nerevisigoth

nerevisigoth t1_ixeiati wrote

Yeah, it's a core part of my job. But it's not innovation, it's busywork. Millions of hours of engineering could have gone to something useful, and instead they've been squandered on regulatory compliance. But of course the big companies don't mind, because the endless layers of bureaucracy keep nimble startups from challenging their market position.

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nerevisigoth t1_iqulung wrote

You also need to consider the capacity factor, which tops out around 30-35% for wind and 20-25% for solar. So with 300 MW wind and 50 MW solar nameplate capacity the best we can expect is average output of around 120 MW.

Nuclear has a capacity factor of >90% since it only ever stops for maintenance, so a single 1.1 GW reactor (eg an AP1000) is like 8x this plant.

But at least in the US we have plenty of otherwise useless windy land and it's incredibly expensive to build a nuclear plant, so maybe this is the way to go.

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