7 ms·

> There is no way SMR could beat solar+battery power cost even now. Not a particular fan of this paper, but it does illustrate a point ... https://ieeexplore.i

> There is no way SMR could beat solar+battery power cost even now. Not a particular fan of this paper, but it does illustrate a point ... https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8867359 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8867359 showed that for the UK to go 100% solar it would need an energy capacity of 1/3 of the total grid energy demand over the year. Figure 6 A shows the big trend of 6 1/2 months of discharge and 5 1/2 months of charge (i.e. cycle perhaps once a year). Seasonal variations do matter.

ViewTrick1002 19d ago
Not sure what relevancy a 2019 paper has today? It also seems like they are constraining the system to have no overproduction. It’s like assuming that a fossil based system has all its producers generating the expected capacity factor and then smoothing out the season and daily demand changes with storage. Due to the difference between summer and winter demand such a fossil system would also need to have months of storage to compensate. Which of course is absolute stupidity. When you can just overbuild production capacity and leave a far simpler problem to solve.
- chickenbig 17d ago
  > Not sure what relevancy a 2019 paper has today? The underlying demand and production has not changed so much since then. The requirements for storage still exist, and strongly depend on when the power is delivered as well as needed. > a fossil system would also need to have months of storage Coal and gas also get produced in the winter at a relatively constant rate. Plus we know how to handle piles of coal, caverns full of gas, tanks full of LNG, and linepack for shorter duration gas storage. > you can just overbuild production capacity and leave a far simpler problem to solve Sure, you then have an economic problem. The effective capacity factor of the intermittents get driven down. How are they going to be paid for, if much of the time the market is saturated?
  - ViewTrick1002 17d ago
    We have vastly moved the scientific frontier of modeling our energy systems since 2019. All those analyses find that renewable grids are far cheaper than if involving new built nuclear power. Here are two modern papers on the subject: https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost-2025-26-Final/GenCost_2025-26_Final_Report_20260715.pdf https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost-2025-26-Final/Ge... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544226009837 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054422... I find it telling that you call it an ”economic problem” and ”intermittents”. It seems like you have an axe to grind, but not much backing your standpoint anymore. So you’ve fallen to using derogatory. Those same fossil fuels have the same economic ”crowding” out problem when cheaper sources in the same class delivers. A single cycle gas turbine would love to get paid running at 100% all year around. It doesn’t because CCGT plants with higher efficiency undercut it. Just like what happens in renewables. They start crowding out each other. Storage steps in and solves the peaks. More renewables come online until they ”crowd each other out” and around we go. That’s called being a market. Which you nuke fans seems deathly afraid of given the economics of new built nuclear power.
    - chickenbig 17d ago
      > https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost-2025-26-Final/Ge https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost-2025-26-Final/Ge... It is interesting to see how large-scale nuclear is handled. 120% and 60% increase in cost for FOAK and NOAK (Table 2-1), plus no learning rate for nuclear construction beyond that (Table C.2). Interest rates during construction unfairly penalise nuclear as "GenCost uses the simplest way which is to increase the capital cost by the assumed discount rate raised to the power of the construction time" (page 97)." This results in ~20% increase in capital costs against other simple scenarios like equal construction costs across each year. 30 year plant lifetime, rather than say 60 years. That results in ~10% increase in capital costs. > Those same fossil fuels have the same economic ”crowding” out problem when cheaper sources in the same class delivers. That line of reasoning only works if there is something to make one plant more expensive to produce electricity than another. For natural gas the cost of fuel is far greater than the CAPEX. For intermittents only the variable OPEX can distinguish between generators, which is mostly for wind and I guess most severely for offshore wind. Cannibalisation is the big problem for intermittents. The notion of succession doesn't work for them.

ViewTrick1002 19d ago

Not sure what relevancy a 2019 paper has today? It also seems like they are constraining the system to have no overproduction. It’s like assuming that a fossil based system has all its producers generating the expected capacity factor and then smoothing out the season and daily demand changes with storage. Due to the difference between summer and winter demand such a fossil system would also need to have months of storage to compensate. Which of course is absolute stupidity. When you can just overbuild production capacity and leave a far simpler problem to solve.

chickenbig 17d ago
> Not sure what relevancy a 2019 paper has today? The underlying demand and production has not changed so much since then. The requirements for storage still exist, and strongly depend on when the power is delivered as well as needed. > a fossil system would also need to have months of storage Coal and gas also get produced in the winter at a relatively constant rate. Plus we know how to handle piles of coal, caverns full of gas, tanks full of LNG, and linepack for shorter duration gas storage. > you can just overbuild production capacity and leave a far simpler problem to solve Sure, you then have an economic problem. The effective capacity factor of the intermittents get driven down. How are they going to be paid for, if much of the time the market is saturated?
- ViewTrick1002 17d ago
  We have vastly moved the scientific frontier of modeling our energy systems since 2019. All those analyses find that renewable grids are far cheaper than if involving new built nuclear power. Here are two modern papers on the subject: https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost-2025-26-Final/GenCost_2025-26_Final_Report_20260715.pdf https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost-2025-26-Final/Ge... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544226009837 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054422... I find it telling that you call it an ”economic problem” and ”intermittents”. It seems like you have an axe to grind, but not much backing your standpoint anymore. So you’ve fallen to using derogatory. Those same fossil fuels have the same economic ”crowding” out problem when cheaper sources in the same class delivers. A single cycle gas turbine would love to get paid running at 100% all year around. It doesn’t because CCGT plants with higher efficiency undercut it. Just like what happens in renewables. They start crowding out each other. Storage steps in and solves the peaks. More renewables come online until they ”crowd each other out” and around we go. That’s called being a market. Which you nuke fans seems deathly afraid of given the economics of new built nuclear power.
  - chickenbig 17d ago
    > https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost-2025-26-Final/Ge https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost-2025-26-Final/Ge... It is interesting to see how large-scale nuclear is handled. 120% and 60% increase in cost for FOAK and NOAK (Table 2-1), plus no learning rate for nuclear construction beyond that (Table C.2). Interest rates during construction unfairly penalise nuclear as "GenCost uses the simplest way which is to increase the capital cost by the assumed discount rate raised to the power of the construction time" (page 97)." This results in ~20% increase in capital costs against other simple scenarios like equal construction costs across each year. 30 year plant lifetime, rather than say 60 years. That results in ~10% increase in capital costs. > Those same fossil fuels have the same economic ”crowding” out problem when cheaper sources in the same class delivers. That line of reasoning only works if there is something to make one plant more expensive to produce electricity than another. For natural gas the cost of fuel is far greater than the CAPEX. For intermittents only the variable OPEX can distinguish between generators, which is mostly for wind and I guess most severely for offshore wind. Cannibalisation is the big problem for intermittents. The notion of succession doesn't work for them.