[Nursie]

> we're going to need a backup of some sort. Something you can turn up late at night in the middle of winter.

AFAICT this is not really nuclear. They excel at constant production, not switch ability to fill in around renewables.

[tomatocracy]

Nuclear can be turned up and down relatively easily. It's on/off that takes a long time. And you can supplement nuclear with pumped storage hydro to steepen its turn up/down curve in extremis.

[jcattle]

The less a traditional nuclear reactor contributes to the grid the worse its economics.

If you have a nuclear reactor you want to run it 24/7 at max output for it to make any economic sense. Otherwise you have all your fixed costs which need to be offset by the few hours that the reactor is actually selling energy, making this energy even more expensive.

[natmaka]

> Nuclear can be turned up and down relatively easily

TLDR: it doesn't work this way.

Detailed version: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41796580

[pqtyw]

What's the point though? Isn't the variable cost of nuclear very low in relative terms?