this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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There’s also a reliability element too. Nuclear can reliably output a given amount of energy, at the cost of being slow to alter. Many renewable sources have sporadic amounts of power throughout each day. Either is better than fossil fuels at least.
Good point but that is not insurmountable. There are many ways to achieve predictability (batteries, hydro, tidal) that also come on stream much quicker than any nuclear plant.
Ah I’d not consider these! That gives some hope too then :) I hope we get the battery advances we need asap, the urgency from the climate crisis is strong lately.
Nuclear isn't entirely reliable though. During the big heatwave last year at least 1 and iirc at leat a few French reactors had to be shut down because the water levels in the rivers they were on were not high enough to get sufficient water to cool them. Which is a problem that's only going to get worse as climate change progresses.
That's a limitation of the secondary power conversion side and is true for any power generation methodology that relies on steam generation. That said, there's alternatives to the traditional Rankine cycle that could be deployed without modifying the nuclear side of the plant.
I don't recall them being shut down (that would be a drastic step). They were forced to reduce output, though (making the energy more expensive).
there are a bunch of new reactor designs that don't use water.