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> we need a lot more nuclear that can be dialed up to compensate for renewables going offline during certain weather conditions If you want something to compen
by martinpw 1y ago
> we need a lot more nuclear that can be dialed up to compensate for renewables going offline during certain weather conditions
If you want something to compensate for intermittency, nuclear seems like the worst option. It implies you have nuclear plants sitting offline until needed, or being ramped up and down. My understanding is that you really want to run nuclear plants 24/7 at full output.
- drob518 1y agoYou don’t have nuclear totally offline except when refueling (and MSRs might solve even that). Nuclear can dial up down relatively easily. , however. Simplistically, you just pull/push the rods out/in (yea, there’s more to it than that, and it doesn’t react instantly, but roughly speaking, that’s it).
- matthewmacleod 1y agoRight but that's massively inefficient. You want a base-load power source operating at as close to it's rated output as possible for as much time as possible.
- drob518 1y agoAgreed. So, just go nuclear all the way.
- vel0city 1y agoIts not a matter of if the nuclear reactor can increase or decrease its output, its the economics of building a very expensive machine that you then only use some of the time. A massive chunk of the cost of the nuclear plant is actually having the plant and the people working on it, if you spent all that money and paid all these people to work there but only using half its actual capacity you've practically doubled the cost. To my understanding the per-kWh cost of the fuel for nuclear isn't the real expense, but smarter minds in the subject please feel free to correct me.