It's a fair point that nuclear (and all power plants) need maintenance windows where they come offline (and occasionally unplanned outages). But this is not the same as saying nuclear is not dispatchable, that's just incorrect.
nuclear isn't dispatch-able for a different reason: you don't turn it off. Nuclear is relatively expensive, and those expenses are roughly 100% capex cost, so if you consider a reactor with a 10 billion construction cost and a 50 year lifespan, every hour you turn off the reactor costs at least ~$25k (or more if you assume the reactor was intending to do better than break-even.
If by dispatch-able you mean something that can cheaply fill the gaps when wind/solar is not producing, then nuclear is not dispatch-able. For that purpose, we really only have fossil plants (and hydro in a few areas)
But if you compare the predictability of nuclear to that of wind/solar, nuclear is a lot easier to plan, and also requires way less (if any) contribution from other sources.
Also, I would argue that the current prices for building nuclear plants is at least 2-4x higher than they should be (depending on location).
If the regulations for nuclear were to be scaled back to a point where the net average harm caused per GWh was just slightly less than for the alternatives, and if we allowed a free, competitive market for the construction, nuclear would become a lot cheaper than today.
adgjlsfhk1|1 year ago
trashtester|1 year ago
But if you compare the predictability of nuclear to that of wind/solar, nuclear is a lot easier to plan, and also requires way less (if any) contribution from other sources.
Also, I would argue that the current prices for building nuclear plants is at least 2-4x higher than they should be (depending on location).
If the regulations for nuclear were to be scaled back to a point where the net average harm caused per GWh was just slightly less than for the alternatives, and if we allowed a free, competitive market for the construction, nuclear would become a lot cheaper than today.