Re:What Is a Nuclear Microreactor?
by belorn on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @06:43PM
(#27136061)
> Logically, renewable and storage on a microlevel seems to make more sense.
For northern countries where wind is the primary renewable sources, there does not exist any clean storage that is currently deployed and getting investments. The current "storage" being combined with renewable are fossil fuels, primarily oil and gas. The subsidize for energy stability goes to fossil fuels, the investment for bigger reserve capacity goes to fossil fuels, the national energy plan here in Sweden as an example is fossil fuels for stability and renewable for cheap production.
Lithium batteries as an example are great when the charge cycle and capacity is measured in hours, like for solar. It works, it is cost effective, and it helps reduce the dependency on fossil fuels. For wind you have charge cycles measured in weeks and capacity demand that can last months.
There are a few experimental project (likely heavily subsidized, and none that I can find that operate on buying wind power and reselling it weeks later), but the flow of money goes very distinctly towards fossil fuels right now. Nuclear provide at least an working alternative, and the occasional accident is a much better future than the non-accidental climate change that is occurring right now.
That said, I would prefer if we simple banned fossil fuels as a strategy to provide gird stability and forced the market to decide on storage vs nuclear.
For northern countries where wind is the primary renewable sources, there does not exist any clean storage that is currently deployed and getting investments. The current "storage" being combined with renewable are fossil fuels, primarily oil and gas. The subsidize for energy stability goes to fossil fuels, the investment for bigger reserve capacity goes to fossil fuels, the national energy plan here in Sweden as an example is fossil fuels for stability and renewable for cheap production.
Lithium batteries as an example are great when the charge cycle and capacity is measured in hours, like for solar. It works, it is cost effective, and it helps reduce the dependency on fossil fuels. For wind you have charge cycles measured in weeks and capacity demand that can last months.
There are a few experimental project (likely heavily subsidized, and none that I can find that operate on buying wind power and reselling it weeks later), but the flow of money goes very distinctly towards fossil fuels right now. Nuclear provide at least an working alternative, and the occasional accident is a much better future than the non-accidental climate change that is occurring right now.
That said, I would prefer if we simple banned fossil fuels as a strategy to provide gird stability and forced the market to decide on storage vs nuclear.