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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 powe

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?

zozbot234 1y ago
> Nuclear power does not add diversity to a heavily renewable grid. A heavily renewable grid is in trouble whenever the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. A heavily nuclear grid is in trouble whenever demand happens to exceed the limited amount of baseload it can provide. These events tend to be uncorrelated, so one can expect that adding some nuclear to a heavily renewable grid (and vice versa) will save a lot on costly "grid stabilization" services from peaker plants and/or grid-level storage. A nuclear plant is not, strictly speaking, going to supply energy at literal zero or negative prices the way some renewables do, because it can throttle down when that makes economic sense. But its "baseload" profile seems to provide an attractive bundle of bulk supply plus some amount of stabilization compared to a "99%" intermittent renewable mix. Why shouldn't we try to reduce the high variable costs of storage and peaker plants to whatever extent turns out to be feasible?
- ViewTrick1002 1y ago
  You of course have not heard about storage? The technology that is absolutely exploding globally in recent years. > These events tend to be uncorrelated, Dunkelflautes and cold spells are often correlated. A mild January sun coupled with an arctic high pressure extending south. It does not seem like you did dare to look at the South Australian example. Again: How will you run your nuclear plant in a grid that daily is ran to 100% by renewables? > A nuclear plant is not, strictly speaking, going to supply energy at literal zero or negative prices the way some renewables do, because it can throttle down when that makes economic sense. Now you are making up something because you can't accept that nuclear power does not solve the problem at hand. I already gave you the link: 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... There you have a coal plant shutting down daily with all the thermal stresses and cycles coupled with that because otherwise they would have to bid negative. In Europe we see nuclear plants voluntarily time and time again withdrawing from the grids due to sustained low prices. You try to shift words and meanings to step around the question of who pays. But all you do is force people to spend 20 cents/kWh, excluding transmission costs, on horrifically expensive nuclear power. You reason like an engineer trying to design an imaginary perfect system not seeing the forest for the trees, or caring the slightest about the cost to the end user. That can be a fun thought exercise, but reality will laugh you out of the room.
  - zozbot234 1y ago
    > storage? The technology that is absolutely exploding globally in recent years. How is storage "exploding globally" when the bulk of long-term grid storage is still provided by pumped hydro, a technology that's built out? Short-term high-flow storage can be interesting in combination with any inflexible source (either nuclear or intermittent renewables - for one thing, it can solve the "plant has to shut down and restart every day" point you mention) but is only a small part of the problem. > Dunkelflautes and cold spells are often correlated. A mild January sun coupled with an arctic high pressure extending south. The point is that the correlation may be imperfect enough that nuclear can meaningfully contribute to addressing that problem, whereas extending intermittent renewables to "99%" of the grid cannot. (To be sure, there's also some limited upside from diversifying the geography of renewable sources, but that doesn't extend to anywhere near "99%".) If a shortfall remains, it can be made up by some combination of rarely-operated peaker plants with cheaper CAPEX, plus some demand response/load shedding, especially from industry.

zozbot234 1y ago

> Nuclear power does not add diversity to a heavily renewable grid. A heavily renewable grid is in trouble whenever the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. A heavily nuclear grid is in trouble whenever demand happens to exceed the limited amount of baseload it can provide. These events tend to be uncorrelated, so one can expect that adding some nuclear to a heavily renewable grid (and vice versa) will save a lot on costly "grid stabilization" services from peaker plants and/or grid-level storage. A nuclear plant is not, strictly speaking, going to supply energy at literal zero or negative prices the way some renewables do, because it can throttle down when that makes economic sense. But its "baseload" profile seems to provide an attractive bundle of bulk supply plus some amount of stabilization compared to a "99%" intermittent renewable mix. Why shouldn't we try to reduce the high variable costs of storage and peaker plants to whatever extent turns out to be feasible?

ViewTrick1002 1y ago
You of course have not heard about storage? The technology that is absolutely exploding globally in recent years. > These events tend to be uncorrelated, Dunkelflautes and cold spells are often correlated. A mild January sun coupled with an arctic high pressure extending south. It does not seem like you did dare to look at the South Australian example. Again: How will you run your nuclear plant in a grid that daily is ran to 100% by renewables? > A nuclear plant is not, strictly speaking, going to supply energy at literal zero or negative prices the way some renewables do, because it can throttle down when that makes economic sense. Now you are making up something because you can't accept that nuclear power does not solve the problem at hand. I already gave you the link: 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... There you have a coal plant shutting down daily with all the thermal stresses and cycles coupled with that because otherwise they would have to bid negative. In Europe we see nuclear plants voluntarily time and time again withdrawing from the grids due to sustained low prices. You try to shift words and meanings to step around the question of who pays. But all you do is force people to spend 20 cents/kWh, excluding transmission costs, on horrifically expensive nuclear power. You reason like an engineer trying to design an imaginary perfect system not seeing the forest for the trees, or caring the slightest about the cost to the end user. That can be a fun thought exercise, but reality will laugh you out of the room.
- zozbot234 1y ago
  > storage? The technology that is absolutely exploding globally in recent years. How is storage "exploding globally" when the bulk of long-term grid storage is still provided by pumped hydro, a technology that's built out? Short-term high-flow storage can be interesting in combination with any inflexible source (either nuclear or intermittent renewables - for one thing, it can solve the "plant has to shut down and restart every day" point you mention) but is only a small part of the problem. > Dunkelflautes and cold spells are often correlated. A mild January sun coupled with an arctic high pressure extending south. The point is that the correlation may be imperfect enough that nuclear can meaningfully contribute to addressing that problem, whereas extending intermittent renewables to "99%" of the grid cannot. (To be sure, there's also some limited upside from diversifying the geography of renewable sources, but that doesn't extend to anywhere near "99%".) If a shortfall remains, it can be made up by some combination of rarely-operated peaker plants with cheaper CAPEX, plus some demand response/load shedding, especially from industry.