Re:Japan to invest on nuclear energy in major policy shift
by cauch on Thursday December 22, 2022 @12:08PM
(#34095647)
Yes. It's basically demand response based on turning on and off factories.
Re:Japan to invest on nuclear energy in major policy shift
by nradov on Thursday December 22, 2022 @12:57PM
(#34096259)
No one is going to invest in an aluminum plant unless they have some assurance of cheap electric power for many years. The capital expense and fixed operating costs for those plants are tremendous. It's not economical to start and stop production on a daily basis as power prices fluctuate. How would you even schedule the production workers? And you still have to pay things like property taxes and insurance whether the plant is producing or not.
Re:Japan to invest on nuclear energy in major policy shift
by m4rtink on Thursday December 22, 2022 @02:58PM
(#34097820)
Also the local district heating company installed an electric 30 MW water heating boiler recently, which they can run on excess electric power and throttle down the regular combined cycle plant powered by natural gas.
Aluminum production, for one example.
Bauxite is so cheap and abundant that the cost of aluminum is almost entirely in the electricity required for smelting, which makes it effectively equivalent to energy exportation.