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Can Nuclear and Wind Work Together?

By Eric McErlain
At NEI, we've always said yes. Here's another source that agrees.

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Comments

Stewart Peterson said…
Nothing in that article addressed the fact that every wind turbine must be backed up with a generator that can load-follow--and nuclear power plants can't load-follow. That means gas.

Sorry, but I still don't see how nuclear power--or any baseload energy source--can work with soft energy (wind, solar, waterwheels, tidal power, etc., as opposed to baseload biomass and baseload-capable big hydro). Soft energy is a completely different system; it renders reliability irrelevant as long as it is possible to respond to other sources' unreliability.
September 12, 2006 at 6:48 PM
Anonymous said…
Nuclear power and hydropower work very well together in Sweden - where they, in effect, share the load equally between them
September 16, 2006 at 9:03 AM
Stewart Peterson said…
1. Wind and hydro can work together because hydro can load-follow. That's my point. But if we don't have many suitable locations for dams (and we don't) we have to look somewhere else. In practice, that means gas.

2. "Three times the investment for the same production" assumes that windmills can back each other up. In practice, that doesn't work very well, and you still need backup generators--in most places, gas. Soft energy is a different way to produce power, not something that can work with the current system.
September 21, 2006 at 1:18 AM
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