Amtsschreiber t1_it339v7 wrote on October 20, 2022 at 4:08 PM

Reply to comment by Senyu in German leader warns against 'worldwide renaissance' for coal by Wagamaga

> but it seems silly to think renewables can supplement 100% of our needs 24hrs a day everyday.

Nobody said that this is the goal.

The thing about nuclear power that is that it's very expensive to build a power plant. But once you've built it the fuel and running cost is quite low, but only if you actually use the power plant on high load most of the time.

Now let's assume you've build enough wind, solar and hydro power plants that you need nothing else for about 80-90% of the time. What would you use for the remaining 10-20% of dark and windless days? Certainly not nuclear power because it's way too expensive to build a nuclear power plant and then only use it sometimes. That's what I meant by saying that renewables and nuclear power are not compatible for economic reasons.

What you want are power plants that are cheap to build, so it's okay when you only run them once in a while. And when you only need them 10% of the time it's okay if the fuel is a bit more expensive. And the answer here is natural gas which perfectly complements renewables (you just don't want to be too dependent on a single, evil country for your gas source). On days with a large surplus of renewable power you can even run electrolysis to create clean hydrogen which you then store and you in those same gas power plants later on. And exactly that's Germany's plan which requires no nuclear, no coal and eventually less and less natural gas from the ground.

Kirov123 t1_it38d99 wrote on October 20, 2022 at 4:41 PM

Pretty sure nuclear is moving towards clustered mini reactors which can operate fine with low demand and start up/shut down much faster than many currently operating reactors. By having many smaller reactors they can easily scale up/down generation to meet grid demand.

Amtsschreiber t1_it3agz9 wrote on October 20, 2022 at 4:54 PM

The power demand scaling is not as much as factor as the cost. Also call me again when those "clustered mini reactors" actually exist in mass production.

Fuckyourdatareddit t1_it46pt7 wrote on October 20, 2022 at 8:22 PM

Pity there aren’t any operating prototypes for small commercial nuclear reactors yet 😂 But yeah of course, just wait for the the prototypes to be built and tested and improved and THEN start building more nuclear power, that’ll solve all our problems… in fifteen years when the first of them come online

Senyu t1_it3mxv2 wrote on October 20, 2022 at 6:14 PM

Or you could stand up a nuclear plant that can reliably provide surplus base load power whenever it's needed. Not only is it helpful in the event issues occur to renewables (disasters, maintenance, poor weather conditions) but it also can remove the need for natural gas. It's also a smaller footprint in space consumed compared fields of solar & wind, and ecological damage of dams is just a given. Nuclear is the cleanest source of energy available to our species, it ensures guranteed power for a long time (provided it's following all regulations, looking at you Fukishima) and if we to stop being so hesistant towards it we'd already have some up and going. Nuclear and renewables not being compatible isn't an economic decision, it's a choice to have a more limited energy portfolio.

The futher nuclear tech matures (despite all the pushback over the decades to its development & implementation) the more sensible it will be to implement alongside our other energy options simply for its reliability.

Maybe it won't happen until we can finally mass produce mini reactors, but when such a time comes there should be serious evaluation to the benefits of adopting it for all countries capable of running the plant (capable workers for employment).

Edit: also, just sell any extra nuclear power when it isn't needed.