Since the capacity factor is so much lower, 10x in capacity just about matches the energy production of nuclear. Never mind the dispatchable power.

And since nuclear power plants last about 4x longer than renewables, you actually have to install 4x the production to have an equivalent fleet over time.

So by your numbers, the world is shifting towards a nuclear fleet.

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iknowstuff 3 days ago | parent [-]

Ugh. One of us is living in an alternate reality. If the share of energy produced is not growing increasingly more renewable, then it’s me.

	▲	mpweiher 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		An initial much stronger increase in renewables is a logical an unavoidable consequence of what I described. The increase in renewable production needs to be 4x greater initially, because of the longer life of nuclear plants. Queueing theory/Little's Law. So this is entirely expected if you are targeting (a) a fairly constant fleet and (b) fairly constant production rate, both of which are desirable. Under the Messmer plan, France ignored this and built 50+ reactors in 15 years. Which means that they were pretty much done after 15 years, their nuclear industry had basically nothing to do for the next 40 or so years and withered. Bad idea. The current rate of new construction starts in China implies a build rate of at least 10 reactors per year. With an expected life of 80 years, that implies a target fleet size of around 800 reactors if the rate remains constant.