First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

Re:First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in opera... by _ph_ on Thursday December 28, 2023 @03:31AM (#38791301)

Nuclear would be the worst technology for filling temporary gaps in the production of renewables. The ramping speed of nuclear reactors is limited, and they cannot be throttled below 40% output without shutting them down entirely for quite some time. On top of that, the main expense of nuclear reactors is building and maintaining them, so throttling a reactor is not reducing the costs. You really want to run a nuclear reactor with a high load.

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Re:First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in opera... by champtar on Thursday December 28, 2023 @01:23PM (#38796626)

French NPP can vary their power output 80% up or down in 30 min (https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_pilotable_d%27%C3...)

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Re:First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in opera... by _ph_ on Friday December 29, 2023 @05:26AM (#38803538)

Fine, than they can go a bit lower still. But for a grid mainly powered by renewables, they would have to be able to go all the way down to 0, what is really not a practical option for nuclear reactors.

But there is another catch: nuclear is extremely expensive, even when run most of the time close to 100%. But any time you throttle the reactor, you are driving the costs up. Because most of the costs are in building and operating the reactor, less so in fuel.

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