3 ms·

If I understand it correctly, nuclear power has inherent latency issues that mean it can't respond to demand-spikes within seconds or minutes, but needs about a

• Darmody 5y ago
  But you don't necessarily need an instant response, at least not always. Some months ago we had very bad weather with almost no wind during days and we had to buy energy from France. It wasn't cheap at all but we had to do it because solar, wind and hydro couldn't supply enough. Nuclear from France did though.
• cbmuser 5y ago
  > If I understand it correctly, nuclear power has inherent latency issues that mean it can't respond to demand-spikes within seconds or minutes, but needs about an hour or so? No, nuclear plants can regulate within minutes and it’s done in Germany. Source in German: https://www.ktg.org/ktg-wAssets/docs/fg-bet-rph-lastfolgebetrieb-kki2.pdf https://www.ktg.org/ktg-wAssets/docs/fg-bet-rph-lastfolgebet... Fluctuations on the second scale are compensated by the large turbine wheels of the power generators of large plants such as nuclear and coal. Also, normal demand doesn’t change so fast anyways. The fluctuations comes from wind and solar plants.
• bbojan 5y ago
  "Nuclear power" is a broad term, although it's mostly used to mean light water reactors. Some of the newer designs (eg. salt reactors) can actually respond to load changes pretty quickly, on the order of tens of seconds if my understanding is right.