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> Yes, neither nuclear nor offshore wind exactly match the demand profile so some kind of storage/demand-response/complementary generation assets etc. is requir

• ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  I'm talking about an economically viable system, not a theoretical one where money doesn't matter. That's why France is at 75% nuclear and uses hydro and gas to fill in and exports power regularly (at least they did when their nuclear plants were all running). You can theoretically go 100% wind if you just build enough of it. No one is doing that because there are better, cheaper options by complementing it with other zero carbon options including storage and transmission.
  • pyrale 4y ago
    > I'm talking about an economically viable system, not a theoretical one where money doesn't matter. Dude, I just gave you an article written by EDF engineers to provide feedback on how plants actually work, it's not a theoretical analysis. Nuclear plants don't depend on alternative sources, and they don't need to export, simply because they regulate their output based on demand. > No one is doing that because there are better, cheaper options by complementing it with other zero carbon options including storage and transmission. Currently, no one is running a country-level grid on renewables alone using storage and transmission. The backup is, so far, always a high-carbon power source.
    • ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      Yes, and your document notes this reality too: > The economic consequences of load-following are mainly related to the reduction of the load factor. In the case of nuclear energy, fuel costs represent a small fraction of the electricity generating cost, especially compared to fossile sources. Thus, oper- ating at higher load factors is profitable for nuclear power plants as they cannot make savings on fuel costs while not producing electricity. Coal and nuclear are bad at this, that's why they are traditionally "baseload" and other techs are used to complement their strengths and weaknesses to get an economic total grid system.
      • pyrale 4y ago
        How is that related to your original claim that: > neither nuclear nor offshore wind exactly match the demand profile so some kind of storage/demand-response/complementary generation assets etc. is required. There is no requirement to adapt demand for nuclear, and even though the availability of zero-cost storage could theoretically improve nuclear's cost-effectiveness, in reality, the cost of storage is greater than potential gains from running nuclear 24/7. > that's why they are traditionally "baseload" The article I provided states, quote: > Nuclear power plants in France and Germany operate in load-following mode. They participate in the primary and secondary frequency control, and some units follow a variable load programme with one or two large power changes per day. Right after the snippet you quoted, the following sentence is written: > In France, the impact of load-following on the average unit capacity factor is sometimes estimated at about 1.2%. Maybe you should stop making partial quotes to support repeating lies?
        • ZeroGravitas 4y ago
          Your paper says that nuclear has some limited load following abilities. I know that is true and never intended to imply it didn't. You appear to be claiming this means that no storage/batteries are required for nuclear grids, but they are for renewables. This is as true for nuclear as it is for renewables. If you build enough to cover the peakiest peaks then you never have to use any storage. It would be an interesting math exercise to see whether a stupidly all nuclear grid or a stupidly all renewable grid would cost more. I'd suggest renewables would very easily win this battle, but I've not seen anyone do the numbers, because both are stupidly expensive things to do and no one has any plans to do either for real. What people with actual nuclear on their grids have done traditionally is: Differing rates to encourage the demand to match nuclear production better. Storage, generally pumped hydro which uses nuclear electricity when it is cheap and then releases it later during spikes. Export/import to neighbours (some of whom may use it for pumped hydro, like Switzerland does with French nuclear) Have other elements on the grid, like France's 15% gas plants, or hydro to fill in the gaps. And in the future people will do the exact same things, except they'll use wind and solar instead of nuclear because they are much cheaper. And they'll use more lithium batteries, again because those are cheaper now. And the gas they burn will transition to hydrogen. You should read the article I linked to, it has lots of details about how the French are in denial about this incoming reality from a Frenchman with an easily found track record on supporting nuclear and commenting on the energy industry. As he says, they are having problems now, because they were mostly correct for so long in the past, and that makes it harder for them to cope with being wrong now.