[acidburnNSA]

Nuclear is unpopular but is still extremely important to a low-carbon future. I recently wrote a fairly extensive primer on the current energy situation [1]. Key points are that battery backup of renewables is extremely challenging (even Stanford's 100% renewable superstar Jacobsen does not include them in his plan) and that the standard go-to plan with pumped hydro is potentially very flawed due to only-recently-understood biogenic methane emissions from reservoirs [2].

Also, this past December, the entire Pacific Northwest experienced a 10-day total wind lull and the 4GWe of capacity in the Bonneville Power Administration generated ~0 kWh. Backing that up alone would require a battery facility covering a football field 100 stories high and costing $90B that has to be replaced every dozen years. Now scale that by a few thousand and see how it looks. Baseload carbon-free energy from nukes is very valuable.

[1] https://partofthething.com/thoughts/a-medium-length-primer-o...

[2] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

[jdcarr]

Do you have any thoughts on the benefits of decreasing the fragmentation of the US grid? Presently it's some 3000 utilities who don't have much of an incentive to work together, but you could imagine a future where regions of the US with excess generation transmit to areas at a deficit to diversify the energy supply of any region. This is roughly what's happening in China with their single public utility and usage of HVDC to source renewables from provinces with surplus generation to those operating at a deficit (i.e. the most populous).

[acidburnNSA]

HVDC interconnects are a reasonable way to help with regional intermittency. The cost of any necessary interconnects should be considered in the total cost evaluations going into our low-carbon system plans.