4 ms·

The storage problem is home-made, because our problem is intermittent renewables that can't produce on-demand. With consistent producers like nuclear there is

The storage problem is home-made, because our problem is intermittent renewables that can't produce on-demand. With consistent producers like nuclear there is no storage problem. And of course the Natrium plant has the buffer so it can ramp grid output up and down while maintaining the reactor at consistent power levels.

ViewTrick1002 8mo ago
> With consistent producers like nuclear there is no storage problem. This tells me you’ve never looked at a demand curve. In for example California the demand swings from 18 GW to 50 GW over the day and seasons. The problem has always been economical. And this solution is looking like a bandaid to get taxpayer handouts. Why store expensive nuclear electricity rather than extremely cheap renewable electricity?
- stinkbeetle 8mo ago
  > This tells me you’ve never looked at a demand curve. In for example California the demand swings from 18 GW to 50 GW over the day Have you been looking at "net demand" curves? Total demand variation is not too large over the day. The wind/solar production enormously increases the magnitude of remaining demand difference over the day. https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook > and seasons. Nobody is talking about batteries to deal with demand swings between seasons though. Capacity has to accommodate whether it's nuclear or fossil or battery or renewable. The issue is day to day variation. And it does not matter how much wind/solar capacity you have, you can't supply demand without storage. That is untrue of other generation types. Other generation might use batteries to take the edge of peaks, but that would only be done if it made total cost cheaper. That's not the case for renewables. If there were no other generation then they would have to use storage, so it's always going to make them more expensive.
  - ViewTrick1002 8mo ago
    The net demand curve varies 30 GW over the period you posted? It goes 7 GW negative. The problem with nuclear power is that about all costs are fixed. It costs 18-24 cents/kWh when running at 100% for 40 years excluding backup, transmission, final waste disposal and taxes. Now remove any earning potential from large portions of the day coming from renewables and storage and the economics simply does not pan a out.
    - Moldoteck 8mo ago
      Are you sure with the numbers? Maybe for failed projects like Vogtle it may be true but otherwise, the cost is about 4.7ct/kwh everything included looking at swiss open data. And Goesgen didn't run at 100% CF all these years.
      - ViewTrick1002 8mo ago
        Same costs for HPC, FV3, Polish AP1000s and EPR2s as well. I don't see the relevance comparing with a plant that start construction over half a century ago?
        Moldoteck 8mo ago
        Do you want to compare maybe with barakah which was not a foak and didn't have the supply chain issues like with epr/ap1000?
        ViewTrick1002 8mo ago
        You mean middle eastern labor and design that doesn’t fly with western regulations? Sounds applicable! Let’s first acknowledge that KHNP pulled out of all western projects except the Czech one after their settlement with Westinghouse. They don’t exist as an option. Then let’s look at the Czech subsidies. They aren’t materially different compared to any other modern western nuclear construction. They’ve shaved a few billion from the headline number but the project is still pure cost plus putting all construction and financial risk on the governments tab.
- mpweiher 8mo ago
  Where did I claim that all demand was flat? That's right: nowhere! Which is why some solar can be a good addition. But there is a lot that is flat. And for that you need solid, steady generation capacity.
  - ViewTrick1002 8mo ago
    Do you think that demand is willing to pay 18-24 cents per kWh excluding backup, insurance, transmission, final waste disposal etc.? I can tell you they won’t. Which is why there’s currently 0 commercial nuclear reactors under construction in the US. You also have to look at it from incentives. Why should a person or company with solar and storage buy horrifyingly expensive nuclear power from the grid when their own installation delivers? Well, they don’t. Why should their neighbors prefer horrifyingly expensive grid based nuclear electricity to their neighbors excess renewables? Well, they don’t. Do you know what they do instead? These steady consumers. They buy financial instruments like futures and PPAs to ensure steady price and supply. The problem for new built nuclear power is that these financial instruments costs a fraction of the price new built nuclear power requires. New built nuclear power is the fax of the internet age. It is time to let go.
    - mpweiher 7mo ago
      Good grief. The exact opposite of what you write is true. Please inform yourself. They are currently buying up all the nuclear they can get their hands on, reactivating shut down plants, investing both in startups and in existing players to build as much nuclear as they can: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2026/02/19/why-microsoft-and-amazon-are-turning-to-nuclear-power-for-ai/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2026/02/19/why-microsof... https://neutronbytes.com/2025/11/20/terrapower-natrium-reactor-on-the-grid-by-2031/ https://neutronbytes.com/2025/11/20/terrapower-natrium-react... https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/google-to-fund-elementl-to-prepare-three-nuclear-power-sites https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/google-to-fund-e... https://www.ans.org/news/2025-12-10/article-7608/vc-summer-update-mou-signed-with-brookfield/ https://www.ans.org/news/2025-12-10/article-7608/vc-summer-u... https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/palisades-receives-fuel-ahead-of-restart https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/palisades-receiv... https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/westinghouse-and-fortum-to-deploy-advanced-ap1000-reactor-in-nordics/ar-AA1HlVv7 https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/westinghouse-and-f... https://highlandscurrent.org/2026/03/07/lawler-announces-plan-to-rebuild-indian-point/ https://highlandscurrent.org/2026/03/07/lawler-announces-pla...
croes 8mo ago
Nuclear power plants and the electric networks have a big problem when power consumption has sudden big changes, like this https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/a-new-threat-to-power-grids-data-centers-unplugging-at-once-741f1bda https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/a-new-threat-to-powe... Storage would mean just to reroute the energy to storage, otherwise you need to lower the power plant‘s output what doesn’t happen fast in nuclear power plants

ViewTrick1002 8mo ago

> With consistent producers like nuclear there is no storage problem. This tells me you’ve never looked at a demand curve. In for example California the demand swings from 18 GW to 50 GW over the day and seasons. The problem has always been economical. And this solution is looking like a bandaid to get taxpayer handouts. Why store expensive nuclear electricity rather than extremely cheap renewable electricity?

stinkbeetle 8mo ago
> This tells me you’ve never looked at a demand curve. In for example California the demand swings from 18 GW to 50 GW over the day Have you been looking at "net demand" curves? Total demand variation is not too large over the day. The wind/solar production enormously increases the magnitude of remaining demand difference over the day. https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook > and seasons. Nobody is talking about batteries to deal with demand swings between seasons though. Capacity has to accommodate whether it's nuclear or fossil or battery or renewable. The issue is day to day variation. And it does not matter how much wind/solar capacity you have, you can't supply demand without storage. That is untrue of other generation types. Other generation might use batteries to take the edge of peaks, but that would only be done if it made total cost cheaper. That's not the case for renewables. If there were no other generation then they would have to use storage, so it's always going to make them more expensive.
- ViewTrick1002 8mo ago
  The net demand curve varies 30 GW over the period you posted? It goes 7 GW negative. The problem with nuclear power is that about all costs are fixed. It costs 18-24 cents/kWh when running at 100% for 40 years excluding backup, transmission, final waste disposal and taxes. Now remove any earning potential from large portions of the day coming from renewables and storage and the economics simply does not pan a out.
  - Moldoteck 8mo ago
    Are you sure with the numbers? Maybe for failed projects like Vogtle it may be true but otherwise, the cost is about 4.7ct/kwh everything included looking at swiss open data. And Goesgen didn't run at 100% CF all these years.
    - ViewTrick1002 8mo ago
      Same costs for HPC, FV3, Polish AP1000s and EPR2s as well. I don't see the relevance comparing with a plant that start construction over half a century ago?
      - Moldoteck 8mo ago
        Do you want to compare maybe with barakah which was not a foak and didn't have the supply chain issues like with epr/ap1000?
        ViewTrick1002 8mo ago
        You mean middle eastern labor and design that doesn’t fly with western regulations? Sounds applicable! Let’s first acknowledge that KHNP pulled out of all western projects except the Czech one after their settlement with Westinghouse. They don’t exist as an option. Then let’s look at the Czech subsidies. They aren’t materially different compared to any other modern western nuclear construction. They’ve shaved a few billion from the headline number but the project is still pure cost plus putting all construction and financial risk on the governments tab.
mpweiher 8mo ago
Where did I claim that all demand was flat? That's right: nowhere! Which is why some solar can be a good addition. But there is a lot that is flat. And for that you need solid, steady generation capacity.
- ViewTrick1002 8mo ago
  Do you think that demand is willing to pay 18-24 cents per kWh excluding backup, insurance, transmission, final waste disposal etc.? I can tell you they won’t. Which is why there’s currently 0 commercial nuclear reactors under construction in the US. You also have to look at it from incentives. Why should a person or company with solar and storage buy horrifyingly expensive nuclear power from the grid when their own installation delivers? Well, they don’t. Why should their neighbors prefer horrifyingly expensive grid based nuclear electricity to their neighbors excess renewables? Well, they don’t. Do you know what they do instead? These steady consumers. They buy financial instruments like futures and PPAs to ensure steady price and supply. The problem for new built nuclear power is that these financial instruments costs a fraction of the price new built nuclear power requires. New built nuclear power is the fax of the internet age. It is time to let go.
  - mpweiher 7mo ago
    Good grief. The exact opposite of what you write is true. Please inform yourself. They are currently buying up all the nuclear they can get their hands on, reactivating shut down plants, investing both in startups and in existing players to build as much nuclear as they can: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2026/02/19/why-microsoft-and-amazon-are-turning-to-nuclear-power-for-ai/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2026/02/19/why-microsof... https://neutronbytes.com/2025/11/20/terrapower-natrium-reactor-on-the-grid-by-2031/ https://neutronbytes.com/2025/11/20/terrapower-natrium-react... https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/google-to-fund-elementl-to-prepare-three-nuclear-power-sites https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/google-to-fund-e... https://www.ans.org/news/2025-12-10/article-7608/vc-summer-update-mou-signed-with-brookfield/ https://www.ans.org/news/2025-12-10/article-7608/vc-summer-u... https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/palisades-receives-fuel-ahead-of-restart https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/palisades-receiv... https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/westinghouse-and-fortum-to-deploy-advanced-ap1000-reactor-in-nordics/ar-AA1HlVv7 https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/westinghouse-and-f... https://highlandscurrent.org/2026/03/07/lawler-announces-plan-to-rebuild-indian-point/ https://highlandscurrent.org/2026/03/07/lawler-announces-pla...

croes 8mo ago

Nuclear power plants and the electric networks have a big problem when power consumption has sudden big changes, like this https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/a-new-threat-to-power-grids-data-centers-unplugging-at-once-741f1bda https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/a-new-threat-to-powe... Storage would mean just to reroute the energy to storage, otherwise you need to lower the power plant‘s output what doesn’t happen fast in nuclear power plants