One of the oldest known human settlements is about to be flooded by a dam

Re:One of the oldest known human settlements is about to be ... by beerandt on Friday October 04, 2019 @01:43PM (#21160041)

It's still on-demand, just with a slight delay. And 99.99% predictable. Both of Which mean any theoretical storage needed would be on a much smaller scale and more predictable size. And centralized. So no massive collection grid sitting underused/idled.

But this assumes 100% nuclear. Even a couple of fast reacting natural gas plants (or hydrogen or biodiesel or anything fast reacting) solves this.

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Re:One of the oldest known human settlements is about to be ... by Bartweiss on Friday October 04, 2019 @04:52PM (#21161781)

Wait, what's on-demand and predictable? (Not sarcasm, I lost the antecedent for that sentence.)

Nuclear's on-demand ramping does actually seem to be between coal and gas, but my impression was that actually doing that absolutely destroyed cost-efficiency, to such a degree that it's usually better to just run at optimal efficiency and do whatever you can to recoup some money on the waster power.

Of course, we totally agree on the last point. There's room for major nuclear scaleup even in pure base load, and with a nuclear-heavy grid in mind it's not hard to work out a few peak sources.

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Re:One of the oldest known human settlements is about to be ... by beerandt on Friday October 04, 2019 @07:38PM (#21162819)

And in practice that is exactly what happens, as fast acting gas plants are a thing and can charge enough money to not run all the time, and still make a profit. Specifically because the margin between them and nuclear is so big.

But also nuclear has at least the flexibility to do it when needed [0]:

German Isar 2 nuclear power plant holds the record among currently running plants in adjustability. The reactor's nominal output is 1,400 megawatts, and it can be adjusted in a range of 400−1,400 megawatts, with an adjustment speed of 40 megawatts per minute. The need for this great an adjustment capacity has resulted from Germany's current energy policies.

[0]:https://www.lut.fi/web/en/news/-/asset_publisher/lGh4SAywhcP...

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