4 ms·
The crisis in Europe and elsewhere shoots holes in the theory that baseload is somehow no longer applicable. Baseload is not cheap particularly because it must
by infamia 5y ago
The crisis in Europe and elsewhere shoots holes in the theory that baseload is somehow no longer applicable. Baseload is not cheap particularly because it must be very reliable (and is more expensive), and is why green energy alone is too variable and completely insufficient at present to replace other baseload providers.
- bryanlarsen 5y agoPeak power has to be reliable or you get brownouts. Baseline power can be unreliable because peak power will cover the unreliability.
- infamia 5y agoThe assumption embedded in that line of thought is that the failure modes (and times) of peak and baseline power will never significantly overlap. Essentially, by injecting more variance and different types of uncertainty, frailty and the chance of systemic failure are increased (as shown in Europe), especially regarding second and third order effects.