4 ms·

No, I didn't confuse them. How, exactly, does a nuclear power plant design prevent being offline? You understand they have to take the plant offline to do majo

No, I didn't confuse them. How, exactly, does a nuclear power plant design prevent being offline? You understand they have to take the plant offline to do major maintenance, even refuelling, right? In April, 75% of New England's nuclear power plants were offline, for instance, most unplanned. When a single plant costs billions of dollars and becomes a significant or overwhelming contributor to an area's power mix, it can be a problem.

eldaisfish 5y ago
The tone of your replies is needlessly aggressive. A typical nuclear plant isn't designed to be cycled regularly. What you are suggesting is that most nuclear plants are not generating power for more than 50% of the time. A cursory search of capacity factors will show that this is the opposite of reality. A typical wind or solar installation on average, generates zero power for more than half the time.
edhelas 5y ago
And that's exactly why you have several nuclear reactors in a plant and several turbines, and several power lines… Please be a bit serious about what you're saying, you don't have to actually turn of a plant when you need to refuel. If any kind of plant (including hydro) need to be completely turned off for maintenance its really because you had a major design flaw.
- philipkglass 5y ago
  Most of the nuclear power plants that Germany built were single-reactor plants and would shut down for refueling. Multi-reactor plants will stagger shutdowns so that the plant continues to generate at reduced power. It is the same in the US. Only a few reactor designs like CANDU are capable of online refueling without interruption. Planned shutdowns for refueling are scheduled for low-demand times of the year. Here's a nuclear industry blog post explaining the practice: http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2012/05/what-happens-during-refueling-outage.html http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2012/05/what-happens-dur...
  - edhelas 5y ago
    Interesting, thanks for the link :) !
BostonEnginerd 5y ago
I believe we only have two active nuclear plants in New England - Seabrook NH and Millstone CT. Seabrook has one reactor, Millstone has two I believe. It's remarkable how much power these plants generate with a relatively small footprint.

eldaisfish 5y ago

The tone of your replies is needlessly aggressive. A typical nuclear plant isn't designed to be cycled regularly. What you are suggesting is that most nuclear plants are not generating power for more than 50% of the time. A cursory search of capacity factors will show that this is the opposite of reality. A typical wind or solar installation on average, generates zero power for more than half the time.

edhelas 5y ago

And that's exactly why you have several nuclear reactors in a plant and several turbines, and several power lines… Please be a bit serious about what you're saying, you don't have to actually turn of a plant when you need to refuel. If any kind of plant (including hydro) need to be completely turned off for maintenance its really because you had a major design flaw.

philipkglass 5y ago
Most of the nuclear power plants that Germany built were single-reactor plants and would shut down for refueling. Multi-reactor plants will stagger shutdowns so that the plant continues to generate at reduced power. It is the same in the US. Only a few reactor designs like CANDU are capable of online refueling without interruption. Planned shutdowns for refueling are scheduled for low-demand times of the year. Here's a nuclear industry blog post explaining the practice: http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2012/05/what-happens-during-refueling-outage.html http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2012/05/what-happens-dur...
- edhelas 5y ago
  Interesting, thanks for the link :) !

BostonEnginerd 5y ago

I believe we only have two active nuclear plants in New England - Seabrook NH and Millstone CT. Seabrook has one reactor, Millstone has two I believe. It's remarkable how much power these plants generate with a relatively small footprint.