> Ontario itself A need for more baseload to work with the large amount of solar and wind that Ontario has added in the last 10 years.

Chasing baseload is a fool's game. You will always have a mismatch between power needed and power produced. Power storage is necessary to move excess power produced to times of excess power need. e.g., shave the peaks to fill the valleys.

Any storage reduces the need for baseload and peaker plants. 4-6 hrs move daytime excess solar to fill evening needs. Overnight baseload excess can refill the batteries to cover the morning excess need before solar fully kicks in. Expanding battery capacity to 8-12 hours further reduces the need for expensive power sources such as nuclear and gas.

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red75prime an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The massive solar overcapacity that is required to deal with seasonal variation and the massive energy storage make this endeavor much more costly than nuclear.

For example, in Denmark[1] a solar-dominated grid would cost around 565 EUR/MWh. A nuclear-dominated grid would cost around 141 EUR/MWh.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054422... Fig. 3

	▲	magicalist 24 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> For example, in Denmark[1] a solar-dominated grid would cost around 565 EUR/MWh. A nuclear-dominated grid would cost around 141 EUR/MWh. That's not what it says. It says that would be the cost assuming the current grid and power came from only solar or only nuclear. The majority of the cost then is for overprovisioning and storage, especially to handle the lack of sun in the winter. The actual low cost power comes from mixes of renewables, that they note nuclear can't compete with (especially in their hypothetical future energy system with things like scheduled EV charging). They give an example of offshore wind (66%), solar (8%), CCGT (26%) (primarily natural gas) for 66 EUR/MWh, or, restricting to biomass for the gas plant: offshore wind (84%), solar (13%), CCGT (3%) at 99 EUR/MWh. (it's also worth noting that this is for Denmark. Something like 98% of Canadians live south of Denmark's southernmost line of latitude).

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chongli 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We're talking about Ontario. I live in Ontario. The sky is overcast 8 months of the year. We're not building enough storage to charge for 4 months and drain for 8.

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theptip an hour ago | parent [-]

You have wind right?

	▲	chongli 33 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Overcast winter days tend to be very calm as well. These are periods of minimal solar+wind generation and maximal heating demand. Having a grid with no baseload generation and only storage is going to spell disaster during extended cold+calm periods. Rolling blackouts when it’s -30C outside…

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phil21 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Your power storage is the Uranium fuel, which is a better battery than batteries. Much denser and lasts longer.

In a sanely designed grid you overprovision non-reliable renewables like solar and wind to provide your peak daytime usage and nuclear (or hydro if you are lucky enough) takes up the rest during the night and when wind is not blowing. Batteries to further flatten the duck curve and provide grid firming as required.

Then you have fallback to nuclear and load shedding programs for rare seasonal issues solving that last 1-3% that is incredibly expensive with non-dispatchable power sources. No need to build natural gas plants that sit idle 95% of the time. You overbuild solar since it's basically free from a capex standpoint and use that to charge your batteries when the sun shines.

This lets you maximize capital investment over your entire generating fleet while still providing relatively cheap and - most importantly - reliable power for industrial usage.

Of course, the choice society has made to make nuclear exceedingly expensive might make it pencil out that it's cheaper to subsidize natural gas. But I think that's naive and foolish for the long run.

Nuclear waste would be the other large remaining issue, but again - society chose to create that problem and not solve it. It's not technical in nature.

Batteries have no reasonable path forward for seasonal storage in many locations in the world. Nuclear does. Solving overnight storage is simply not interesting, as it's the easy problem to solve.

tldr; Build it all. Nuclear, solar, wind, batteries, and hell - even natural gas as a last resort.

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dalyons 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Your proposal is to use nuclear as only backup? Or for only late nights (after batteries have discharged)? That dooms nukes economically, they need to run and sell power at close to 100% 24/7 to have any chance paying back the capex & opex.

What you’re saying makes sense but only for a planned state economy where the government owns (or subsidizes) all generation. It’s not possible in a free market economy, the nukes would go bankrupt/ never be built

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awesome_dude 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Nuclear waste would be the other large remaining issue, but again - society chose to create that problem and not solve it. It's not technical in nature.

Care to explain, I've never seen a genuine solution that goes beyond hand waving, bad faith arguing, and aggressiveness.

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zdragnar 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

For one thing, nuclear power plants produce much less waste than most people imagine.

Waste can also be reprocessed into new fuel, further reducing it.

In the US, we have a suitable site that has been authorized and cancelled for 20 some years now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...

The reasons it keeps being cancelled, and the waste is stored on-site at nuclear plants instead, is purely political and nothing to do with the technological or safety aspects, according to the GAO.

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amanaplanacanal 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Most waste isn't spent fuel, it's contaminated other things. You aren't reprocessing any of that.

	▲	j16sdiz 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I thought contaminated clothing are low level waste. They are quite safe after 30-ish years, but rated to store for 100 years

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qlte 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Political constraints are extremely important in the real world if the goal is to actually get things done. Yucca Mountain isn't actually a viable solution because, despite the technical arguments in favor, it lacks the support to implement.

Similar problem if local communities fight new nuclear plants tooth and nail, dragging out the timelines/increasing costs. Having the "correct" argument based on objective facts doesn't really matter if people/elected officials who have veto or dilatory powers aren't buying it.

	▲	fc417fc802 26 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Thankfully a handful of countries have managed to approve and begun building out permanent geologic disposal sites at this point so as long as at least one of them is willing to sell disposal services the problem is now globally solved. At least provided a given country has the political will to pay to export their waste but that seems like a much lower barrier to overcome.

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awesome_dude 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I've never understood how people think "less" solves the issue, it's not negligible and asking to increase the number of plants surely increases the waste.

Reprocessing, isn't infinite. There's going to be waste to deal with.

You've not presented any technical solutions, instead you made it political by claiming that's the only problem.

Do you have an actual understanding of the problems or are you just pushing nuclear because it's aligning with you politically

Edit: it's clear from the down votes i am getting that this is political, not technical.

If you're down voting with no technical understanding you're political.

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fc417fc802 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think it is you who hasn't bothered to do basic research before forming an opinion. I suggest at least skimming the wikipedia page on radioactive waste. [0] There's also a page documenting the various national management plans. [1]

> I've never understood how people think "less" solves the issue, it's not negligible ...

It just needs to be little enough that the cost of constructing long term storage space isn't cost prohibitive.

The amount produced is something like 25 to 30 tons per GW per year before reprocessing; after reprocessing it's something like ~5% of that. Unfortunately I couldn't readily find numbers for the dilution rate when vitrifying the waste for geological disposal. Regardless, that amount is almost nothing when considered in terms of volume. A full size shipping container is somewhere between 75 and 108 cubic meters depending on which standard you prefer. To give a rough idea that equates to ~180 (US) tons of borosilicate glass (one of the materials commonly used to vitrify high level waste) on the low end (assuming I got the math right).

There are also alternative disposal methods to consider such as breeder reactors (rather expensive at present) or horizontal drillholes.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_radioactive_waste_m...

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awesome_dude 3 hours ago | parent [-]

You're repeating the problem - You're saying that there is less waste to deal with which magically means it's safe.

You do understand that don't you?

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fc417fc802 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You appear to be reiterating an irrational position. I provided links to overviews of the topic; I strongly suggest at least skimming them. The quantity of unavoidable high level waste would appear to be sufficiently small that geological disposal is a cost effective solution.

The high level waste in question is not magically safe. Rather the various reprocessing and disposal methods have been extensively engineered and deliberated. At this point there is no cause to believe deep geological disposal in crystalline bedrock to be unsafe.

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awesome_dude an hour ago | parent [-]

I said from the start that the argument you presented was fallacious, and all you did was present it, now, because you have no other argument, you're working on aggressive attacks.

You're on your own now. Bye.

	▲	fc417fc802 36 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Do please explain how it's fallacious? I've made the claims that one, there is a sufficiently low volume of waste produced per unit of generation that geologic disposal is affordable and scalable and that two, said geological disposal is in fact safe. Where's the fallacy? It appears to me that you are attached to a position that you aren't capable of defending.

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zdragnar 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I actually did produce a technical solution: stick it deep in yucca mountain and forget about it. It's safe, and there's more than enough room for the little waste that can't be turned back into fuel.

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awesome_dude 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It's not.

The time frame we are talking about invalidates the "safety" because the earth's crust moves and warps, which allows water to access that sort of storage

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zdragnar an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The Earth's crust will take far longer to move yucca than the nuclear waste will be a problem. That's the whole reason that site was chosen. Even Yellowstone isn't set to blow on that time scale.

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protocolture 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Why dont you suggest what "safe" looks like, and we can discuss your understanding of safety. Its clear to me that the issue is your standards and not actual waste disposal.

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awesome_dude an hour ago | parent [-]

My understanding is that this material remains toxic to life for thousands, to tens of thousands of years.

Safe means that it's stored such that there's no harm to the environment for that lifetime.

In all "bury it" scenarios, the place where the waste is buried will be subject to change resulting in water, air, able to interact with that waste when normal tectonic and erosion processes do their thing.

	▲	anonymous_user9 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Tectonic and erosion processes take place over millions of years, so they aren't an issue for waste that's only dangerous for tens of thousands of years.

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NuclearPM 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Nuclear waste isn’t an issue.