Comment by ViewTrick1002
1 day ago
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.
> 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.
I want a market where we pay for things like stability or generation at certain times of day. And I want it regulated, so that we buy enough of these things. This, incidentally, is how well-functioning electric markets have operated for a long time.
> This does not work when the consumers can generate their own electricity through distributed renewables and storage.
Some consumers can, some can't. A lot of consumers and industrial users will be dependent upon a grid. It's reasonable for that common infrastructure to be regulated as a common good, and for it to be stewarded in a way that minimizes systematic risk.
Which means you won't get nuclear power as the answer because it is the worst possible answer for dispatchable/firming power. As we already concluded by calculating what Vogtle would cost when running as a peaker.
If it just goes as "baseload" then nuclear power does not solve anything. The yearly "baseload" in California is 15 GW while peak load is 50 GW. Even with 15 GW of nuclear "baseload" forcing out all renewables when it happens said renewables and firming will still need to manage 35 GW on their own when peak load happens.
Do tell me what problem a "baseload" of nuclear power would solve in the Californian grid.
Take a look at France. They generally export quite large amounts of electricity. But whenever a cold spell hits that export flow is reversed to imports and they have to start up local fossil gas and coal based production.
What they have done is that they have outsourced the management of their grid to their neighbors and rely on 35 GW of fossil based electricity production both inside France and their neighbors grids. Because their nuclear power produces too much when no one wants the electricity and too little when it is actually needed.
Their neighbors are able to both absorb the cold spell which very likely hits them as well, their own grid as the French exports stops and they start exporting to France.
So you will force $190/MWh on all industrial consumers? This will end up killing said industry. What will you do when all commercial real estate start covering their roofs and parking lots with solar to not have to deal with your abhorrent new built nuclear costs?
You also completely dodged the South Australian grid. Again:
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.
This grid achieved 82% renewables in the midst of winter.
Tell me why this grid should build a nuclear plant!