In a recent study, researchers from the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE), and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) questioned the planned development of new nuclear capacities in the energy strategies of the United States and certain European countries.
The problem is it’s not that simple from a climate perspective. Solar and wind are great but are incredibly variable which is not good when you need a guaranteed baseline electricity production. There is no situation under which a large nation could reliably just use wind/solar to power the country. Currently nuclear is the only renewable, clean energy source that can produce a stable output.
Nuclear is not renewable. It uses uranium as fuel. It is low carbon and emission free, but not renewable.
There are two solutions to intermittency. First one is a large grid with a lot of differen renewable power sources. It is always sunny somewhere, so when you can move the electrcitiy around, you have much less of a problem. Even better ifyou have wind power as well. With a continent sized grid, you basicly avoid the problem of cloudy days.
Next part is storage. Due to the large grid size you have the ability to use hydro power plants with reservoir as long term storage for particullarily cloudy days or winter and battery and pumped hydro for nights. Biomass is also an option if need be. Maybe we later hydrogen as long term storage as well, for really bad weeks and using it mainly for say chemical plants. Again the better large and interconnected the grid the less storage is needed. In some regions namely large sunny deserts having a nights worth of storage and some emergency backup biomass power plants would be enough. Basicly it runs down to less then a day worth of storage
There are also actually renewable baseloads like hydro power for flow power plants and geothermal, which are also good options. Also variable demand is a thing, which allows for even more renewables.
Seriously intermittency is much less of a problem, then it is made out to be. You just have to add a bit of interconnection and storage to it, but even that is not that expensive and seriousyl usefull.
This is the lie that is told, but nuclear has trouble getting grid penetration over 70% even with massive overprovision and storage via foreign interconnect.
Stable output which is totally interrupted for weeks at a time isn’t useful for meeting a combination of stable, variable, and dispatchable loads. Nor does it contribute meaningfully alongside variable output.
You and many people overestimate the effect of clouds on solar power generation. Even on cloudy days solar panels still produce mostly the same amount of power. On the absolutely darkest cloud days, solar panels still put out about 50% the same amount of energy they generate on perfectly clear sunny days. And that’s only for the absolutely darkest cloud days, whereas if it’s just a typical overcast kind of day the output will be a lot higher. So even if society went to being completely solar powered, you’d only need 50% more solar power generation to be completely meeting your needs even on the cloudiest days.
Isn’t the issue more going to be the solar power generation during winter - which happens to also be when energy demand is greatest?
It probably depends on where you live, but from a quick web search i see sources saying most energy is used in the summer. ( https://learn.pjm.com/three-priorities/keeping-the-lights-on/how-energy-use-varies.aspx ). In locations that receive less sunlight you would simply need more solar panels to meet your needs. In those rare areas that truly receive very little sunlight for months you would choose other technologies like wind, especially since those dark areas likely correlate with where wind is stronger and steadier.
But my comment was in reply to the person who claimed that solar wont work when it’s cloudy, which is false. Solar works great even when it’s cloudy.
Oh you originally responded to me but I never said anything about cloud cover.
And Europe energy crisis last winter was partly due to unperfect meteorological conditions over Europe.
And solar panels produce zero energy during the night.