3 ms·

You can, but why would you set up the market backwards? The whole idea of base load was that nuclear is very cheap, but inflexible. So you optimize, generating

You can, but why would you set up the market backwards? The whole idea of base load was that nuclear is very cheap, but inflexible. So you optimize, generating as much as possible with nuclear, then filling in the variable bits with more expensive to run, but more flexible generation. Cheap renewables have completely wrecked that model though.

DennisP 5y ago
You set up the market to get the lowest possible total energy cost. If the lowest system design is to have nuclear as part of the mix instead of massive amounts of storage, then there's nothing backwards about setting up the market to support that. Right now we have a market where wind/solar don't have to pay for the externalities imposed by their intermittency. That is backwards.
- dale_glass 5y ago
  Well, if you're going to account for all externalities, that sounds like a good idea, but I don't think nuclear would fare well under such a model. Fukushima cost around $200 billion to clean up. I don't think that got factored into the cost of the power it sold. Now I guess the answer here is insurance, but any insurance company that signs up for a potential payout of $200 billion is going to charge quite the premium, which won't make the already expensive nuclear power any more attractive. And how do you even calculate the premium here? It's not a house or a vehicle with an easy to determine cost. We're talking about evacuating an area of unknown size for however long might be necessary.
  - DennisP 5y ago
    The reactor in the article would have been completely unaffected by the events at Fukushima. In any case, my point is a different one: energy that's available on demand is more valuable than energy that is not, and we should price it as such. If we don't, we end up doing things like backing up our wind/solar with fossil...which also doesn't have its externalities priced in.

DennisP 5y ago

You set up the market to get the lowest possible total energy cost. If the lowest system design is to have nuclear as part of the mix instead of massive amounts of storage, then there's nothing backwards about setting up the market to support that. Right now we have a market where wind/solar don't have to pay for the externalities imposed by their intermittency. That is backwards.

dale_glass 5y ago
Well, if you're going to account for all externalities, that sounds like a good idea, but I don't think nuclear would fare well under such a model. Fukushima cost around $200 billion to clean up. I don't think that got factored into the cost of the power it sold. Now I guess the answer here is insurance, but any insurance company that signs up for a potential payout of $200 billion is going to charge quite the premium, which won't make the already expensive nuclear power any more attractive. And how do you even calculate the premium here? It's not a house or a vehicle with an easy to determine cost. We're talking about evacuating an area of unknown size for however long might be necessary.
- DennisP 5y ago
  The reactor in the article would have been completely unaffected by the events at Fukushima. In any case, my point is a different one: energy that's available on demand is more valuable than energy that is not, and we should price it as such. If we don't, we end up doing things like backing up our wind/solar with fossil...which also doesn't have its externalities priced in.