Just a correction, those weren't solar panels on the White House, they were solar water heaters.

Even that was too much for ol Ronnie x)

Apparently they were not taken down just because Reagan didn't want them. The roof needed work and they were in the way. They were just not put back up.

Notably, GHWBush's mansion in Texas, shortly after, had solar water heating.

The correction is incorrect. Thermal solar panels are still solar panels, even though they are not PV panels.

Does that make it an... incorrection?

And a chinese billionaire who started with solar water heaters and moved into PV has them on display in his solar power museum.

The initial nuclear rollout ran into capacity factor issues. They barely broke even at 90+% capacity factors with subsidies and would have needed increasing subsidies to become as common as coal. Ultra cheap energy storage would have fixed the issue, but nothing was viable at the time.

Unfortunately, renewables cause similar issues. If solar tanks wholesale prices for 8 hours a day nuclear needs to make that up on the other 16. Meanwhile Solar hits the same wall once it needs energy storage.

Hydro ran out of ideal locations in most countries etc which is why we have so many different energy sources. The only way things hangs is if the underlying economics does. Nuclear with an 80% reduction in operating and decommissioned costs would largely take over the world.

>They barely broke even at 90+% capacity factors

It never broke even anywhere. It's the most subsidy addicted form of power.

>Unfortunately, renewables cause similar issues. If solar tanks wholesale prices for 8 hours a day nuclear needs to make that up on the other 16.

Solar and wind anti-correlate. Those dark, cold winters also tend to be the windiest and vice versa.

Apparently we'd need 5 hours of storage to get to a 97% carbon free grid under current usage patterns: https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g...

Australia is already on track to have half of that already with snowy 2 (350Gwh).

This also doesn't take into account stuff like https://octopus.energy/agile/ that can use pricing to adjust demand to supply. Heating, car battery charging, industrial processes like aluminum smelting - lots of demand can be time shifted easily.

> nuclear needs to make that up on the other 16.

I am specifically referring to a nuclear power plant’s income here. If they averaged 10c per kWh over a year that’s X$/year. To make that same X$/year when wholesale prices are 2c/kWh for 8 hours a day they would need to be average 14c/kWh for 16 hours to average 10c/kWh over a full day. Aka (8 * 2c + 16 * 14c)/24 = 10c

The above is of course a simplification of a complex market, but illustrates a real effect related to the “duck curve.”

Of course, this is why markets where everyone is forced to sell into a single pool don't work. If you let them sign a PPA for baseload electricity with a consumer who values that certainty (and there are many) for the whole year at 10c/kWh then there is no issue.

Yes and no, PPA don’t change the underlying economics. In the above model, of batteries added 20c/kWh then Nuclear averages cheaper over a full day. If batteries added 10c/kWh then Solar ends up cheaper over a full day.

The underlying issue is nobody wants a PPA that lasts for the full 40+ year lifespan of a new nuclear reactor and battery prices are still falling. Enough subsides can make anything viable, but western governments have largely lost interest in doing so.

> They barely broke even at 90+% capacity factors

I don't understand this line of argument - that's a high capacity factor! And it's not a dirunal or annual one either, it's a predictable "we need to shut down to refuel" one. It sounds like it wouldn't have broken even, even at 100% capacity factor? At which point it's no longer "too cheap to meter" but "nuclear power is too expensive". And that's before we even dig into capex vs opex vs decommissioning vs disaster insurance.

Hinkley point C is guaranteed a price of £92 per megawatt hour (or 9.2p/kWh), when it finally comes online.

Nuclear requires 90%+ of utilization to be competitive. They reached a wall once they provide enough power that they would have to be cut down for 10% of the time.

What is completely different from solar, that is outcompeting everything with ~20% utilization, and making the alternatives more expensive on the process... What is a problem because it can't provide more than ~20% utilization.

A high capacity factor sounds like a benefit, however demand isn’t a constant. The perfect power source would be capable of running 24/7 but be profitable if run for 1 hour a year.

In the electrical industry a base load generation has historically been the least valuable electricity and it’s the only way Nuclear can operate.

> ”Hinkley point C is guaranteed a price of £92 per megawatt hour (or 9.2p/kWh)”

It’s actually £92.50 in 2012 money, inflation adjusted.

Given current inflation, the strike price is likely to be well over £160/MWh when it comes online, now estimated to be 2027.

(Fun fact: Hinkley Point C is the most expensive power plant ever built, anywhere in the world)

> Ultra cheap energy storage would have fixed the issue, but nothing was viable at the time.

For making nuclear viable, "ultra cheap" here would have to be a negative price.

The similarity of the problems with renewables is only that they benefit from storage. Without any similarity on the economics.

The negative externalities of fossil fuels justified some level of relative subsidies. Either by taxing pollution or direct subsidies of nuclear power.

Even ignoring global warming smog and acid rain have been known issues for a very long time. On top of this many countries lacked domestic supplies of fossil fuels.

>Chernobyl fallout covering the entirety of northern Europe

Of course, nothing of the sort happened.