First ACPR-1000 Nuclear Unit Begins Commercial Operation in China

[John ONeill]

18. Are renewables useful ?

I think Nnadir is correct, that renewables - intermittent ones, anyway - are a mere distraction, and will make decarbonisation more difficult. Some of the newer high-temperature reactor designs will provide their output heat as molten nitrate salts, ' solar salt ', on the grounds that this can be stored in insulated tanks at times of low power demand, then used to power turbines with several times the reactors' nameplate output, when demand is high. This, it's claimed, will allow the reactor to fill in the gaps left by solar and wind. But solar and wind can have such long periods of low power, especially in winter, that in effect you'd have to have the reactors capable of handling the whole load anyway - just as coal and gas do now. If nuclear can do the job alone, and wind and solar can't, why waste money on unreliables ?