3 ms·

If your grid is large enough (and that is already happening in Europe for economic reasons), you have enough geographic distribution to average out variations.

If your grid is large enough (and that is already happening in Europe for economic reasons), you have enough geographic distribution to average out variations. There have been studies that showed you could run the US on something like 500% overcapacity with a fully integrated grid using only renewables and no storage. Moreover nuclear are slow moving, they typically don't load follow, so even with a combined nuclear/renewables you still either need significant overcapacity or some sort of peaker. So you haven't actually solved the variation problem. Finally, because cost for nuclear is largely dominated by capex (construction cost, both in dollars and CO2 foodprint), not running the nuclear plant as close to capacity as possible will even more increase the price and also reduce the CO2 lifetime emission. In usual comparisons which puts nuclear on par with renewables, nuclear is assumed to run essentially 24/7 while solar/wind are based on some statistical uptime. If we operate a nuclear not close to capacity its lifetime carbon footprint becomes significantly worse.

dmitriid 4y ago
> Moreover nuclear are slow moving, they typically don't load follow Which is not entirely true: https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12/technical_and_economic_aspects_of_load_following_with_nuclear_power_plants.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12... Even older designs could do load following.
- logifail 4y ago
  The problem isn't really to what extent nuclear is load-following, but that the economics of nuclear look even worse than they already do if we want to follow the cheapest generator. To be blunt: if the sun is shining and it's windy, no-one really wants to buy a nuclear plant's output. Not at an agreed fixed price, or possibly at any price. The idea of nuclear getting paid the same price - or worse, an index-linked price - for the lifetime of the plant, regardless of what the future holds, and even on those sunny and windy days, just seems horrendously anticompetitive. If nuclear is as necessary, competitive and flexible as some make out, then go right ahead and build your plant(s). Just don't expect taxpayers to underwrite anything.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > if we want to follow the cheapest generator. Energy isn't just about generation > If nuclear is as necessary, competitive and flexible as some make out, then go right ahead and build your plant(s). Just don't expect taxpayers to underwrite anything. By the same logic taxpayers shouldn't underwrite any renewables: they are significantly slower than nuclear, and have literally zero base load capacity.
    - logifail 4y ago
      > By the same logic taxpayers shouldn't underwrite any renewables: they are significantly slower than nuclear, and have literally zero base load capacity. The cost for offshore wind projects has fallen so fast in the UK that the many of the latest projects don't need subsidies, see this report from Imperial College (London)[0], in fact they'll be paying the government, see this article from Bloomberg.[1] I'm pretty sceptical about the phrase 'base load', when it comes up, such as in a HN discussion[2] from a last week, it seems to be used to describe wanting to choose slow and/or expensive power plants. EDIT: See also this[3] recent HN discussion, in which it was pointed out "California has put emphasis on renewables and if the nuclear power station isn't guaranteed to provide base load then it's too expensive to operate" [0] https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/200353/offshore-wind-power-cheap-could-money/ https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/200353/offshore-wind-power-c... [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-13/high-power-prices-mean-wind-farms-are-paying-the-u-k-government https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-13/high-powe... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32152588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32152588 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31610996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31610996
      - dmitriid 4y ago
        > The cost for offshore wind projects has fallen so fast in the UK that the many of the latest projects don't need subsidies I'll have to check that. Sensational news usually omit quite a few important details. > I'm pretty sceptical about the phrase 'base load', when it comes up, such as in a HN discussion[2] from a last week, it seems to be used to describe wanting to choose slow and/or expensive power plants. No. It means that wind and solar literally produce zero output when there's no wind or there's no sun. However, life goes on: trains run, homes are being heated, businesses operate, factories produce goods. This is base load. So, to cover a wind farm or a solar farm that produces inadequate power you need to get that power from somewhere. Where from? And this is the question that renewables enthusiasts just brush off as not important. "We can store energy". No. We can't. Not in the amounts required. "We just build more". How much more? Does this "more" remain cheap then? Yea, you can transmit it from afar, but it's no mean task in itself. And not cheap either. But sure. "It's all about keeping slow power plants". What the hell does "slow" even mean in this context, when we're talking about wind/solar which can't even be properly used in load following precisely because they are extremely slow.
manmal 4y ago
Building wind and solar to 500% overcapacity sounds like a great waste of resources and space though.
- DennisP 4y ago
  And makes nuclear look a lot more cost-competitive by comparison.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    But currently solar/wind are ~3x cheaper than nuclear and falling rapidly. So the 500% overcapacity would likely in the end cost the same as 100% capacity of nuclear. However, with nuclear you need at least 200% capacity as well (maintenance, hot days, not being able to load follow fast enough). So which one is the waste of resources?
DennisP 4y ago
Long-distance transmission is at least as slow to build as nuclear, at least in the US. There are projects that have foundered for decades.

dmitriid 4y ago

> Moreover nuclear are slow moving, they typically don't load follow Which is not entirely true: https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12/technical_and_economic_aspects_of_load_following_with_nuclear_power_plants.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12... Even older designs could do load following.

logifail 4y ago
The problem isn't really to what extent nuclear is load-following, but that the economics of nuclear look even worse than they already do if we want to follow the cheapest generator. To be blunt: if the sun is shining and it's windy, no-one really wants to buy a nuclear plant's output. Not at an agreed fixed price, or possibly at any price. The idea of nuclear getting paid the same price - or worse, an index-linked price - for the lifetime of the plant, regardless of what the future holds, and even on those sunny and windy days, just seems horrendously anticompetitive. If nuclear is as necessary, competitive and flexible as some make out, then go right ahead and build your plant(s). Just don't expect taxpayers to underwrite anything.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > if we want to follow the cheapest generator. Energy isn't just about generation > If nuclear is as necessary, competitive and flexible as some make out, then go right ahead and build your plant(s). Just don't expect taxpayers to underwrite anything. By the same logic taxpayers shouldn't underwrite any renewables: they are significantly slower than nuclear, and have literally zero base load capacity.
  - logifail 4y ago
    > By the same logic taxpayers shouldn't underwrite any renewables: they are significantly slower than nuclear, and have literally zero base load capacity. The cost for offshore wind projects has fallen so fast in the UK that the many of the latest projects don't need subsidies, see this report from Imperial College (London)[0], in fact they'll be paying the government, see this article from Bloomberg.[1] I'm pretty sceptical about the phrase 'base load', when it comes up, such as in a HN discussion[2] from a last week, it seems to be used to describe wanting to choose slow and/or expensive power plants. EDIT: See also this[3] recent HN discussion, in which it was pointed out "California has put emphasis on renewables and if the nuclear power station isn't guaranteed to provide base load then it's too expensive to operate" [0] https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/200353/offshore-wind-power-cheap-could-money/ https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/200353/offshore-wind-power-c... [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-13/high-power-prices-mean-wind-farms-are-paying-the-u-k-government https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-13/high-powe... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32152588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32152588 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31610996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31610996
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      > The cost for offshore wind projects has fallen so fast in the UK that the many of the latest projects don't need subsidies I'll have to check that. Sensational news usually omit quite a few important details. > I'm pretty sceptical about the phrase 'base load', when it comes up, such as in a HN discussion[2] from a last week, it seems to be used to describe wanting to choose slow and/or expensive power plants. No. It means that wind and solar literally produce zero output when there's no wind or there's no sun. However, life goes on: trains run, homes are being heated, businesses operate, factories produce goods. This is base load. So, to cover a wind farm or a solar farm that produces inadequate power you need to get that power from somewhere. Where from? And this is the question that renewables enthusiasts just brush off as not important. "We can store energy". No. We can't. Not in the amounts required. "We just build more". How much more? Does this "more" remain cheap then? Yea, you can transmit it from afar, but it's no mean task in itself. And not cheap either. But sure. "It's all about keeping slow power plants". What the hell does "slow" even mean in this context, when we're talking about wind/solar which can't even be properly used in load following precisely because they are extremely slow.

manmal 4y ago

Building wind and solar to 500% overcapacity sounds like a great waste of resources and space though.

DennisP 4y ago
And makes nuclear look a lot more cost-competitive by comparison.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  But currently solar/wind are ~3x cheaper than nuclear and falling rapidly. So the 500% overcapacity would likely in the end cost the same as 100% capacity of nuclear. However, with nuclear you need at least 200% capacity as well (maintenance, hot days, not being able to load follow fast enough). So which one is the waste of resources?

DennisP 4y ago

Long-distance transmission is at least as slow to build as nuclear, at least in the US. There are projects that have foundered for decades.