[_aavaa_]

How does nuclear, an energy source known for needing to run at a very high capacity factor (i.e at max capacity) help with energy spikes?

Well you better go tell the Chinese that they should slow down on wind and solar, clearly they are misinformed about how to run their grid.

[defrost]

The same Chinese who in addition to wind and solar are also building many nuclear energy plants of several differing designs, have nuclear already as 20% (?? or so, IIRC) of their supply capacity and intend by plan to keep it that way?

For whatever reason, the Chinese are all for hybrid nuclear / renewables - and keeping modern more efficient coal plants in the picture until they no longer needed.

The "trending flat" is by design, they want coal and nuclear as still available fallback, nuclear also has national security benefits for deterrence, the expansion plans for nuclear (not major amounts more, just steady low growth) are still on their table, just throttled back somewhat for now and ready to ramp up as they choose.

[_aavaa_]

> have nuclear already as 20% (?? or so, IIRC) of their supply capacity and intend by plan to keep it that way?

Off by about an order of magnitude. It’s only 4% of generation: https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix

Meanwhile wind, hydro, and solar are each on their own at least 2x that.

[defrost]

In China, in 2023, Electricity was only 29% of the total final energy consumption.

~ https://www.iea.org/countries/china/energy-mix

Of that Electricity,

  61.3% - Coal
  13.5% - Hydropower
   9.3% - Wind
   6.1% - Solar PV
   4.6% - Nuclear
   0.1% - Oil

So, Wind on it's own ~ 2x Nuclear, and Solar on it's own about 1.3 x Nuclear.

Clearly I was thinking of some other pivot on energy charting in China taht had it at 20% - perhaps current growth rates .. apologies.

That aside, in the greater picture of energy consumption, Wind, solar, and nuclear in China are all close enough to be ballpark ( a little more seperated just in the context of electricity generation )

[troupo]

> How does nuclear, an energy source known for needing to run at a very high capacity factor (i.e at max capacity) help with energy spikes?

It's one of the fastest load-following power sources we have. I think only gas power stations are faster. And no, they don't run at full capacity at all times.

All modern nuclear plants are capable of changing power output at 3-5% of nameplate capacity per minute: https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12...

You can't ramp up or ramp down any of the renewable sources as quickly. Or you have to insanely overbuild them.

Batteries help to a point, and there are downsides and problems to batteries, too. You want to be as diverse in your power sources and power source backups as possible.

> Well you better go tell the Chinese that they should slow down on wind and solar, clearly they are misinformed about how to run their grid.

Non-sequitur.

China is building out all power sources at tremendous pace. They build both renewables and nuclear. They literally approve 10 new reactors a year on top of all the renewables they also build.

And while they canceled inland plans after Fukushima, they may still reverse the decision. China is nothing if not pragmatic.

[_aavaa_]

> China is building out all power sources at tremendous pace. They build both renewables and nuclear. They literally approve 10 new reactors a year on top of all the renewables they also build.

Not a non-sequitor. They are building out wind solar and hydro at orders of magnitude more than nuclear.

“Look China is building so much nuclear, we should too.” Is disingenuous and self-serving by the nuclear industry since they don’t acknowledge that their nuclear build out is a rounding error (and a decade behind behind schedule) compared to renewables. If we want to point to China and say we should do what they do, the obvious take away is that renewables are the way to go.

[troupo]

> Not a non-sequitor.

Ah yes.

Me: China is building a lot of nuclear.

You: "Well you better go tell the Chinese that they should slow down on wind and solar, clearly they are misinformed about how to run their grid."

What do you call this? "An argument"? I was polite calling it a non sequitur.

> Is disingenuous and self-serving by the nuclear industry since they don’t acknowledge that their nuclear build out is a rounding error (and a decade behind behind schedule) compared to renewables.

China: Approves 10 new nuclear reactors a year. Builds up an extremely diversified power source for their country.

You: You're disingenuous. They are not building that much nuclear.

> their nuclear build out is a rounding error (and a decade behind behind schedule) compared to renewables.

Please don't use words and term whose meaning you don't understand. By source of power nuclear is 4.47% of total electricity production. Solar 8%, wind 10%, hydro 13.4%.

China is extremely lucky with their rivers and landscape. Hydro is huge in China.

> If we want to point to China and say we should do what they do

They do literally what I said: China is building out all power sources at tremendous pace. It's diversifying its energy production.

You, on the other hand:

- Claim that I should go and tell China to stop building solar and wind. Something I never said or implied

- That nuclear build up in China is a rounding error compared to renewables. It's not

- That "doing what China is doing" means to somehow only focus on renewables. Whereas China focuses on all sources, and nuclear is literally one of the country's priorities, building and approving more reactors a year than the rest of the world combined (going from 9 constructions in 2000 to 36 in 2025, 42 new ones proposed, and over 140 on the roadmap, 6-7 years construction time per reactor). And they are busy building nuclear reactors around the world (so, gaining more and more expertise and technologies).

At this point I've said all I needed to say to you.

Adieu.