4 ms·

So the entire article, and also the discussion here skips over a very simple point: Nuclear power plants provide baseline loads because they can't be turned on

So the entire article, and also the discussion here skips over a very simple point: Nuclear power plants provide baseline loads because they can't be turned on and off at a whim, while gas power plants can scale up and down quickly to handle daily load peaks. Looking at yearly consumption graphs completely ignores the reality of the grid. Where do you get electricity from for the peaks in the morning and the evening, when solar is still weak and wind may or may not be blowing? Not nuclear, for sure. Maybe coal, but even those plants have response times measured in hours (whereas gas is more in the tens of minutes). And there's only so much hydro you can build.

bozhark 5y ago
That’s not at all correct. You’re stating nuclear cannot handle load distributions. Why.
- KarlKemp 5y ago
  Nuclear power plants can adjust output by about +- 5 percentage points per 15 minutes. That allows reacting to demand and other producers on the timescale of daily fluctuations. Gas can be regulated +- 100 % within minutes, and +- 15 % almost instantaneously, allowing you to react to sudden unexpected changes.
- Filligree 5y ago
  Commercial nuclear plants are designed to handle baseload, because the marginal cost to a nuclear power plant of producing power is near-zero, so this is where they have the biggest comparative advantage—or the smallest disadvantage, depending. The technology certainly can be used for peaker plants. But at grid scale? That would be an entirely novel design. I don't think any such plants exist outside of warships.
- akvadrako 5y ago
  It's not that Nuclear can't handle variable loads, it's that once you have the plant running the fuel cost is negligible. So unless the price of electricity goes negative it doesn't make much sense to reduce the output.
fintechjock 5y ago
> Where do you get electricity from for the peaks in the morning and the evening, when solar is still weak and wind may or may not be blowing? Not nuclear, for sure. Stable supply is the answer to unstable demand. That means nuclear is the answer to this problem. If that baseline isn’t high enough, then they need more nuclear - not less.
- freemint 5y ago
  > If that baseline isn’t high enough, then they need more nuclear - not less. Nuclear is really bad at reacting to swings in demand since it's ramp up and down speed is limited. Adding more slowly changing sources to a network makes it even worse at reacting to those swings, Risking net stability which curiously has increased with introduction of more renewables to the network.
- _ph_ 5y ago
  That is compeletely wrong. Producing too much electricity is equally destabilizing the grid as producing not enough. That is, why gas is needed as it can be switched very quickly. Of course, you could decide just to switch off renewable source (which is very easy, they are the quickest switchable sources) a lot of time, but that would make energy production really expensive.
  - fintechjock 5y ago
    Your premise is true, but you aren't looking at the context at all. France gets 70% of their energy production from nuclear and they are not dealing with destabilization. Germany never crossed the 30% mark. They can drastically increase their nuclear to actually deal with the destabilization problem that they do have.
    - _ph_ 5y ago
      Germany does nogt have a destabilization problem. I have not said, that it is impossible to have a stable grid based on nuclear power, I have pointed out the problems if you have mainly renewables and try to support them with nuclear power. France has only a little amount of renewables, so the grid is mostly tuned towards nuclear plus water and gas for short term fluctuations. France doesn't have any plans laid out what to do, when their aging fleet of nuclear powers would need to be replaced. For now, they are just prolonging the run times of their existing reactor - only one is currently in construction, but their total count is 58. They just had huge troubles when about 4 reactors had to be taken off grid due to emergency repairs.

bozhark 5y ago

That’s not at all correct. You’re stating nuclear cannot handle load distributions. Why.

KarlKemp 5y ago
Nuclear power plants can adjust output by about +- 5 percentage points per 15 minutes. That allows reacting to demand and other producers on the timescale of daily fluctuations. Gas can be regulated +- 100 % within minutes, and +- 15 % almost instantaneously, allowing you to react to sudden unexpected changes.
Filligree 5y ago
Commercial nuclear plants are designed to handle baseload, because the marginal cost to a nuclear power plant of producing power is near-zero, so this is where they have the biggest comparative advantage—or the smallest disadvantage, depending. The technology certainly can be used for peaker plants. But at grid scale? That would be an entirely novel design. I don't think any such plants exist outside of warships.
akvadrako 5y ago
It's not that Nuclear can't handle variable loads, it's that once you have the plant running the fuel cost is negligible. So unless the price of electricity goes negative it doesn't make much sense to reduce the output.

fintechjock 5y ago

> Where do you get electricity from for the peaks in the morning and the evening, when solar is still weak and wind may or may not be blowing? Not nuclear, for sure. Stable supply is the answer to unstable demand. That means nuclear is the answer to this problem. If that baseline isn’t high enough, then they need more nuclear - not less.

freemint 5y ago
> If that baseline isn’t high enough, then they need more nuclear - not less. Nuclear is really bad at reacting to swings in demand since it's ramp up and down speed is limited. Adding more slowly changing sources to a network makes it even worse at reacting to those swings, Risking net stability which curiously has increased with introduction of more renewables to the network.
_ph_ 5y ago
That is compeletely wrong. Producing too much electricity is equally destabilizing the grid as producing not enough. That is, why gas is needed as it can be switched very quickly. Of course, you could decide just to switch off renewable source (which is very easy, they are the quickest switchable sources) a lot of time, but that would make energy production really expensive.
- fintechjock 5y ago
  Your premise is true, but you aren't looking at the context at all. France gets 70% of their energy production from nuclear and they are not dealing with destabilization. Germany never crossed the 30% mark. They can drastically increase their nuclear to actually deal with the destabilization problem that they do have.
  - _ph_ 5y ago
    Germany does nogt have a destabilization problem. I have not said, that it is impossible to have a stable grid based on nuclear power, I have pointed out the problems if you have mainly renewables and try to support them with nuclear power. France has only a little amount of renewables, so the grid is mostly tuned towards nuclear plus water and gas for short term fluctuations. France doesn't have any plans laid out what to do, when their aging fleet of nuclear powers would need to be replaced. For now, they are just prolonging the run times of their existing reactor - only one is currently in construction, but their total count is 58. They just had huge troubles when about 4 reactors had to be taken off grid due to emergency repairs.