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Properjob70 t1_j5f7izj wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in 1st small modular nuclear reactor certified for use in US by sunflowerastronaut

We're building more solar & gas at pace here - a good thing but over here it'll barely keep up with the ageing out nuclear stations & the woodchip burners going offline by 2028. All those storage things are nearly as far out in adoption as SMRs and we're really going to need them as well as the planned 10GW nuclear.

Mostly, the storage will be able to last hours, maybe days, the HVDC between nations smooths things out. But when that Black Swan weather event happens & blankets most of Europe in a high pressure bubble that kills off the wind for 2 weeks... Not many answers with what we'll have around 2030.

E.g. Lithium batteries are great as instantaneous peakers & grid frequency stability for a few hours - but lower tech solutions like flow batteries are more suited to stationary applications, especially as lithium production hits a pinch point where it's really wanted for Gigafactories for electric vehicles above all else - and transport will pay more.

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[deleted] t1_j5f84lu wrote

Nuclear isn't an answer for long term outages of renewables, though, unless you are proposing we just build a 100% pure nuclear grid, overbuilt by a factor of 60% or something to be able to ramp up and down to load follow.

Because in any normal model of nuclear buildout you don't have significant "spare capacity" to bring online to backstop renewable shortages; the plants are designed to run at 90-95% capacity factor. Minimal room to ramp up further.

All the happens if you have a 50% renewable 50% nuclear grid is that if half the renewable generation drops out, you drop to 75% output and the grid collapses into rolling (or long term) blackouts anyways.

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Properjob70 t1_j5fa75g wrote

Govt policy here is aiming at around 20-25% nuclear by around the mid 2030s. Three off 3.2GW EPR sites (one under construction, one agreed, one contended) plus one existing AGR.

They are supporting a Rolls Royce version of the SMR in this article but there isn't a policy that includes their use in generation yet given they aren't being built and aren't approved. But I can't see a scenario where SMRs won't come in useful for net zero if we can crack it.

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[deleted] t1_j5fcsml wrote

What's the third EPR? I'm only aware of Hinkley and Sizewell.

And for sizewell. While I knownits been approved, I'm still maintaining some skepticism on it actually being built, until construction is significantly underway.

SMRs will be useful for net zero if they come in as economically viable. But right now, that prospect does not seem likely.

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Properjob70 t1_j5fezjk wrote

TBH I share your skepticism on Sizewell but it would be a major controversy if it didn't, especially now China has been paid off

EPRs at either Wylfa/Oldbury (April 2022 announcement) plus some as yet unrealised plans from 2021 to build a hybrid wind farm / Nuscale SMRs that is meant to be for generating hydrogen.

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