Energy Probe - The Nuclear Power Baseload Myth

Energy Probe - The Nuclear Power Baseload Myth:

"Specifically,there is a notion abroad that base load means 24/7 and, therefore, that base load stations are and must be unusually reliable stations.If anything, the contrary is closer to the truth.

Nuclear generators, indeed, produce base load power.They are subject to both planned and unplanned or forced outages, whichoccasionally last for years, and they are both technically and financially resistant to being dispatched for the grid's convenience.

As a result, their output, like base load power in general, is clearly much less valuable to the electricity grid and its customers than power from more reliable and more dispatchable sources, including, for example, coal, natural gas and peaking hydroelectricity.

A grid can in fact easily operate reliably with 100 percent flexible, reliable and dispatchable capacity, the kind of capacity we might call peaking capacity. But it is unlikely to survive for long with 100 percent inflexible, less reliable and non-dispatchable capacity, the capacity we generally call base load capacity."