They’re not as complementary as you might think. Because solar and wind fluctuate during the day, any additional power source also needs to be able to spin up or down quickly. And nuclear doesn’t do that, it takes time to do so. Worse, because nuclear is so expensive the only way it gets even remotely close to becoming economically viable is if it’s running all the time. And that’s precisely what it won’t be able to do, because solar and wind are simply cheaper; nuclear will be pushed off the market.
Energy storage is genuinely a cheaper and more viable option these days. I think I saw someone calculate recently that producing the equivalent amount of energy in solar/wind/storage as a nuclear plant would cost less than half the amount of money to build, and even less time than that.
I think nuclear is cool and fusion is probably the future, but for now I don’t see it making any kind of financial sense.
Sadly, it’s just not. Looking at just the price to generate is just too one sided. Renewables need a lot of expensive infrastructure due to being decentralized, land which you might not have, and experts that are already in huge shortage. Energy storage especially is hard and expensive with current technology due the massive amount of rare earth metals you need for it, and even the current largest storage facility can’t even provide enough energy for 2 million people let alone 8 billion of them.
TL:DR; currently, renewables + nuclear + storage is the closest we can get to carbon neutral. With just renewables and storage you don’t get anywhere close and are still forced to fall back on either fossil, (stored) hydro, or nuclear. Of which the only really viable green option for most places is nuclear. When the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, when the alternative is the exact pollution we are trying to nullify, that should be more important than paying a few cents more per kWh. In that moment the cost for renewables might as well be infinite if they’re not producing anything and we don’t have enough batteries to store it.
They’re not as complementary as you might think. Because solar and wind fluctuate during the day, any additional power source also needs to be able to spin up or down quickly. And nuclear doesn’t do that, it takes time to do so. Worse, because nuclear is so expensive the only way it gets even remotely close to becoming economically viable is if it’s running all the time. And that’s precisely what it won’t be able to do, because solar and wind are simply cheaper; nuclear will be pushed off the market.
Energy storage is genuinely a cheaper and more viable option these days. I think I saw someone calculate recently that producing the equivalent amount of energy in solar/wind/storage as a nuclear plant would cost less than half the amount of money to build, and even less time than that.
I think nuclear is cool and fusion is probably the future, but for now I don’t see it making any kind of financial sense.
Sadly, it’s just not. Looking at just the price to generate is just too one sided. Renewables need a lot of expensive infrastructure due to being decentralized, land which you might not have, and experts that are already in huge shortage. Energy storage especially is hard and expensive with current technology due the massive amount of rare earth metals you need for it, and even the current largest storage facility can’t even provide enough energy for 2 million people let alone 8 billion of them.
I calculate it and explain it in even more depth here: https://lemmy.world/comment/13508867
TL:DR; currently, renewables + nuclear + storage is the closest we can get to carbon neutral. With just renewables and storage you don’t get anywhere close and are still forced to fall back on either fossil, (stored) hydro, or nuclear. Of which the only really viable green option for most places is nuclear. When the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, when the alternative is the exact pollution we are trying to nullify, that should be more important than paying a few cents more per kWh. In that moment the cost for renewables might as well be infinite if they’re not producing anything and we don’t have enough batteries to store it.