Comment on US slows plans to retire coal plants because of AI power usage
poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 month agoNuclear power in its current form is actively detrimental to grid stability, as it is produced in a few central locations and can not be realistically up and down regulated.
The newly installed decentralised grid batteries in California have just proven that this model works much better.
d4f0@lemmy.world 1 month ago
New nuclear plants can be regulated without problems. Old nuclear plants weren’t designated that way, although they can be improved to be able to do it, but this isn’t usually done as old plants will most likely be shutdown in the short term and investors don’t want to spend any money in them.
poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 month ago
No, hypothetical new modular plants might be better at regulation, but the recently build and still under construction ones are not.
d4f0@lemmy.world 1 month ago
No, already existing nuclear plants can regulate, as it’s needed for places with lots of nuclear power like France.
powermag.com/flexible-operation-of-nuclear-power-…
poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 month ago
As the article you linked also states, this feature is largely theoretical and for operational and economic reasons utility companies do not use it unless forced to. In France specifically, the high percentage of nuclear power makes it look like you can regulate it quite well, but that is an artifact of looking at total numbers that does not transfer to other grid situations where nuclear is only a small percentage of the overall production capacity. Generally speaking, nuclear and renewables are a bad match, and if you have to chose between them, renewables clearly win on both economics and scalability.