Comment by ViewTrick1002
10 hours ago
> 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?
> Now you want to add 10% of $190/MWh to the cost base. So instead of $50/MWh we end up with $65/MWh.
Yes-- that's how it works if we assume none of the benefits I'm talking about and assume that storage is free. (Of course, storage has an estimated incremental LCOE similar to the entire cost of nuclear, and a small amount of stable generation can mean much less storage).
> For this case Lazard uses $122 - 313/MWh storage.
There you go; for a small share of nuclear, you can just get the power later in the day for $100-250/MWh, versus paying $122-313/MWh. (And this is the intraday benefit, not counting the interday benefits).
The downside is that you need to amortize the capital cost for the nuclear even when you have a surplus of electricity. So you wouldn't want too much of it.
So it's really more like you pay nuclear's cost * 1.5 for the 2/3rds of the day when you would be tapping storage, and you get additional free power when renewables are producing. $100-250 times 1.5 is similar to 122-313 plus the cost of original renewable generation, but there are the mentioned ancillary benefits, too.
We need to roughly double grid size, and unfortunately a whole lot of the increment wants to be closer to 24/7 loads than current demand (industrial, heating, charging of vehicle batteries, etc-- and if we do any power2gas, that counts in a big way).
I think you've not heard the argument, so I'm bailing out.
> a small amount of stable generation can mean much less storage
Which does not pencil out in the studies made on the topic. Which you keep ignoring. Because nuclear power itself needs loads of flexibility to meet a grid load over the course of days and seasons.
> There you go; for a small share of nuclear, you can just get the power later in the day for $100-250/MWh, versus paying $122-313/MWh. (And this is the intraday benefit, not counting the interday benefits).
Ahh sorry. I love how you pounced on a figure you would know to be erroneous if you had knowledge on the topic. But you desperately want to paint renewables as impossible.
The $122-313 figure is of course per kWh when installed. Leading to cycle costs in the cents. Not tens of cents like "$122 - 313/MWh storage" would have you believe.
Which in China today is down to $52/kWh. I see you didn't dare calculating the cycle cost for those batteries. I suppose because you that would invalidate your nuclear cultism.
> 24/7 loads than current demand (industrial, heating, charging of vehicle batteries, etc).
You truly don't comprehend how the grid works? Charging EVs is a 24/7 load when you need to paint nuclear power as the solution?
The people with EVs and hourly contracts are literally the ones watching the electricity prices like the weather and timing their charging to perfect.
It is by definition the perfect load to match a renewable grid.
And you still ignore the timescales involved. I suppose you don't have an answer.
Again: Do tell me what relevancy a new built nuclear plant will have when it comes online in 2045?
Will we just keep polluting for decades while waiting on this nuclear plant? Is that what you propose?
Cycle costs aren't a fair metric unless/until we know what refurbishment really costs.
Given that we amortize other bits of electrical infrastructure over 30-40 years, amortizing a new bit over 20 years when A) it has a wear component inside, and B) we don't have 40 years of experience with it seems fair.
> Will we just keep polluting for decades while waiting on this nuclear plant? Is that what you propose?
Right now our intercept involves us polluting for decades beyond that nuclear power showing up. I propose doing more of everything low-carbon, including more nuclear.
> I love how you pounced on a figure
I said $100-200 13 hours ago. You said a different, similar number, so I used your number.
> The people with EVs and hourly contracts are literally the ones watching the electricity prices like the weather and timing their charging to perfect.
Most charging happens overnight. Lots of transport loads will be forced to charge overnight, too. Yes, they have some flexibility to dispatch load, but not enough to substantially hold up a truck for cheaper electricity or shift the time in the day when it is driving.
My big issue talking to you: you're engaging in a lot of hyperbole, don't really seem to be responding to my arguments, and you're continually being abrasive:
> I suppose you don't have an answer.
> when you need to paint
> Ahh sorry. I love how you
> But you desperately want
> if you had knowledge on the topic.
I don't think I'm talking to you like that (if I am, please point it out so that I can stop). If your objective is to just chase me away by making discussion unpleasant, you're having some success.
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> literally the ones watching the electricity prices like the weather and timing their charging to perfect.
A critic will read that and think "most people won't do that." Except it's really easy. You just tell the car "make sure you're charged by 7AM", and the car will do the right thing.
I hope you got something out of your excellent comments since you're talking to somebody who isn't listening, and the story is long past off the front page.
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