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Are you including the cost of battery storage in solar & wind power generation for 24 / 7 power output? Otherwise Nuclear power is of higher quality since it ca

Are you including the cost of battery storage in solar & wind power generation for 24 / 7 power output? Otherwise Nuclear power is of higher quality since it can be sustained virtually at any time unlike solar & wind

bryanlarsen 4y ago
French nuclear power is unavailable more often due to maintenance or lack of cooling water than British wind is. British wind often generates less power than it can, but it very rarely drops to zero.
- chelical 4y ago
  Capacity factor is generally better for nuclear than any other energy source. > British wind often generates less power than it can, but it very rarely drops to zero. Sorry, I didn't realize French nuclear reactors weren't generating any energy at the moment.
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    Over half of French reactors are down. https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/07/28/frances-nuclear-plants-are-going-down-for-repairs https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/07/28/frances-nuclear-...
    - phtrivier 4y ago
      Let's note that part of them are down now for planned maintenance that had to be delayed because of the pandemic. Hopefully, this is not going to be a recurring event. Water temperature is also a problem, but, again, is something that is going to resolve itself "at some point". Finally, others are closed for potentially recurring corrosion issues, and _that_ is the really problematic stuff since most of our reactors were built around the same time. I don't exactly understand why everyone is tiptoing around the fact that we're going to have electricity shutdowns this winter in Europe, when the gas that's supposed to full peaked plants is going to be missing. Sadly there is not much we can do to prevent it, at the moment, and at least a good old blackout and a few shortages at gas stations might make some people take energy issues seriously.
      - landemva 4y ago
        > Sadly there is not much we can do to prevent it ... The people could demand a resolution to the politician's issues which are holding five turbines in Montreal that could be installed in a pipeline which supplies gas to parts of Europe. It is almost like some political segments don't want a resolution before winter. Edit: I had read one was returned, five being repaired, and Germany restarting ten coal plants. https://globalnews.ca/news/9002839/canada-turbines-return-russia-ukraine-explained https://globalnews.ca/news/9002839/canada-turbines-return-ru...
        bryanlarsen 4y ago
        Those turbines were sent back to Germany a couple of weeks ago. It is almost like the news is more interested in reporting on ongoing problems than solved ones.
        phtrivier 4y ago
        At some point, "Breaking news : everything is pretty much ok" is going to be a thing.
        phtrivier 4y ago
        I'm ready to bet that when all the turbines are back (some already are), if the geopolitical situation is still as complicated, Russia will find another good reason to limit the amount of gas sent to western Europe. I think the Kremlin is expecting the German electorate to push pressure on their government to ask for a return to the "normal" flow of gas, Ukraine be damned. That seems like a reasonable bet, but I'm not going to rule surprises out any more.
- toast0 4y ago
  Nuclear plants may or may not be reliable, but outages at multiple nuclear plants are usually not corellated. Solar is corellated around time of day on a large scale and cloud cover on a more localized scale. Lack of wind sometimes happens to fairly large regions; interconnections to farther away wind farms helps though. Weather extremes outside the design can result in outages for all kinds of plants though, so a relatively geographically small and isolated grid like Texas, that has many plants unprepared for cold will likely have outages at plants of all types during a bad cold snap; a particularly bad heat wave might cause issues as well.
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    On the other hand an advantage that solar and wind have is that they are predictable in the medium term. Weather forecasts are fairly reliable predictors of solar & wind output about a week or so out. They also ramp up and down smoothly. So while grid operators have to be constantly adjusting for solar & wind output variations, they can do so without panic and without customers noticing. Reactor shutdowns, while rare, are sometimes very unexpected and drop a lot of capacity from the grid very quickly.
    - VBprogrammer 4y ago
      This isn't really any more or less true of Nuclear than any other facility. A power outage which took out many of the railways in London a few years back was caused by one of the offshore wind fields tripping from the grid.
  - elcomet 4y ago
    Lack of water to cool down is unfortunately correlated across the country.
    - jtlisi 4y ago
      Which country?
      - 4y ago
mrep 4y ago
- seanalltogether 4y ago
  > Nuclear has the opposite problem of wind/solar in that it needs to be run at 100% capacity as much as possible in order to amortize its absurd building costs over its low operating costs. Can you not make the same argument for wind/solar? If any power generator isn't capable of dumping it's full output onto the grid when possible, it's not going to be profitable. This pdf seems to indicate that wind is allowed to just dump all of their output onto the grid and everyone else has to ramp up or down. Which doesn't give realistic comparisons of cost between the two. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/61721.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/61721.pdf
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    Wind and solar are unique in that their fuel has a cost of $0, which is why they’ve been putting some fossil fuel plants out of business. Nuclear still needs some fuel that costs money to obtain and handle.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Nuclear also has higher "fixed" O&M costs, from all that staffing.
  - Ma8ee 4y ago
    In particular wind is very inexpensive.
    - teddyh 4y ago
      Sometimes wind is free, but some other times, you can’t get it for love or money. Same with solar. This is why they can never be a solution by themselves. (Until battery technology improves, and please, let me know if that ever happens.)
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
My understanding with the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia is that you could buy solar and batteries for cheaper and deploy sooner. You could throw in a subsidy for electric cars too which can feed back to the grid in an emergency. That said the small reactors of this article will hopefully have lower costs and faster deployment times. Another advantage of wind and battery is that they aren’t national security targets in the way nuclear is.
- kbenson 4y ago
  I'd hate to be relying on cars feeding back into the grid when a natural disaster happens which encourages people to evacuate, or prepare to evacuate such that they want to ensure their batteries are charged. I would hate to weather another large and close wildfire where in addition to the normal grid instability and power issues it's exacerbated by lack of expected car feedback resources because people have evacuated or are standing by to.
  - geysersam 4y ago
    On the other hand. Nuclear is not immune to natural conditions either. Look at France, currently turning off reactors because of lack of cooling water due to the drought.
    - belorn 4y ago
      Right now the European grid is operational and demand is being met. When winter arrive it is expected that multiple countries will have to start to shut down part of society in order to save the grid. Thankfully the cooling issue won't hopefully exist during winter, and given how much political outcry will occur if the grid do collapse, France might actually step up and fix their reactors given enough political pressure.
      - geysersam 4y ago
        I'm glad the issues in France won't have too bad of an impact. But that's somewhat besides the point. The cause of the electricity shortage is the enormous overreliance on Russian gas and oil. It's not about renewables vs. Nuclear. The comment I responded to argued nuclear is superior in a situation of crisis, and selects as an example a natural disaster. Wanted to point out that this seems to depend rather sensitively on the kind of crisis.

bryanlarsen 4y ago

French nuclear power is unavailable more often due to maintenance or lack of cooling water than British wind is. British wind often generates less power than it can, but it very rarely drops to zero.

chelical 4y ago
Capacity factor is generally better for nuclear than any other energy source. > British wind often generates less power than it can, but it very rarely drops to zero. Sorry, I didn't realize French nuclear reactors weren't generating any energy at the moment.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  Over half of French reactors are down. https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/07/28/frances-nuclear-plants-are-going-down-for-repairs https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/07/28/frances-nuclear-...
  - phtrivier 4y ago
    Let's note that part of them are down now for planned maintenance that had to be delayed because of the pandemic. Hopefully, this is not going to be a recurring event. Water temperature is also a problem, but, again, is something that is going to resolve itself "at some point". Finally, others are closed for potentially recurring corrosion issues, and _that_ is the really problematic stuff since most of our reactors were built around the same time. I don't exactly understand why everyone is tiptoing around the fact that we're going to have electricity shutdowns this winter in Europe, when the gas that's supposed to full peaked plants is going to be missing. Sadly there is not much we can do to prevent it, at the moment, and at least a good old blackout and a few shortages at gas stations might make some people take energy issues seriously.
    - landemva 4y ago
      > Sadly there is not much we can do to prevent it ... The people could demand a resolution to the politician's issues which are holding five turbines in Montreal that could be installed in a pipeline which supplies gas to parts of Europe. It is almost like some political segments don't want a resolution before winter. Edit: I had read one was returned, five being repaired, and Germany restarting ten coal plants. https://globalnews.ca/news/9002839/canada-turbines-return-russia-ukraine-explained https://globalnews.ca/news/9002839/canada-turbines-return-ru...
      - bryanlarsen 4y ago
        Those turbines were sent back to Germany a couple of weeks ago. It is almost like the news is more interested in reporting on ongoing problems than solved ones.
        phtrivier 4y ago
        At some point, "Breaking news : everything is pretty much ok" is going to be a thing.
      - phtrivier 4y ago
        I'm ready to bet that when all the turbines are back (some already are), if the geopolitical situation is still as complicated, Russia will find another good reason to limit the amount of gas sent to western Europe. I think the Kremlin is expecting the German electorate to push pressure on their government to ask for a return to the "normal" flow of gas, Ukraine be damned. That seems like a reasonable bet, but I'm not going to rule surprises out any more.
toast0 4y ago
Nuclear plants may or may not be reliable, but outages at multiple nuclear plants are usually not corellated. Solar is corellated around time of day on a large scale and cloud cover on a more localized scale. Lack of wind sometimes happens to fairly large regions; interconnections to farther away wind farms helps though. Weather extremes outside the design can result in outages for all kinds of plants though, so a relatively geographically small and isolated grid like Texas, that has many plants unprepared for cold will likely have outages at plants of all types during a bad cold snap; a particularly bad heat wave might cause issues as well.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  On the other hand an advantage that solar and wind have is that they are predictable in the medium term. Weather forecasts are fairly reliable predictors of solar & wind output about a week or so out. They also ramp up and down smoothly. So while grid operators have to be constantly adjusting for solar & wind output variations, they can do so without panic and without customers noticing. Reactor shutdowns, while rare, are sometimes very unexpected and drop a lot of capacity from the grid very quickly.
  - VBprogrammer 4y ago
    This isn't really any more or less true of Nuclear than any other facility. A power outage which took out many of the railways in London a few years back was caused by one of the offshore wind fields tripping from the grid.
- elcomet 4y ago
  Lack of water to cool down is unfortunately correlated across the country.
  - jtlisi 4y ago
    Which country?
    - 4y ago

mrep 4y ago

seanalltogether 4y ago
> Nuclear has the opposite problem of wind/solar in that it needs to be run at 100% capacity as much as possible in order to amortize its absurd building costs over its low operating costs. Can you not make the same argument for wind/solar? If any power generator isn't capable of dumping it's full output onto the grid when possible, it's not going to be profitable. This pdf seems to indicate that wind is allowed to just dump all of their output onto the grid and everyone else has to ramp up or down. Which doesn't give realistic comparisons of cost between the two. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/61721.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/61721.pdf
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  Wind and solar are unique in that their fuel has a cost of $0, which is why they’ve been putting some fossil fuel plants out of business. Nuclear still needs some fuel that costs money to obtain and handle.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Nuclear also has higher "fixed" O&M costs, from all that staffing.
- Ma8ee 4y ago
  In particular wind is very inexpensive.
  - teddyh 4y ago
    Sometimes wind is free, but some other times, you can’t get it for love or money. Same with solar. This is why they can never be a solution by themselves. (Until battery technology improves, and please, let me know if that ever happens.)

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

My understanding with the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia is that you could buy solar and batteries for cheaper and deploy sooner. You could throw in a subsidy for electric cars too which can feed back to the grid in an emergency. That said the small reactors of this article will hopefully have lower costs and faster deployment times. Another advantage of wind and battery is that they aren’t national security targets in the way nuclear is.

kbenson 4y ago
I'd hate to be relying on cars feeding back into the grid when a natural disaster happens which encourages people to evacuate, or prepare to evacuate such that they want to ensure their batteries are charged. I would hate to weather another large and close wildfire where in addition to the normal grid instability and power issues it's exacerbated by lack of expected car feedback resources because people have evacuated or are standing by to.
- geysersam 4y ago
  On the other hand. Nuclear is not immune to natural conditions either. Look at France, currently turning off reactors because of lack of cooling water due to the drought.
  - belorn 4y ago
    Right now the European grid is operational and demand is being met. When winter arrive it is expected that multiple countries will have to start to shut down part of society in order to save the grid. Thankfully the cooling issue won't hopefully exist during winter, and given how much political outcry will occur if the grid do collapse, France might actually step up and fix their reactors given enough political pressure.
    - geysersam 4y ago
      I'm glad the issues in France won't have too bad of an impact. But that's somewhat besides the point. The cause of the electricity shortage is the enormous overreliance on Russian gas and oil. It's not about renewables vs. Nuclear. The comment I responded to argued nuclear is superior in a situation of crisis, and selects as an example a natural disaster. Wanted to point out that this seems to depend rather sensitively on the kind of crisis.