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by adrianN 604 days ago
Nuclear plants are not a replacement for batteries. You either have enough nuclear plants to cover peak demand, in which case you don't need any renewables at all, or you need batteries (or rather, storage, batteries are not the only option). Economics seem to favor storage and renewables over 100% nuclear.
1 comments

The difference being nuclear only needs something to cover the peak, whilst renewable needs capacity to cover 100% of production because of wild variability.
Which when simulating a carbon neutral Danish grid leads to nuclear power needing a cost reduction of 85% to even enter the picture.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192...

The difference between minimum and maximum demand is not that far from 100%.
Well, if you believe that 25-33% isn't that far from 100%, then you would be right.

- CAISO forecast for today [1]: peak 28.8GW, low 21.5GW

- France forecast for today [2]: peak 52.7GW, low 35.5GW

[1]: https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook [2]: https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/la-consommation-delectric...

You shouldn’t consider just one day, you should at least look at a time frame comparable to the construction time of your power source of choice.
How about you give me one day where low point is close to 0% as you claimed.