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Re:Germany cut fossil fuels as much as did the U.S., but at ... by imtringued on Thursday December 03, 2020 @05:31PM (#25296167)
What if it built the nuclear plants but kept the coal plants running anyway? That's basically the current situation except with renewables. Before you tell me that those coal plants are necessary because renewables are intermittent... let me tell you that we already have more than enough natural gas plants to replace all our coal plants today....
Re:Germany cut fossil fuels as much as did the U.S., but at ... by belorn on Thursday December 03, 2020 @05:52PM (#25296453)
Power plants bid for supplying energy at specific time and dates and for specific amount. With renewables you have cheap wind and solar that can outbid everything else in good weather conditions, but in bad conditions you have fossil fuels that will outbid renewables. With nuclear the bids are always the same regardless of weather, and thus if the price is lower than fossil fuels at one date it will most likely be lower at other dates (with exceptions for maintenance windows).

Since natural gas has the currently lowest operational cost of all other fossil fuels on the average, they are usually able to outbid other fossil fuels. However as with any other market, the one that can produce a product cheapest is not always the one that gives the lowest bid and thus different fossil fueled plants get used at different times. Some plants can also produce heat as well as energy and thus artificially lower their bid. Over time however the one who can more cheaply produce a good of the same quality and reliability tend to make more costly production extinct.

Re:Germany cut fossil fuels as much as did the U.S., but at ... by RcouF1uZ4gsC on Thursday December 03, 2020 @05:36PM (#25296240)
Why would do they do that? The grand-parent post shows that those nuclear plants would be generating electricity in massive excess of what Germany needs (see the part about exporting). In addition, unlike renewables, the generation is stable not depending on weather or time of year. In that scenario, coal plants would be completely uneconomical to run.