Since releasing my oil video I've had so many people claiming that renewables will never work and we need nuclear power instead.
-
Since releasing my oil video I've had so many people claiming that renewables will never work and we need nuclear power instead.
What's odd is that almost all of the messages mention that nuclear power is the only solution for the "base load".
I have a degree in Electrical Engineering and I took several nuclear science electives. I like nuclear energy. But I received so much "base load" gaslighting that I started to doubt my own understanding of the situation.
@notjustbikes on the topic of what if takes to switch away from fossil fuels, someone found this super interesting video/conference presentation with lots of hard numbers that I want to re-share with you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc
-
This means that the concept of "base load" is not really relevant, because there is no consistent base. And when the residual load goes negative, the wholesale price of electricity goes negative as well.
Last year the Netherlands had negative wholesale electricity prices for about 7% of the year, and that amount is only going to grow.
You can't afford to run a nuclear reactor when electricity prices are negative, but you also can't shut it down every day either.
You can't shut it down at all, unless you shut it down for several days.
-
Energy consumption goes up and down throughout the day, but the "base load" is the minimum amount, even at the lowest point in the day. So nuclear power is good for providing this "base" because it's consistent and always running.
The issue is that renewables sometimes output so much electricity that, especially when it's sunny, the grid makes *way* too much electricity. The electricity consumption of the grid minus renewables is called the "residual load", and it very very often goes NEGATIVE.
@notjustbikes so here's a data point: National Grid is the entity that runs the UK grid. The CEO of National Grid called "baseload" an outdated concept 11 years ago:
https://cleantechnica.com/2015/09/14/national-grid-ceo-large-power-stations-for-baseload-power-is-outdated/ -
You can't shut it down at all, unless you shut it down for several days.
@Drahreg01 Yes. I know. As I said, I literally studied this stuff in University.
Canada was a leader in nuclear energy when I studied there and I learned WAY too much about how CANDU reactors work. They're amazing. But they're not also not the right solution for the 21st century.
-
This means that the concept of "base load" is not really relevant, because there is no consistent base. And when the residual load goes negative, the wholesale price of electricity goes negative as well.
Last year the Netherlands had negative wholesale electricity prices for about 7% of the year, and that amount is only going to grow.
You can't afford to run a nuclear reactor when electricity prices are negative, but you also can't shut it down every day either.
@notjustbikes this is also my understanding and with the proliferation of affordable large-scale batteries it feels that nuclear is basically obsolete and too costly
-
When I did some reading on the current situation, I found a lot of sites out of Australia that were repeating this "base load" idea, in the context of nuclear power.
I suspect that this is fossil-fuel propaganda.
Fossil fuel companies love promoting nuclear power because they know it takes decades to get a reactor built (if it gets built at all), and in the meantime, everyone keeps using fossil fuels.
It's the perfect way to cripple renewables without being obvious about it.
Fossil fuel companies love promoting nuclear power because ...
They also abhor the idea of a decentralized grid, with local production, maybe even in the hands of the people who consume the power, because it threatens the structure of the current grid, with few well known producers and a lot of distributed consumers.
There is a tiny piece of truth in this, as a grid that also accommodates a lot of distributed producers requires a lot more digital control and modernization, and it also requires a somewhat different structure in cabling and power distribution, but on the other hand such a structure will be a lot more flexible and resilient, too.
Financially, some large scale fossil power producers (RWE in Germany, for example) are partially state owned and profits from them are being used to pay for state pensions or finance other parts of repeating state payments. These parts of the state resist ANY kind of change with an almost unsurmountable stubbornness, and these kinds of dependencies are also badly documented.
-
When I did some reading on the current situation, I found a lot of sites out of Australia that were repeating this "base load" idea, in the context of nuclear power.
I suspect that this is fossil-fuel propaganda.
Fossil fuel companies love promoting nuclear power because they know it takes decades to get a reactor built (if it gets built at all), and in the meantime, everyone keeps using fossil fuels.
It's the perfect way to cripple renewables without being obvious about it.
@notjustbikes Yea, the liberals were trying to push for nuclear SMRs last election, but they lost **hard**, but there was such a massive misinformation push, it just failed because... the liberals are such a mess I suppose.
-
When I did some reading on the current situation, I found a lot of sites out of Australia that were repeating this "base load" idea, in the context of nuclear power.
I suspect that this is fossil-fuel propaganda.
Fossil fuel companies love promoting nuclear power because they know it takes decades to get a reactor built (if it gets built at all), and in the meantime, everyone keeps using fossil fuels.
It's the perfect way to cripple renewables without being obvious about it.
@notjustbikes This worked flawlessly in the last election in Sweden 4 years ago. The winning coalition bet EVERYTHING on this narrative and it did seem to be part of them winning the election. 4 years later the main outcome of this is almost all renewable projects have been cancelled due to the market uncertainty that was created.
Election coming up in September and they seem to bring back the favorite from last time, let’s see if it works twice. Polls indicate no.
-
@notjustbikes so here's a data point: National Grid is the entity that runs the UK grid. The CEO of National Grid called "baseload" an outdated concept 11 years ago:
https://cleantechnica.com/2015/09/14/national-grid-ceo-large-power-stations-for-baseload-power-is-outdated/@markus yeah, that makes sense, and that was my understanding too, which is why it confused me that so many people were bringing up "base load" as some kind of anti-renewables "gotcha" in 2026.
-
When I did some reading on the current situation, I found a lot of sites out of Australia that were repeating this "base load" idea, in the context of nuclear power.
I suspect that this is fossil-fuel propaganda.
Fossil fuel companies love promoting nuclear power because they know it takes decades to get a reactor built (if it gets built at all), and in the meantime, everyone keeps using fossil fuels.
It's the perfect way to cripple renewables without being obvious about it.
@notjustbikes Solar on suburban homes is a funny thing. At the latitude of Amsterdam, it can lead to demand evaporation for 7-8 months of the year if the home has a sufficiently sized battery.
The solar from a typical suburban home can carry 10-15 kWp of solar, leading to 7-11 MWh production per year in east/west configuration and 13-16 MWh production in a south facing ideal deployment.
There is a 1:10 production difference between January and June, though, so the household likely needs to buy power Nov-Feb, but will likely break even or almost break even in Mar, and not consume any power from the grid in April to September, and begin to load from the grid lightly on October.
Heating with a heat pump will have them but 3-4 MWh during winter.
(Numbers based on our 75 kWh/(year and qm) home, and our demand, but they seem to be applicable on a more general scale, too).
For power producers this means they have to supply power to homes like ours only for winter.
Fortunately wind + battery can actually do that without CO2.
-
@notjustbikes I used to be very pro-nuclear. While.I still think removing power plants today for ecological reasons is highly counter productive, I have significantly changed my position overall. So many countries don't have the ability to deploy nuclear. They don't have any already, building the expertise takes decades, and can be the cause of geopolitical tensions (see Iran...).
I used to be very pro-nuclear, but I am now very pro-fusion.
I have a number of remote nuclear fusion receivers on the roof of my house, and they are netting me around 7 MWh/year at zero running cost.
-
Since releasing my oil video I've had so many people claiming that renewables will never work and we need nuclear power instead.
What's odd is that almost all of the messages mention that nuclear power is the only solution for the "base load".
I have a degree in Electrical Engineering and I took several nuclear science electives. I like nuclear energy. But I received so much "base load" gaslighting that I started to doubt my own understanding of the situation.
@notjustbikes I had this "base load" argument a lot in discussions with people who promote nuclear power. They often don't even know what it is. They just heard it and use it. Most people don't know what it actually is or why it's an irrelevant concept in times of renewable energy. So for them it sounds like a reasonable argument. They even could make you question it. So don't fall for it.
-
Energy consumption goes up and down throughout the day, but the "base load" is the minimum amount, even at the lowest point in the day. So nuclear power is good for providing this "base" because it's consistent and always running.
The issue is that renewables sometimes output so much electricity that, especially when it's sunny, the grid makes *way* too much electricity. The electricity consumption of the grid minus renewables is called the "residual load", and it very very often goes NEGATIVE.
@notjustbikes@social.notjustbikes.com I remember that's usually why it's equally important to also have energy storage facilities built with renewables.
-
Talking about "China" without a year number attached to what is being said is really hard, because things change rapidly there.
In 2024, China has been deploying new coal plants at approximately the same rate as they have been decommissioning older, dirtier ones.
The new plants have very low utilization rates, and are built as swing capacity. They are also being paid as reserve, base money for the ability to jump in on demand, and then additional money if they are actually needed.
-
This was always my understanding of how renewables make the concept of "base load" irrelevant, again, as a person with a literal degree in Electrical Engineering.
But I was gaslit by so many people that I felt the need to research the current situation again today.
This could just be people using out of date information, but I suspect this is anti-renewables propaganda. Otherwise I don't know why so many people would even know what a "base load" is.
@notjustbikes for me, having experienced the Iberian peninsula blackout, base load is what keeps the electric grid stable, imagine a large flywheel on a car
it can be done with batteries, hydro, nuclear or gas
but I'm a software engineer, what do I know?
cheers
-
This was always my understanding of how renewables make the concept of "base load" irrelevant, again, as a person with a literal degree in Electrical Engineering.
But I was gaslit by so many people that I felt the need to research the current situation again today.
This could just be people using out of date information, but I suspect this is anti-renewables propaganda. Otherwise I don't know why so many people would even know what a "base load" is.
@notjustbikes Perhaps they just mean, what do you do when it's night time and there's no wind. Certainly covering all scenarios with 100% renewables seems challenging.
-
@notjustbikes oh hey, that was actually my missing link as to why fossil fuel companies promote nuclear!
@CIMB4 @notjustbikes they know that nuclear is such a tarpit that it would take decades to get any power out of it, and in the meantime they can carry on selling fossil fuels.
-
When I did some reading on the current situation, I found a lot of sites out of Australia that were repeating this "base load" idea, in the context of nuclear power.
I suspect that this is fossil-fuel propaganda.
Fossil fuel companies love promoting nuclear power because they know it takes decades to get a reactor built (if it gets built at all), and in the meantime, everyone keeps using fossil fuels.
It's the perfect way to cripple renewables without being obvious about it.
@notjustbikes isn't one big downside of nuclear energy that the tractors are inert/lazy to react to the load?
-
@notjustbikes Perhaps they just mean, what do you do when it's night time and there's no wind. Certainly covering all scenarios with 100% renewables seems challenging.
@mattsqu @notjustbikes battery (or other methods) storage goes a long way, and there's probably lower demand at night
plus most countries have a national grid (even tied into their neighbours) & it's not the same weather everywhere
-
@notjustbikes oh hey, that was actually my missing link as to why fossil fuel companies promote nuclear!
@CIMB4 @notjustbikes
This reasoning (waiting for nuclear keeps us using fossil fuels) is nicely explained in the Australian context in this video by @thejuicemedia https://youtu.be/JBqVVBUdW84
