• Dylan16807 6y ago
  That's just one way you can use a flywheel. A flywheel is the equivalent of a battery/capacitor. It can smooth inputs, or it can smooth outputs, or it can simply save power for later.