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Re:In a First, Solar Was Europe's Biggest Source of Power La... by ben_w on Friday July 11, 2025 @05:52PM (#44537132)
One of the bigger other sources of emissions is transport; transport requires some of the electricity is condensed into a portable form regardless of the specifics — batteries, hydrogen, chunks of purified metal to burn, whatever — and that condensation means it doesn't get any extra novel benefit from expensive-but-consistent nuclear over cheap-but-predictably-intermittent renewables.

The scale is such that if we imagine a future with fully electrified cars, the batteries in those cars are more than enough to load-balance the current uses of the grid, and still are enough for the current uses of the grid when those batteries have been removed from the vehicles due to capacity wear making them no longer useful in a vehicle.

The best time for more nuclear power was the 90s, the second best was 10 years ago; unless you have a cunning plan you've already shown to an investor about how to roll out reactors much much faster, I wouldn't hold your breath on them.

Re:In a First, Solar Was Europe's Biggest Source of Power La... by mlyle on Friday July 11, 2025 @07:49PM (#44537978)
> and that condensation means it doesn't get any extra novel benefit from expensive-but-consistent nuclear over cheap-but-predictably-intermittent renewables

This assumes you can do just the condensation during the day— E.g. you are amortizing the electrolyzers capital cost over just times when there is surplus power instead of something closer to 24/7.

Re:In a First, Solar Was Europe's Biggest Source of Power La... by nasmorn on Saturday July 12, 2025 @05:03AM (#44540504)
Batteries to have solar 24/7 will be dirt cheap soon. The question is: is it cheaper to build nuclear and run the electrolyzers at the same rate the whole year or use solar and run them much less during the winter. Where much less is a function of latitude