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It takes at least a decade to build a modern nuclear power plant from planning to regular operation. A modern reactor block has a net capacity of about 1.3 GW.
by qayxc 5y ago
It takes at least a decade to build a modern nuclear power plant from planning to regular operation.
A modern reactor block has a net capacity of about 1.3 GW.
Last year, 1.4 GW net have been installed in just wind power in Germany. Sure that's not a good comparison, since both over-provisioning and storage have to be accounted for, but it just goes to show how quickly alternatives can be scaled up (side note, the newly installed capacity in 2017 was 5.3 GW).
The problem with nuclear power is logistics and time. There's only so many specialists for planning and building nuclear facilities plus most countries simply cannot afford to have more than dozen or so under construction at any given time.
The countries that'd benefit the most from cheap and reliable electricity ae incidentally countries that can neither afford nor operate nuclear power for various reasons. That's not just political instability and lack of expertise, but also geography. You need stable ground and cooling, so dry regions with seasonal flooding are off the table.
Not to mention the enormous amount of additional infrastructure, from substations to stable grids. Oh, and nuclear reactors are crap at load following so unless you have substantial baseload (e.g. heavy industry), you'd need somewhere to dump excess electricity.
- cm2187 5y ago> Not to mention the enormous amount of additional infrastructure, from substations to stable grids. Oh, and nuclear reactors are crap at load following so unless you have substantial baseload (e.g. heavy industry), you'd need somewhere to dump excess electricity. That's not true. Modern nuclear power plants can move at 5% of full load per minute up and down. France is doing load following country wide with its nuclear reactors. In fact the French must be laughing at this energy debacle with their 75% share of nuclear energy.
- qayxc 5y ago> That's not true. Modern nuclear power plants can move at 5% of full load per minute up and down. Capable of doesn't equal safe and economical, though, which is why France's reactors are capped at 2.3%. This still doesn't affect the minimum load of about 45% either (the safe range is ~37% to 83%). > France is doing load following country wide with its nuclear reactors. No it isn't. Some reactors are being operated in load following mode. Not all and not most. > In fact the French must be laughing at this energy debacle with their 75% share of nuclear energy. This "energy debacle" affects France just as well because it's not about electricity (except for very few countries like Romania) and primarily about heating and industry. The amount of natural gas consumed by France amounted to about 1743512 TJ compared to 1436443 TJ in gross electricity production using nuclear power in 2019 [1]. So France is using more natural gas (in terms of energy) than electricity generated from nuclear power, so much for that misinformed bit. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/11099022/KS-HB-20-001-EN-N.pdf/bf891880-1e3e-b4ba-0061-19810ebf2c64?t=1594715608000 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/11099022/KS-... pg.96ff