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Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by eldaisfish on Monday July 26, 2021 @11:47AM (#27960909)
>and as is the nature of nuclear power, plants are very often offline

Did you perhaps confuse wind and solar with nuclear? The design of a nuclear plant is precisely the opposite of what you describe.

Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by defaultname on Monday July 26, 2021 @11:55AM (#27961002)
No, I didn't confuse them. How, exactly, does a nuclear power plant design prevent being offline?

You understand they have to take the plant offline to do major maintenance, even refuelling, right? In April, 75% of New England's nuclear power plants were offline, for instance, most unplanned.

When a single plant costs billions of dollars and becomes a significant or overwhelming contributor to an area's power mix, it can be a problem.

Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by eldaisfish on Monday July 26, 2021 @12:06PM (#27961156)
The tone of your replies is needlessly aggressive.

A typical nuclear plant isn't designed to be cycled regularly. What you are suggesting is that most nuclear plants are not generating power for more than 50% of the time.

A cursory search of capacity factors will show that this is the opposite of reality. A typical wind or solar installation on average, generates zero power for more than half the time.

Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by edhelas on Monday July 26, 2021 @01:28PM (#27962291)
And that's exactly why you have several nuclear reactors in a plant and several turbines, and several power lines…

Please be a bit serious about what you're saying, you don't have to actually turn of a plant when you need to refuel. If any kind of plant (including hydro) need to be completely turned off for maintenance its really because you had a major design flaw.

Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by philipkglass on Monday July 26, 2021 @02:10PM (#27962947)
Most of the nuclear power plants that Germany built were single-reactor plants and would shut down for refueling. Multi-reactor plants will stagger shutdowns so that the plant continues to generate at reduced power. It is the same in the US. Only a few reactor designs like CANDU are capable of online refueling without interruption. Planned shutdowns for refueling are scheduled for low-demand times of the year.

Here's a nuclear industry blog post explaining the practice: http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2012/05/what-happens-dur...

Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by edhelas on Monday July 26, 2021 @02:29PM (#27963256)
Interesting, thanks for the link :) !
Re:Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-pol... by BostonEnginerd on Monday July 26, 2021 @09:09PM (#27967487)
I believe we only have two active nuclear plants in New England - Seabrook NH and Millstone CT. Seabrook has one reactor, Millstone has two I believe.

It's remarkable how much power these plants generate with a relatively small footprint.