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Intermittent renewables such as wind and solar do not work fine alone, as they are non-dispatchable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation http

Intermittent renewables such as wind and solar do not work fine alone, as they are non-dispatchable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation They are OK as an addition to dispatchable sources, which is why the vast majority of industrialized nations are now planning for a mix of nuclear and intermittent renewables.

hkwerf 2y ago
Nuclear is almost as non-dispatchable? As soon as you've ramped up a nuclear reactor to full power, the weather has changed. Thus they essentially occupy almost the same niche. Those who plan to use both nuclear and wind/solar don't do it for the dispatchability.
- mpweiher 2y ago
  > Nuclear is almost as non-dispatchable? That turns out not to be completely not the case. As in not even close. First, modern nuclear power plants can do load-following just fine, you often just don't want to because their variable costs are so low that it just makes more sense to keep them running. Second, the problem with intermittent renewables is that they can't provide power when you need it. Even when you don't load-follow as much, that is not the problem of nuclear. > As soon as you've ramped up a nuclear reactor to full power, the weather has changed That's a problem of the intermittent renewables, not of nuclear. You don't make the clown-energy the primary and force everything else to adapt to that. > Those who plan to use both nuclear and wind/solar don't do it for the dispatchability. Yeah they do. Dispatchability in terms of grid demand, not in terms of compensating for intermittency.
  - hkwerf 2y ago
    > First, modern nuclear power plants can do load-following just fine, you often just don't want to because their variable costs are so low that it just makes more sense to keep them running. So, I read a bit and this seems to be actually true, just looking at it from a technical feasibility standpoint [1]. (This is actually the first time someone refuted this point when I made it. ;) ) > Second, the problem with intermittent renewables is that they can't provide power when you need it. Even when you don't load-follow as much, that is not the problem of nuclear. I didn't say they were, though, and this is not an argument regarding your premise. > Yeah they do. Dispatchability in terms of grid demand, not in terms of compensating for intermittency. From a technical standpoint that is true, but, as you've mentioned above: Load-following is not something you can do with nuclear, as the LCOE then quickly meets the other sources of energy ([1], chapter 4). > That's a problem of the intermittent renewables, not of nuclear. You don't make the clown-energy the primary and force everything else to adapt to that. Yeah, it's just that that the grid does not end at the gate of the nuclear power plant. Maybe a bit less snark would be helpful in a discussion that can be had based on available data. Referring to solar and wind as clown-energy essentially ends all discussion. Otherwise, people could also bring up arguments such as the limited availability of fuel and the fact that thermal energy generation itself would become a driving factor for global warming if we would still depend on it by the end of the century. [1] 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...
    - mpweiher 2y ago
      > I didn't say there were. Yeah, you kind of did: "Nuclear is almost as non-dispatchable?" That "almost as" implies not just similarity in degree (which we saw isn't true), but even greater similarity in kind, because otherwise the two are just not comparable in the first place. "My iPad M4 is almost as fast as a Ferrari" doesn't really make sense, except as humor. > limited availability of fuel Not true. > the fact that thermal energy generation itself would become a driving factor for global warming Also not true.
anovikov 2y ago
Well... seriously, no industrialised nation plans any significant amount of nuclear nor sees it as a necessary or even a valuable addition to their electricity mix. Not even China - they are building a bunch of reactors but the amount is negligible compared to the amount solar they are building. And, nuclear is not dispatchable either, because it can't be regulated, it's either "on" or "off" (and going from "off" to "on" takes several days due to xenon poisoning).
- mpweiher 2y ago
  You're not up-to-date. ALL of them do, except for Germany. And now that the consequences of this strategy are bing felt in Germany, opposition is rising. https://www.energy.gov/articles/cop28-countries-launch-declaration-triple-nuclear-energy-capacity-2050-recognizing-key https://www.energy.gov/articles/cop28-countries-launch-decla... And you're wrong about nuclear. Brief intro: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2021/ph241/lecroy2/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2021/ph241/lecroy2/
ggm 2y ago
Dependency on dispatchable power does not imply solely Base load continuous generation. Pumped hydro, wind and solar overbuild and batteries are capable of supplying the burden. The objection to overbuild and storage is economic more than innately about turbines. Dispatchable and Base load are classic models of nuclear advocacy which are fine, but not unanswerable.
- mpweiher 2y ago
  Pumped hydro is largely maxed out in countries that are looking at intermittent renewables. And of course hydro is quite dangerous and environmentally destructive. Solar overbuild and batteries alone generally can't handle the burden. You need overbuild and batteries and gas backup. And if you want that gas backup to be hydrogen, you need even more overbuild and electrolysers on top. So quadrupling the very expensive infrastructure that you then have mostly sitting around idle. You can't get rid of the intermittency problem. You can only move it around, somewhat, at enormous expense. And the generating capacity required you need is also insane. And that's a quote: "...which challenges the economic sanity of 100% intermittent renewable targets." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544222018035 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605...
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    Pumped hydro is nowhere near maxed out. What is maxed out is primary hydro on rivers. Pumped hydro doesn't have to be on rivers. I can even be built in deserts, far from any waterways. Your comments about intermittency are demonstrated to be wrong by detailed modeling. Using the tools available (various kinds of storage, transmission, demand dispatch, efficiency) intermittency can be dealt with at an overall cost lower than trying to use nuclear at its current cost. I believe that link you are pointing to assumes batteries are used for long term storage. This is a common error (if error it is rather than deliberate deception) that inflates the cost of a 100% RE system considerably. The "insane" comment is just a handwave. The world is going to spend something like a quadrillion dollars on energy this century. Renewables are very likely going to be the least-cost way of powering the world, when the $1000/tonne externalities of CO2 are included.
belorn 2y ago
If I am looking at what is being planned and approved, the vast majority of industrialized nations are building a mix between thermal power station, with primary fuel being natural gas, and then intermittent renewables. Even in Sweden with a large fleet of nuclear and hydro power, the new plants that are actually being built right now are a large thermal power station fueled by gas, in combination with new wind and solar. There are also talk about new thermal power stations fueled using garbage. A popular political strategy to avoid calling attention to the new thermal power stations is to not call them power stations. They are reserve energy, to be used when intermittent renewables do not produce enough.
pydry 2y ago
Intermittent renewables paired with dispatchable batteries, pumped storage or syngas are cheaper than baseload nuclear. Nuclear is only "dispatchable" if you are willing to burn epic, titanic, gargantuan stupid amounts of money. The only reason to build civilian nuclear power is to aid the provision of skills and an industrial supply chain for the nuclear-military industrial complex. Not the climate. Not cheap, clean power. DEFINITELY not dispatchability.
- mpweiher 2y ago
  All patently non true. Nuclear is cheap. According to the Court of Accounts in France in 2012, the whole nuclear industry had cost € 228 billion by that time and produced 11000 TWh of electricity. 2.07 Cents/kWh. Renewables are expensive, in particular if you want a 100% renewable grid. There is very little overlap between nuclear and civilian nuclear programs. Lots of countries operate power plants without nuclear weapons, and Israel for example has a military reactor yet does not use nuclear power commercially.
  - pydry 2y ago
    Most of the cost of nuclear power is building the thing. France built most of theirs in the 1970s and is now sitting on a paid off asset. Of course, their plants are aging out in the meaning that those costs are spiking immensely. 2012 is the absolute sweet spot. The LCOE of nuclear power is ~5x solar and wind. As a client state of the US, Israel can rely upon and tap the US's nuclear supply chain and skills base. Its main "not nuclear but not far off it" rival Iran does have nuclear power though, precisely in order to be able to build a nuclear weapon.
    - mpweiher 2y ago
      > The LCOE of nuclear power is ~5x solar and wind. Only if you do something insane like the infamous Lazard study that was used to come to this "conclusion": they took a single power plant and used that as "the cost of nuclear". That alone is enough to disqualify those numbers, but it gets worse. As their one single data point for nuclear, they didn't pick a random sample, but instead they hand-picked the most expensive commercial nuclear power plant in the world: Vogtle-3. That one screwup is their entire dataset for nuclear. And of course LCOE doesn't actually cover the full cost. When you look at system cost, the renewable get even worse, at least when you try to 100% renewable. As you approach 100% renewables, the costs rise almost asymptotically, "...which challenges the economic sanity of 100% intermittent renewable targets.7". https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544222018035 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605...

hkwerf 2y ago

Nuclear is almost as non-dispatchable? As soon as you've ramped up a nuclear reactor to full power, the weather has changed. Thus they essentially occupy almost the same niche. Those who plan to use both nuclear and wind/solar don't do it for the dispatchability.

mpweiher 2y ago
> Nuclear is almost as non-dispatchable? That turns out not to be completely not the case. As in not even close. First, modern nuclear power plants can do load-following just fine, you often just don't want to because their variable costs are so low that it just makes more sense to keep them running. Second, the problem with intermittent renewables is that they can't provide power when you need it. Even when you don't load-follow as much, that is not the problem of nuclear. > As soon as you've ramped up a nuclear reactor to full power, the weather has changed That's a problem of the intermittent renewables, not of nuclear. You don't make the clown-energy the primary and force everything else to adapt to that. > Those who plan to use both nuclear and wind/solar don't do it for the dispatchability. Yeah they do. Dispatchability in terms of grid demand, not in terms of compensating for intermittency.
- hkwerf 2y ago
  > First, modern nuclear power plants can do load-following just fine, you often just don't want to because their variable costs are so low that it just makes more sense to keep them running. So, I read a bit and this seems to be actually true, just looking at it from a technical feasibility standpoint [1]. (This is actually the first time someone refuted this point when I made it. ;) ) > Second, the problem with intermittent renewables is that they can't provide power when you need it. Even when you don't load-follow as much, that is not the problem of nuclear. I didn't say they were, though, and this is not an argument regarding your premise. > Yeah they do. Dispatchability in terms of grid demand, not in terms of compensating for intermittency. From a technical standpoint that is true, but, as you've mentioned above: Load-following is not something you can do with nuclear, as the LCOE then quickly meets the other sources of energy ([1], chapter 4). > That's a problem of the intermittent renewables, not of nuclear. You don't make the clown-energy the primary and force everything else to adapt to that. Yeah, it's just that that the grid does not end at the gate of the nuclear power plant. Maybe a bit less snark would be helpful in a discussion that can be had based on available data. Referring to solar and wind as clown-energy essentially ends all discussion. Otherwise, people could also bring up arguments such as the limited availability of fuel and the fact that thermal energy generation itself would become a driving factor for global warming if we would still depend on it by the end of the century. [1] 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...
  - mpweiher 2y ago
    > I didn't say there were. Yeah, you kind of did: "Nuclear is almost as non-dispatchable?" That "almost as" implies not just similarity in degree (which we saw isn't true), but even greater similarity in kind, because otherwise the two are just not comparable in the first place. "My iPad M4 is almost as fast as a Ferrari" doesn't really make sense, except as humor. > limited availability of fuel Not true. > the fact that thermal energy generation itself would become a driving factor for global warming Also not true.

anovikov 2y ago

Well... seriously, no industrialised nation plans any significant amount of nuclear nor sees it as a necessary or even a valuable addition to their electricity mix. Not even China - they are building a bunch of reactors but the amount is negligible compared to the amount solar they are building. And, nuclear is not dispatchable either, because it can't be regulated, it's either "on" or "off" (and going from "off" to "on" takes several days due to xenon poisoning).

mpweiher 2y ago
You're not up-to-date. ALL of them do, except for Germany. And now that the consequences of this strategy are bing felt in Germany, opposition is rising. https://www.energy.gov/articles/cop28-countries-launch-declaration-triple-nuclear-energy-capacity-2050-recognizing-key https://www.energy.gov/articles/cop28-countries-launch-decla... And you're wrong about nuclear. Brief intro: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2021/ph241/lecroy2/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2021/ph241/lecroy2/

ggm 2y ago

Dependency on dispatchable power does not imply solely Base load continuous generation. Pumped hydro, wind and solar overbuild and batteries are capable of supplying the burden. The objection to overbuild and storage is economic more than innately about turbines. Dispatchable and Base load are classic models of nuclear advocacy which are fine, but not unanswerable.

mpweiher 2y ago
Pumped hydro is largely maxed out in countries that are looking at intermittent renewables. And of course hydro is quite dangerous and environmentally destructive. Solar overbuild and batteries alone generally can't handle the burden. You need overbuild and batteries and gas backup. And if you want that gas backup to be hydrogen, you need even more overbuild and electrolysers on top. So quadrupling the very expensive infrastructure that you then have mostly sitting around idle. You can't get rid of the intermittency problem. You can only move it around, somewhat, at enormous expense. And the generating capacity required you need is also insane. And that's a quote: "...which challenges the economic sanity of 100% intermittent renewable targets." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544222018035 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605...
- pfdietz 2y ago
  Pumped hydro is nowhere near maxed out. What is maxed out is primary hydro on rivers. Pumped hydro doesn't have to be on rivers. I can even be built in deserts, far from any waterways. Your comments about intermittency are demonstrated to be wrong by detailed modeling. Using the tools available (various kinds of storage, transmission, demand dispatch, efficiency) intermittency can be dealt with at an overall cost lower than trying to use nuclear at its current cost. I believe that link you are pointing to assumes batteries are used for long term storage. This is a common error (if error it is rather than deliberate deception) that inflates the cost of a 100% RE system considerably. The "insane" comment is just a handwave. The world is going to spend something like a quadrillion dollars on energy this century. Renewables are very likely going to be the least-cost way of powering the world, when the $1000/tonne externalities of CO2 are included.

belorn 2y ago

If I am looking at what is being planned and approved, the vast majority of industrialized nations are building a mix between thermal power station, with primary fuel being natural gas, and then intermittent renewables. Even in Sweden with a large fleet of nuclear and hydro power, the new plants that are actually being built right now are a large thermal power station fueled by gas, in combination with new wind and solar. There are also talk about new thermal power stations fueled using garbage. A popular political strategy to avoid calling attention to the new thermal power stations is to not call them power stations. They are reserve energy, to be used when intermittent renewables do not produce enough.

pydry 2y ago

Intermittent renewables paired with dispatchable batteries, pumped storage or syngas are cheaper than baseload nuclear. Nuclear is only "dispatchable" if you are willing to burn epic, titanic, gargantuan stupid amounts of money. The only reason to build civilian nuclear power is to aid the provision of skills and an industrial supply chain for the nuclear-military industrial complex. Not the climate. Not cheap, clean power. DEFINITELY not dispatchability.

mpweiher 2y ago
All patently non true. Nuclear is cheap. According to the Court of Accounts in France in 2012, the whole nuclear industry had cost € 228 billion by that time and produced 11000 TWh of electricity. 2.07 Cents/kWh. Renewables are expensive, in particular if you want a 100% renewable grid. There is very little overlap between nuclear and civilian nuclear programs. Lots of countries operate power plants without nuclear weapons, and Israel for example has a military reactor yet does not use nuclear power commercially.
- pydry 2y ago
  Most of the cost of nuclear power is building the thing. France built most of theirs in the 1970s and is now sitting on a paid off asset. Of course, their plants are aging out in the meaning that those costs are spiking immensely. 2012 is the absolute sweet spot. The LCOE of nuclear power is ~5x solar and wind. As a client state of the US, Israel can rely upon and tap the US's nuclear supply chain and skills base. Its main "not nuclear but not far off it" rival Iran does have nuclear power though, precisely in order to be able to build a nuclear weapon.
  - mpweiher 2y ago
    > The LCOE of nuclear power is ~5x solar and wind. Only if you do something insane like the infamous Lazard study that was used to come to this "conclusion": they took a single power plant and used that as "the cost of nuclear". That alone is enough to disqualify those numbers, but it gets worse. As their one single data point for nuclear, they didn't pick a random sample, but instead they hand-picked the most expensive commercial nuclear power plant in the world: Vogtle-3. That one screwup is their entire dataset for nuclear. And of course LCOE doesn't actually cover the full cost. When you look at system cost, the renewable get even worse, at least when you try to 100% renewable. As you approach 100% renewables, the costs rise almost asymptotically, "...which challenges the economic sanity of 100% intermittent renewable targets.7". https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544222018035 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605...