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A comment on ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly. Parent comment

Re:ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly by clomond on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @06:03PM (#23981155)
Important distinction here: nobody actually cares or wants power that is baseload. In some cases it can actually be a bad thing.

The property you really want is “dispatchable”. There when you want it. Not when you don’t.

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Re:ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly by scythe on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @11:41PM (#23983352)
>nobody actually cares or wants power that is baseload.

That doesn't make sense. At all hours of the day there is some demand on the grid:

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915

If you only have to store for the fluctuations vs. having to store all night you end up with massively less storage.

Electric cars won't do it either. There are less than 300 million registered vehicles in the US and a car battery holds about 100 kWh. That's 30 billion kWh and overnight demand may be as high as 5 billion kWh/night. You'd need an extremely high compliance rate to pull that off.

But seasonal productivity fluctuations are the bigger issue with solar and wind. You might get way more power in July than you need and way less in January -- wind is also seasonal, but the peak month varies by region. You're not going to store months and months worth of electricity in cars and even grid storage facilities would become cost-prohibitive, and you can't reset a nuclear reactor on a weekly basis, but one or two starts a year might be achievable if you design for it. Currently that's not legal:

http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2013/09/03/why-dont-we-mothball-nu...

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Re:ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly by pfdietz on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @12:28AM (#23983523)
https://model.energy/

Go there and model (with real historical weather data) how much a solar/wind/battery/hydrogen system would cost to deliver steady power. Then compare against new nuclear. Sorry, nuclear.

(The hydrogen part is essential in some places, like northern Europe, and its impact is not fully appreciated by many nuclear fans.)

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Re:ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly by 6nf on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @06:28PM (#23981360)
Yes sure you can break it down like that. At larger scales (e.g. interstate transmission lines) you have to aggregate and then becomes baseload + surge again. Individual users want dispatchable, cities or counties becomes baseload +.
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