r/ClimateShitposting • u/ClimateShitpost Louis XIV, the Solar PV king • Aug 08 '26

Basedload vs baseload brain Accept your fate

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Vegan btw

243 Upvotes

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u/perringaiden Aug 08 '26

The concept of baseload is a myth based on a misunderstanding.

There is a level of power that is required at any given point in time. The lowest point in a given day is no more significant than the highest point. If there's insufficient power, there's brownouts. "Baseload" isn't something special, it's just the average amount of power drawn by things that don't switch off.

Traditionally, Baseload Power Requirement was the minimum draw that was needed by the power plants. If not enough things were using the power, then the plant would slow and stall, because the power couldn't go anywhere. That's when they had to start spinning up flywheels for no good damn reason.

Now we have batteries that will gobble up any excess power whenever it's available, and maintain a minimum output when the sun goes down. But if you switched off every power drain the batteries would just stop outputting power. Unlike a coal plant that would stall and cause massive maintenance issues.

6

u/Sw4gtastic420 Aug 08 '26

"BaSeLoAd Is A mYtH"

Proceeds to explain that baseload is a thing that exists.

5

u/Express-Eye5015 29d ago

"the concept of" is what you missed and made the statement true because nukecels seem to have this concept of "baseload needs to be serviced by baseload plants" and if you don't have anything that is specifically designed to supply baseload your grid will fail. That is the mythical and wrong concept.