Paul wrote
The Natural Philosopher wrote
NY wrote

How much of the country will need to be covered in wind turbines?

All of it.

I mean when you run the numbers the whole thing is completely insane.

What is actually happening is that while windmills and solar panels take
the headlines, behind the scenes massive work on SMR nuclear power is
going on ready for the time the public realises 'renewables dont work'

Renewables work.

No they dont when you need the backups for when
they cant supply what you are using. When you have
that, you might as well use the backup all the time
and save the stupid money you have ****ed against
the wall on the renewables and dont get the
comprehensive ****ing of the environment those do.

But you have to maintain a "basket" of power supplies,
a reliable baseline supply that meets all constraints,
as well as a variable (but basically free) dynamic source.

Not if you get a clue and use nukes instead.

You can't run a country with only windmills.

You can with nukes. France does.

That's where all those "natural gas peaker plants" came from.

Which **** that scarce resource against the wall. **** that.

Power companies here, can tell you "current windmill percent"
and "max possible windmill percent" - there is an apparent
method for working out what the mix should be. Even your
own power authority should be providing these numbers
to the users, to give some idea how poorly managed it is.

Makes a lot more sense to go nuke instead.

Texas could have been well managed - it probably had sufficient
infrastructure to "look good" when challenged,but the devil was in the
details.

Nukes cost money to fuel.

Cost **** all for fuel in fact.

They burn more fuel the more you use them.

Still **** all.

Good nuke designs support continuous fueling, so the reactor continues to
run, while fuel is loaded in deactivated zones of the reactor, then those
sections are brought online again.
A robot on the reactor, loads the fuel.

Makes more sense to have multiple nukes
given that refuelling happens so rarely.

If the reactor is switched off, some of the cost of operation is saved as
the fuel isn't being burnt.

**** all in fact.

If you have a windless day, that's when the reliable baseline is switched
on.

Makes more sense to use it all the time with nukes.

I don't know what a headline looks like, but a well
managed power utility has some common characteristics
in terms of public disclosure. Usually you can find a plan, detailing when
the system is going to enter a rough period (30% of nukes need to be
replaced all at once).

That never happens.

Something has to finance that, and as the Toshiba example shows, the
companies doing the work need financial guarantees.

Not if the nukes are done like France did.

Projects that fail half way through, can spell the end of the contractor
doing the work.

Didnt happen with France until they stupidly
gave up on what built their nuke fleet.

The various schemes to deflect the
financing details, those have a price.

Not when you do it like France did.

Like when a certain bridge was built here, and
some nitwit borrowed Deutsch marks to finance it. Basically placing the
citizens in debt, forever.
(The toll charged to cross the bridge, pays for the
interest on the loan. Seemingly no payment of principle.)

Only the stupid build bridges that way.

Poorly planned borrowing to finance projects, has at times, a very big
cost. A lot of utility projects
are loaded with very bad terms, in the financing.

France's nukes werent.

Like a "free" source of energy, where one of the
terms of the financing, "gives" the free power for
practically nothing, to a third party for 35 or 50 years.
That's the kind of stuff that goes on behind the scenes.

It didnt in France.

Any energy source with astronomical financing, the citizens are going to
take a screwing on it, one way or another.

Didnt happen with France or Japan or China either.