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Nuclear would be the worst technology for filling temporary gaps in the production of renewables. The ramping speed of nuclear reactors is limited, and they can
by _ph_ 3y ago
Nuclear would be the worst technology for filling temporary gaps in the production of renewables. The ramping speed of nuclear reactors is limited, and they cannot be throttled below 40% output without shutting them down entirely for quite some time. On top of that, the main expense of nuclear reactors is building and maintaining them, so throttling a reactor is not reducing the costs. You really want to run a nuclear reactor with a high load.
- champtar 3y agoFrench NPP can vary their power output 80% up or down in 30 min (https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_pilotable_d%27%C3%A9lectricit%C3%A9 https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_pilotable_d%27%C3...)
- _ph_ 3y agoFine, than they can go a bit lower still. But for a grid mainly powered by renewables, they would have to be able to go all the way down to 0, what is really not a practical option for nuclear reactors. But there is another catch: nuclear is extremely expensive, even when run most of the time close to 100%. But any time you throttle the reactor, you are driving the costs up. Because most of the costs are in building and operating the reactor, less so in fuel.