Wojtek
On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 11:25 PM, Gar Lipow <gar.lipow at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 7:08 PM, Dissenting Wren
> <dissentingwren at yahoo.com> wrote:
>><snip>. Could you unpack the last
>> paragraph a bit?
> <snip> Paragraph to unpack:
>> Incidentally nuclear and renewable are not complementary. If you have
>> a lot of renewable energy, then you need shaping energy, on demand
>> energy. Nuclear is baseload. If you use it for shaping you waste most
>> of its capacity and it becomes extremely expensive. If you have a lot
>> of nuclear, using nuclear for base load and maybe for load following,
>> you need peaking power and spinning reserves. Renewables (except hydro
>> and geothermal whose potential are limited) are lousy for that. So if
>> you want to go carbon free you go nuclear or renewable. Splitting
>> this baby just gives you a dead baby.
>
> Nuclear has a high capital cost (higher even than renewables) and low
> operating cost. Where (in the abstract) nuclear can be cheap is that
> you can run it all the time. So your total cost is low, because not
> only do you have low operating cost, you make use of your capital 23
> of 24 hours. Your actual power production is close to the theoretical
> maximum.
>
> OK, not say you have a very high penetration of renewables - 75% of
> your power comes from renewables. Well it is not going to provide 75%
> 24 hours a day or close to it. It will provide 100% sometimes and 90%
> sometimes and 75% and so on, down to 10% sometimes. (With that high a
> pentration, it probably won't ever drop below 10%). So, say you are
> using nuclear as backup. Well you have to have a nuclear power plant
> capable of producing 90% of your needs and then run it at a lot less
> than capacity most of the time. So your cheap nuclear power (not that
> it was ever than cheap) suddenly becomes extremely expensive. The most
> lowest estimates I've seen from independent sources of nuclear power
> is 11 cents a kWh. Use those plants to shape a grid with a high
> penetration of renewables and that changes to 22 cents per kWh or 33
> cents per kWh. In comparison, Commonwealth Edison, who has been widely
> criticized for overpaying for electricity, buys electricity for an
> average of a bit over 7.5 cents a kWh in the merchant power market.
>
> Let's go the other way. Assume mostly nuclear, and try to complement
> it with renewables. OK, well nuclear as I said is baseload. To get the
> most out of it run it at maximum capacity producing the same amount
> day and night. There are two extra steps for more penetration. We can
> use various forms of smart grid and just plain old time of day pricing
> to encourage shifting of as much demand to base, so as high a percent
> of demand as we can manage is baseload. And we can build the plants
> for a bit beyond baseload, throttle them down a bit for the minimum
> demand period, up a bit during higher demand. Still not handling peak,
> but doing what is known as load following. So now you you can run
> plants at 70% capacity instead of 90% which is not that big a price
> addition. But still need some for peaking and also for unexpected
> increases in demand. And renewables don't give you shit there. I mean
> the wind blows when it will, the sun shines when it will. So even
> you try to use renewables for peaking or demand response you can't
> count on them being there when you want them. Unless you put in place
> the same amount of renewables that would if you had no nuclear, and
> the same long distance transmission, and the same storage. And at the
> point you get power when you want it, but you also get power when the
> nukes are already providing all you need. So you end up having to
> discard most of what your renewable sources produce. Just as trying
> to using nuclear as backup for renewables ends up with very expensive
> nuclear, trying to use renewables as backup for nuclear ends up with
> very expensive renewables. Which if you think about it makes sense.
> They are both capital intensive. Neither are truly demand responsive.
> They have similar flaws, other than nuclear being a hell of a lot more
> deadly. Neither compensates for the other's weaknesses. Not much is
> gained from mixing them.
>>
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