alt Hacker NewsIIRC nuclear doesn't really work well as the last 5-10%. Start-up and shut-down for nuclear reactors is a slow process. When it's generating, it needs to just keep on generating. Not so quick to dial down or up just because the wind is(n't) blowing.
Replies
pfdietz • today at 5:46 PM
The problem isn't technical dispatchability, it's economic dispatchability. A nuclear plant operated at 5-10% capacity factor would be ludicrously uneconomical, even to just operate.
zozbot234 • today at 4:32 PM
It's not a technical limitation, it's economic. The cost of nuclear is almost all in building (and decommissioning) the plant, the fuel is almost free. So you want to produce flat out as long as you can get almost any positive price for the output.
It's not that slow. They can ramp up and down over hours, and those demand patterns are known in advance. Combine with battery, pumped storage, or synfuel generation to soak up excess power during low demand times, and use that to provide peaker capacity during high demand times.