Germany to Rethink Nuclear Shutdown as Energy Crisis Deepens

Re:Germany to Rethink Nuclear Shutdown as Energy Crisis Deepens by throwaway4aday on Tuesday July 19, 2022 @11:26AM (#32152899)

This is a confusing statement. Are you saying that there is no reasonable minimum amount of electricity that needs to be available all of the time? That would make no sense given that we never have situations where there is zero usage of electricity.

In your scenario where we use renewables + gas, water, and storage which of these would be ensuring that we at least have enough to satisfy the loads on the grid that never turn off or vary? Everything on that list except gas is subject to forces we cannot directly control so I assume you would need a certain number of gas power plants to always be in production or idling to satisfy that demand.

Thirdly, why the preference for gas over nuclear?

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Re:Germany to Rethink Nuclear Shutdown as Energy Crisis Deepens by _ph_ on Tuesday July 19, 2022 @11:41AM (#32153164)

Well, as statistics clearly show, there is a minimum demand 24/7. But that is just one characteristic number. That is the demand you always have to provide through the year. But at any time, more power is required, you have to provide that too. You cannot treat power demand over the "base load" any differently than the base load. Which type of energy production you might be using, you need to plan the ability to ramp up the production. So it isn't that you require special sources for the "base load", that can be provided by solar+wind, if they are available in the necessary amount. It is just that "base load" can also be provided by slow power plants.

The big problem with nuclear from the grid side is, that they are the slowest power plants available. Consequently, (and because of cost efficiency) they are run at high power output levels 24/7, the rest of the grid has to adjust by being throttled or fast plants which can be ramped up and down.

Gas is the fastest type of classical power plants (together with water, but that usually has limited amounts). And as the fuel always was on the expensive side, there is quite an incentive of not running gas power plants too much. They would be a good company to renewables, as they can switch between 0 and 100% and back very quickly. And in a grid dominated by renewables, you would only rarely run them at high loads for longer times. And while they emit more CO2 than nuclear plants, they do distinctively less than coal powered plans.

In the long run, you can run gas plants on e.g. hydrogen produced from solar - the recent plans for extending gas power plants in Germany all included the requirement to be usable with hydrogen too.

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Re:Germany to Rethink Nuclear Shutdown as Energy Crisis Deepens by Gwypaas on Tuesday July 19, 2022 @11:41AM (#32153171)

> The baseload[1] (also base load) is the minimum level of demand on an electrical grid over a span of time, for example, one week. This demand can be met by unvarying power plants,[2] dispatchable generation,[3] or by a collection of smaller intermittent energy sources,[4] depending on which approach has the best mix of low cost, availability and high reliability in any particular market.

> [...]

> According to National Grid plc chief executive officer Steve Holliday and others, baseload is "outdated".[7][6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load

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