Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> Same for nuclear though, a steady source of power is not a good fit for our energy use.

This is completely wrong. There is a certain level of electrical production that is needed 24/7:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load

As the data for the province of Ontario (Canada) shows, nuclear plants are very good at this (click on "Supply"):

* http://www.ieso.ca/power-data

* http://www.ieso.ca/Power-Data/Supply-Overview/Transmission-C...

As I mentioned in another comment, Ontario could stand to build another 2500-3000MW with of nuclear to deal with the base load, and the variable demand could then largely be dealt with using hydro-electric.




Looking at Ontario's numbers, I see no way in getting 11,000MW of renewal power to replace nuclear connected to the grid, regardless of how many interconnects are set up to other jurisdictions (especially the population is concentrated in the south, and so there's be a high concentration of connections).

Ontario has quite a few turbine farms itself, spread over a reasonable wide area, and even then variability is high:

* http://www.ieso.ca/localContent/map/default.htm

And given that weather systems travel west-to-east, any neighbours are going to have lulls at roughly the same time as Ontario.

Perhaps in other jurisdictions things can work out, but I see it as a non-starter here.




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

Search: