this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
568 points (98.8% liked)
World News
32514 readers
298 users here now
News from around the world!
Rules:
-
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
-
No NSFW content
-
No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
so slight correction here, they don't produce power on demand, unless we include energy storage, but that's the storage not the plant, nuclear plants are explicitly designed to be a base load service. Which is incredibly well suited to be paired with cheap renewables like solar.
Nuclear plants often have a capacity factor of close to 100%, and sometimes even over it. Though usually it's 80-90% for most plants. Gas plants are often 40% ish, hydro is even lower, 20-30% is really common for hydro, especially if it's stored. Though actual hydro plants can realistically run for most of the year, and will more than likely have a more considerable capacity factor, probably somewhere around 60% or higher.