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The prevailing nuclear designs are not an option. They are only suitable for base load production, whereas wind is only suitable for peak load production. They

The prevailing nuclear designs are not an option. They are only suitable for base load production, whereas wind is only suitable for peak load production. They serve entirely different purposes on the grid and are not meaningfully interchangeable. When the wind stops blowing you need another technology that is suitable for peak load production (batteries, natural gas, etc.).

acidburnNSA 5y ago
Current-design nuclear plants themselves are perfectly capable at ramping up and down on demand on the order of 10s of minutes. They usually just choose not to because fuel is a small fraction of their total cost and so the current (and adjustable) markets pressure them into selling as much electricity as possible by staying near 100%.
- randomdata 5y ago
  Yes, the economics is why they are not suitable.
  - acidburnNSA 5y ago
    Yeah but it if you just made a market that valued the ability to ramp up and down on demand then that could be fixed pretty easily. Some form of capacity market exclusively for low-carbon energy could do it. https://learn.pjm.com/three-priorities/buying-and-selling-energy/capacity-markets.aspx https://learn.pjm.com/three-priorities/buying-and-selling-en...
- tjansen 5y ago
  Once you have them, is there any reason why you would want to ramp it down, other than trying to justify the existence of wind turbines?
  - acidburnNSA 5y ago
    Yes. Demand does ramp up and down every day, so you have to follow that. For example, in California the demand varies from about 22 GW to around 30 GW on a typical day.
- Factorium 5y ago
  This is why we need to consider energy demand, as well as supply. Specifically, if we had a whole continent's worth of electric cars charging during the day to soak up excess solar production (8am - 6pm); And allowed them to offload the same energy back into the grid from 6pm - 8am. To deal with the duck curve: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sam-Milshtein/publication/335893104/figure/fig2/AS:804597450952705@1568842389392/Californias-Duck-Curve-11.jpg https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sam-Milshtein/publicati... The simplest way to solve this is to mandate EV charging points at all workplaces and commuter parking lots, and require all new EVs include the UI and functionality necessary to upload to the grid interactively, and adjust regulations to actually allow and encourage that. We could also build giant solar farms in Morocco and Western Sahara, a comparatively stable and friendly part of Northern Africa, where peak solar times conveniently align with the evening peak of Central Europe.

acidburnNSA 5y ago

Current-design nuclear plants themselves are perfectly capable at ramping up and down on demand on the order of 10s of minutes. They usually just choose not to because fuel is a small fraction of their total cost and so the current (and adjustable) markets pressure them into selling as much electricity as possible by staying near 100%.

randomdata 5y ago
Yes, the economics is why they are not suitable.
- acidburnNSA 5y ago
  Yeah but it if you just made a market that valued the ability to ramp up and down on demand then that could be fixed pretty easily. Some form of capacity market exclusively for low-carbon energy could do it. https://learn.pjm.com/three-priorities/buying-and-selling-energy/capacity-markets.aspx https://learn.pjm.com/three-priorities/buying-and-selling-en...
tjansen 5y ago
Once you have them, is there any reason why you would want to ramp it down, other than trying to justify the existence of wind turbines?
- acidburnNSA 5y ago
  Yes. Demand does ramp up and down every day, so you have to follow that. For example, in California the demand varies from about 22 GW to around 30 GW on a typical day.
Factorium 5y ago
This is why we need to consider energy demand, as well as supply. Specifically, if we had a whole continent's worth of electric cars charging during the day to soak up excess solar production (8am - 6pm); And allowed them to offload the same energy back into the grid from 6pm - 8am. To deal with the duck curve: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sam-Milshtein/publication/335893104/figure/fig2/AS:804597450952705@1568842389392/Californias-Duck-Curve-11.jpg https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sam-Milshtein/publicati... The simplest way to solve this is to mandate EV charging points at all workplaces and commuter parking lots, and require all new EVs include the UI and functionality necessary to upload to the grid interactively, and adjust regulations to actually allow and encourage that. We could also build giant solar farms in Morocco and Western Sahara, a comparatively stable and friendly part of Northern Africa, where peak solar times conveniently align with the evening peak of Central Europe.