Comment on First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled

• IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  It’s the opposite. Nuclear outputs as close to 24/7 as possible, you can’t ramp it up and down to accommodate variable output from renewables for practical and economic reasons.

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  • Uranium_Green@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I mean you can vary it pretty significantly depending on the reactor type, but even if you couldn’t you can still put the energy to work in alternative ways, such as pumping water up into reservoirs/damns to generate energy at other points, or using the excess energy to split water. There are many ways to use excess energy.

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    • frezik@midwest.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      So your solution to excess nuclear is to store it. The solution to shortfalls of renewables is also to store it.

      Why do we need nuclear?

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      • Uranium_Green@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        But storage without inpacting available energy requires an excess, and the current shortfall of renewables is that there isn’t enough energy produced for a significant excess (same goes for nuclear). Either way I was addressing the literal aspect of energy generation being 24/7 with nuclear.

        Not to mention I could see viable uses for nuclear still, especially in processes that are effectively 24/7 hot water production via heat exchangers for providing heating to literal cities, energy production for large arc furnaces.

        And don’t mistake my view of nuclear as not seeing the benefits of renewable, my father lived on a boat where the heating and appliances were all run via solar panels and forklift batteries for more than 10 years of his life.

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    • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You can do the same with excess power from renewables though. My point was that you need something to fill in the gaps when renewable output is low, whether that be from batteries, pumped storage, peaker plants, etc.

      Nuclear doesn’t fit in here, there are no nuclear peaker plants.

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  • Pipoca@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The problem with solar is that the sun doesn’t shine overnight. The good thing with that is that we use much less power overnight than we do during the day.

    If you’re relying a lot on solar, you need to build a big-ass battery that you charge during the day and use at night.

    Alternatively, you build a nuclear or gas plant sized to overnight usage and run them 24/7. Then, you build way smaller batteries to handle dispatchability and smoothing demand over the course of a day.

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    • frezik@midwest.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      HOLY SHIT THE SUN DOESN’T SHINE AT NIGHT, WHY HAVEN’T WE THOUGHT OF THIS?

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      • Pipoca@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Peak load is during the day, so initially it’s not really a problem. Going from a grid that’s 0% solar to 10% solar is really easy. The solar is going to just displace peaker plants. You don’t really have to worry about night.

        Going from a grid that’s 70% solar to 80% solar is way more expensive, because you’re probably using all that power at night.

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    • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The problem with solar is that the sun doesn’t shine overnight.

      Big if true. Winds tend to be stronger at night though.

      if you’re relying a lot on solar, you need to build a big-ass battery that you charge during the day and use at night.

      Or pumped hydro, compressed gas, molten salt, green hydrogen, etc.

      Nuclear is good for baseline power

      Base load. See here: cleantechnica.com/…/we-dont-need-base-load-power/

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