Well, you can potentially design them in a way, that you can control the energy output more easily. However, then they will be even less economical than they are now. If you run at lower output, you waste more fuel.
@Sodis @MattMastodon Nuclear power plants can quite easily do load following. It happens regularly e. g. in France. However, since it has the lowest running costs, other sources are usually cut first as far as possible.
@MattMastodon @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel
The optimum imho is:
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The bulk of the generation from wind and solar, and nuclear for 15% - 20% base load. Also some Geothermal where cheap but it’s potential is small.
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Grids improved to cover local and intermediate renewable generation, and extended to facilitate import/export.
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Variable electricity pricing for demand shifting.
The result is vastly reduced need for storage, probably batteries used intelligently in a hierarchy of grid and home, compared to the naïve “just build wind and solar and batteries.”
Then add in:
- A 90% transition from personal cars to free green public transport (#FGPT), taxis, e-bikes, bicycles, and walking.
This all needs no new technology (although for nuclear there are several advances not yet used at scale: molten salt, small, modular, U238, thorium), it needs a fraction of the rare earths, and delivers a huge in reduction steel production courtesy of car recycling.
#Energy #Renewables #ClimateCrisis #Climate #Nuclear
[P.S. Dams damage eco-systems so I’m not in favour of more hydro generation, and pumped hydro storage needs the spare water too.
Biomass not “net zero” and obviously not “zero” which we actually need. It’s just more carbon burning plus extra pollution from the agriculture and other products of combustion. It increases land use, and at present the industry is full of corruption with trees being burned sometimes alongside shredded car tyres… and subsidised!]
Solar ans wind power will never ever be a good baseline energy production méthod. It’s complementary.
No, it is a perfekt baseline energy production method. France is buying our renewable energy, because it can’t produce enough with its broken nuclear power plants and the ones not producing full because of the drought. The numbers do not lie.
Ah yes, 4th generation nuclear reactors will save us, as will fusion reactors. We could make stuff work with existing technology, but that’s somehow not good enough. The whole future plans section of the wiki article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor reads like the technological challenges of these type of reactors are not as solved as you state it in your post.
