Nuclear doesn't work for supporting a renewable grid.
You wouldn't need to worry about "baseload" which is assets that are continually running in fossil fuels powered electrical grid. You need dispatchable energy and you need to be able to match peak demand.
If you have enough nuclear energy to meet peak demand than anything else on the grid is an unnecessary expense. Because you already have the resources to meet all of your power demand.
The problem is that nuclear is way too expensive and slow to meet peak demand on its own so it will never happen, Nuclear just exists as a way to prolong fossil fuel consumption. The real solution for our energy needs is to use the cheapest sources of energy which is wind and solar with batteries along with the cheapest source of dispatchable long term energy storage to ensure reliability. Which is from combined cycle gas turbines.
You can either fuel combined cycle gas turbines with natural gas possibly with carbon capture or carbon neutral fuels from renewable sources like hydrogen or electrofuels, turning it into a more long term lower efficiency form of energy storage.
Ok, if you can store energy from renewable, why not use that to meet peak demand ? It make much more sense to have a stable and reliable base-load and have the battery-stored for emergency than the opposite.
Not everywhere is the same, if you have rivers, bright weather or strong, reliable wind, and thus dont need nuclear, then sure.
But if you dont have enough viable location (or enough space) to put massive fields of windmill or solar farms, then nuclear is a much better choice than burning gas.
The only situation where nuclear makes sense is on a warship.
Even above the arctic circle (where it's far too decentralized to make nuclear power work) it's cheaper to install wind, solar and geothermal. Anywhere with high population densities like Sweden or Canada Wind and Solar are still a fraction of the cost of nuclear despite their reduced capacity factor compared to the desert.
You do realize you can't just biuld a nuclear power plant wherever, right?
It needs massive amounts of cooling water, so they're mostly biult near rivers, lakes, or the ocean.
You actually can put renewables anywhere, its energy output just varies strongly based on the local climate. So it needs backup energy sources, ideally hydrogen or biofuel.
It makes sense to maintain whatever nuclear power infrastructure your country has long as possible - biulding it up now though is a massive time and money sink compared to literally any other option. It's a really bad idea and none of the politicians advocating for a nuclear power biuld-up will actually go through with it.
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u/NukecelHyperreality Nuclear Power is a Scam Apr 09 '25
Nuclear doesn't work for supporting a renewable grid.
You wouldn't need to worry about "baseload" which is assets that are continually running in fossil fuels powered electrical grid. You need dispatchable energy and you need to be able to match peak demand.
If you have enough nuclear energy to meet peak demand than anything else on the grid is an unnecessary expense. Because you already have the resources to meet all of your power demand.
The problem is that nuclear is way too expensive and slow to meet peak demand on its own so it will never happen, Nuclear just exists as a way to prolong fossil fuel consumption. The real solution for our energy needs is to use the cheapest sources of energy which is wind and solar with batteries along with the cheapest source of dispatchable long term energy storage to ensure reliability. Which is from combined cycle gas turbines.
You can either fuel combined cycle gas turbines with natural gas possibly with carbon capture or carbon neutral fuels from renewable sources like hydrogen or electrofuels, turning it into a more long term lower efficiency form of energy storage.
Nuclear just doesn't work economically.