5 ms·

This argument does not make a lot of sense without detailing which power sources that can turn on and off quickly you are talking about. The only ones I can thi

This argument does not make a lot of sense without detailing which power sources that can turn on and off quickly you are talking about. The only ones I can think of are hydro and gas-powered thermal? So you want natural gas over nuclear? On the other hand, your comment presumes that there is such a thing as too much power. Once hydrolyzers mature, we could use all of the current renewable power in Europe just for producing hydrogen for steel production to replace coal there.

adrianN 5y ago
They probably want Hydrogen or synthetic Methane (from electrolysis Hydrogen and atmospheric CO2) instead of natural gas. Power2Gas is a promising technology for long term storage of energy.
arrrg 5y ago
Gas and nuclear can’t replace each other. So that instead I’m your sentence is completely misplaced. We certainly need gas in the short term. Sure. But you can’t let nuclear take over the role of gas (and other potential on demand power sources, pumped hydro and maybe batteries in the future). That just doesn’t work. Also, I‘m all for producing an overabundance of power and using that in a meaningful way. But that’s not the issue we are talking about here. Baseline framing of the current problem we are facing makes no sense and that is my point. Nuclear and renewables don’t work well together.
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  "Nuclear and renewables don’t work well together." If so, you've failed to convincingly articulate how. It's a meaningless assertion to me. The power available from nuclear is useful full stop.
ddulaney 5y ago
In addition to hydro and fossil fuels, (most) energy storage setups are quickly dispatchable. I don’t think the question is “is natural gas better than nuclear?”. It’s more “nuclear isn’t quickly dispatchable, which is what we need”. It’s not that gas is better than nuclear, it’s that they solve two different problems. Solar and wind need something to fill gaps when production fluctuates. Today that can be hydro or fossil fuels. In the near future, that will also be storage. For the foreseeable future, nuclear can’t fill that role. Demand response is an interesting concept, and a subset of researchers have been pushing it for years. I’m skeptical that the economics would work out (large fixed costs mean that there’s pressure to run 24/7 and eat the high electricity prices), but I’d be happy to be proven wrong. That said, it doesn’t fix the fundamental problem that sometimes the wind dies at night, and something needs to turn on in the next 5 minutes or streetlights start going out. Right now, nuclear isn’t capable of filling that niche.
- doikor 5y ago
  > “nuclear isn’t quickly dispatchable, which is what we need” > something needs to turn on in the next 5 minutes or streetlights start going out. Right now, nuclear isn’t capable of filling that niche. Depends on the reactor. A single ~1GW reactor should be able to adjust its output up by 150MW or so in 5 minutes. If you have multiple that number multiplies obviously. For example a typical reactor in France with a max output of 1300MW can be adjusted all the way down to 400MW within 30 minutes (and up to max 1300MW output from minimumn 400MW in the same time). If they could not do that there is no way France could generate 70%+ of their electricity with nuclear. (obviously the reactor has to be designed with the goal of being adjustable for it to be able to do this. France started to do this in the 80s) edit: Though because the vast majority of the costs of running a nuclear power plant is in building/maintaining it and running it at max vs min output costs the same amount of money most owners want to run their reactor at max output always.
  - foepys 5y ago
    France and Germany stabilize each other's nets. There actually isn't really a "French" or "German net" anymore as all European countries are very tightly connected nowadays.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > In addition to hydro and fossil fuels, (most) energy storage setups are quickly dispatchable. Ah yes. We already have enough storage capacity to provide for hundreds of megawatts of daily power fluctuation. See Figure E.2 https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/load-following-npp.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/load-following-npp...
Azsy 5y ago
You're missing a lot of background on how these markets work. And i'm not remotely qualified to explain them. But, very broadly and simplistically speaking. We are not even remotely close to living in a "We have too much power" world. ( Markets will change drastically then.) All the nuclear supply has already been sold and is being constantly used 100% of the time. It never makes sense to turn off the nuclear power plant. There is more demand then that, not meeting the demand is catastrophic. If a popular sports is on TV and halftime everybody boils water, or the wind is unexpectedly low, or some part of the grid is having trouble. We must still meet the demand. Turning on a gas plant is the cheapest solution we have at the moment.
- johnchristopher 5y ago
  > All the nuclear supply has already been sold and is being constantly used 100% of the time. It never makes sense to turn off the nuclear power plant. Assuming the plant operations are running smoothly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Belgium#Hydrogen_damage_in_Doel_3_and_Tihange_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Belgium#Hydro... Which will be less and less the case for the European nuclear champions whose plants are approaching their 40-50 years lifespan of commercial support and safe operations (or so I am told) and it's going to cost a lot to replace them, more than going full renewables apparently. In Belgium, at some points we had to shut down offshore wind turbines because there was not enough demand on the grid and turning off and on our nuclear plants would take too much time. Gas plants don't have that problem (or so they say). So we are building some to compensate until we have enough renewables to shut them off for good. Also, SMR are gaining tractions so who knows. Disclaimer: I hear both sides, one claiming we don't need nuclear to reach our emissions carbon target and the other claiming we need classic nuclear plants to manage climate change and I don't know who's right.
- BenoitP 5y ago
  > All the nuclear supply has already been sold and is being constantly used 100% of the time. This couldn't be further from the truth, at least for France: hover over the lower graphs to animate the source upper graph here: https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/FR https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/FR Every single day nuclear oscillates between 60% and 80%, in strong anti-correlation with wind, solar and border exchanges. With hydro and pumped storage, this margin is well enough for attending to peak demand. And it is economically viable; This is the thing about nuclear: it costs practically the same wether you're at 20% or 95% of the plant's capacity. You consume your fuel faster, but it is only a small fraction of the cost (15% IIRC). And you still get 0 CO2 emission. And with current gas prices this is the cheapest solution we have at the moment. (not the cheapest in terms of political will, but educating masses can solve that)
dv_dt 5y ago
Batteries turn on and off quickly
- dmitriid 5y ago
  Because we all have enough batteries, right? You need enough batteries to provide hundreds of megawatts of quick power daily. See Figure E.2 https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/load-following-npp.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/load-following-npp...
  - dv_dt 5y ago
    If batteries fill the need we can ramp up production of batteries. Lithium ion in the short term, and flow batteries or other utility scale batteries (Eg iron air), in the medium to long term. There are multiple utility scale competing battery technologies becoming quite mature and Thats a good thing. Especially if one or more of them are viable. It’s almost certainly easier and faster to scale battery tech than it has been nuclear.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      > If batteries fill the need we can ramp up production of batteries. No we can't. Not in the amounts required. We're not talking about 100kW Tesla batteries. > There are multiple utility scale competing battery technologies becoming quite mature You mean, there are multiple competing battery technologies that are barely at the theoretical level with multiple significant challenges and no implementations beyond theoretical or impractical for the use case in question. Flow batteries: low energy density, requires large tanks to be anywhere useful. Low charge and discharge rates, so are not practical for load following applications Iron-air: only theoretical so far with first small plant potentially in operation by 2023, and its efficiency is yet to be seen (so far it's mostly marketing materials and hype). > t’s almost certainly easier and faster to scale battery tech than it has been nuclear. Ah yes, it's certainly easier to scale non-existent and non-scalable tech.

adrianN 5y ago

They probably want Hydrogen or synthetic Methane (from electrolysis Hydrogen and atmospheric CO2) instead of natural gas. Power2Gas is a promising technology for long term storage of energy.

arrrg 5y ago

Gas and nuclear can’t replace each other. So that instead I’m your sentence is completely misplaced. We certainly need gas in the short term. Sure. But you can’t let nuclear take over the role of gas (and other potential on demand power sources, pumped hydro and maybe batteries in the future). That just doesn’t work. Also, I‘m all for producing an overabundance of power and using that in a meaningful way. But that’s not the issue we are talking about here. Baseline framing of the current problem we are facing makes no sense and that is my point. Nuclear and renewables don’t work well together.

Brian_K_White 5y ago
"Nuclear and renewables don’t work well together." If so, you've failed to convincingly articulate how. It's a meaningless assertion to me. The power available from nuclear is useful full stop.

ddulaney 5y ago

In addition to hydro and fossil fuels, (most) energy storage setups are quickly dispatchable. I don’t think the question is “is natural gas better than nuclear?”. It’s more “nuclear isn’t quickly dispatchable, which is what we need”. It’s not that gas is better than nuclear, it’s that they solve two different problems. Solar and wind need something to fill gaps when production fluctuates. Today that can be hydro or fossil fuels. In the near future, that will also be storage. For the foreseeable future, nuclear can’t fill that role. Demand response is an interesting concept, and a subset of researchers have been pushing it for years. I’m skeptical that the economics would work out (large fixed costs mean that there’s pressure to run 24/7 and eat the high electricity prices), but I’d be happy to be proven wrong. That said, it doesn’t fix the fundamental problem that sometimes the wind dies at night, and something needs to turn on in the next 5 minutes or streetlights start going out. Right now, nuclear isn’t capable of filling that niche.

doikor 5y ago
> “nuclear isn’t quickly dispatchable, which is what we need” > something needs to turn on in the next 5 minutes or streetlights start going out. Right now, nuclear isn’t capable of filling that niche. Depends on the reactor. A single ~1GW reactor should be able to adjust its output up by 150MW or so in 5 minutes. If you have multiple that number multiplies obviously. For example a typical reactor in France with a max output of 1300MW can be adjusted all the way down to 400MW within 30 minutes (and up to max 1300MW output from minimumn 400MW in the same time). If they could not do that there is no way France could generate 70%+ of their electricity with nuclear. (obviously the reactor has to be designed with the goal of being adjustable for it to be able to do this. France started to do this in the 80s) edit: Though because the vast majority of the costs of running a nuclear power plant is in building/maintaining it and running it at max vs min output costs the same amount of money most owners want to run their reactor at max output always.
- foepys 5y ago
  France and Germany stabilize each other's nets. There actually isn't really a "French" or "German net" anymore as all European countries are very tightly connected nowadays.
dmitriid 5y ago
> In addition to hydro and fossil fuels, (most) energy storage setups are quickly dispatchable. Ah yes. We already have enough storage capacity to provide for hundreds of megawatts of daily power fluctuation. See Figure E.2 https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/load-following-npp.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/load-following-npp...

Azsy 5y ago

You're missing a lot of background on how these markets work. And i'm not remotely qualified to explain them. But, very broadly and simplistically speaking. We are not even remotely close to living in a "We have too much power" world. ( Markets will change drastically then.) All the nuclear supply has already been sold and is being constantly used 100% of the time. It never makes sense to turn off the nuclear power plant. There is more demand then that, not meeting the demand is catastrophic. If a popular sports is on TV and halftime everybody boils water, or the wind is unexpectedly low, or some part of the grid is having trouble. We must still meet the demand. Turning on a gas plant is the cheapest solution we have at the moment.

johnchristopher 5y ago
> All the nuclear supply has already been sold and is being constantly used 100% of the time. It never makes sense to turn off the nuclear power plant. Assuming the plant operations are running smoothly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Belgium#Hydrogen_damage_in_Doel_3_and_Tihange_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Belgium#Hydro... Which will be less and less the case for the European nuclear champions whose plants are approaching their 40-50 years lifespan of commercial support and safe operations (or so I am told) and it's going to cost a lot to replace them, more than going full renewables apparently. In Belgium, at some points we had to shut down offshore wind turbines because there was not enough demand on the grid and turning off and on our nuclear plants would take too much time. Gas plants don't have that problem (or so they say). So we are building some to compensate until we have enough renewables to shut them off for good. Also, SMR are gaining tractions so who knows. Disclaimer: I hear both sides, one claiming we don't need nuclear to reach our emissions carbon target and the other claiming we need classic nuclear plants to manage climate change and I don't know who's right.
BenoitP 5y ago
> All the nuclear supply has already been sold and is being constantly used 100% of the time. This couldn't be further from the truth, at least for France: hover over the lower graphs to animate the source upper graph here: https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/FR https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/FR Every single day nuclear oscillates between 60% and 80%, in strong anti-correlation with wind, solar and border exchanges. With hydro and pumped storage, this margin is well enough for attending to peak demand. And it is economically viable; This is the thing about nuclear: it costs practically the same wether you're at 20% or 95% of the plant's capacity. You consume your fuel faster, but it is only a small fraction of the cost (15% IIRC). And you still get 0 CO2 emission. And with current gas prices this is the cheapest solution we have at the moment. (not the cheapest in terms of political will, but educating masses can solve that)

dv_dt 5y ago

Batteries turn on and off quickly

dmitriid 5y ago
Because we all have enough batteries, right? You need enough batteries to provide hundreds of megawatts of quick power daily. See Figure E.2 https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/load-following-npp.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2011/load-following-npp...
- dv_dt 5y ago
  If batteries fill the need we can ramp up production of batteries. Lithium ion in the short term, and flow batteries or other utility scale batteries (Eg iron air), in the medium to long term. There are multiple utility scale competing battery technologies becoming quite mature and Thats a good thing. Especially if one or more of them are viable. It’s almost certainly easier and faster to scale battery tech than it has been nuclear.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    > If batteries fill the need we can ramp up production of batteries. No we can't. Not in the amounts required. We're not talking about 100kW Tesla batteries. > There are multiple utility scale competing battery technologies becoming quite mature You mean, there are multiple competing battery technologies that are barely at the theoretical level with multiple significant challenges and no implementations beyond theoretical or impractical for the use case in question. Flow batteries: low energy density, requires large tanks to be anywhere useful. Low charge and discharge rates, so are not practical for load following applications Iron-air: only theoretical so far with first small plant potentially in operation by 2023, and its efficiency is yet to be seen (so far it's mostly marketing materials and hype). > t’s almost certainly easier and faster to scale battery tech than it has been nuclear. Ah yes, it's certainly easier to scale non-existent and non-scalable tech.