Since releasing my oil video I've had so many people claiming that renewables will never work and we need nuclear power instead.
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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 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...).
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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 maybe a coordinated bot net?
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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.
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.
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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 Oh joy, a coordinated campaign, we almost never see those nowadays.
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@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...).
@notjustbikes Since all these countries will have to make do with just renewables, we will have to solve the base load issue without nuclear, so even for countries with existing nuclear infrastructure, it's essentially going to be obsolete. And economically it seems much better to develop a local renewable industry that we can export globally, rather than a nuclear one that is going to be obsolete by the end of he century (and if it isn't we're doomed anyways)
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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.
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.
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R relay@relay.an.exchange shared this topic
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@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...).
@sgued @notjustbikes it was an excellent option we should have deployed more of in the 90's.
But it isn't the 90's any more.
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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.
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.
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@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...).
@sgued @notjustbikes I agree, new reactors just don't make financial sense any more.
And it will take so long to build them that renewables will be even more cheap. -
@notjustbikes I wonder if those advocating so vociferously for nuclear are happy for the long term storage (by which we mean over timescales no human civilisation could ever hope to last) in their their back yard?
@cabbagebeets Meh, I think the storage problem is way overblown.
The really radioactive stuff decays in a fairly short period of time and it's kept on-site in water pools (and the Cherenkov radiation looks so cool).
Once it's been there for a few years the remaining material is much less radioactive and very small.
Yeah, it needs to be handled carefully, but there are way more important issues to worry about when it comes to large-scale power generation.
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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
The "base load" argument is a classic, and I have been hearing it for >20 years. There is some validity to it, but a lot can be mitigated by battery storage and grids.Nuclear power has the same supply chain risks as oil: do you want to buy from Russia, Kazakhstan or Niger, which is also Russia controlled.
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@sgued @notjustbikes it was an excellent option we should have deployed more of in the 90's.
But it isn't the 90's any more.
@LovesTha Yeah, that's the thing.
When I was studying nuclear energy in University (because I was a huge proponent of it) it was the 90s, and we should've built a shitload of nuclear reactors then. It made sense.
But now? Nuclear rectors take ages to construct and they will not be as cheap as renewables.
Nuclear reactors may still make sense for powering heavy industrial applications though.
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@augustusbrown From my quick search of it, it does seem like a lot of the "base load" stuff is coming out of Australia, so maybe it's the misinformation of choice for anti-renewables advocates there.
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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 have not seen the video yet for context
Can't it be a misunderstanding that they mean grid momentum and not baseload and get the two confused?
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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 @jwildeboer at some point in time we had a "base load" in germany too [that light green coloured line at the bottom] https://mstdn.io/@march/110203828227475945
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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 tend to think that the so-called base load is a stochastic phenomenon.
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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 sadly bs. like #MeritOrder and extensive #Lobbyism by #Corporations prevent that these prices reach consumers, espechally in #Germany!
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@notjustbikes
The "base load" argument is a classic, and I have been hearing it for >20 years. There is some validity to it, but a lot can be mitigated by battery storage and grids.Nuclear power has the same supply chain risks as oil: do you want to buy from Russia, Kazakhstan or Niger, which is also Russia controlled.
@residuum I agree with your first bit, but I don't really agree about nuclear having a supply-chain risk.
The physical amount of Uranium that is used in nuclear reactors is quite small, and it doesn't need to be delivered constantly like oil or gas.
Plus there's lots in Canada and Australia.
There are other reasons why nuclear doesn't make as much sense as it did in the 90s.
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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 I'd always understood generator base load to be something like having to keep all your lights in the house on at a low setting, just glowing, so then when you needed proper light, they'd be no delay in coming up to full brightness.
Or is that an incorrect analogy? -
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.
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.
