3 ms·

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

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.

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.