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A comment on Majority in Japan backs nuclear power for first time since Fukushima. Parent comment

Re:Majority in Japan backs nuclear power for first time sinc... by Retric on Monday March 28, 2022 @02:28PM (#30833845)
It’s mostly a cost problem, idling a reactor for 12 hours produces 1/2 the power per day at 95% of the cost. Aka your cost per kwh basically doubles.

France largely got around this by exporting power, but that obviously doesn’t scale if everyone tries to export power on the weekends nobody wants to import it.

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Re:Majority in Japan backs nuclear power for first time sinc... by Teever on Monday March 28, 2022 @02:55PM (#30834177)
Throw the excess power into on demand carbon negative activities and call it a day.
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Re:Majority in Japan backs nuclear power for first time sinc... by p1mrx on Monday March 28, 2022 @03:18PM (#30834435)
That only helps if your desalinator/electrolyzer/etc. has a low enough capital cost to let it sit idle most of the time.
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Re:Majority in Japan backs nuclear power for first time sinc... by Bud on Monday March 28, 2022 @03:26PM (#30834533)
The word "throw" is doing a lot of work in this sentence, since said throwing is both complex and expensive.
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Re:Majority in Japan backs nuclear power for first time sinc... by Retric on Monday March 28, 2022 @07:25PM (#30836832)
Finding something to use the power flexibly isn’t enough, they need to be willing to pay several times more than Solar for it or you aren’t fully offsetting costs.
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