When I think of the time, money and institutional bandwidth dedicated to promoting this sunset technology in #wales - compared to renewables - it's maddening.
Hitachi to pull plug on north Wales #nuclear power station | Business | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/15/hitachi-to-pull-plug-on-north-wales-nuclear-power-station
But then RE also has low capacity factor, so only gives power 30% of the time on average, which means you need energy storage of the capacity of the whole system (doesn't exist), or build... a nuclear or fossil gas plant to provide baseload.
The more I learn about these technologies, the more I feel we've been scammed by the fossil industry once again, as they tricked us to replace low-emission, clean nuclear power with fossil gas using FUD...
@kravietz @davidoclubb For nuclear you also need storage or some method to bring supply and demand together (markets, grid, ...). That is why the Guardian article is talking about producing H2 with the expensive nuclear power.
You can use the land between wind mills, you do not have to protect it against terrorism.
> you also need storage or some method to bring supply and demand together
You don't. Any nuclear power plant made after 1990 can do load following. You can run grid 100% on nuclear alone. You can't run grid on 100% RE.
If you want cheapest, go for coal, won't you?
Nuclear plants do not load follow because they have the best ROI at 100% capacity *and* there are fossil gas plants where the loss of ROI is smaller. If you get rid of fossil fuels, then you just load follow on nuclear.
@kravietz @VictorVenema Coal is the most expensive fuel if you factor in the environmental costs
If you factor environmental costs - especially land use and emissions - PV and wind are more expensive than nuclear.
@kravietz @VictorVenema Whole costs, including public subsidy and 'last resort' cleanup (in place of available insurance) make nuclear more expensive
Yes, if you look from investor's perspective. But I was thinking we're after decarbonisation?
Because in this case nuclear power is the only technology that *actually* led to decarbonisation of energy sector. Germany made a lot of hype about their Energiewende and 10 years later they're at 5x CO2 emissions of France or Sweden, both largely nuclear.
@kravietz Thanks, as I said I'd like to draw this to a close now
@kravietz blah, blah, blah.
Have a good day.
> Nuclear plants do not load follow because they have the best ROI at 100% capacity
Thank you for admitting that your previous talking point about nuclear being technically able to follow demand is irrelevant.
If nuclear is not used half the time, the power becomes twice as expensive. Nearly all costs are fixed costs. So in practise nuclear does not follow demand.
A country like France burdened with a lot of nuclear is subsidizing power for its European neighbours.
@kravietz @VictorVenema I think we'll have to disagree on this. Maybe it's *possible* to load follow in the way you describe with the most modern technology, but I don't think it's the cheapest or most straightforward solution.
Renewables, with a strongly inter-connected electricity system spanning multiple countries, and elements of storage and demand management, is the right solution