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Yeah this statement makes me think that OP had very little actual knowledge about energy pricing. If there’s ever a complicated market of supply and demand it’

Yeah this statement makes me think that OP had very little actual knowledge about energy pricing. If there’s ever a complicated market of supply and demand it’s energy. Having a huge chunk of the supply be stable and controllable is absolutely desired, will help simplify operations a lot, make supply more predictable, and as a result deliver more stable prices. It’s not as if the population is suddenly getting cheaper windmills if there’s too much supply; if the energy supplier is losing money due to oversupply, they will need to get their money back another way, so it’s always the consumer that pays anyway.

logifail 4y ago
> Having a huge chunk of the supply be stable and controllable Nuclear might be stable, but "controllable"? On the days when it's windy and sunny in your part of the planet, try telling your local nuclear plants they're not required. There's simply no reason to guarantee nuclear generators a fixed electricity price decades in advance, like the UK did with Hinkley Point.[0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c-dreadful-deal-behind-worlds-most-expensive-power-plant https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c...
- dTal 4y ago
  I don't know why you say you can't throttle nuclear up and down. All thermal plants have inertia, but nuclear is if anything easier to throttle than fossil fuels. There's a lot of numbers, and comments from nuclear plant operators, in this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/NuclearPower/comments/m0rwso/how_fast_can_a_nuclear_power_plant_ramp_up/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NuclearPower/comments/m0rwso/how_fa...
  - logifail 4y ago
    > I don't know why you say you can't throttle nuclear up and down. All thermal plants have inertia, but nuclear is if anything easier to throttle than fossil fuels. In that case why don't we let the market build nuclear plants without any state guarantees or insurance and they can simply "throttle up" when they're required. No need to fix a strike price for decades before investors are interested. I'm sure it makes financial sense. Honest. /s
    - akvadrako 4y ago
      Nuclear has very low fuel costs, under 1%. So it really doesnt make sense to throttle them unless the price goes negative. Having an upfront guaranteed price is just a way to spread the construction cost over more time.
      - stingraycharles 4y ago
        You're forgetting that the energy market requires an absolute balance between supply and demand; if you're supplying energy without anyone using it, you're going to have a very bad time.
        akvadrako 4y ago
        That is covered by the case of negative prices.
    - dTal 4y ago
      That's quite the non-sequitor. An exploration of how broken "the market" is would be an entirely separate discussion. If you wanted to have that discussion, we could start by analyzing the massive subsidies enjoyed by fossil fuels, not to mention the complete lack of accounting for its toxic byproducts which are dumped into the atmosphere (while nuclear power is legally required to track and safely store every molecule). Or we could just keep building gas peaker plants and ignore the mass die-offs, because "the market" can't possibly be wrong, right? /s
      - logifail 4y ago
        > That's quite the non-sequitor Is it? If nuclear is indeed able to throttle output up and down to match demand - or perhaps we should say, to match spot pricing(!) - why on Earth would we need to fix a minimum price for decades in advance in order to attract investment to build new ones? "Given its commitment to building Hinkley Point C, the [UK] government had no choice but to make EDF an offer that was too good to resist. It offered to guarantee EDF a fixed price for each unit of energy produced at Hinkley for its first 35 years of operation. In 2012, the guaranteed price – known as the 'strike price' – was set at £92.50 per megawatt hour (MWh), which would then rise with inflation. (One MWh is roughly equivalent to the electricity used by around 330 homes in one hour.) This means that if the wholesale price of electricity across the country falls below £92.50, EDF will receive an extra payment from the consumer as a 'top-up' to fill the gap. This will be added to electricity bills around the country – even if you aren’t receiving electricity from Hinkley Point C, you will still be making a payment to EDF."[0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c-dreadful-deal-behind-worlds-most-expensive-power-plant https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c...
danielmarkbruce 4y ago
"all else equal" is in there. He was trying to make a point - that flexibility is valuable. And it is valuable. All else equal you'd take more flexibility than less, especially since demand moves around a good amount.
- stingraycharles 4y ago
  But it isn’t flexibility we can control. It’s either fluctuations in supply which we need to absorb somehow, or it’s scaling down supply. The big differentiator is the flexibility to scale up supply when you need it, and it’s precisely this flexibility that’s missing.
  - danielmarkbruce 4y ago
    It definitely can be controllable. Peakers exist, and are controlled. You say "scale down", someone who runs a peaker thinks "scale up", and they can do it pretty fast (minutes). And the lower the capex the better, it gets closer and closer to a free option. Having a real option on producing electricity (or, almost anything where demand varies) is valuable to society.

logifail 4y ago

> Having a huge chunk of the supply be stable and controllable Nuclear might be stable, but "controllable"? On the days when it's windy and sunny in your part of the planet, try telling your local nuclear plants they're not required. There's simply no reason to guarantee nuclear generators a fixed electricity price decades in advance, like the UK did with Hinkley Point.[0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c-dreadful-deal-behind-worlds-most-expensive-power-plant https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c...

dTal 4y ago
I don't know why you say you can't throttle nuclear up and down. All thermal plants have inertia, but nuclear is if anything easier to throttle than fossil fuels. There's a lot of numbers, and comments from nuclear plant operators, in this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/NuclearPower/comments/m0rwso/how_fast_can_a_nuclear_power_plant_ramp_up/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NuclearPower/comments/m0rwso/how_fa...
- logifail 4y ago
  > I don't know why you say you can't throttle nuclear up and down. All thermal plants have inertia, but nuclear is if anything easier to throttle than fossil fuels. In that case why don't we let the market build nuclear plants without any state guarantees or insurance and they can simply "throttle up" when they're required. No need to fix a strike price for decades before investors are interested. I'm sure it makes financial sense. Honest. /s
  - akvadrako 4y ago
    Nuclear has very low fuel costs, under 1%. So it really doesnt make sense to throttle them unless the price goes negative. Having an upfront guaranteed price is just a way to spread the construction cost over more time.
    - stingraycharles 4y ago
      You're forgetting that the energy market requires an absolute balance between supply and demand; if you're supplying energy without anyone using it, you're going to have a very bad time.
      - akvadrako 4y ago
        That is covered by the case of negative prices.
  - dTal 4y ago
    That's quite the non-sequitor. An exploration of how broken "the market" is would be an entirely separate discussion. If you wanted to have that discussion, we could start by analyzing the massive subsidies enjoyed by fossil fuels, not to mention the complete lack of accounting for its toxic byproducts which are dumped into the atmosphere (while nuclear power is legally required to track and safely store every molecule). Or we could just keep building gas peaker plants and ignore the mass die-offs, because "the market" can't possibly be wrong, right? /s
    - logifail 4y ago
      > That's quite the non-sequitor Is it? If nuclear is indeed able to throttle output up and down to match demand - or perhaps we should say, to match spot pricing(!) - why on Earth would we need to fix a minimum price for decades in advance in order to attract investment to build new ones? "Given its commitment to building Hinkley Point C, the [UK] government had no choice but to make EDF an offer that was too good to resist. It offered to guarantee EDF a fixed price for each unit of energy produced at Hinkley for its first 35 years of operation. In 2012, the guaranteed price – known as the 'strike price' – was set at £92.50 per megawatt hour (MWh), which would then rise with inflation. (One MWh is roughly equivalent to the electricity used by around 330 homes in one hour.) This means that if the wholesale price of electricity across the country falls below £92.50, EDF will receive an extra payment from the consumer as a 'top-up' to fill the gap. This will be added to electricity bills around the country – even if you aren’t receiving electricity from Hinkley Point C, you will still be making a payment to EDF."[0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c-dreadful-deal-behind-worlds-most-expensive-power-plant https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c...

danielmarkbruce 4y ago

"all else equal" is in there. He was trying to make a point - that flexibility is valuable. And it is valuable. All else equal you'd take more flexibility than less, especially since demand moves around a good amount.

stingraycharles 4y ago
But it isn’t flexibility we can control. It’s either fluctuations in supply which we need to absorb somehow, or it’s scaling down supply. The big differentiator is the flexibility to scale up supply when you need it, and it’s precisely this flexibility that’s missing.
- danielmarkbruce 4y ago
  It definitely can be controllable. Peakers exist, and are controlled. You say "scale down", someone who runs a peaker thinks "scale up", and they can do it pretty fast (minutes). And the lower the capex the better, it gets closer and closer to a free option. Having a real option on producing electricity (or, almost anything where demand varies) is valuable to society.