Comment by mlyle
2 days ago
They should buy the electricity because it is better than leaving the electrolyzers idle when there is no surplus of renewable power alone, and higher utilization spreads capital costs over more production. It can be a tiny portion of the energy cost during the day, and a large part at night. Having a few percent of nameplate power being nuclear doesn’t push up costs too much when renewables are producing.
Having a few percent of nameplate power being nuclear means much less total nameplate power, and allows loads like p2g for longer term storage to run more of the day (and means you need to tap the p2g less often, so you can have a -lot- less electrolyzer infrastructure— better utilization and less need).
Diversity of approaches lower risks and may lower costs.
You seem to avoid discussing the actual nuclear cost and try to handwave it away? Why are you so hellbent on wasting our limited resources on a dead-end technology that have delivered negative learning by doing for the past 70 years?
Lets calculate running Vogtle at a 10-15% capacity factor like a traditional fossil gas peaker.
The electricity now costs $1-1.5/kWh. That is Texas grid meltdown prices. That is what you are yearning for.
The problem is anytime you try to force the nuclear costs on the consumers they will instead buy solar and storage and decouple themselves from the grid. There is no way you can try to "average" things out when distributed power production is involved.
The market is fundamentally a marginal cost one, no matter how you try to handwave with averages and what not.
I'm not proposing to run it at a 10-15% capacity factor like a fossil gas peaker. That's a great strawman you have there.
I'm proposing we run it at a close-to-100% capacity factor, and overprovision solar by less. Make the grid 10-15% nuclear and the rest renewable (which means 3-5% of nameplate power is nuclear).
Use surplus daytime power to charge storage and power2gas. Use surplus nighttime power for power2gas for longer term reserve. Run electrolyzers and power to gas infrastructure during more of the day and make -their- capital costs less ridiculous by having off-hours electricity for them.
Build a lot less storage and a lot less overcapacity as a result.
> The market is fundamentally a marginal cost one, no matter how you try to handwave with averages and what not.
A marginal cost market looking just at KWh isn't stable: in that market, no one pays for grid stability, 99th percentile events, etc. If you're going to pay for things like stability, production at night, guaranteed power for industrial loads, etc: the picture is more nuanced.
So it all boils down to that you want a utopian communistic market where you decide what generation gets added and then averages the costs. Shafting the consumers but hiding it behind a large average.
I already told you. This does not work when the consumers can generate their own electricity through distributed renewables and storage. With distributed electricity generation the market fundamentally becomes marginal cost.
Please do tell me, how will you nuclear plant achieve a "near 100% capacity" factor in a grid where rooftop solar alone can meet 107% of grid demand. All utility scale renewables are forced off the grid. Let alone expensive thermal plants.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/rooftop-solar-meets-107-5-pct-of...
Said grid was supplied by 100% renewables (excluding a tiny sliver of fossil gas from the ancillary market for grid services) most of the past week. Averaging 82% renewables. In mid winter.
https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=7d&...
This is what you are up against. Tell me why this grid should build a nuclear plant.
Why should these electrolyzers buy your $190/MWh nuclear electricity when they can buy renewables producing zero marginal cost electricity? You still end up only making money on 10-15% of the time leading to the same calculation, you just don't get paid most of the day instead and are considering if you should shut down your nuclear plant to prevent fuel burn and wear and tear compared to what a thermal cycle costs.
> A marginal cost market looking just at KWh isn't stable: in that market, no one pays for grid stability, 99th percentile events, etc. If you're going to pay for things like stability, production at night, guaranteed power for industrial loads, etc: the picture is more nuanced.
Which is why we have ancillary services? Your problem is that you don't know that nuclear power generally doesn't participate in the ancillary markets. It produces too much when no one wants it and too little when it would be needed.
Nuclear power is fundamentally unfit for our modern grids.
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