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> Because their nuclear power produces too much when no one wants the electricity With nuclear power, there's no such thing as 'too much'. It's economically o

> Because their nuclear power produces too much when no one wants the electricity With nuclear power, there's no such thing as 'too much'. It's economically optimal to produce flat out ("baseload") because continued production really is "too cheap to meter", as the saying goes. The cost is pretty much all in the plant itself, which is why a lot of research into next-gen nuclear is about building smaller and cheaper plants. > But whenever a cold spell hits that export flow is reversed Yes? That's how a "baseload" source works. And we should not pretend that intermittent renewable sources aren't going to have the exact same issue, only to a far greater extent (especially as they scale out to "99%" of the system). You can address this by not putting all your eggs in the intermittent basket.

ViewTrick1002 1y ago
So what happens when you stick two French grids next to each other and you can't rely on your neighbors fossil fuel plants to absorb your over production by throttling down? The cost for nuclear skyrockets. Do you dare calculating what running Vogtle at say a 40% capacity leads to? We're talking ~40 cents per kWh for the electricity now. You do know that the nuclear industry has been talking "small" and "scale" since the 1950s? It is what they bounce to when large scale projects balloon in cost and fail to deliver. Here's a history refresher: The Forgotten History of Small Nuclear Reactors Economics killed small nuclear power plants in the past—and probably will keep doing so https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-forgotten-history-of-small-nuclear-reactors https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-forgotten-history-of-small-nuc... How will you solve the "cold spell" with your nuclear grid? Just ignore it and pretend nuclear power only solves "base" while keep drumming on the "renewable intermittency!!!" drum? That does not sound very logical.
- zozbot234 1y ago
  > ...The cost for nuclear skyrockets. The cost for the nuclear plants themselves is exactly the same, it's just no longer offsetting expensive non-renewable sources. Intermittent renewables run into this issue to a far greater extent as they scale out, because their variable cost is higher.
  - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
    Renewables mix very well with storage, especially due to their near zero marginal cost. Why should I fill my storage with horrifically expensive nuclear electricity when renewables deliver? That is the question you need to answer.
    - zozbot234 1y ago
      If you've decided to build a nuclear plant already (and there are plenty of reasons for such a choice - for one thing, it adds diversity to the mix when combined with intermittent renewables) that energy is no longer "horrifically expensive", it's already paid for. If you're worried about "producing too much" (which could happen with either nuclear or renewables), putting it in storage makes sense.
      - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
        Again, you don't seem to comprehend how the grid works. Nuclear power does not add diversity to a heavily renewable grid. Both renewable power and nuclear power competes for the most inflexible portion of the grid. A fight renewables win hands down and nuclear power is forced to throttle down. What happens when nuclear power is forced to throttle down? It becomes more expensive due to being nearly 100% CAPEX. Like I said, Vogtle costs 20 cents/kWh running at full tilt. Somewhere at 40 cents/kWh running half the time. Take a look at South Australia: https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=7d&interval=30m&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=7d&... Do you notice how many instances last week renewables supplied 100% of the grid load? Mind that this is late winter in Australia. What do you do with your nuclear plant all those hours? Shut it down? Bid negative to make renewables shut down? In Australia old traditional base load coal plants are forced to become peakers or be decommissioned. That is the reality today. In South Australia coal plants were phased out in 2016. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-13/australian-coal-plant-in-extraordinary-survival-experiment/104461504 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-13/australian-coal-plant... Which again leads us back to the question: Why should I fill my storage with Vogtle electricity at 20 cents/kWh when I can instead buy renewable electricity at a fraction of the cost?

ViewTrick1002 1y ago

So what happens when you stick two French grids next to each other and you can't rely on your neighbors fossil fuel plants to absorb your over production by throttling down? The cost for nuclear skyrockets. Do you dare calculating what running Vogtle at say a 40% capacity leads to? We're talking ~40 cents per kWh for the electricity now. You do know that the nuclear industry has been talking "small" and "scale" since the 1950s? It is what they bounce to when large scale projects balloon in cost and fail to deliver. Here's a history refresher: The Forgotten History of Small Nuclear Reactors Economics killed small nuclear power plants in the past—and probably will keep doing so https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-forgotten-history-of-small-nuclear-reactors https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-forgotten-history-of-small-nuc... How will you solve the "cold spell" with your nuclear grid? Just ignore it and pretend nuclear power only solves "base" while keep drumming on the "renewable intermittency!!!" drum? That does not sound very logical.

zozbot234 1y ago
> ...The cost for nuclear skyrockets. The cost for the nuclear plants themselves is exactly the same, it's just no longer offsetting expensive non-renewable sources. Intermittent renewables run into this issue to a far greater extent as they scale out, because their variable cost is higher.
- ViewTrick1002 1y ago
  Renewables mix very well with storage, especially due to their near zero marginal cost. Why should I fill my storage with horrifically expensive nuclear electricity when renewables deliver? That is the question you need to answer.
  - zozbot234 1y ago
    If you've decided to build a nuclear plant already (and there are plenty of reasons for such a choice - for one thing, it adds diversity to the mix when combined with intermittent renewables) that energy is no longer "horrifically expensive", it's already paid for. If you're worried about "producing too much" (which could happen with either nuclear or renewables), putting it in storage makes sense.
    - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
      Again, you don't seem to comprehend how the grid works. Nuclear power does not add diversity to a heavily renewable grid. Both renewable power and nuclear power competes for the most inflexible portion of the grid. A fight renewables win hands down and nuclear power is forced to throttle down. What happens when nuclear power is forced to throttle down? It becomes more expensive due to being nearly 100% CAPEX. Like I said, Vogtle costs 20 cents/kWh running at full tilt. Somewhere at 40 cents/kWh running half the time. Take a look at South Australia: https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=7d&interval=30m&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=7d&... Do you notice how many instances last week renewables supplied 100% of the grid load? Mind that this is late winter in Australia. What do you do with your nuclear plant all those hours? Shut it down? Bid negative to make renewables shut down? In Australia old traditional base load coal plants are forced to become peakers or be decommissioned. That is the reality today. In South Australia coal plants were phased out in 2016. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-13/australian-coal-plant-in-extraordinary-survival-experiment/104461504 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-13/australian-coal-plant... Which again leads us back to the question: Why should I fill my storage with Vogtle electricity at 20 cents/kWh when I can instead buy renewable electricity at a fraction of the cost?