9 ms·

I should have said "when not sunny", not "at night". Point being - without vastly improved and expanded energy storage, you cannot have a reliable grid powered

• Retric 4y ago
  Nuclear becomes exponentially more expensive the more you add to the grid and thus the lower it’s capacity factor becomes. France was exporting a lot of nuclear power and importing non nuclear and still fell down to 70% cf when the US was at 90%. One way of looking at that is a .9/.7 - 1 = 30% increase in cost per kWh overall. However compared to 90% for 35% the next 35% cost 60% more per kWh. And aiming for 90% would be even more expensive. If we want a zero carbon grid nuclear simply isn’t viable on it’s own, it needs massive energy storage or peaking power just like wind and solar.
  • kspacewalk2 4y ago
    Yeah, I was thinking more in terms of nuclear base capacity (humming along at ~constant output) and renewable for peaks. Still need vastly more and better storage for that, but not as much as exclusively renewable. Also, not being in this field, I may have misunderstood you or confused the terminology.