In the UK it has almost become an accepted truth in the media that new nuclear power is needed because there is no other practical or cheaper way to balance fluctuating wind and solar power.
A simple way to see it is that you can't provide temporary supply with a plant that's meant to be running all the time... It will already be running (or be unable to run for unrelated technical reasons)
Thank you for the rational approach to maximising emissions reduction in the most economical way possible.
Step 1 should be get to 100 percent renewables 95 percent of the time with, as you note, open cycle gas filling in during the occasional dunkelflaute.
Meanwhile, as you also note, you pursue various forms of step 2: electrifying everything possible and making all our infrastructure as efficient as possible.
Finally, and also simultaneously, you pursue step 3: building long-term storage (such as closed-loop pumped hydro) and step 4: continuing to research and develop new and alternative generation and storage technologies.
The vast sums saved by abandoning nuclear would buy a lot of steps 2, 3 and 4!
Great blog. I was not aware that CCGTs are less flexible than OCGTs. Is that universally true? Here in Austria, as well as a few other countries I have been following, I also note that gas production springs in for short spurts when the sun goes down and not enough wind is available, BUT, I also note that in those periods of course the spot price shoots up (obviously making the gas-produced electricity profitable), and that in turn motivates the production of electricity from gas plants EVEN if a countries needs are being more than met - i.e. export is also being promoted. I guess one could argue that if a neighbor needs the electricity than so be it, but I simply wonder about the climate-related efficacy. Its one thing to argue we need the gas-turbines to spring in when there are not enough renewables available, but its another to note the overriding economic factor - as long as the spot price shoots up, gas-turbines will be used.
CCGTs can respond reasonably quickly but their conversion efficiency goes down by a lot when stopping and starting. This makes them less effective than OGCTs which are cheaper
I attended an online event yesterday at which East Midlands Nuclear set out their proposals for nuclear power generation in the region. I posed the following question, which (not surprisingly) due to shortage of time did not receive an answer...
"Nuclear power has, up to now, been regarded as providing reliable power for base load. This has suited the characteristics of reactors and the capital dominated economics of nuclear power that demands a high and maintained load factor. In an age where variable renewables are taking the lion's share of generation, how will nuclear play a compatible part in balancing the grid? If stored hydrogen and gas turbines form a significant part of the answer, the economics will be highly questionable."
The following was a supplementary question, that also went unanswered...
"The East Midlands, or more specifically the EMCCA/D2N2 Area is trailing behind the UK in its rate of decarbonisation [35.5% reduction in GHGs from 2005 to 2023 according to the ONS, compared to the UK's 45.8%]. Can the East Midlands afford to have an energy strategy in which principal elements come on stream so far into the future and/or are very speculative?"
Thanks David for another excellent factual article exploding the myth that we need nuclear to "keep the lights on". Here at STAND (Severnside Together Against Nuclear Development), where we have been fighting nuclear power since the 80's, we are facing the prospect of 3 Rolls Royce "small" ha ha "modular" ha ha reactors on the old Oldbury site. We quote you often on our website and you are a great source of information.
We are having a public meeting on 17th October in Lydney where Jonathon Porritt will be one of the main speakers. We'd love to have you too! (only 8hrs 20 mins by car according to RAC route planner!). Keep up the good (essential) work!
I would just add - if and when BECCS (for example Drax, running two biomass units at a total of roughly 1.2 GW) comes on-line, the intention is to maximise 'negative emissions', and that requires that they generate with a high load factor. The resultant additional 'firm' power on the grid on top of nuclear would curtail even more weather dependent renewables. Go out to 2050 when it's suggested BECCS might be storing as much as 80million tonnes of CO2 per year and we'd need as much as 10GW of BECCS generating capacity, running baseload. What role for nuclear then?
A model looking at a hypothetical 10 GW UK wind fleet (which is a significant portion of current capacity) found that:
* Power is below 20% of available power for 3,448 hours (20 weeks) in a year.
* Power is below 10% of available power for 1,519 hours (9 weeks) in a year.
* Of the hours below 10% of maximum, 1,178 hours (78%) occur in events that continue for 6 hours or more.
These figures from the model suggest that wind output can be very low for a substantial portion of the year, and these low-output periods can be prolonged.
Of course there would be many other times where it is well below 100%. The gas percentage in your scenario would be more like 30%.
If you look at the grid power sources every half hour for the current year you will see the trend. I cannot attach the document as there is a copyright stamp.
So the “Holy Grail” of load following nuclear is actually a really bad idea!
I’m more and more convinced that if nuclear is to exist anywhere it’s the heat output that should determine location and operation, and the electricity is just a by product to be got rid of
A simple way to see it is that you can't provide temporary supply with a plant that's meant to be running all the time... It will already be running (or be unable to run for unrelated technical reasons)
Thank you for the rational approach to maximising emissions reduction in the most economical way possible.
Step 1 should be get to 100 percent renewables 95 percent of the time with, as you note, open cycle gas filling in during the occasional dunkelflaute.
Meanwhile, as you also note, you pursue various forms of step 2: electrifying everything possible and making all our infrastructure as efficient as possible.
Finally, and also simultaneously, you pursue step 3: building long-term storage (such as closed-loop pumped hydro) and step 4: continuing to research and develop new and alternative generation and storage technologies.
The vast sums saved by abandoning nuclear would buy a lot of steps 2, 3 and 4!
A bad way? A virtually impossible way, surely?
Great blog. I was not aware that CCGTs are less flexible than OCGTs. Is that universally true? Here in Austria, as well as a few other countries I have been following, I also note that gas production springs in for short spurts when the sun goes down and not enough wind is available, BUT, I also note that in those periods of course the spot price shoots up (obviously making the gas-produced electricity profitable), and that in turn motivates the production of electricity from gas plants EVEN if a countries needs are being more than met - i.e. export is also being promoted. I guess one could argue that if a neighbor needs the electricity than so be it, but I simply wonder about the climate-related efficacy. Its one thing to argue we need the gas-turbines to spring in when there are not enough renewables available, but its another to note the overriding economic factor - as long as the spot price shoots up, gas-turbines will be used.
CCGTs can respond reasonably quickly but their conversion efficiency goes down by a lot when stopping and starting. This makes them less effective than OGCTs which are cheaper
I absolutely agree with you on this, David.
I attended an online event yesterday at which East Midlands Nuclear set out their proposals for nuclear power generation in the region. I posed the following question, which (not surprisingly) due to shortage of time did not receive an answer...
"Nuclear power has, up to now, been regarded as providing reliable power for base load. This has suited the characteristics of reactors and the capital dominated economics of nuclear power that demands a high and maintained load factor. In an age where variable renewables are taking the lion's share of generation, how will nuclear play a compatible part in balancing the grid? If stored hydrogen and gas turbines form a significant part of the answer, the economics will be highly questionable."
The following was a supplementary question, that also went unanswered...
"The East Midlands, or more specifically the EMCCA/D2N2 Area is trailing behind the UK in its rate of decarbonisation [35.5% reduction in GHGs from 2005 to 2023 according to the ONS, compared to the UK's 45.8%]. Can the East Midlands afford to have an energy strategy in which principal elements come on stream so far into the future and/or are very speculative?"
Thanks David for another excellent factual article exploding the myth that we need nuclear to "keep the lights on". Here at STAND (Severnside Together Against Nuclear Development), where we have been fighting nuclear power since the 80's, we are facing the prospect of 3 Rolls Royce "small" ha ha "modular" ha ha reactors on the old Oldbury site. We quote you often on our website and you are a great source of information.
We are having a public meeting on 17th October in Lydney where Jonathon Porritt will be one of the main speakers. We'd love to have you too! (only 8hrs 20 mins by car according to RAC route planner!). Keep up the good (essential) work!
Agree with your arguments here David.
I would just add - if and when BECCS (for example Drax, running two biomass units at a total of roughly 1.2 GW) comes on-line, the intention is to maximise 'negative emissions', and that requires that they generate with a high load factor. The resultant additional 'firm' power on the grid on top of nuclear would curtail even more weather dependent renewables. Go out to 2050 when it's suggested BECCS might be storing as much as 80million tonnes of CO2 per year and we'd need as much as 10GW of BECCS generating capacity, running baseload. What role for nuclear then?
That is a huge amount of gas.
Modelled Data:
A model looking at a hypothetical 10 GW UK wind fleet (which is a significant portion of current capacity) found that:
* Power is below 20% of available power for 3,448 hours (20 weeks) in a year.
* Power is below 10% of available power for 1,519 hours (9 weeks) in a year.
* Of the hours below 10% of maximum, 1,178 hours (78%) occur in events that continue for 6 hours or more.
These figures from the model suggest that wind output can be very low for a substantial portion of the year, and these low-output periods can be prolonged.
Of course there would be many other times where it is well below 100%. The gas percentage in your scenario would be more like 30%.
Well you’ll have argue with the Committee on Climate Change whose analysis implies that they’ll be about 5% gas residual. That’s what my post says.
If you look at the grid power sources every half hour for the current year you will see the trend. I cannot attach the document as there is a copyright stamp.
https://open.substack.com/pub/chrisbond/p/hows-it-going-ed?r=kv235&utm_medium=ios
Doesn’t making nuclear load follow increase cost as maintenance increases and plant life reduces?
Yes
So the “Holy Grail” of load following nuclear is actually a really bad idea!
I’m more and more convinced that if nuclear is to exist anywhere it’s the heat output that should determine location and operation, and the electricity is just a by product to be got rid of