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No, intermittent energy can't load follow since it's intermittent. You can see this mostly in europe where those that keept nuclear online has cheaper grids tha

No, intermittent energy can't load follow since it's intermittent. You can see this mostly in europe where those that keept nuclear online has cheaper grids that those that didn't. Especially true for this is in germany

Retric 4y ago
You completely misunderstood my point. Load following is the 1st category historically, currently filled by hydro, gas turbines, and batteries. Base load was the 2nd category which was less flexible but historically cheaper coal and nuclear. The only advantage it has over load following is price. We now how a new 3rd category intermittent generation which is also cheaper than load following but just like base load it can’t follow the demand curve. Therefore replacing all base load generation with cheaper intermittent generation is absolutely fine as lone as load following can pick up the slack there is zero downsides. PS: Nuclear doesn’t actually lower peoples electricity costs. The difference is people in France are paying a percentage of their electric bill in taxes rather than as a separate bill. That’s great for poor people, but less so for the economy.
- sanderjd 4y ago
  The thing is that there is not yet a non-fossil-fuel non-intermittent non-geographically-constrained scalable generation source capable of load following. Base load could be replaced with natural gas, and yeah that's just a cost trade-off. But renewables are intermittent, hydro is geographically limited, and batteries have not yet been scalable enough.
  - Retric 4y ago
    I mostly agree, but if you look at the annual power demand base load can provide about X% of total energy needed. Intermittent sources can provide significantly more than that at the same cost so replacing all base load with intermittent sources reduces the need for load following in terms of kWh per year. That’s critical because nuclear really doesn’t fit very will in a renewable heavy grid. Given the choice of nuclear + hydro + batteries or solar + wind + hydro + batteries the solar + wind grid is vastly cheaper. Having said that, some nuclear is likely to be cost competitive without subsides in 2060+ somewhere.
    - sanderjd 4y ago
      I think this is pretty well put. I'm very much not anti-nuclear but I do wonder if we've possibly missed its window. To me, a plausible two-step solution to decarbonization would be (or could have been): 1a. Replace all the fossil fuel base load generation with nuclear/hydro, 1b. Replace all the variable load natural gas plants with storage, 2. Now that storage is mature and scalable, replace all the nuclear with solar/wind. The reason this makes more sense in my head is that renewables are actually more dependent on natural gas than nuclear would be, in the current world of limited storage. I agree with you that once storage is built out, the role of nuclear is a lot less clear. But I think you'd have to say that it's still an open question whether we can really make storage scale as much as it needs to if it's going to support a fully renewable grid. It has only recently started to seem like the answer to that may be promising.
uecker 4y ago
I do not think you can conclude anything from household prices. Those are artificially kept low in France and artificially kept high in Germany. Market prices are similar (higher at the moment in France because half of the nuclear plants are down).

Retric 4y ago

You completely misunderstood my point. Load following is the 1st category historically, currently filled by hydro, gas turbines, and batteries. Base load was the 2nd category which was less flexible but historically cheaper coal and nuclear. The only advantage it has over load following is price. We now how a new 3rd category intermittent generation which is also cheaper than load following but just like base load it can’t follow the demand curve. Therefore replacing all base load generation with cheaper intermittent generation is absolutely fine as lone as load following can pick up the slack there is zero downsides. PS: Nuclear doesn’t actually lower peoples electricity costs. The difference is people in France are paying a percentage of their electric bill in taxes rather than as a separate bill. That’s great for poor people, but less so for the economy.

sanderjd 4y ago
The thing is that there is not yet a non-fossil-fuel non-intermittent non-geographically-constrained scalable generation source capable of load following. Base load could be replaced with natural gas, and yeah that's just a cost trade-off. But renewables are intermittent, hydro is geographically limited, and batteries have not yet been scalable enough.
- Retric 4y ago
  I mostly agree, but if you look at the annual power demand base load can provide about X% of total energy needed. Intermittent sources can provide significantly more than that at the same cost so replacing all base load with intermittent sources reduces the need for load following in terms of kWh per year. That’s critical because nuclear really doesn’t fit very will in a renewable heavy grid. Given the choice of nuclear + hydro + batteries or solar + wind + hydro + batteries the solar + wind grid is vastly cheaper. Having said that, some nuclear is likely to be cost competitive without subsides in 2060+ somewhere.
  - sanderjd 4y ago
    I think this is pretty well put. I'm very much not anti-nuclear but I do wonder if we've possibly missed its window. To me, a plausible two-step solution to decarbonization would be (or could have been): 1a. Replace all the fossil fuel base load generation with nuclear/hydro, 1b. Replace all the variable load natural gas plants with storage, 2. Now that storage is mature and scalable, replace all the nuclear with solar/wind. The reason this makes more sense in my head is that renewables are actually more dependent on natural gas than nuclear would be, in the current world of limited storage. I agree with you that once storage is built out, the role of nuclear is a lot less clear. But I think you'd have to say that it's still an open question whether we can really make storage scale as much as it needs to if it's going to support a fully renewable grid. It has only recently started to seem like the answer to that may be promising.

uecker 4y ago

I do not think you can conclude anything from household prices. Those are artificially kept low in France and artificially kept high in Germany. Market prices are similar (higher at the moment in France because half of the nuclear plants are down).