Comment on Spicy Air ☢️
SpongyAneurysm@feddit.org 3 days agoThat’s a super basic view on the science of nuclear power. As an engineer, I need a lot more than that, because it needs a lot more to put basic principles into working projects.
So, is there a nuclear powerplant, that exists outside of some powerpoint slides, that is actually used to match fluctuating generation from other energy sources and/or fluctuating demands?
All of the ones I know are/were used to provide a base supply by running more or less 24/7 at their designated output, not least because they need to do that to be even somehow economically feasible.
starik@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
They do it in France. The term to google is “load following” nuclear power plants.
SpongyAneurysm@feddit.org 3 days ago
Kudos for a measured response to my sometimes snarky tone.
www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/…/29e7df00-en.pdf
I only had the time to read the executive summary of this thing, but I learned a bit more about nuclear power plants.
It’s still not enough for me to evaluate how well that can integrate with a grid dominated by renewables (can the load following be fast enough, to match wind and solar fluctuations) but still good to know more.