When and where?
Nuclear is very very expensive.
Nuclear doesn’t work well as baseload since while you can turn it off rather quickly you can’t turn it back on fast when it’s needed again
Baseload means the consistent day to day requirements a grid always has while up, aka people running their lights, tvs and appliances at regular times throughout the day.
Flex loads are unusual peaks on the grid such as unexpectedly hot days where people run air conditioners or electric heat in the winter time. These are the points where things like wind power is invaluable to the grid.
The idea that Nuclear can’t flex though is absurd, it’s not as fast as wind, but raising or lowering control rods takes seconds to minutes depending on reactor type, not hours like people seem to think. It just makes more sense to run them at schedule outputs because you need to shut them down entirely to refuel them. But if a nuclear plant was built up enough to handle capacity of a given region, it could realistically move between 50% load and 80% load and back in under ten minutes.
Ecologically, Nuclear is by the far safest route, having the among lowest carbon outputs of all power production AND using less land per kw produced. The only thing that even gets close is rooftop solar, and even if you covered every external surface of every building in a city with solar you’d still not meet base loads.
The price point of nuclear is a two part problem, both of which stem from propaganda leveraged against nuclear. We don’t have economies of scale because NIMBY and fear mongering how “dangerous” nuclear is (despite being the safest form of power in human history) preventing new constructions, combined with the second front of overzealous and unrealistic safety standards forced upon the nuclear industry that make it difficult for them to be profitable, it’s like requiring people to wear full body kevlar pads while driving or biking. Keeps them safe, maybe, but is that level of protection required? Not even remotely. No other form of power production could survive if strangled the same way nuclear has been for the last 80 years, which speaks volumes to how effective it is where even being kneecapped and held back at every turn it still persists to this day. Because it’s that damn effective and energy dense.
Edit: It goes without saying the best possible future we can have is wind and nuclear powered with solar being added where it can be done efficiently, such as rooftop or land which has no other use including ecological reclamation. Wind is better in rural setting such as agriculture, where nuclear is better for denser populations like cities and industrial centers. Solar is best used as rooftop or addition to existing structures where it can generate power without inhibiting other functions. (You can’t put solar on a green house, for example.)
At noon in summer, renewables can produce >100% of energy consumption. The nuclear reactors would need to be shut off and turned back on a couple hours later, for the months from June to September.
But nuclear cannot reactivate quick enough as solar production is winding down in the evening, nor can it shut down quick enough in the morning.
It’s much, much cheaper to massively increase battery storage in order to store excess energy produced by renewables.
In winter as of right now, there is not enough energy from renewables but this is hopefully subject to change over the next decade or so. If energy costs are high enough at night, companies will start building private battery storage to fill them during winter days. That way a large part of energy consumption can adapt to production.
In case of energy droughts, gas power plants can be kept because they can turn on and shut down within minutes, making them the best at providing a varying base load.
That works against renewable resources, which should provide 100% or more during normal days. Which would mean you have to take off wind turbines from the net to keep nuclear going, that makes investing in wind less attractive.
Then you reduce the output of the nuclear plants. I’m not sure where you are getting that it takes them forever to start up nuclear power. You just raise and lower control rods to increase or decrease the heat they are releasing, which lowers the steam produced, which starts/stops some turbines. It’s not like the fastest system out there, but afaik it’s easily doable in the span of an hour or two.
Investing in wind doesn’t need to be attractive, it needs to be part of a government-owned national energy infrastructure plan that gets it where it needs to be and where it’ll serve the needs of the people the best
When and where? Nuclear is very very expensive. Nuclear doesn’t work well as baseload since while you can turn it off rather quickly you can’t turn it back on fast when it’s needed again
Baseload means the consistent day to day requirements a grid always has while up, aka people running their lights, tvs and appliances at regular times throughout the day.
Flex loads are unusual peaks on the grid such as unexpectedly hot days where people run air conditioners or electric heat in the winter time. These are the points where things like wind power is invaluable to the grid.
The idea that Nuclear can’t flex though is absurd, it’s not as fast as wind, but raising or lowering control rods takes seconds to minutes depending on reactor type, not hours like people seem to think. It just makes more sense to run them at schedule outputs because you need to shut them down entirely to refuel them. But if a nuclear plant was built up enough to handle capacity of a given region, it could realistically move between 50% load and 80% load and back in under ten minutes.
Ecologically, Nuclear is by the far safest route, having the among lowest carbon outputs of all power production AND using less land per kw produced. The only thing that even gets close is rooftop solar, and even if you covered every external surface of every building in a city with solar you’d still not meet base loads.
The price point of nuclear is a two part problem, both of which stem from propaganda leveraged against nuclear. We don’t have economies of scale because NIMBY and fear mongering how “dangerous” nuclear is (despite being the safest form of power in human history) preventing new constructions, combined with the second front of overzealous and unrealistic safety standards forced upon the nuclear industry that make it difficult for them to be profitable, it’s like requiring people to wear full body kevlar pads while driving or biking. Keeps them safe, maybe, but is that level of protection required? Not even remotely. No other form of power production could survive if strangled the same way nuclear has been for the last 80 years, which speaks volumes to how effective it is where even being kneecapped and held back at every turn it still persists to this day. Because it’s that damn effective and energy dense.
Edit: It goes without saying the best possible future we can have is wind and nuclear powered with solar being added where it can be done efficiently, such as rooftop or land which has no other use including ecological reclamation. Wind is better in rural setting such as agriculture, where nuclear is better for denser populations like cities and industrial centers. Solar is best used as rooftop or addition to existing structures where it can generate power without inhibiting other functions. (You can’t put solar on a green house, for example.)
It’s not the safest, solar is. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
Talk about a cherry picked survey. They only include EU deaths but still opted to add Chernobyl and Fukashima deaths to make solar look better.
Isn’t that the point of baseload? To cover the non-highs, but provide the stable base?
There is no stable base for renewables.
At noon in summer, renewables can produce >100% of energy consumption. The nuclear reactors would need to be shut off and turned back on a couple hours later, for the months from June to September.
But nuclear cannot reactivate quick enough as solar production is winding down in the evening, nor can it shut down quick enough in the morning.
It’s much, much cheaper to massively increase battery storage in order to store excess energy produced by renewables.
In winter as of right now, there is not enough energy from renewables but this is hopefully subject to change over the next decade or so. If energy costs are high enough at night, companies will start building private battery storage to fill them during winter days. That way a large part of energy consumption can adapt to production.
In case of energy droughts, gas power plants can be kept because they can turn on and shut down within minutes, making them the best at providing a varying base load.
No, you want the baseload to take over when there isn’t enough much cheaper renewable energy.
That’s what they just said? Just in different words
…that’s why it would be used as a baseload. I.E. something that you never really turn off because that amount is always required.
That works against renewable resources, which should provide 100% or more during normal days. Which would mean you have to take off wind turbines from the net to keep nuclear going, that makes investing in wind less attractive.
Then you reduce the output of the nuclear plants. I’m not sure where you are getting that it takes them forever to start up nuclear power. You just raise and lower control rods to increase or decrease the heat they are releasing, which lowers the steam produced, which starts/stops some turbines. It’s not like the fastest system out there, but afaik it’s easily doable in the span of an hour or two.
Investing in wind doesn’t need to be attractive, it needs to be part of a government-owned national energy infrastructure plan that gets it where it needs to be and where it’ll serve the needs of the people the best
Nuclear is best used for baseload, since while you can turn it off rather quickly you can’t turn it back on fast when it’s needed again
You want to turn of your baseload when there is enough cheap wind and solar energy… Like that’s the whole point of baseload
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load