Im quoting 2022 because this was last year. As in, the most recent year.
I don’t disagree that we should have phased out coal instead of nuclear first. But what has happened has happened. I do disagree that we need a „nuclear renessaince“ now, because neither the economics nor the timelines work out at this point in time. Solar and wind is cheaper, faster to build, and more flexible as you can iterate on their designs MUCH more quickly than nuclear plants.
That’s the main reason why solar panel efficiency is going through the roof.
Why cannibalize the investments in what obviously works?
One other problem with nuclear is that it has to run at a fixed output level, and can’t be scaled down if there is eg. lots of solar power being generated. In this case, you have to scale down renewables to make sure you can use the nuclear power, which makes it clash with the eventual goal to power everything with renewables.
You need a pilotable generator matching renewables. You can’t do without it. The only question is how much of it you need to plan.
Existing approaches are storage: batteries, hydro where it’s possible (you pump the water up a dam to store back energy) and backup generators: coal, gas, and in some future plans, hydrogen.
None of these is a perfect solution (well, nothing is a perfect solution).
Hydro: that’s the ideal, but obviously, you need a very large body of water, and heavy construction. But it ends up being a very clean energy with long lifetime.
Batteries: lifetime considerably reduced, requires very large amount of precious minerals (today, car industry assume they’ll get ~100% of lithium extracted, aeronautic assumes they’ll get as much as they need without counting, and then you have the energy sector counting on very large quantities as well ; there won’t be enough we can extract for everyone, and lithium mines are all but clean).
Backup generators: no need to comment on fossil fuel, but hydrogen has a big issue: it is very inefficient, ~30%. So if you need it 10% of the time, you need to plan 30% more capacity of renewable, and that’s assuming you can pilot it all the way from total shutdown to 100% capacity, probably very optimistic. You will need to have it running at some minimum levels, that’s even more renewables you need to keep it running.
It is not completely true that nuclear needs to run at fixed level. Depending on their design, some plants are pilotable and some are not. But I don’t think (I’ll be happily corrected if needed) any had the flexibility you need to be used with renewable (quick large variations).
So the ideal mix is, IMHO, a baseline provided by nuclear, and a mix of renewable and complements to produce the difference.
Bonus: there is a “method” promoted by some (ignorant) politics they call “proliferation” (“foisonnement”, not sure I’m translating that the best). This is utter BS…
The idea is there will always be sun or wind somewhere in a super-grid spreading through Europe. If you think about it for 1 minute, that means that small part of Europe where there is wind will power, for a more or less short time, a large portion of the whole Europe?? Not only is that totally insane from the capacity point of view, but it also completely neglects the grid’s stability and electricity transportation issue. It is very difficult to transport electricity over very large distances without disturbing the grid. Ask Germany, they spend massively on infrastructures right now without counting on proliferation. That would raise the requirements further…
You’re quoting 2022 because that year >30% of the reactrors were taken offline for maintenance. Their also shutting down nuclear reactors.
This is not an inherant problem with nuclear, but because the French government hasn’t invested since the 70s.
If funding wasn’t cut (due to environmental activists), the output would be more than needed.
Nuclear is still our best bet for combatting climate change and reducing carbon emissions.
Im quoting 2022 because this was last year. As in, the most recent year.
I don’t disagree that we should have phased out coal instead of nuclear first. But what has happened has happened. I do disagree that we need a „nuclear renessaince“ now, because neither the economics nor the timelines work out at this point in time. Solar and wind is cheaper, faster to build, and more flexible as you can iterate on their designs MUCH more quickly than nuclear plants. That’s the main reason why solar panel efficiency is going through the roof.
Why cannibalize the investments in what obviously works?
You only solve one part of the problem: what do you use when there’s no sun and no wind? Coal? Gas?
As far as I can tell, there is no time with no sun AND no wind: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Energy_statistics_-_latest_trends_from_monthly_data
In fact, there are multiple studies claiming that you can very well supply base load with renewables, for instance this one:
https://www.ceem.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/MarkBaseloadFallacyANZSEE.pdf
One other problem with nuclear is that it has to run at a fixed output level, and can’t be scaled down if there is eg. lots of solar power being generated. In this case, you have to scale down renewables to make sure you can use the nuclear power, which makes it clash with the eventual goal to power everything with renewables.
I don’t know who, in his sane mind, can claim there will never be periods of time with no sun and no wind at the same time. https://notrickszone.com/2022/12/07/plunging-towards-darkness-germany-sees-week-long-wind-sun-lull-as-energy-supply-dwindles/
You need a pilotable generator matching renewables. You can’t do without it. The only question is how much of it you need to plan. Existing approaches are storage: batteries, hydro where it’s possible (you pump the water up a dam to store back energy) and backup generators: coal, gas, and in some future plans, hydrogen.
None of these is a perfect solution (well, nothing is a perfect solution).
It is not completely true that nuclear needs to run at fixed level. Depending on their design, some plants are pilotable and some are not. But I don’t think (I’ll be happily corrected if needed) any had the flexibility you need to be used with renewable (quick large variations).
So the ideal mix is, IMHO, a baseline provided by nuclear, and a mix of renewable and complements to produce the difference.
Bonus: there is a “method” promoted by some (ignorant) politics they call “proliferation” (“foisonnement”, not sure I’m translating that the best). This is utter BS…
The idea is there will always be sun or wind somewhere in a super-grid spreading through Europe. If you think about it for 1 minute, that means that small part of Europe where there is wind will power, for a more or less short time, a large portion of the whole Europe?? Not only is that totally insane from the capacity point of view, but it also completely neglects the grid’s stability and electricity transportation issue. It is very difficult to transport electricity over very large distances without disturbing the grid. Ask Germany, they spend massively on infrastructures right now without counting on proliferation. That would raise the requirements further…