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> Renewables make the net-demand curve (demand - renewable generation) very lumpy which generally favors dispatchable (peaker plants, batteries, etc.) generatio

by gpm 1y ago

> Renewables make the net-demand curve (demand - renewable generation) very lumpy which generally favors dispatchable (peaker plants, batteries, etc.) generation over baseload. Even without renewables in the equation, the demand side of the curve is already extremely lumpy. If you're only affordable when you're operating near 100% of the time (i.e. "baseload") you simply can't make up the majority of power generation. Batteries are poised to change this - but at that point you've got to be cheaper than the intermittent power sources.

phire 1y ago
If the goal is 100% carbon-free energy, then we simply can't let economics get in the way. Otherwise we will always be stuck building some natural gas peaker plants. And one option is to mass produce nuclear power plants, get prices down even further via economics of scale and then run them uneconomically. Uneconomically doesn't mean "at a loss", just that you aren't making as much profit as you could optimally. With enough economics of scale, we can probably still run these nuclear plants at a profit, maybe even cheaper than natural gas peakers. But it doesn't matter, the goal is saving the planet, not profit. It's not the only option, you can also build massive amounts of wind/solar/tidal and pair them with massive amounts of battery storage. The third option is to build way more hydro power plants. Hydro tends to get overlooked as a form of green energy, because while it might be 100% renewable, you do have to "modify" a local ecosystem to construct a new dam. But hydro has the massive advantage that it can work as both baseload and demand load, so they can pair nicely with wind/solar/tidal. I'm not even talking about pumped hydro (though, that's a fourth option to consider). Regular hydro can work as energy storage by simply turning the turbines off at letting the lakes fill up whenever there is sufficient power from your other sources.
- gpm 1y ago
  Yeah, I'm just arguing that "baseload" should be understood to be a bad thing in my comment above. If you want to argue that nuclear is affordable as non-baseload power, because the (non-economic) cost to the environment of the alternatives is otherwise too high.... well I'd disagree because of how far solar/wind/batteries have come in the last couple of years, but prior to that you would have had a point. And you still would as far as continuing to operate existing plants goes of course.
  - phire 1y ago
    Nuclear power has a massive handicap that most R&D was abandoned back in the 80s because it was uneconomic. And another handicap that the R&D it did get was never that focused on economics, commercial nuclear power were always a side effect of the true goal (Small reactors for nuclear submarines and Breeder reactors for nuclear weapons). And to get the promised low costs, you really need to commit and take advantage of massive economics of scale. I'm not arguing that when taking environmental damage into account, that nuclear is cheaper than current solar/wind/battery technology for any single power project. They have the advantage of massive R&D over the last 30 years. What I am arguing is that focusing on solar/wind/battery might not be the best route to 100% carbon free power in the long term. Maybe it is? But we really shouldn't be jumping to that assumption. And we shouldn't be disregarding Nuclear because of any argument that can be summed up in a hacker news comment.
- pas 1y ago
  ... voters (or however we want to handwave preference aggregation) are very passive about carbon-free energy (and global warming and sustainability and economics and ...) they either pick some pet peeves (coral reefs, rainforests, global South inequality, desertification) and usually start buying things (EVs, PV panels, heat pumps) but when it comes to policy they usually revert to Greenpeace/degrowth/NIMBY cult members
Saline9515 1y ago
This is not how nuclear works. Nuclear sets a low price that corresponds to its cost, then lets more expensive marginal energy sources set the final price. Nuclear can by the way be modulated +20%\-20%, which makes it quite flexible in real condition. See https://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/power-generation-energy-source https://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/power-generation-energ... as a proof - nuclear generation in France can go from 25GW to 45GW during a day. New small modular reactors promise great improvements, as they can be pre-built in factories, require limited maintenance, lower risk, and as a result much lower cost per MW. https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactors.aspx https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactor...
- dalyons 1y ago
  The massive capital costs of the plant have to be paid back in the sale price of energy, that’s what makes it expensive. France’s state built plants don’t have that accounting
  - Saline9515 1y ago
    But the market price asked by nuclear plant doesn't account for capital costs as the real price will always be higher. What is important is the clearing price not the asking price.
- mikepavone 1y ago
  > This is not how nuclear works. Nuclear sets a low price that corresponds to its cost, then lets more expensive marginal energy sources set the final price. This may be an accurate description for fully-depreciated nuclear plants, but it doesn't reflect the economics of new-build nuclear at all. You have to consider both operating and capital costs. Nuclear plants are cheap to operate once built, but those operations have to pay off the capital costs. If the load factor is low, then each unit of generated power has to bear a higher portion of the capital costs. If your capital costs are very high, then you either need a very high load factor or very high spot prices to bear those costs. > Nuclear can by the way be modulated +20%\-20% Net demand on CAISO can go from about 2 MW to 30 MW in the summer. 20 MW of that ramp occurs over just 3 hours. I'm sure you can build nuclear plants that ramp that fast, but you need a lot more than the range you're mentioning here. Regardless, I'm not making an argument about the physics of nuclear power plants, just the economics. Expensive plants generally need high load factors to pay off the capital costs. > nuclear generation in France can go from 25GW to 45GW during a day. Most of France's nuclear plants are old and thus fully depreciated. The only one built recently (Flamanville Unit 3), is a good example of the bad cost trend in nuclear. While this was a bit cheaper than Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in the US on a dollars per nameplate capacity basis, at 19 billion euro it's still very expensive (and also way over budget). France also has high rates of curtailment, which is not necessarily a huge problem for them since so much of their generation is already carbon-free, but it does suggest they're already hitting the limits of their ability to ramp production up and down. Whether this is an engineering problem or something to do with the structure of their electricity market is a bit unclear to me > New small modular reactors promise great improvements, as they can be pre-built in factories, require limited maintenance, lower risk, and as a result much lower cost per MW. This has been the promise for years, but so far the low costs have yet to materialize and they are estimated to have a higher LCOE than traditional plants. Currently only 2 are actually operational, a demonstration plant in China and a floating power plant using adapted ice-breaker reactors in Russia. There are a few more in the pipeline, but they are all at least a couple years out from actually producing power.

by gpm 1y ago

phire 1y ago

If the goal is 100% carbon-free energy, then we simply can't let economics get in the way. Otherwise we will always be stuck building some natural gas peaker plants. And one option is to mass produce nuclear power plants, get prices down even further via economics of scale and then run them uneconomically. Uneconomically doesn't mean "at a loss", just that you aren't making as much profit as you could optimally. With enough economics of scale, we can probably still run these nuclear plants at a profit, maybe even cheaper than natural gas peakers. But it doesn't matter, the goal is saving the planet, not profit. It's not the only option, you can also build massive amounts of wind/solar/tidal and pair them with massive amounts of battery storage. The third option is to build way more hydro power plants. Hydro tends to get overlooked as a form of green energy, because while it might be 100% renewable, you do have to "modify" a local ecosystem to construct a new dam. But hydro has the massive advantage that it can work as both baseload and demand load, so they can pair nicely with wind/solar/tidal. I'm not even talking about pumped hydro (though, that's a fourth option to consider). Regular hydro can work as energy storage by simply turning the turbines off at letting the lakes fill up whenever there is sufficient power from your other sources.

gpm 1y ago
Yeah, I'm just arguing that "baseload" should be understood to be a bad thing in my comment above. If you want to argue that nuclear is affordable as non-baseload power, because the (non-economic) cost to the environment of the alternatives is otherwise too high.... well I'd disagree because of how far solar/wind/batteries have come in the last couple of years, but prior to that you would have had a point. And you still would as far as continuing to operate existing plants goes of course.
- phire 1y ago
  Nuclear power has a massive handicap that most R&D was abandoned back in the 80s because it was uneconomic. And another handicap that the R&D it did get was never that focused on economics, commercial nuclear power were always a side effect of the true goal (Small reactors for nuclear submarines and Breeder reactors for nuclear weapons). And to get the promised low costs, you really need to commit and take advantage of massive economics of scale. I'm not arguing that when taking environmental damage into account, that nuclear is cheaper than current solar/wind/battery technology for any single power project. They have the advantage of massive R&D over the last 30 years. What I am arguing is that focusing on solar/wind/battery might not be the best route to 100% carbon free power in the long term. Maybe it is? But we really shouldn't be jumping to that assumption. And we shouldn't be disregarding Nuclear because of any argument that can be summed up in a hacker news comment.
pas 1y ago
... voters (or however we want to handwave preference aggregation) are very passive about carbon-free energy (and global warming and sustainability and economics and ...) they either pick some pet peeves (coral reefs, rainforests, global South inequality, desertification) and usually start buying things (EVs, PV panels, heat pumps) but when it comes to policy they usually revert to Greenpeace/degrowth/NIMBY cult members

Saline9515 1y ago

This is not how nuclear works. Nuclear sets a low price that corresponds to its cost, then lets more expensive marginal energy sources set the final price. Nuclear can by the way be modulated +20%\-20%, which makes it quite flexible in real condition. See https://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/power-generation-energy-source https://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/power-generation-energ... as a proof - nuclear generation in France can go from 25GW to 45GW during a day. New small modular reactors promise great improvements, as they can be pre-built in factories, require limited maintenance, lower risk, and as a result much lower cost per MW. https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactors.aspx https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactor...

dalyons 1y ago
The massive capital costs of the plant have to be paid back in the sale price of energy, that’s what makes it expensive. France’s state built plants don’t have that accounting
- Saline9515 1y ago
  But the market price asked by nuclear plant doesn't account for capital costs as the real price will always be higher. What is important is the clearing price not the asking price.
mikepavone 1y ago
> This is not how nuclear works. Nuclear sets a low price that corresponds to its cost, then lets more expensive marginal energy sources set the final price. This may be an accurate description for fully-depreciated nuclear plants, but it doesn't reflect the economics of new-build nuclear at all. You have to consider both operating and capital costs. Nuclear plants are cheap to operate once built, but those operations have to pay off the capital costs. If the load factor is low, then each unit of generated power has to bear a higher portion of the capital costs. If your capital costs are very high, then you either need a very high load factor or very high spot prices to bear those costs. > Nuclear can by the way be modulated +20%\-20% Net demand on CAISO can go from about 2 MW to 30 MW in the summer. 20 MW of that ramp occurs over just 3 hours. I'm sure you can build nuclear plants that ramp that fast, but you need a lot more than the range you're mentioning here. Regardless, I'm not making an argument about the physics of nuclear power plants, just the economics. Expensive plants generally need high load factors to pay off the capital costs. > nuclear generation in France can go from 25GW to 45GW during a day. Most of France's nuclear plants are old and thus fully depreciated. The only one built recently (Flamanville Unit 3), is a good example of the bad cost trend in nuclear. While this was a bit cheaper than Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in the US on a dollars per nameplate capacity basis, at 19 billion euro it's still very expensive (and also way over budget). France also has high rates of curtailment, which is not necessarily a huge problem for them since so much of their generation is already carbon-free, but it does suggest they're already hitting the limits of their ability to ramp production up and down. Whether this is an engineering problem or something to do with the structure of their electricity market is a bit unclear to me > New small modular reactors promise great improvements, as they can be pre-built in factories, require limited maintenance, lower risk, and as a result much lower cost per MW. This has been the promise for years, but so far the low costs have yet to materialize and they are estimated to have a higher LCOE than traditional plants. Currently only 2 are actually operational, a demonstration plant in China and a floating power plant using adapted ice-breaker reactors in Russia. There are a few more in the pipeline, but they are all at least a couple years out from actually producing power.