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> 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".

> 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 ---
- illiarian 3y ago
  > a signal that they'd misjudged and significantly overbuilt capacity, not that it's a good idea. Unlike, say, renewables, that have overbuilding as a requirement I guess: https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396 https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396 What this means is that they built enough capacity to counter most requirements for power, and hand handle elastic demand without the need to overbuild or extensive expensive storage (something also absolutely required for renewables).
  - pydry 3y ago
    >Unlike, say, renewables, that have overbuilding as a requirement I guess Right, except at 5x the cost. Nuclear power, and indeed, load following would make a lot more sense if grid scale storage were prohibitively expensive or impossible.
    - illiarian 3y ago
      > Right, except at 5x the cost. Source? > if grid scale storage were prohibitively expensive or impossible. It's currently both [1]. BTW. Case in point: https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396 https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396 --- [1] Edit: This is a nice quick overview from a year ago https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/energy-storage-analysing-feasibility-grid-scale-options/ https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/energy-storage-ana... "Cheapest" option is pumped hydro storage. To cover Europe's need you only need to build 70 1.5 GW hydroelectric stations at a cost of $92 billion (in reality much higher) while greatly damaging ecology in large areas. The most expensive option is Li-ion batteries, clocking in at a measely 1.1 trillion dollars. Cheap and feasible.
      - pydry 3y ago
        >Source? Odd that somebody who is trying to school me on the realities of renewable energy is unaware of this, but here you go: https://energycentral.com/sites/default/files/styles/og_meta/public/ece/nodes/479575/lcoe20.jpg?itok=vhOcC-eI https://energycentral.com/sites/default/files/styles/og_meta... >>if grid scale storage were prohibitively expensive or impossible. >It's currently both For something that is prohibitively expensive and impossible we sure are seeing a lot of it rolled out. >"Cheapest" option is pumped hydro storage. To cover Europe's need you only need to build 70 1.5 GW hydroelectric stations at a cost of $92 billion Meanwhile, Hinkley point C is projected to cost $28 billion and for that we will get just 3.2GW. Europe used 2785 TWh last year. Even if you assumed that storage is free, that still requires a minimum of 317GW, which would require about 100 Hinkley Point Cs, which would cost $2.7 trillion to build. $100 billion would be a bargain.

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 ---
illiarian 3y ago
> a signal that they'd misjudged and significantly overbuilt capacity, not that it's a good idea. Unlike, say, renewables, that have overbuilding as a requirement I guess: https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396 https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396 What this means is that they built enough capacity to counter most requirements for power, and hand handle elastic demand without the need to overbuild or extensive expensive storage (something also absolutely required for renewables).
- pydry 3y ago
  >Unlike, say, renewables, that have overbuilding as a requirement I guess Right, except at 5x the cost. Nuclear power, and indeed, load following would make a lot more sense if grid scale storage were prohibitively expensive or impossible.
  - illiarian 3y ago
    > Right, except at 5x the cost. Source? > if grid scale storage were prohibitively expensive or impossible. It's currently both [1]. BTW. Case in point: https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396 https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396 --- [1] Edit: This is a nice quick overview from a year ago https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/energy-storage-analysing-feasibility-grid-scale-options/ https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/energy-storage-ana... "Cheapest" option is pumped hydro storage. To cover Europe's need you only need to build 70 1.5 GW hydroelectric stations at a cost of $92 billion (in reality much higher) while greatly damaging ecology in large areas. The most expensive option is Li-ion batteries, clocking in at a measely 1.1 trillion dollars. Cheap and feasible.
    - pydry 3y ago
      >Source? Odd that somebody who is trying to school me on the realities of renewable energy is unaware of this, but here you go: https://energycentral.com/sites/default/files/styles/og_meta/public/ece/nodes/479575/lcoe20.jpg?itok=vhOcC-eI https://energycentral.com/sites/default/files/styles/og_meta... >>if grid scale storage were prohibitively expensive or impossible. >It's currently both For something that is prohibitively expensive and impossible we sure are seeing a lot of it rolled out. >"Cheapest" option is pumped hydro storage. To cover Europe's need you only need to build 70 1.5 GW hydroelectric stations at a cost of $92 billion Meanwhile, Hinkley point C is projected to cost $28 billion and for that we will get just 3.2GW. Europe used 2785 TWh last year. Even if you assumed that storage is free, that still requires a minimum of 317GW, which would require about 100 Hinkley Point Cs, which would cost $2.7 trillion to build. $100 billion would be a bargain.