4 ms·

I must have missed the news about solar and wind being able to flex.

by vbarrielle 1y ago

filmor 1y ago
Both of them can be trivially downregulated.
- acidburnNSA 1y ago
  It's that upregulation that's hard.
- oyashirochama 1y ago
  Theres a upper limit though and they don't provide a great baseload, which is nuclear's specialty even among non-renewable resources nuclear is a clear winner in baseload management. Also nuclear is a non-renewable just a long, nearly impossible to empty one, especially with the longer isotopes of thorium and uranium.
  - acidburnNSA 1y ago
    Nuclear with breeder reactors can run with known resources for 4 billion years. Renewable doesn't mean infinite (nothing is infinite). The sun will run out of its wholly finite fusion fuel in about 5-6 billion years, and will consume earth well before that. I think nuclear fission with breeders is therefore just as renewable as the solar-derived energy flows.
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    Renewable is a great base load power option. You supply your base load with your cheapest available supply, which is usually renewable. You then supply all power needs above what can be provided by your cheapest power with dispatchable supply. If your base supply is intermittent, that means your dispatchable supply has to be able to supply 100% of peak.
ta1243 1y ago
Unless nuclear power can provide for 100% of the demand for 100% of the time there will be a need for dispatchable power. In the UK that would mean 48GW of total capacity. Worst case Nuclear capacity (when plants are offline etc) currently generated by the 5.6GW peak is about 3.8GW (95% of the time nuclear generated more than 3GW, 85% at least 3.7GW) So that would mean 13 times as much nuclear production in the UK as it currently has to reach 100% use. Which would generate about 500TWh per year, for a demand of about 250TWh per year, and a peak amount of about 73GW of capacity. That means the real cost of a nuclear only grid would be twice as much as nuclear currently costs per MWh. Given that nuclear isn't economical today that doesn't really sound sensible. As both Nuclear and Renewable thus both need "peaker plants" to flex the grid, the "baseload" argument is rather meaningless.

I must have missed the news about solar and wind being able to flex.

filmor 1y ago

Both of them can be trivially downregulated.

acidburnNSA 1y ago
It's that upregulation that's hard.
oyashirochama 1y ago
Theres a upper limit though and they don't provide a great baseload, which is nuclear's specialty even among non-renewable resources nuclear is a clear winner in baseload management. Also nuclear is a non-renewable just a long, nearly impossible to empty one, especially with the longer isotopes of thorium and uranium.
- acidburnNSA 1y ago
  Nuclear with breeder reactors can run with known resources for 4 billion years. Renewable doesn't mean infinite (nothing is infinite). The sun will run out of its wholly finite fusion fuel in about 5-6 billion years, and will consume earth well before that. I think nuclear fission with breeders is therefore just as renewable as the solar-derived energy flows.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  Renewable is a great base load power option. You supply your base load with your cheapest available supply, which is usually renewable. You then supply all power needs above what can be provided by your cheapest power with dispatchable supply. If your base supply is intermittent, that means your dispatchable supply has to be able to supply 100% of peak.

ta1243 1y ago

Unless nuclear power can provide for 100% of the demand for 100% of the time there will be a need for dispatchable power. In the UK that would mean 48GW of total capacity. Worst case Nuclear capacity (when plants are offline etc) currently generated by the 5.6GW peak is about 3.8GW (95% of the time nuclear generated more than 3GW, 85% at least 3.7GW) So that would mean 13 times as much nuclear production in the UK as it currently has to reach 100% use. Which would generate about 500TWh per year, for a demand of about 250TWh per year, and a peak amount of about 73GW of capacity. That means the real cost of a nuclear only grid would be twice as much as nuclear currently costs per MWh. Given that nuclear isn't economical today that doesn't really sound sensible. As both Nuclear and Renewable thus both need "peaker plants" to flex the grid, the "baseload" argument is rather meaningless.