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by simoncion 3930 days ago
I know that nuclear power is base-load power, not peaking power. Infrastructure is something of a passing interest of mine. :)

Last I checked, the majority of the US's power comes from coal-fired power plants. If there was the political will and public understanding, we could likely replace pretty much all of that with nuclear plants, reserving coal-fired, or oil-fired (or pumped-storage hydro, or flywheel storage, or...) plants to meet peak power demands.
1 comments
mackwic 3930 days ago
Well, I have to say I don't know the US infrastructure enough to have a bold opinion, but I know heavy infrastructure like these often have a sound design respectively to their constraints (which can be absurd).

The European power grid is very tight and well-meshed, this is why we can let our nuclear power plant and sell electricity to Switzerland, Germany or Netherlands or buy it.

I guess it's not as well interconnected in the US, so that states can't easily lend power which disable the use of nuclear power plant for many states ?

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simoncion 3930 days ago
I think that the US either has a national power grid, or has one for the West and East halves of the country. Obviously, throwing power across the whole damn continent is far less efficient than just throwing it across a state.

I've -very recently- heard people making the claim that Texas has its own grid, but that's news to me. Maybe the situation in Texas is that they have all the power gen capacity that they need within the state, and are also hooked into the national grid. shrug

> I know heavy infrastructure like these often have a sound design respectively to their constraints (which can be absurd).

Anti-nuke hysteria is toxic to sound planning and design. :(

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jahnu 3930 days ago
There are three in the US.

East, West and Texas.

https://sites.google.com/site/theuspowergrid/

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mackwic 3930 days ago
> I think that the US either has a national power grid, or has one for the West and East halves of the country

It would makes sense.

> Obviously, throwing power across the whole damn continent is far less efficient than just throwing it across a state.

For now. With the future high-temperature supra-conductive cabling we will be able to do wonders of efficiency on large distance.

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