4 ms·

> Secondly, it's not a responsive source of electricity - so you can't modulate the output easily. Yes. Yes, you can. --- start quote --- Modern nuclear plan

> Secondly, it's not a responsive source of electricity - so you can't modulate the output easily. Yes. Yes, you can. --- start quote --- Modern nuclear plans with light water reactors are designed to have strong manoeuvring capabilities. Nuclear power plants in France and in Germany [ report from 2011 ] operate in load-following mode, i.e. 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. Most of the modern designs implement even higher manoeuvrability capabilities, with the possibility of planned and unplanned load-following in a wide power range and with ramps of 5% Pr [rated power] per minute. --- end quote --- 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... > the more modern reactors have been prone to massive delays with an This is mostly a political issue. China and South Korea are bringing reactors online faster. > Fourthly, as we found last year, during heat waves rivers can run dry causing a shortage of water to cool the plants forcing them to go offline. Again, that was a combination of things, including politically-motivated underinvestment in maintenance of nuclear power plants

pydry 3y ago
You can technically run them in load following mode and some countries have but the cost is even more insane than using it as baseload. The vast majority of the cost of nuclear power (which is very, very, very expensive) is capex for building out the capacity. Building it and then leaving it idle is crazy. Cost of NPP with load following > NPP paired with storage > solar+wind paired with storage. (where storage could be batteries, pumped storage or windgas).
- illiarian 3y ago
  > You can technically run them in load following mode The quote literally is: "Nuclear power plants in France and in Germany operate in load-following mode". Edit: the requirements are literally "For example, according to the current version of the European Utilities Requirements (EUR) the NPP must at least be capable of daily load cycling operation between 50% and 100 % of its rated power Pr, with a rate of change of electric output of 3-5% of Pr per minute." > but the cost is even more insane than using it as baseload. And you have sources for that "insane cost"?
  - pydry 3y ago
    Wikipedia has sources: "While most nuclear power plants in operation as of early 2000's were already designed with strong load following capabilities, they might have not been used as such for purely economic reasons: nuclear power generation is composed almost entirely of fixed and sunk costs so lowering the power output doesn't significantly reduce generating costs, so it is more effective to run them at full power most of the time.[10][11]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load-following_power_plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load-following_power_plant France using Nuclear Power for load following is more a signal that they'd misjudged and significantly overbuilt nuclear capacity, not that it's a good idea. EDF has overwhemling financial problems and went spectacularly bankrupt in large part because unlike with, say, solar and wind - that spare capacity is very, very, very expensive. tl;dr - as I said before, you technically can do it but it's absurdly expensive and just not worth it.
    - illiarian 3y ago
      > While most nuclear power plants in operation as of early 2000's were already designed with strong load following capabilities, they might have not been used as such Again. Very, very VERY slowly: --- start quote --- Nuclear power plants in France and in Germany operate in load-following mode --- end quote --- And these countries have more power plants than the rest of Europe. If you bothered to read the report, and not just wikipedia, you'd see graphs for plants built as early as 1978 happily operating in load-following mode. E.g. Unterweser, commissioned in 1978, operated between 700 MW and 1400 MW per day in load-following mode. Same for Grohnde (commissioned in 1984). Etc.
    - illiarian 3y ago
      > tl;dr - as I said before, you technically can do it but it's absurdly expensive and just not worth it. And, of course, have sources for this?
      - illiarian 3y ago
        Of course there will be no source, but just FUD, so I had to look it up myself. https://energiforskmedia.blob.core.windows.net/media/18663/henriksson.pdf https://energiforskmedia.blob.core.windows.net/media/18663/h... --- start quote --- Additional Costs for Load-following Nuclear Power Plants. Experiences from Swedish, Finnish, German, and French nuclear power plants The conclusion from this report is that with a well-prepared load-following, there are very few additional costs... It is concluded that if the load-following is planned and the regulation is done within determined levels specific for the plant there is no hindrance or addi- tional costs for load-following. <Summarising: the actual cost is minimal, but may affect the resulting MWh price because nuclear power plants have high fixed costs and low variable costs.> --- end quote ---

pydry 3y ago

You can technically run them in load following mode and some countries have but the cost is even more insane than using it as baseload. The vast majority of the cost of nuclear power (which is very, very, very expensive) is capex for building out the capacity. Building it and then leaving it idle is crazy. Cost of NPP with load following > NPP paired with storage > solar+wind paired with storage. (where storage could be batteries, pumped storage or windgas).

illiarian 3y ago
> You can technically run them in load following mode The quote literally is: "Nuclear power plants in France and in Germany operate in load-following mode". Edit: the requirements are literally "For example, according to the current version of the European Utilities Requirements (EUR) the NPP must at least be capable of daily load cycling operation between 50% and 100 % of its rated power Pr, with a rate of change of electric output of 3-5% of Pr per minute." > but the cost is even more insane than using it as baseload. And you have sources for that "insane cost"?
- pydry 3y ago
  Wikipedia has sources: "While most nuclear power plants in operation as of early 2000's were already designed with strong load following capabilities, they might have not been used as such for purely economic reasons: nuclear power generation is composed almost entirely of fixed and sunk costs so lowering the power output doesn't significantly reduce generating costs, so it is more effective to run them at full power most of the time.[10][11]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load-following_power_plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load-following_power_plant France using Nuclear Power for load following is more a signal that they'd misjudged and significantly overbuilt nuclear capacity, not that it's a good idea. EDF has overwhemling financial problems and went spectacularly bankrupt in large part because unlike with, say, solar and wind - that spare capacity is very, very, very expensive. tl;dr - as I said before, you technically can do it but it's absurdly expensive and just not worth it.
  - illiarian 3y ago
    > While most nuclear power plants in operation as of early 2000's were already designed with strong load following capabilities, they might have not been used as such Again. Very, very VERY slowly: --- start quote --- Nuclear power plants in France and in Germany operate in load-following mode --- end quote --- And these countries have more power plants than the rest of Europe. If you bothered to read the report, and not just wikipedia, you'd see graphs for plants built as early as 1978 happily operating in load-following mode. E.g. Unterweser, commissioned in 1978, operated between 700 MW and 1400 MW per day in load-following mode. Same for Grohnde (commissioned in 1984). Etc.
  - illiarian 3y ago
    > tl;dr - as I said before, you technically can do it but it's absurdly expensive and just not worth it. And, of course, have sources for this?
    - illiarian 3y ago
      Of course there will be no source, but just FUD, so I had to look it up myself. https://energiforskmedia.blob.core.windows.net/media/18663/henriksson.pdf https://energiforskmedia.blob.core.windows.net/media/18663/h... --- start quote --- Additional Costs for Load-following Nuclear Power Plants. Experiences from Swedish, Finnish, German, and French nuclear power plants The conclusion from this report is that with a well-prepared load-following, there are very few additional costs... It is concluded that if the load-following is planned and the regulation is done within determined levels specific for the plant there is no hindrance or addi- tional costs for load-following. <Summarising: the actual cost is minimal, but may affect the resulting MWh price because nuclear power plants have high fixed costs and low variable costs.> --- end quote ---