Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I look forward to the HBO drama. These dry conversations about safety margins and protecting jobs will make for lots of dramatic irony when we know, but the characters don't, that the reactor blows up shortly afterwards.

Regarding the bit at the end about the alternative being gas or coal, they could just build more wind, it's cheaper than any of the other options if building new and competitive with the cost of fuel alone for existing fossil plants.




Wind and solar power is good. But you can’t turn them on by demand though, which is why nuclear and coal is still widely used.

[Slightly edited.]


Well coal and nuclear tend to take a long time to turn on. Responding to demand is more the role of gas.


Not sure what you mean here. Where I live (Sweden) I don’t believe we rely on gas for our energy needs.


Nuclear power is almost always used only to provide baseload power to the grid. In Sweden's case, it looks like you're using biofuel power plants [1] for demand following uses when solar + wind can't keep up.

[1] https://sweden.se/society/energy-use-in-sweden/


More to the point, nuclear power generates when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing.




Consider applying for YC's Spring batch! Applications are open till Feb 11.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: