4 ms·

> 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

> 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 4y 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_ 4y 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 4y 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_ 4y 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.

freemint 4y 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_ 4y 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 4y 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_ 4y 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.