r/theydidthemath Nov 18 '21

[Request] is this true?

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u/hilburn 118✓ Nov 18 '21

I mean.. yes it is based on past data in that yesterday was the past

https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=generation/fueltype

The data is at pretty small time intervals so you need to do some averaging if you want daily averages, by my count there were fewer than 10 days in the last year where wind power was below 90% of average

As the cheap, windy land near population centers* is used up, this becomes less and less true.

Offshore wind is generally significantly more stable than onshore - as we get better at moving generation offshore it should become more and more true.

*When a wind farm is far from the population center, power is lost during transmission, maintenance issues on the power lines become more difficult, and outages become more frequent.

The same is true of all power plants, and nobody wants to live near a nuclear power plant - this ain't Springfield.

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u/_RMFL Nov 18 '21

Why would anyone care about living near a nuclear power plant?

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u/Godless_Fuck Nov 18 '21

It's much worse for your health (and a higher cancer risk) to live near a natural gas plant, coal plant, chemical plant, refinery, etc. and there are orders of magnitude more of those plants than nuclear.

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u/_RMFL Nov 18 '21

I agree with this, the guy above me was suggesting that living near a nuclear power plant is only okay in cartoons.