alt Hacker NewsI didn't disagree that there is price parity for the levelized cost. There is still not price parity for levelized full system cost. If we used wind and solar for 95-100% of generation, the price would be much higher.
My point is not that we can or should replace wind and solar with nuclear. It's that it is far cheaper to use a combination of nuclear, wind, and solar than it is to use 100% wind and solar.
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Agreed. I misunderstood your comment and got too hot-headed. Sorry about that.
Yes, the 95% renewables is the number we should be shooting for not 100% as that causes battery backup price to explode.
I have been pro-nuclear for a long time, to disappointing results naturally. So, with how well renewables are doing I've really just jumped on this train and seen nuclear as more of a distraction from the critical next 10-20 years given how long it takes to come online.
At the end of the day the grid is only about 30% of the emissions problem (depending where you look).
I think it’s quite conceivable that nuclear would be cheaper for a 100% carbon free grid.
But I don’t understand how the combination of nuclear, wind and solar would be low cost. Wouldn’t you effectively have to build out enough nuclear to cover still cloudy days at which point your wind and solar is not very useful? That sounds expensive.
I suspect we won’t end up building much nuclear because we will already have built out so much wind and solar. Nuclear is a poor fit for filling gaps in generation by intermittent renewables because fuel costs are negligible so it costs the same whether you run at 50% or 100% of rated output.
To eliminate carbon emissions entirely we will need some green hydrogen for turning into aviation fuel and as chemical feedstocks. Perhaps the gas backup will eventually burn that.