4 ms·

Is a large number of consumer batteries more environmentally friendly than say a nuclear power plant?

• helf 4y ago
  That’s not the point (disclaimer: I love nuclear power), the point is this let’s them Supplement rapid energy demand /spikes/ over the span of literally seconds vs ramping up generation from other sources which are all slower as well as generally being further from where it needs to be at that moment. This allows them to readily absorb spikes happening randomly around the grid in an easier manner
  • etimberg 4y ago
    Agreed! Inverter based resources have the ability to respond within a few milliseconds whereas the next fastest response would be from hydro power and that could take as little as 10s. More conventional generation takes a lot longer. [1] has some nice charts showing cold-start times for different types of generation. 1. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45956 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45956
• dividedbyzero 4y ago
  Wouldn't currently available nukes take way too long to ramp up and down for this use case?
  • etimberg 4y ago
    In general, after a nuclear plant is shut down, it has to be kept off for a few days to let Xe-135 completely decay. Quoting from Wikipedia [1] " After about 3 days of shutdown, the core can be assumed to be free of 135Xe, without it introducing errors into the reactivity calculations" 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine_pit#Fission_products_decay_and_burnup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine_pit#Fission_products_de...
• dymk 4y ago
  What nuclear power plant?
• smileysteve 4y ago
  Consumers have not necessarily purchased batteries to be part of this program; while a potential outcome, it would be much more wasteful for the batteries to decay over time without being utilized significantly.