[ncmncm]

Diverting money from building out renewables to building nukes, for whatever purpose, brings climate catastrophe nearer.

If ever there was a process forgiving of intermittently available energy, it is chemical synthesis. The same money spent on wind and solar would produce a lot more ammonia.

Conversion losses don't matter much when marginal cost of generation is near zero, as we get with renewables, but very much not, with nukes. You just build out more panels.

[rini17]

Technically it may be forgiving, but not economically. Imagine electrolyzer or ammonia plant that uses only 20% of full capacity on average because of using only peak electricity surplus. The rest 80% is basically wasted. Classical plant with higher capacity factor might still be more profitable even if it uses more expensive electricity.

[ZeroGravitas]

Any electricity demand that can be modulated is good for renewables.

Big plants have been doing this for decades, even before renewables were a thing. The new thing is computers making it cheaply automatable and networked so that e.g. a fleet of cars can organise their charging schedule via the internet.

But rising electricity demand isn't a problem for renewables and climate change, it is in fact a required and desirable part of a virtuous cycle.

So build the Green Ammonia plant and build the renewables to power it 100% of the time but have the option to turn your electrolysers down and sell a small percentage of that to the grid when market prices let you profit from that. It's a win-win-win, less gas peakers, more green electricity and green hydrogen.

[ncmncm]

There is nowhere that you would operate at only 20% utilization.

Demand for ammonia will be so strong that, after enough renewable overcapacity is built out, you would run electrolysers off your other storage, 24/7.

A nuke would, of course, produce exactly zero grams of ammonia for ten years. It would also require burning coal for those ten years. Ten years of coal is part of the cost never accounted for, like the public indemnification subsidy, and cost of decommissioning.

Starting after the ten years, the nuke would produce a fraction of the ammonia, per dollar, that the renewables would have, because operating cost of nukes is quite high, against zero for renewables.

[rini17]

(*) storage cost neglected