Interesting that even on the yearly chart almost all green and greenish areas get their 'green' power from hydro and nuclear by large. If only wind and solar produced as much power as they do talk.
The post-first-oil-crash nuclear buildout might have continued if it hadn't been for the combination of fossil fuel becoming cheap again and Chernobyl fallout covering the entirety of northern Europe. The symbolism of Reagan taking Carter's solar panels off the White House made it clear that wasn't going to be the path.
Notably, GHWBush's mansion in Texas, shortly after, had solar water heating.
Where did the Carter White House Solar Panels go?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-hous...
Unfortunately, renewables cause similar issues. If solar tanks wholesale prices for 8 hours a day nuclear needs to make that up on the other 16. Meanwhile Solar hits the same wall once it needs energy storage.
Hydro ran out of ideal locations in most countries etc which is why we have so many different energy sources. The only way things hangs is if the underlying economics does. Nuclear with an 80% reduction in operating and decommissioned costs would largely take over the world.
It never broke even anywhere. It's the most subsidy addicted form of power.
>Unfortunately, renewables cause similar issues. If solar tanks wholesale prices for 8 hours a day nuclear needs to make that up on the other 16.
Wind can make a lot of that up. Solar and wind anti-correlate. Those dark, cold winters also tend to be the windiest and vice versa.
Apparently we'd need 5 hours of storage to get to a 97% carbon free grid under current usage patterns: https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g...
Australia is already on track to have half of that already with snowy 2 (350Gwh).
This also doesn't take into account stuff like https://octopus.energy/agile/ that can use pricing to adjust demand to supply. Heating, car battery charging, industrial processes like aluminum smelting - lots of demand can be time shifted easily.
I am specifically referring to a nuclear power plant’s income here. If they averaged 10c per kWh over a year that’s X$/year. To make that same X$/year when wholesale prices are 2c/kWh for 8 hours a day they would need to be average 14c/kWh for 16 hours to average 10c/kWh over a full day. Aka (8 * 2c + 16 * 14c)/24 = 10c
The above is of course a simplification of a complex market, but illustrates a real effect related to the “duck curve.”
The underlying issue is nobody wants a PPA that lasts for the full 40+ year lifespan of a new nuclear reactor and battery prices are still falling. Enough subsides can make anything viable, but western governments have largely lost interest in doing so.
I don't understand this line of argument - that's a high capacity factor! And it's not a dirunal or annual one either, it's a predictable "we need to shut down to refuel" one. It sounds like it wouldn't have broken even, even at 100% capacity factor? At which point it's no longer "too cheap to meter" but "nuclear power is too expensive". And that's before we even dig into capex vs opex vs decommissioning vs disaster insurance.
Hinkley point C is guaranteed a price of £92 per megawatt hour (or 9.2p/kWh), when it finally comes online.
What is completely different from solar, that is outcompeting everything with ~20% utilization, and making the alternatives more expensive on the process... What is a problem because it can't provide more than ~20% utilization.
In the electrical industry a base load generation has historically been the least valuable electricity and it’s the only way Nuclear can operate.
It’s actually £92.50 in 2012 money, inflation adjusted.
Given current inflation, the strike price is likely to be well over £160/MWh when it comes online, now estimated to be 2027.
(Fun fact: Hinkley Point C is the most expensive power plant ever built, anywhere in the world)
For making nuclear viable, "ultra cheap" here would have to be a negative price.
The similarity of the problems with renewables is only that they benefit from storage. Without any similarity on the economics.
Even ignoring global warming smog and acid rain have been known issues for a very long time. On top of this many countries lacked domestic supplies of fossil fuels.
Of course, nothing of the sort happened.
Wind production varies year on year, but only maybe 10% where the variation day to day is almost 100%. So wind + hydro should pair nicely because the hydro plant can ramp up or down production as appropriate.
This summer our local Hydro dam was full. But instead of generating electricity at full capacity they had to open the overflow valves because it was windy and the local wind farm was producing at full capacity and the transmission lines does not have capacity to handle both wind and hydro at full capacity.
Our price was hovering around 0 all summer.
In the UK, wind will overtake natural gas as the largest source of electricity in the next few years. It’s already producing more than 2.5x as much as all the UK’s nuclear plants combined.
By 2025, more than half of all UK electricity will be renewable, and by 2030, 95% will be from low-carbon sources (including nuclear).
Many smaller generators, including all(?) UK solar farms, smaller wind farms, W2E plants, etc, are connected to the distribution networks (DSOs), not directly to the National Grid. These can account for a significant percentage of UK generation at times!
Most of the other websites displaying UK generation include additional data sources so that things like solar are accounted for.