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What I notice is pro nuclear people talk in superlatives. Wind and solar people talk in terms of scale and economics.

skohan 4y ago
Are wind and solar viable at scale? My understanding was that you would need a non-existant storage solution to accommodate inconsistent production capacity.
vkou 4y ago
> Wind and solar people talk in terms of scale and economics. Until you ask them about energy storage, and then they start talking in superlatives.
- Gibbon1 4y ago
  People that claim storage is a problem don't offer numbers either.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    [edit](Grid storage is probably not going to be a problem; I'm not sure it's not my area) - but the supply of fissile material is definitely not an issue. Literally the reason we don't look at breeder and thorium cycle is because we have more than enough uranium. If we start to run out, we have a path forward.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  The most annoying thing about anti-reneweable people pretending to be nuclear fans is that they don't realise that nuclear grids need "storage" the same as renewable grids. Here's nuclear fan David Mackay to explain it to you, in a quote from his 2008 book: > If we kick fossil fuels and go all-out for renewables, or all-out for nuclear, or a mixture of the two, we may have a problem. Most of the big renewables are not turn-off-and-onable. When the wind blows and the sun comes out, power is there for the taking; but maybe two hours later, it’s not available any more. Nuclear power stations are not usually designed to be turn-offand- onable either. They are usually on all the time, and their delivered power can be turned down and up only on a timescale of hours. This is a problem because, on an electricity network, consumption and production must be exactly equal all the time. The electricity grid can’t store energy. To have an energy plan that adds up every minute of every day, we therefore need something easily turn-off-and-onable. It’s commonly assumed that the easily turn-off-and-onable something should be a source of power that gets turned off and on to compensate for the fluctuations of supply relative to demand (for example, a fossil fuel power station!). But another equally effective way to match supply and demand would be to have an easily turn-off-and-onable demand for power – a sink of power that can be turned off and on at the drop of a hat. > Either way, the easily turn-off-and-onable something needs to be a big something because electricity demand varies a lot https://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_186.shtml https://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_186.shtml
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    The thing is, I think David Mackay is attacking a strawman - or at least it feels like you're using it that way. I don't think anyone is saying we should have solely nuclear. We know of course that nuclear is suitable for base load but not for variable load. Wind and solar are great to build on top of. And yeah, we'll still need gas peaker plants even with grid storage more than likely. Mackay does go on to hit the nail on the head at the very end - a big problem for power grids is that variable supply like peaker plants are incredibly expensive, whereas controlling demand via smart grid is significantly, significantly cheaper. The Ontario grid is basically perfect, IMO. 59% nuclear. 24% hydro. 8% wind. [1] 92% zero-carbon. 7% natural gas, what I assume is peaker capacity. Sure, that could be replaced by grid storage. But we're talking 5% improvement overall from grid storage. Incremental, not a step-change. [1] https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles-ontario.html https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr...
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      He's not attacking anything, he's pointing out that renewables need a method to balance demand and so does nuclear, and so do grids with large amounts of either/both. He does this because he wanted to build lots of nuclear and phase out fossil fuels, and he wanted to work out how to do that for real within physical and economic constraints. Hydro (which was often built alongside nuclear for this very reason) is one such answer. Demand response is another. Green/pink hydrogen another. All apply equally well to nuclear and renewables. Some make sense even for gas grids and that's where we started rolling them out. Which is bad news for nuclear, because once you build enough of these solutions, you just need to choose the cheapest way to generate the bulk energy, which probably involves a lot of wind and solar and not much nuclear.
      - arcticbull 4y ago
        > you just need to choose the cheapest way to generate the bulk energy. I disagree with that framing, I think we deserve better than the cheapest way. We deserve the best way. Cost factors in but is not the be all and end all.

Are wind and solar viable at scale? My understanding was that you would need a non-existant storage solution to accommodate inconsistent production capacity.

vkou 4y ago

> Wind and solar people talk in terms of scale and economics. Until you ask them about energy storage, and then they start talking in superlatives.

Gibbon1 4y ago
People that claim storage is a problem don't offer numbers either.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  [edit](Grid storage is probably not going to be a problem; I'm not sure it's not my area) - but the supply of fissile material is definitely not an issue. Literally the reason we don't look at breeder and thorium cycle is because we have more than enough uranium. If we start to run out, we have a path forward.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
The most annoying thing about anti-reneweable people pretending to be nuclear fans is that they don't realise that nuclear grids need "storage" the same as renewable grids. Here's nuclear fan David Mackay to explain it to you, in a quote from his 2008 book: > If we kick fossil fuels and go all-out for renewables, or all-out for nuclear, or a mixture of the two, we may have a problem. Most of the big renewables are not turn-off-and-onable. When the wind blows and the sun comes out, power is there for the taking; but maybe two hours later, it’s not available any more. Nuclear power stations are not usually designed to be turn-offand- onable either. They are usually on all the time, and their delivered power can be turned down and up only on a timescale of hours. This is a problem because, on an electricity network, consumption and production must be exactly equal all the time. The electricity grid can’t store energy. To have an energy plan that adds up every minute of every day, we therefore need something easily turn-off-and-onable. It’s commonly assumed that the easily turn-off-and-onable something should be a source of power that gets turned off and on to compensate for the fluctuations of supply relative to demand (for example, a fossil fuel power station!). But another equally effective way to match supply and demand would be to have an easily turn-off-and-onable demand for power – a sink of power that can be turned off and on at the drop of a hat. > Either way, the easily turn-off-and-onable something needs to be a big something because electricity demand varies a lot https://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_186.shtml https://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_186.shtml
- arcticbull 4y ago
  The thing is, I think David Mackay is attacking a strawman - or at least it feels like you're using it that way. I don't think anyone is saying we should have solely nuclear. We know of course that nuclear is suitable for base load but not for variable load. Wind and solar are great to build on top of. And yeah, we'll still need gas peaker plants even with grid storage more than likely. Mackay does go on to hit the nail on the head at the very end - a big problem for power grids is that variable supply like peaker plants are incredibly expensive, whereas controlling demand via smart grid is significantly, significantly cheaper. The Ontario grid is basically perfect, IMO. 59% nuclear. 24% hydro. 8% wind. [1] 92% zero-carbon. 7% natural gas, what I assume is peaker capacity. Sure, that could be replaced by grid storage. But we're talking 5% improvement overall from grid storage. Incremental, not a step-change. [1] https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles-ontario.html https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr...
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    He's not attacking anything, he's pointing out that renewables need a method to balance demand and so does nuclear, and so do grids with large amounts of either/both. He does this because he wanted to build lots of nuclear and phase out fossil fuels, and he wanted to work out how to do that for real within physical and economic constraints. Hydro (which was often built alongside nuclear for this very reason) is one such answer. Demand response is another. Green/pink hydrogen another. All apply equally well to nuclear and renewables. Some make sense even for gas grids and that's where we started rolling them out. Which is bad news for nuclear, because once you build enough of these solutions, you just need to choose the cheapest way to generate the bulk energy, which probably involves a lot of wind and solar and not much nuclear.
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      > you just need to choose the cheapest way to generate the bulk energy. I disagree with that framing, I think we deserve better than the cheapest way. We deserve the best way. Cost factors in but is not the be all and end all.