While energy sources across all categories failed in mid-February, they didn’t all fail equally. The capacity factors for nuclear, natural gas, coal, and wind in Texas during the four days of load shedding during the cold snap were 79 percent, 55 percent, 58 percent, and 14 percent, respectively.[7] //

Some of the cost of variable renewable energy sources comes in the form of the transmission lines they require. With funding from Bill Gates, the analytical group Breakthrough Energy Sciences last week estimated the U.S. could reduce carbon emissions 42 percent and generate 70 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2030. But Breakthrough Energy calculated that the cost of new transmission, distribution, and storage would be $1.5 trillion.[25] //

The land requirements of industrial renewable energy projects are two orders of magnitude larger than those of nuclear and natural gas plants. Industrial solar and wind projects require between 300 and 400 times more land than nuclear plants.[29] If the United States were to try to generate all of the energy it uses with renewables, 25 percent to 50 percent of its land would be required, according to the best-available study by a leading energy analyst and advisor to Bill Gates.[30] By contrast, today’s energy system requires just 0.5 percent of land in the United States.[31] //

As troubling is evidence that cost declines of solar panels, most of which are made in China, appear to stem from the involuntary labor of a persecuted Muslim minority, the Uighurs. In January the U.S. State Department deemed China’s treatment of the Uighurs to be genocide.[34]

Ninety-five percent of the global solar panel market contains Xinjiang silicon. //

One study by a group of climate and energy scientists found that when taking into account continent-wide weather and seasonal variation, for the United States to be powered by solar and wind, while using batteries to ensure reliable power, the battery storage required would raise the cost to more than $23 trillion.[41] //

Germany will have spent $580 billion on renewables and related infrastructure by 2025, according to energy analysts at Bloomberg[45] and Germany generated 37.5 percent of its electricity from wind and solar in 2020, as compared to the 70 percent France generates from nuclear.[46] Had Germany invested the $580 billion it’s spending on renewables and their grid upgrades into new nuclear power plants instead, it could be generating 100 percent of its electricity from zero-emission sources and have sufficient zero-carbon electricity to power all of its cars and light trucks (if electrified) by 2025, as well.[47]

From this information we can gain a clearer picture of electric reliability, resiliency, and affordability. What tends to make electric grids more reliable, resilient, and affordable is the generation of electricity by a few large, efficient plants with the minimal amount necessary of wires and storage. What tends to makes grids less reliant, resilient, and affordable is significantly increasing the number of power plants, wires, storage mechanisms, people, and organizations required for operating them. //

Restructured electricity markets did not result in the oft-promised lower prices in California, Texas, or the U.S. as a whole.[52] And from 2010 to 2019, consumers from across the U.S. who purchased electricity from electricity retailers paid $19.2 billion more than they would have had they purchased power from legacy utilities, according to a recent Wall Street Journal analysis. [53]

According to the Academies, the older model of regulated and vertically integrated electric utilities were better at taking a “longer-term perspective” that can take into account “broader societal benefits” than today’s tangle of federal and state agencies, electric utilities, and power companies.[54]

BY REP. FRENCH HILL (R-ARK.), OPINION CONTRIBUTOR

But hidden in this strategy, such as it is, lies one idea of consequence, and that is the president's goal to finance lower emissions in developing countries through organizations like the World Bank. While the Bank already seeks to do this, its hands have been tied in an area where it could make an enormous difference: nuclear energy. For the president's climate plan to be serious, it should prioritize nuclear support through the Bank and the other multilateral lenders where the U.S. is a top shareholder.

While rich countries' carbon output is largely flat, the developing world's emissions are only projected to grow unchecked. The U.S. and Europe, responsible for nearly all emissions at the turn of the 20th century, now only account for one third. Wealthy nations may be the loudest voices in climate activism, but the future will be decided elsewhere, and it won't be an especially prosperous one if we insist that poorer societies power their way up the income scale with renewables alone. Nuclear will be essential for their energy mix.

Although its reputation in the United States suffers from memories of Three Mile Island, a 1979 accident as haunting as the bell bottoms of that era (but just as harmless to human life), nuclear energy is a mainstream power source providing 30 percent of the world's low-carbon electricity. The main risks connected with nuclear arise when retreating from it, not embracing it. For instance, after a 2011 tsunami hit Japan's Fukushima reactor, leading the country to temporarily take its nuclear power plants offline, fossil fuel usage and electricity prices surged, resulting in more deaths for the country than from the disaster itself. Researchers have shown that Germany overreacted to Fukushima too, shutting down some of its reactors and incurring $12 billion in social costs each year, mostly through increased mortality from higher levels of air pollution. //

Though the World Bank left nuclear finance decades ago, its own anti-poverty mission makes its return a no-brainer. The governments that act as the Bank's shareholders have already compelled it to quit upstream oil and gas projects in the developing world, even as the Bank pursues a goal of universal access to electricity. This makes little sense. If the World Bank has to surrender its expertise in fossil fuel lending, surely it can restore its know-how in nuclear finance.

BY REP. DAN CRENSHAW (R-TEXAS), OPINION CONTRIBUTOR //

Last month's once-in-a-century freeze throughout Texas and much of the Midwest underscored an inescapable reality: we need reliable energy, and more of it. Modern society demands it. Millions around the world are escaping poverty because of increased access to reliable energy, a demand that will increase by an estimated 25 percent over the next 20 years. But this isn't the only demand from the public. People all over the world are also demanding cleaner energy that reduces carbon emissions.

The Biden administration believes we can do this by prioritizing solar and wind energy. They're wrong.

Now, I am not opposed to wind and solar on any philosophical level. I think they should be a part of the energy mix in locations where it makes sense and the environmental damage can be minimized (remember, you need to clear huge areas to build wind and solar. This is not costless to the environment).

But the sun and wind have self-evident limitations that many refuse to acknowledge. If the Texas grid was solely or even mostly reliant on renewables last month, our situation would be far more dire. So how do we achieve both a massive reduction in emissions while also maintaining reliable baseload energy? Nuclear. //

We don't even designate nuclear energy as clean energy, even though it is carbon-free. As a result, solar power gets 250 times more subsidies than nuclear, and wind gets 160 times more. Not only is nuclear fuel vastly underutilized, but it is virtually infinite with the potential to separate uranium from seawater. One uranium fuel pellet creates as much energy as one ton of coal.

So why don't we build more? Nuclear plants are expensive, for starters. This is partly because permitting requirements go far beyond reasonable safety standards, as well as a lack of scale (we aren't committing to building a lot of plants, so we can't "buy in bulk"). And here in Texas, where wind energy is prioritized to the grid, nuclear plants sometimes operate at a loss, despite the fact that they are producing reliable clean energy continuously. The result? No one wants to invest in building a nuclear power plant. //

For all the hysterical talk from the Green New Dealers of a renewable-only future, the simple truth remains: renewables will never be reliable enough to power the modern world. If we want to tackle climate change, reduce emissions, and power the grid, then we need the proper mix of energy. We need to make sure that nuclear not only stays on the grid, but grows on it.

Solar and wind power provide carbon-free electricity. But their generation is tied to the vagaries of nature. That is why, to achieve a zero-carbon electric grid, technologies that can store that energy for when it’s needed will have to play a big role.

While lithium-ion batteries have started to meet some of the need for storage, the metals needed to make them are not plentiful enough for large-scale energy hoarding. So entrepreneurs around the world have been looking for alternatives.

At Quartz, we’ve written about companies working on reversible sulfur power-plants, injecting water underground, running “refrigerators on steroids,” and using stacked concrete blocks—all with the purpose of storing excess renewable energy. Add to that list Hydrostor, a Canadian startup that’s storing energy by injecting compressed air into deep underground caverns.

The generally higher cost of renewables has had a discernible effect: the bulk of global renewable-energy spending is concentrated in high-watt countries even though electricity demand in those countries is generally flat or declining. For instance, in both the U.S. and Germany, electricity production in 2017 was roughly the same as it was 2004. Meanwhile, in the no-watt and unplugged countries — where electricity is scarce and demand for electricity is booming — spending on renewables lags far behind that of electricity-rich countries.
In 2016, global investment in renewable energy projects totaled some $242 billion. Of that some $106 billion, or 43 percent, was spent in Europe and the US. China spent another $78 billion. Thus, the U.S., Europe, and China together accounted for more than 75 percent of all global spending on renewables. //

Meanwhile, spending on solar and wind in Africa, the Middle East, and India totaled just $17 billion. //

What would it take solely to keep up with the growth in global electricity demand by using solar energy? We can answer that question by looking at Germany which has more installed solar-energy capacity that any other European country, about 42,000 megawatts. In 2017, Germany’s solar facilities produced 40 terawatt-hours of electricity. Thus, just to keep pace with the growth in global electricity demand, the world would have to install 14 times as much photovoltaic capacity as now exists in Germany, and it would have to do so every year. //

While cost, storage, and scale are all significant challenges, the most formidable obstacle to achieving an all-renewable scenario is simple: there’s just not enough land for the Bunyanesque quantities of wind turbines and solar panels that would be needed to meet such a goal. The undeniable truth is that deploying wind energy and solar energy at the scale required to replace all of the energy now being supplied by nuclear and hydrocarbons would require covering state-sized chunks of territory with turbines and panels. //

From a practical on-the-ground standpoint, the power density of wind energy will forever be stuck at 0.5 to 1 watt per square meter.

In 2015, at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science who was one of the co-authors of the 2013 letter, reiterated his belief that nuclear must be part of any emissions-reduction effort. “The goal is not to make a renewable energy system. The goal is to make the most environmentally advantageous system that we can, while providing us with affordable power,” Caldeira said. “And there’s only one technology I know of that can provide carbon-free power when the sun’s not shining and the wind’s not blowing at the scale that modern civilization requires. And that’s nuclear power.” //

By the mid-2020s, the US could prematurely retire as much as a third of its installed nuclear capacity. What’s driving the retirements? Low-cost natural gas is a major factor. In addition, nuclear plants must compete in the wholesale market with heavily subsidized electricity produced from wind and solar. Add in aging reactors, post-Fukushima regulations, and the never-ending opposition from big environmental groups, and the US nuclear sector has been taking a beating.
The closure of these plants has been cheered by the well-funded opponents of nuclear energy. For decades, nuclear energy’s foes have relied on three main criticisms to justify their opposition: radiation, waste, and cost. //

The facts show that the accident at Fukushima led to exactly two deaths. About three weeks after the tsunami hit the reactor complex, the bodies of two workers were recovered at the plant. They didn’t die of radiation. They drowned. //

In 2013, the UN’s Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation released a report which found that “No radiation-related deaths have been observed among nearly 25,000 workers involved at the accident site. Given the small number of highly exposed workers, it is unlikely that excess cases of thyroid cancer due to radiation exposure would be detectable in the years to come.” (Thyroid cancer is among the most common maladies caused by excessive exposure to radiation.) The UN committee was made up of 80 scientists from 18 countries. //

the one thing that we have learnt from both Chernobyl and Fukushima is that it actually wasn’t radiation that’s done the health damage to the people in the surrounding areas. It’s their fear of radiation. There’s been far more psychological damage than there has actually physical damage because of the two accidents.”

Advanced designs in various development stages promise to remedy the drawbacks of conventional nuclear energy

One should bear in mind that, from 1 kilogram of enriched uranium, present-day light water reactors (LWRs) can produce the energy equivalent of roughly 150,000 kilograms of coal. A uranium-breeder reactor can derive from 1 kg of natural uranium the equivalent of over 1 million kilograms of coal. A similar ratio applies to thorium in a thorium breeder reactor. //

Could nuclear power be expanded rapidly enough to eliminate the use of fossil fuels for electricity generation in the foreseeable future? //

In a speech on national television in March 1974 French Prime Minister Pierre Messmer announced an ambitious plan to make nuclear-generated electricity the foundation of the nation’s energy system. He declared “France has not been favored by nature in energy resources…. There is almost no petroleum on our territory, we have less coal than England and Germany and much less gas than Holland…. Our great chance is electrical energy of nuclear origin…. We will give priority to electricity and in electricity to nuclear electricity.”

Following the Messmer Plan, France’s nuclear power expansion proceeded at a rapid pace. During the 1980s, 44 new nuclear power stations went on line – an average of 4 per year. Nearly all were standardized in design, with two basic types producing 900 and 1300 MW of electric power each. Standardization reduced costs greatly, and construction times for most of the plants were between 5 and 7 years.

In less than 15 years the percentage of electricity generated from nuclear plants rose from about 7% percent in 1975 to over 75% in 1990. //

The irony of the situation is that the environmentalist movement is to a significant extent responsible for the continued dependence on coal and gas power plants.

It is quite conceivable that we would have had practically CO2-free electricity today if it had not been for the intense campaigns against nuclear energy, mounted continuously for over half a century in the United States and Western Europe.

Although there are good reasons to be concerned about the safety of nuclear power plants – reasons we will discuss – the political opposition to nuclear energy has on the whole been characterized by ideology and hysteria rather than rationality.

In my view the rational response to the accidents in Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011) would have been to demand fundamental innovations in the design and operation of nuclear power plants – such as those I shall describe later – rather than attempting to block the development of nuclear energy altogether. //

Unfortunately, in the transition to commercial electricity production by nuclear reactors, most of the innovative reactor designs developed in the early period, were dropped in favor of a single basic type: the light water reactor (LWR). Here the starting point in the West was the successful US Navy program to develop reactors to power submarines. Other reactor types, such as so-called fast breeder reactors, have so far played only a marginal role.

In retrospect the fixation on LWRs as the mainstay of civilian nuclear energy, to the virtual exclusion of other types, was a mistake. The main reason was cost-cutting in the field of R&D, more than intrinsic advantages of LWR reactors. Through lack of developed alternatives, nuclear energy became stuck with the limitations of LWRs. We need to correct this.

Nuclear energy, to start with, is ultimately not safe, and the Germans have always been particularly uneasy with it. After the nuclear accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan in 2011, Chancellor Angela Merkel ordered the “Atomausstieg,” the exit from nuclear energy once and for all. Why? Because, as Ms. Merkel put it back then: “The residual risk of nuclear energy can be accepted only if one is convinced that — as far as it is humanly possible to judge — it won’t come to pass.” After Fukushima, Ms. Merkel, a trained physicist, was no longer able to believe that a nuclear disaster would not occur. That there was a catastrophe even in a high-tech country like Japan made her change her mind.

But what about the near-certain catastrophic consequences of the second evil, climate change enhanced by coal-fired plants? Ms. Merkel recognized recently that “climate change is happening faster than we had thought a couple of years ago.” At the same time, she had to admit that Germany was struggling to fulfill the promises of the Paris climate accord: Despite new hopeful figures, the targeted 40 percent reduction of carbon emissions by the end of 2020 may not be met. One could argue that knowledge about the severity of climate change has deepened since 2011 and that countries should do everything they can to shift away from fossil fuels — yet there’s no sign that Ms. Merkel might change her mind about scrapping nuclear. //

The tragedy about Germany’s energy experiment is that the country’s almost religious antinuclear attitude doesn’t leave room for advances in technology. Scientists in America, Russia and China believe that it is possible to run nuclear power plants on radioactive waste — which might solve the problem of how to store used fuel elements, one of the core arguments against nuclear. Certainly, these so-called fast breeder reactors have their dangers too. But as we transition to a completely renewable energy supply, wouldn’t they be a better alternative to coal and gas plants? //

By shutting down its entire nuclear sector in a rush, Germany loses more opportunities than dangers. It forfeits the capacity to connect to a technology that might prove the safest and most climate-friendly mankind has yet seen. At the very least, using Germany’s existing nuclear plants would make an expeditious move away from fossil fuels possible.

Is it irrational not to do so? Maybe, maybe not. But letting this chance slip away could turn out to be one of the gravest mistakes of the Merkel era.

An optimist’s dreams of an atom-powered future. //

There’s one thing I’m certain “Walt Disney” doesn’t make you think of: nuclear power.

But maybe it should.

It may surprise you to know that Walt Disney dreamed of an atom-powered future. And he wasn’t alone. //

But Walt Disney didn’t just dream. If there was one thing that made him successful in life, it was his belief that you could make your dreams come true. This belief culminated in plans to power his new Disney World Florida megaproject with its own nuclear reactor. He even got permission to build one.

Walt Disney died in 1966 before Disney World was complete, and somewhere along the way the plans for a small nuclear reactor were abandoned. //

Evidence of Disney’s atomic dreams is still visible today: the original concept of Disney’s Tommorowland parks was to showcase nuclear technology. Perhaps the greatest example of Disney’s nuclear legacy is the educational movie, titled Our Friend, the Atom, commissioned in 1957 by Mr Walt Disney himself (there is also an accompanying book).

The movie is incredibly positive about the future of nuclear power, predicting that nuclear will displace dirty fossil fuels as the way we produce electricity but also as a means to power our ships, planes and rockets (you could say Disney predicted ‘deep decarbonization’ with nuclear).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PwllA-CyJU

There was a very definite 'Atomic Dream' during the industry's beginnings in the 1950s. It was an intoxicating vision in which science leads to progress and abundance, and it was surrounded by incredibly strong and enduring icons. Marie Curie. Albert Einstein and E=mc^2. For 100 years the symbol of the atom has represented pure science and genius itself.

The PIME audience saw in another case study how IBM brought its invisible and highly complex Watson artificial intelligence 'to life' using an atom-like animation.

Why doesn't the nuclear industry use its own icons? Did it, at some point, actually give up on its own dream?

That could be why the leading icons for nuclear energy are the ones given to it by popular culture – cooling towers, the radiation symbol and its three notorious accidents.

Today the atomic age icons seem stale. Industry doesn't know how to connect to them and it hasn't developed any replacements. But are the values of nuclear energy really so different now to what its icons used to represent? Doesn't nuclear energy still sometimes still trade on science, progress and abundance? Aspiration to development is a very strong motivator in the many countries bringing in nuclear energy for the first time.

Many nuclear advocates wonder at the success of renewable energy, particularly wind and solar. By this I don’t mean their technical success in terms of their share of energy (around 4%), but rather their popularity (check this recent IMechE research).

Here’s the thing. The renewable energy industry understands the power of symbols; the nuclear industry doesn’t. //

Now let’s play the same Pinterest game with nuclear. Here, we get danger yellows, warnings about radioactivity, gas masks, meltdowns, skulls and a biological hazard sign. Symbols of nuclear in popular society are of the terror of nuclear war, fallout and apocalypse. //

Even though the nuclear industry uses more neutral images for their logos (typically plays on electrons orbiting a nucleus), the dominant symbols in the public’s mind are those thrown up by Pinterest. Is this the industry’s fault? Not entirely, but saying the nuclear industry hasn’t been successful at deploying symbols is probably giving them too much credit. They haven’t really even tried (at least since the “golden era” of the 50’s and 60's). //

Why has the nuclear industry’s branding sucked so badly up to now? That question requires a long answer I don’t have space for here. I liked energy comms expert Jeremy Gordon’s summary: the nuclear industry stopped dreaming.

https://www.fluent-in-energy.com/post/creativity-a-games-changer

The Brazos Electric Power Cooperative filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 1, 2021 after receiving a bill from ERCOT totaling $2.1 billion after ERCOT raised the price of wholesale electric power to $9,000 per megawatt hour during the February 2021 winter storm that hit Texas. //

Brazos Electric Power Cooperative Executive VP Clifton Karnei was a ERCOT board board member until Feb. 25; when the cooperative received a $2.1 billion bill from the manager of Texas’ power grid. //

Karnei was on the ERCOT board when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a report urging Texas’ power grid to winterize. The 357-page report detailed nine separate findings that showed exactly what happened inside ERCOT’s power grid that left millions without power for so long.

According to the FERCE report, the single largest problem during the cold weather event was the freezing of instrumentation and equipment.

Germany now generates over 35% of its yearly electricity consumption from wind and solar sources. Over 30 000 wind turbines have been built, with a total installed capacity of nearly 60 GW. Germany now has approximately 1.7 million solar power (photovoltaic) installations, with an installed capacity of 46 GW. This looks very impressive.

Unfortunately, most of the time the actual amount of electricity produced is only a fraction of the installed capacity. Worse, on “bad days” it can fall to nearly zero. In 2016 for example there were 52 nights with essentially no wind blowing in the country. No Sun, no wind. Even taking “better days” into account, the average electricity output of wind and solar energy installations in Germany amounts to only about 17% of the installed capacity. //

The question is, whether it makes sense at all to depart from the tried-and-proven model of a stable electricity system based on continuously functioning sources, a large percentage operating in base load mode.

If we want the system to be largely CO2-free, then the only available option is nuclear energy.

Renewable wind, solar, hydro and biofuels cannot fill the gap //

So you don’t like CO2? What you need to know, then, is that there’s no alternative to advanced nuclear power.

Concern about the climate effects of man-caused CO2 emissions has prompted gigantic investments into so-called renewable energy sources: wind, solar, hydropower and biofuels. Meanwhile, in a huge mistake, nuclear energy – a reliable CO2-free power source producing 14% of the world’s electricity – has been left far behind.

Germany provides a bizarre example, albeit not the only one. Here the government’s commitment to its so-called climate goals has been combined, paradoxically, with the decision to shut down the country’s remaining nuclear power plants by 2022.

Would it not be more rational, if we believe that human emissions of CO2 are destroying the planet, to expand nuclear energy as quickly as possible, rather than shut it down? //

I believe we are facing a branching point in global energy policy. What should be the priority? Assuming it should be a goal to drastically reduce world emissions of CO2 in the medium and long term – which I don’t want to argue about here – is it wise to invest so much in renewable energy sources, as many nations are doing today? Or should we allot only a limited role to the renewables, and go for a massive expansion of nuclear energy instead? //

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, $288.9 billion was invested into renewable energy in 2018, the bulk of which went into wind and solar energy. Despite this, CO2 emissions worldwide continue to grow relentlessly.

China, for example, leads the world in the size of its investments into renewable energy, with over $100 billion invested in 2018 alone. At the same time China also leads the world in the construction of new coal power plants, which are the single biggest source of CO2 emissions by human activity. Since the start of 2018, China has brought 42.9 gigawatts of new coal-fired power plants online, with another 121.3 GW under construction and 200 GW or more in various stages of planning. //

The simple fact is, that in the foreseeable future no amount of investment into renewables, however large, will be sufficient to eliminate humans’ dependence on coal, oil and natural gas. That is, unless we are willing to collapse the world economy.

If we are really committed to reducing CO2 emissions, then there is no way around nuclear energy, and lots of it. The reasons are elementary.

Suppose that by some means we could completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels for transport and heating. This is hardly conceivable without greatly increasing the global consumption of electricity, which can already be projected to more than double over the next 25 years. Where will all the electricity come from?

Hybrid energy systems have drawn increasing attention of late but the possibility of melding the benefits of nuclear power with those of renewables harbours the potential to revolutionise energy generation as we know it.

By performing a sort of balancing act, nuclear power can enhance the efficiency of renewables while ensuring the overall system is reliable and low carbon.

Yet while some countries have already successfully adapted nuclear power plants to be load following—that is, to provide flexible operation based on energy demand and fill the gaps in output left by intermittent sources such as wind and solar—the issue more economic than technical.

Nuclear plants require significant invesment, and as such they need to run for as many hours as possible, and it’s not economic for them to stand idle for a period of time just because the wind happens to be blowing—they generate no income during that period.

Here Aliki van Heek, unit head at IAEA, speaks to Nuclear Engineering International about the feasbility of merging nuclear power and renewables into a hybrid energy system, and the impetus phenomena such as climate change have created with regard to making such a concept a reality.

Construction of Snowy 2.0, a major pumped-hydro expansion of Australia’s renowned Snowy Mountains Scheme, is well underway, with tunnelling about to begin.

A nationally-significant renewable energy initiative, Snowy 2.0 is also unique in international terms, combining a high head differential (more than 700m), long tunnels and reversible pump-turbines.

It will link two existing Snowy Scheme reservoirs, Tantangara and Talbingo, through 27km of segmentally-lined waterway tunnels, approximately 10m in diameter, and a power station about 800m underground.

Snowy 2.0 will add 2,000 megawatts (MW) of energy generation and, with the capacity to generate power for seven days without recharge pumping, it will provide 350,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of energy storage.

Research on demand programs suggests that a better, and more long-lasting, approach is price incentives. Critical peak pricing (CPP) programs give customers lower prices throughout most of the year, but impose a much higher price when supply is tight. Numerous careful studies, covering both residential and commercial customers, have demonstrated that CPP yields substantial demand reductions in response to the high price. And one study by Catherine, Meredith and co-authors demonstrates that making CPP the default gets very high participation and also high satisfaction among customers.

An “energy-only” model keeps wholesale prices low during fair weather. Low prices encourage customers to add devices and equipment. On a larger, longer term scale, it encourages businesses and even residents to migrate to take advantage of having low cost electricity available.

But it doesn’t provide sufficient predictable revenue to encourage investment in durable generating sources or long term, guaranteed delivery fuel supply contracts. //

If challenged about the value of continued strong support and mandates for increasing wind and solar penetration, one of their arguments is that using the wind and the sun to supply energy when it is available allows fossil fuel generating sources to burn less fuel. //

That would be a reasonable response if the only competitor to wind and solar was fossil fuel. It’s even a reasonable response in systems where large hydroelectric dams are part of the generating mix because it allows the water to remain behind the dam, ready to be used when wind and solar generation falls off.

But opportunistically displacing other sources of power can lead to unproductive consequences like eliminating enough revenue from nuclear plants to make them struggle financially. Right now, there are firm plans in place to close five operating nuclear plants in the US during 2021.

Though some industry leaders have vociferously denied that wind and solar power can be blamed for those closure decisions, the financial evidence is clear. Low grid prices and grid congestion fees in regions where there is abundant wind or solar power available create a “missing money” situation that stresses large steady-running generators that serve base load very well. //

The “energy-only” market structure has helped gas to push most coal and lignite off of the Texas grid, producing significant air pollution reduction and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Using more natural gas in power production has been beneficial to the Texas economy as well, since most of the gas burned in the state is extracted in the state. //

Without any source of revenues for power generations other than selling electricity, there are no reasons why any generator would spend money to store fuel on site to use in the rare case where there are interruptions in the fuel supply. //

If society determines that it is unacceptable to have a power grid that cuts off customers for many hours at a time during a period when being without power can be deadly, it must accept the fact that markets cannot be the decision makers.

Cheapness on a short duration scale – like 5-minute settlement markets – cannot be the sole criteria for selecting power sources.

One common misperception about nuclear energy is that it is inflexible, and thus inherently incompatible in a system comprised of variable renewables. But in reality, nuclear is already operating flexibly, and the next generation of advanced reactors will only expand this capability. There are 58 reactors in France that have been operating flexibly for more than 30 years, and that can vary their output between 20% and 100% in as little as 30 minutes. This level of flexibility balances generation and demand, allowing renewables to contribute to the grid intermittently without any additional support from emissions-producing sources like coal or natural gas.

There are also companies working to make the existing fleet and, more importantly, the next generation of reactors more flexible by allowing for even more rapid and efficient ramping. For example, the NuScale small modular reactor (SMR) design has 12 separate modules that can be individually dialed back throughout the day — or even taken offline for an afternoon — to maximize use of renewables during their peak hours and ensure energy demand is met. That means nuclear offers a great support system, giving renewables the space to shine when the sun is out and the wind is blowing, but it’s always there when it’s needed.