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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 s

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.

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.