The military coup in Niger has raised concerns about uranium mining in the country by the French group Orano, and the consequences for France's energy independence.
If you don’t have power output from storage equal to *PEAK* demand, it’s the same argument for any storage. And storage doesn’t /produce/ energy, it /consumes/ it (because of conversion losses, which are significant).
You seem to argue that our /current/ fossil grid would also need more storage, but it works just fine as is. Nuclear is better at load following than fossils, so what gives?
Nowadays we have diesel farms (eeek!), and increasingly (thankfully!) batteries.
The actual UK grid today is only 45% fossil fuel (and some nations and states are better than that). We also have more interconnectors than we had in the past.
UK nuclear has generally been used as baseload for many decades.
@Ardubal@MattMastodon@BrianSmith950@Pampa@AlexisFR@Wirrvogel@Sodis Sadly it is much easier to build an extra 10GW of peak gas plant than it is to build an extra 10GW of nuclear plant. The tradeoff is of course that the gas plant is inefficient and therefore extremely expensive per unit generated (but not used very often). Not to mention destroying the planet.
But that is how we largely managed it in the past.
In the future, and even the present, fortunately we have better options.
Exactly. And I believe that it is »our« (or rather some hypothetical government’s) task to make the long-term cost show up already in short-term finance, so that it is /never/ cheaper to build a gas plant.
Yes, nuclear is mostly used as baseload because operation and fuel costs are the cheapest of all. Its big costs are almost entirely building it and of that, cost of finance.
So, it would be the most expensive to curtail.
(Another reason why Germany shutting down its perfectly fine nuclear power plants already supplying 30% of its electricity is pure insanity.)
@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis
If you don’t have power output from storage equal to *PEAK* demand, it’s the same argument for any storage. And storage doesn’t /produce/ energy, it /consumes/ it (because of conversion losses, which are significant).
@Ardubal @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Nuclear does not avoid the need for short-term storage to cover the peaks, unless you can build vast amounts of it (equal to peak).
Nuclear *does* avoid the need for long-term storage, if you can build enough of it (equal to average).
@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis
You seem to argue that our /current/ fossil grid would also need more storage, but it works just fine as is. Nuclear is better at load following than fossils, so what gives?
@Ardubal @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis The fossil fuel grid we had 20 years ago relied on gas peak plants and hydro for peaks.
Nowadays we have diesel farms (eeek!), and increasingly (thankfully!) batteries.
The actual UK grid today is only 45% fossil fuel (and some nations and states are better than that). We also have more interconnectors than we had in the past.
UK nuclear has generally been used as baseload for many decades.
@Ardubal @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis Sadly it is much easier to build an extra 10GW of peak gas plant than it is to build an extra 10GW of nuclear plant. The tradeoff is of course that the gas plant is inefficient and therefore extremely expensive per unit generated (but not used very often). Not to mention destroying the planet.
But that is how we largely managed it in the past.
In the future, and even the present, fortunately we have better options.
@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis
Exactly. And I believe that it is »our« (or rather some hypothetical government’s) task to make the long-term cost show up already in short-term finance, so that it is /never/ cheaper to build a gas plant.
@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis
Yes, nuclear is mostly used as baseload because operation and fuel costs are the cheapest of all. Its big costs are almost entirely building it and of that, cost of finance.
So, it would be the most expensive to curtail.
(Another reason why Germany shutting down its perfectly fine nuclear power plants already supplying 30% of its electricity is pure insanity.)