[Retric]

US Nuclear had a capacity factor of 86.1% as recently as 2012, it just varies through time and over a 40+ year lifetime you don’t have outstanding results every single year. So sure you can argue 71.1% in 1997 no longer applies, but it was almost exactly the same fleet of reactors in use back then.

Yet the person I was replying to said “about 93%” when averaging over 93% has been achieved exactly once in 2019. That kind of nonsense is actively harmful when people hear something and then later realize it’s simply incorrect.

Effective advocacy requires accuracy including technology specific issues and how to mitigate them.

[looofooo0]

Planned or unplanned is the question.

[Retric]

The larger question is what capacity factors would look like if you tried to double the amount of nuclear as many advocates wish. And what that would do to profitability / the need for subsidies.

Or as the industry has been concerned with for a decade, what happens when renewable energy is regularly sending wholesale prices near zero for hours a day.