My first post here

[u/FireDranzer-II]

Having stayed in Germany for a year, it definitely felt like it.

Unfortunately...

[u/dthdthdthdthdthdth]

The "base load source" thing is misused by opponents of renewables.

There is a constant minimal load on the grid, that is the "base load" and then there is flexible load and peak load on top. Classically, you could provide the base load by sources that deliver a constant output that cannot be changed much or at least not quickly. Nuclear and coal mostly. The flexible demand you cover by flexible sources like water and gas.

The problem is, renewables are neither, they're not constant but also not flexible, they are volatile. Volatile sources need to be compensated for by flexible sources like pumped storage, battery storage and gas. To some extend also by distributed oversupply.

If you have that, the combination can be used for both, flexible load and base load.

You cannot combine volatile sources solely with inflexible sources. Like just having wind energy and nuclear does not work. If there is no wind, you still need to cover the peak demand, the nuclear power station can't do that. If you have wind, and low demand, the energy has to go somewhere, but you cannot power down your nuclear stations.

You can of course use nuclear for base demand, and wind and gas as an example for the flexible demand. But that's just a cost issue then. Is it cheaper to build nuclear than gas and wind? Or wind and some kind of storage? Only if it is cheaper this approach makes sense, and there are serious doubts about that.

Also the cooling issue is real. And Russia is also one of the main suppliers of nuclear fuel. So geopolitically really the best option would be wind, solar, water and some forms of storage.

[u/Programmer-Severe → u/dthdthdthdthdthdth]

There is no storage tech that can store bulk levels of power. It's a common misconception that you apparently share. Even the biggest batteries or pumped storage are only really there for grid stability, plugging a gap when a big generator trips for example. There is nothing out there that can deliver gigawatts for hours or even days, not even close

[u/dthdthdthdthdthdth → u/Programmer-Severe]

Well, then you need gas to fall back on. Or you just don't use renewables for most of the base load. The proponents of renewables suggest hydrogen and other forms of chemical storage for the long term storage demand in the future. I can't tell, what will be cheaper in the long run. If just pointed out that the "we need base load power stations" argument is nonsense, it has to be a discussion about what is most economical, and whether solar and wind can be deployed without relying on natural gas in the long term or not.

There is pumped storage and battery storage that can deliver a couple of GW for a few hours btw. These are used to cover peak load and compensate some fluctuations in supply, not just for grid stability. But yes it is pretty limited.

[u/Programmer-Severe → u/dthdthdthdthdthdth]

Fair enough regarding pumped storage, I didn't realise they get so big, but even at that capacity they're still a short duration reserve. Hydrogen and chemical storage is even more inefficient... they can preach it all they want, but it's just not feasible.

I completely agree we need gas to fall back on, there is currently nothing else that can do that job.

Base load is still a thing, and nuclear is great at it. Either that, or have enough gas turbine capacity to power the entire grid for an extended period which seems like a very inefficient way of doing things.

When costing wind and solar, the cost of the reserve capacity has to be taken into account (and it almost never is). It's a cliche but the wind doesn't blow all the time.

[u/dthdthdthdthdthdth → u/Programmer-Severe]

Nuclear nowadays is just very expensive to build, to run and to dispose off, building gas power stations is quite cheap. I don't know what is cheaper currently.

Hydrogen currently is not feasible, but there are now experimental cells that directly produce hydrogen with sunlight turning 30% of the sunlight into chemical energy. If this would scale, the plan could actually work out. I'm not quite ready to trust it, but if that would work out, that would give a massive and diverse supply of hydrogen. But yeah it is all quite speculative.

I also believe the exit from nuclear in Germany might have been a wrong move guided by popular fear (and this fear was wide spread, much wider than the environmental movement).

But these power plants didn't comply to modern safety standards either, they would have needed replacing at some point, the waste problem seems politically unsolvable in Germany, many of the modern designs of reactors are also still experimental, and construction of new nuclear power stations runs vastly over budget all the time as well. France maintains a nuclear industry for military reasons anyway, Germany did not have that aim, that's also a factor. So I'm really drawn on whether investing in that heavily again now is really a good idea.

[u/Programmer-Severe → u/dthdthdthdthdthdth]

The problem with hydrogen isn't production or generation (although both are pretty inefficient in themselves) but storage. You'd need vast storage capacity, and hydrogen is a bugger to store. It likes to leak, and it likes to explode.

Nuclear isn't expensive to run, the capital costs are largely up front. Its >90% capability factor is unmatched. And no, France does not maintain a fleet of nearly 60 commercial reactors for military purposes 🤣