Comment by mlyle
2 days 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.
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!
I feel like you are not reading what I write, and what you write feels a little abrasive, so it kinda moots having a discussion.
> So you will force $190/MWh on all industrial consumers? This will end up killing said industry.
It is possible to have 10% of production be nuclear without having every kilowatt of energy sell for what nuclear production costs. And having stable base generation lowers some other costs (less storage required; less renewable overprovisioning required) and reduces some risks (that not enough storage can be built).
It comes down to:
* How much energy do you need to store for normal daily variation? If nuclear provides 10% of the energy overall, it's about 15% of the base load. On a typical day, you this means need to store 15% less to make it through the night.
* How much energy do you need to store for longer term variations, like hot weeks without much sunshine or cold weeks without much wind (via technologies like power to gas, etc). This means providing for normal demand during 99th percentile events and for critical demand for 99.99th percentile events. Batteries can't help much with this, so it's to some extent a duplicated set of infrastructure (power to gas, gas turbines operated at very low duty cycle, etc).
* How can you operate longer term storage infrastructure, like p2g and pumped hydro for more of the day, so that its capital costs amortize better? Shifting the renewable production curve upwards improves duty cycles.
New-build LCOE for both nuclear and storage often falls in the same ballpark — around $100–200/MWh — but they mean very different things. Storage LCOE doesn't include the cost of the energy being stored, so total delivered cost depends on the generation mix and timing. Without firm generation like nuclear, you need to overbuild renewables even more to cover gaps, which adds cost. On the flip side, nuclear has a fixed output profile, so you’re paying its full LCOE even when cheaper solar is abundant and curtailment is high.
Even if nuclear does prove more expensive per MWh than wind or solar + storage, having it supply 10% of total annual energy won’t significantly raise average rates. A higher LCOE on a small slice of the mix has limited impact on the weighted average, especially as it will reduce other system costs by cutting the need for overbuilding or long-duration storage.
> It is possible to have 10% of production be nuclear without having every kilowatt of energy sell for what nuclear production costs.
I don't think you grasp the difference in costs here. Lazard (which uses US prices including tariffs etc.) find wind or solar + storage to be $50/MWh.
Now you want to add 10% of $190/MWh to the cost base. So instead of $50/MWh we end up with $65/MWh. And now we don't even include the backup needed if the nuclear plant is offline. You know, like when half the French fleet was offline.
By adding 10% nuclear you just forced the consumers to hike their energy bills by 30% and we assumed that nuclear power is 85% reliable, which does not compute when even taking a single reactor off line in a normal sized grid removes more than 15% of the output.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-fr...
And all this assumes your communistic utopian grid where everyone pays into a single pot which then distributes the cost. Instead of the marginal pricing electricity grids we have in essentially the entire western world.
> And having stable base generation lowers some other costs (less storage required; less renewable overprovisioning required) and reduces some risks (that not enough storage can be built).
What you are saying is that you will lower costs in the $50 - 150/MWh range by forcing costs in the $190/MWh range.
That literally does not compute.
Those are US costs. Do you dare calculating the cost for the $52/MWh batteries with a 20 year lifespan that gets built in China? Or ~$70/MWh outside of China?
https://reneweconomy.com.au/watershed-moment-big-battery-sto...
> It is possible to have 10% of production be nuclear without having every kilowatt of energy sell for what nuclear production costs. And having stable base generation lowers some other costs (less storage required; less renewable overprovisioning required) and reduces some risks (that not enough storage can be built).
Why should I charge my batteries with extremely expensive nuclear electricity when I am swimming in zero marginal cost renewable electricity?
Again, this does not compute. You are trying to force nuclear power to be the solution with ever more insane takes.
> * How much energy do you need to store for normal daily variation? If nuclear provides 10% of the energy overall, it's about 15% of the base load. On a typical day, you this means need to store 15% less to make it through the night.
And you still haven't answered why I would need your nuclear plant at night when wind power delivers, or storage.
> * How much energy do you need to store for longer term variations, like hot weeks without much sunshine or cold weeks without much wind (via technologies like power to gas, etc). This means providing for normal demand during 99th percentile events and for critical demand for 99.99th percentile events. Batteries can't help much with this, so it's to some extent a duplicated set of infrastructure (power to gas, gas turbines operated at very low duty cycle, etc).
So now you are again back to your peaking nuclear plant. But a nuclear base load literally does not solve those events. You completely skipped the California example: 15 GW baseload, 50 GW peak load.
There are countless studies on this. Nuclear power does not make the grid cheaper because it as well needs storage and peaking to manage a real grid load.
Here's a study that doesn't even use batteries:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192...
Maybe this quote from the abstract can help jog you along?
> The study finds that investments in flexibility in the electricity supply are needed in both systems due to the constant production pattern of nuclear and the variability of renewable energy sources.
The lowering of costs by adding baseload is tiny compared to what is needed to fulfill a real grid load.
> New-build LCOE for both nuclear and storage often falls in the same ballpark — around $100–200/MWh — but they mean very different things.
You seem to have fallen for misinformation? Or are spreading wildly out of date information because you can't accept reality? For US costs renewables and storage are down to for wind $44 - 123 per MWh and $50 - 131 for solar. For this case Lazard uses $122 - 313/MWh storage.
We have recently seen auctions conclude in China on $51.59/MWh batteries and outside of China ~$70/MWh. That leads to a naive cycle cost of 0.8 cents/kWh assuming a 20 year lifespan and 80% DoD. Add on financing it, O&M
> Storage LCOE doesn't include the cost of the energy being stored, so total delivered cost depends on the generation mix and timing.
Maybe you are getting it? Why should I store $190/MWh nuclear electricity in my battery? Why would that make sense?`
> On the flip side, nuclear has a fixed output profile
I think this is your issue. You think the grid has a constant demand profile over the days and seasons? It truly doesn't.
Maybe you should read about the history of our grids? Do you know why pumped hydro was invented? To manage the extremely high CAPEX and fixed output profile of nuclear power. They were unwilling to lower the output during low demand seasons and times of the day and instead built storage to manage it.
> Even if nuclear does prove more expensive per MWh than wind or solar + storage, having it supply 10% of total annual energy won’t significantly raise average rates. A higher LCOE on a small slice of the mix has limited impact on the weighted average, especially as it will reduce other system costs by cutting the need for overbuilding or long-duration storage.
We just found a 30% increase assuming extremely expensive US battery costs. But that is fine, everyone will love their bills massively increasing!
You also of course completely ignore the timespans it takes to build nuclear power. About 20 years from political noise to finished plant.
Please, do tell me what relevancy a new built nuclear plant will have in 2045?
7 replies →