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FWIW if you're going to argue for non-renewable energy as a solution for filling in when renewable energy sources dip, nuclear energy doesn't help with any of t
by hnbad 2y ago
FWIW if you're going to argue for non-renewable energy as a solution for filling in when renewable energy sources dip, nuclear energy doesn't help with any of that.
It's important to understand the way different kinds of power plants deliver energy:
- renewables (wind, solar, tides) are highly variable in their output and the amount of energy produced by each individual wind power plant or solar panel is very small; the output can be dialed down by turning off individual power plants but the amount to which it can be dialed up depends on the weather and is outside of human control
- fossil fuels (gas, coal, lignite) and bio fuels are highly dynamic in their output because you can literally just add or remove fuel to control it, making them very predictable; they are however also literally just burning fuel, i.e. producing energy by producing CO2, and usually have some costs associated with restarting (i.e. reheating) after being fully turned off
- nuclear reactors are extremely stable and can generate a consistent large amount of energy highly predictably; however shutting them off and turning them back on can take literal days and they usually need constant water supply for cooling in order to operate
In other words, water-cooled nuclear reactors are a bad choice in any region that may experience frequent droughts (which may be hard to predict with the changing climate) and they can best be understood as an "offset" for the baseline production.
A real-life energy grid is in constant flux. Loads change as appliances and machines get turned on or off, frequencies drift all the time and need to be readjusted and renewable production supply can change at a moment's notice.
If there is a high baseline that is currently served by fossil fuels, nuclear is worth considering as a replacement for that. But in most places where nuclear would be an option, that baseline can already be easily served mostly by renewables. What's needed is a way to time-shift the overproduction to a later time when renewable production drops. That means storage technologies, not power plants. And as a stop-gap fossils are better suited for filling in the gaps by idling at a low output and being boosted up as the output from renewables drops.
- chickenbig 2y ago[dead]
- hnbad 2y agoA dead account replied to this in good faith so let me address this as I can't comment directly: > [Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station] uses sewage; people are very regular at producing waste water. Not really, no. Germany for example ran very successful campaigns for limiting water use in the 1990s and earlier and a lot of household appliances (shower heads, faucets, toilets) were made "more efficient". As a consequence some municipalities had issues from sewers running dry due to too little waste water and had to flush them with (clean) water to continue operating them. This likely won't turn into a problem in the US in the near future but if your plan hinges on consumers being excessively wasteful with resources, you might run into some snags as soon as those resources become more limited or more expensive. > Pumped hydro can work very well to smooth out variability from the baseload. Yes, that's an energy storage technology that isn't a battery. The reason Switzerland makes heavy use of it is that it only works when you have a landscape with a lot of changes in altitude (i.e. large hills or mountains). It doesn't help in very flat regions. It's a great solution but it's just one solution. We need more. And we also need to improve the grids themselves.