| > Also, base load is a very loosely defined notion that somehow never gets nailed down to actual GW of capacity or GWH of storage needed. Can you be specific? An energy grid must have a capacity to produce a given amount of energy over a certain period of time reliably, and this is called the base load. The capacity varies according to the region or grid - for example, for Europe you can find the average amount of energy consumed here: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... We cannot use renewables for that, because they can be unreliable. Even if we saturated Europe's most suitable spots with solar panes and wind turbines, there will be days in which not enough energy would be produced in this scenario. Energy production from renewables is also seasonal, obviously. Therefore, you need a stable energy source that you can use to accommodate for that. So, your alternatives for when that happens are essentially nuclear or carbon-based power plants. The latter are heavily favored at the moment, as you can see in the link above. They are currently what Europe largely relies on as a reliable energy source generator. Therefore, nuclear is the only existing alternative to oil/gas/coal. I would appreciate if you read my comments carefully and realize that I am not arguing against renewables, so you can save your lectures for someone else. I am merely pointing out that renewables are not a solution for a reliable grid without another energy source, and that every alternative people like to cite to nuclear in this scenario (batteries, hydrogen, you name it) are currently not viable. |