4 ms·

All nice and beautiful, but I don't understand how will this work in the winter in the temperate areas. You maintain parallel natural gas installations and ramp

All nice and beautiful, but I don't understand how will this work in the winter in the temperate areas. You maintain parallel natural gas installations and ramp them up in the winter? Does this doubles the cost?

Carlseymanh 10mo ago
One of the few problem of nuclear is summer time water use. Combining solar with nuclear would be the best option in my opinion.
- datadrivenangel 10mo ago
  Nuclear plants, like most large thermal plants, are almost always located near large bodies of water and return that water downstream so it doesn't really matter?
  - moooo99 10mo ago
    It does when you care about the environmental impact of your cooling (and also consider the fact that droughts are an increasingly severe problem).
  - pbmonster 10mo ago
    It matters when the level of that body of water drops by a lot in summer and the water temperature rises at the same time. Add environmental laws (cooking the fish is discouraged), and your nuke plant needs to go into safety shutdown pretty reliably every summer.
  - lukan 10mo ago
    It matters if people don't want to see the rivers full of dead fish, so last year there were already shutdowns because of heatwaves. https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/02/france-and-switzerland-shut-down-nuclear-power-plants-amid-scorching-heatwave https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/02/france-and-switzerland-s...
- Zigurd 10mo ago
  Historically the biggest impediment to nuclear power has been incompetent construction management and project management. Incompetent is a strong word for it but nuclear power plants are the largest capital equipment purchases on the planet. Even modern so-called modular designs can't save poor project management, and learn as you go engineering. That so mundane and should be easy to fix, right? That's why I bring up scale. Nobody has experience running projects that big. Some things are just too big to manage.
jansan 10mo ago
This probably depends a lot on how close you are to the equator. Here in Germany output of solar in winter is negligible, and if there is no wind, which can happen for several consecutive weeks, we need a backup. No utilities company will build a fossil power plant that will be used only a few weeks per year, so our government will have to step in to make sure this happens. On top of this you have very high costs for an increasingly complex grid, which needs to be built and then maintained. Prices will never again be as low as in the fossil/nuclear era.
- morsch 10mo ago
  Here are some numbers: January 2025, the output of solar was ~1500 GWh, it peaked in June at 10500 GWh. So the lowest output was about 15% of the maximum, this year. https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=month&month=01 https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&... https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=month&month=06 https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&... Looking at wind, the ratio between min and max per week is about 1:5 (~1200 vs ~6000 GWh). Just as there is always some solar power generation, there is never no wind, though looking at those charts there were 4 weeks in the late summer of 2023 when production was low consecutively, between 700 and 1000 GWh.
  - gpm 10mo ago
    > it peaked in June at 10500 GWh And 8280 GWh the previous June for those wondering roughly how much of this was due to more solar panels being deployed.
    - toomuchtodo 10mo ago
      For reference, Germany has ~101GW of solar capacity installed as of this comment (and is deploying ~2GW/month). 59% of Germany's electricity in 2024 came from renewable sources, up from 56% in 2023. I am curious to see how 2025 turns out, and therefore predict 2026 from planned renewables and battery storage projects.
  - 10mo ago
ViewTrick1002 10mo ago
Wind power. Mix with emergency reserves running on open cycle gas turbines, if deemed necessary, preferably running on with carbon neutral fuel. Optimize for lowest possible CAPEX. That is contingent on that we’re not wasting money and opportunity cost that could have larger impact decarbonizing agriculture, construction, aviation, maritime shipping etc.
- tootie 10mo ago
  The next hot thing (pun intended) is geothermal. The tech to drill deep enough opens up the possibility of extracting geothermal energy in most of the world. The tech exists and is deployed. Scaling is not yet proven but is very plausible. Geothermal runs 24/7 and can be clean base load power.
  - rgmerk 10mo ago
    It’s not just drilling deep enough, it’s whether they can keep the wells open and flowing long enough to make the whole thing economic. Some deep geothermal projects have failed because the wells wouldn’t stay open. Maybe this generation of companies have solved this problem; let’s wait and see.
epistasis 10mo ago
Not having to burn gas is cheaper than burning gas. There will be a decade or two of transition with rarely used gas turbines getting their yearly packet in a short amount of time. Eventually other tech will take over, or the gas infrastructure will pare down and be cost optimized for its new role or rare usage. Europe, and Germany and the UK in particular, are really poorly suited to take advantage of this new cheap technology. If these countries don't figure out alternatives, the countries with better and cheaper energy resources will take over energy intensive industries. This is not a problem for solar and storage to solve, it's a problem that countries with poor resources need to solve if they want to compete in global industry.
rgmerk 10mo ago
From a global perspective, people living in temperate areas are actually the exception, not the rule (if a disproportionately economically successful exception). The likely implication of this is that, long term, unless wind power starts going back down the cost curve, or you're fortunate enough to have lots of hydro power, Northern Europe, Canada, northern China and so on are going to have much more expensive energy than more equatorial places.
tim333 10mo ago
Possible things are to over provision solar, and set it up further south with a high voltage dc cable. We almost had a Morocco - UK power setup but the current government said no to it.

Carlseymanh 10mo ago

One of the few problem of nuclear is summer time water use. Combining solar with nuclear would be the best option in my opinion.

datadrivenangel 10mo ago
Nuclear plants, like most large thermal plants, are almost always located near large bodies of water and return that water downstream so it doesn't really matter?
- moooo99 10mo ago
  It does when you care about the environmental impact of your cooling (and also consider the fact that droughts are an increasingly severe problem).
- pbmonster 10mo ago
  It matters when the level of that body of water drops by a lot in summer and the water temperature rises at the same time. Add environmental laws (cooking the fish is discouraged), and your nuke plant needs to go into safety shutdown pretty reliably every summer.
- lukan 10mo ago
  It matters if people don't want to see the rivers full of dead fish, so last year there were already shutdowns because of heatwaves. https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/02/france-and-switzerland-shut-down-nuclear-power-plants-amid-scorching-heatwave https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/02/france-and-switzerland-s...
Zigurd 10mo ago
Historically the biggest impediment to nuclear power has been incompetent construction management and project management. Incompetent is a strong word for it but nuclear power plants are the largest capital equipment purchases on the planet. Even modern so-called modular designs can't save poor project management, and learn as you go engineering. That so mundane and should be easy to fix, right? That's why I bring up scale. Nobody has experience running projects that big. Some things are just too big to manage.

jansan 10mo ago

This probably depends a lot on how close you are to the equator. Here in Germany output of solar in winter is negligible, and if there is no wind, which can happen for several consecutive weeks, we need a backup. No utilities company will build a fossil power plant that will be used only a few weeks per year, so our government will have to step in to make sure this happens. On top of this you have very high costs for an increasingly complex grid, which needs to be built and then maintained. Prices will never again be as low as in the fossil/nuclear era.

morsch 10mo ago
Here are some numbers: January 2025, the output of solar was ~1500 GWh, it peaked in June at 10500 GWh. So the lowest output was about 15% of the maximum, this year. https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=month&month=01 https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&... https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=month&month=06 https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&... Looking at wind, the ratio between min and max per week is about 1:5 (~1200 vs ~6000 GWh). Just as there is always some solar power generation, there is never no wind, though looking at those charts there were 4 weeks in the late summer of 2023 when production was low consecutively, between 700 and 1000 GWh.
- gpm 10mo ago
  > it peaked in June at 10500 GWh And 8280 GWh the previous June for those wondering roughly how much of this was due to more solar panels being deployed.
  - toomuchtodo 10mo ago
    For reference, Germany has ~101GW of solar capacity installed as of this comment (and is deploying ~2GW/month). 59% of Germany's electricity in 2024 came from renewable sources, up from 56% in 2023. I am curious to see how 2025 turns out, and therefore predict 2026 from planned renewables and battery storage projects.
- 10mo ago

ViewTrick1002 10mo ago

Wind power. Mix with emergency reserves running on open cycle gas turbines, if deemed necessary, preferably running on with carbon neutral fuel. Optimize for lowest possible CAPEX. That is contingent on that we’re not wasting money and opportunity cost that could have larger impact decarbonizing agriculture, construction, aviation, maritime shipping etc.

tootie 10mo ago
The next hot thing (pun intended) is geothermal. The tech to drill deep enough opens up the possibility of extracting geothermal energy in most of the world. The tech exists and is deployed. Scaling is not yet proven but is very plausible. Geothermal runs 24/7 and can be clean base load power.
- rgmerk 10mo ago
  It’s not just drilling deep enough, it’s whether they can keep the wells open and flowing long enough to make the whole thing economic. Some deep geothermal projects have failed because the wells wouldn’t stay open. Maybe this generation of companies have solved this problem; let’s wait and see.

epistasis 10mo ago

Not having to burn gas is cheaper than burning gas. There will be a decade or two of transition with rarely used gas turbines getting their yearly packet in a short amount of time. Eventually other tech will take over, or the gas infrastructure will pare down and be cost optimized for its new role or rare usage. Europe, and Germany and the UK in particular, are really poorly suited to take advantage of this new cheap technology. If these countries don't figure out alternatives, the countries with better and cheaper energy resources will take over energy intensive industries. This is not a problem for solar and storage to solve, it's a problem that countries with poor resources need to solve if they want to compete in global industry.

rgmerk 10mo ago

From a global perspective, people living in temperate areas are actually the exception, not the rule (if a disproportionately economically successful exception). The likely implication of this is that, long term, unless wind power starts going back down the cost curve, or you're fortunate enough to have lots of hydro power, Northern Europe, Canada, northern China and so on are going to have much more expensive energy than more equatorial places.

tim333 10mo ago

Possible things are to over provision solar, and set it up further south with a high voltage dc cable. We almost had a Morocco - UK power setup but the current government said no to it.