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Easily solved via sane energy policy. Of course politics will likely make this impossible in the US. In a rational environment you run your nuclear at 100% 24
by phil21 2y ago
Easily solved via sane energy policy. Of course politics will likely make this impossible in the US.
In a rational environment you run your nuclear at 100% 24x7. The cost of the fuel is not material running at 10% vs. 100%. Letting parasitic intermittent power sources screw this up is simply financial engineering by largely bad actors. At least currently.
Then you use intermittent power sources to provide your peak loads during the day, and any excess you ideally start putting into storage - whatever that may be. If you have effectively free marginal power during certain peak times, I'm positive industry will find a way to turn that into money.
I still have hope sanity returns to the energy discussion, but it likely won't happen in the US during my lifetime. The cost of solar and wind is entirely politics - the storage cost is literally never considered when reading articles on the subject. The hidden costs are likely 10x or so what the marginal cost per kwh everyone loves to spew. Lots of folks getting massively rich off this disinformation so there is huge inertia behind ignoring it - even from very smart people that should absolutely know better after a few hours of reading on the subject. Just look at many of the posts here at HN.
The environmental costs of methane (natural gas) are simply not being considered. The methane leaks into the environment are underestimated by at least 10x if not much, much, more. Pivoting from nuclear and to natural gas has been an utter environmental disaster.