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RE: Wind power now exceeds nuclear
Furthermore: US fleet CF is over 0.9; and wind is closer to 0.2 - the best wind locations get CFs over 0.3, but they are already installed and additional wind will just end up being in crappy places.
As a nuclear engineer, I can assure you that nuclear plants can throttle down; a 4-loop can throttle to 25% and still run the temperature through one loop for optimum eficiency. The mass flow changes to meet the change in demand.
The US nuclear fleet does do significantly better than the world average, (0.9 CF is about right) but you are grossly underestimating the wind fleet performance and potential. The US wind fleet capacity factor was 0.29 in 2011. (That's the most recent figure I could find quickly.) And if anything, it is the current wind farms that were poorly sited because they were only intended as experimental or demonstration projects. Analyses of wind potential show that the most promising sites, particularly mountain ridges and offshore, have hardly been touched. Scientific studies predict we could expect fleet CFs of 0.4 in the future.
Yes, but that 0.29 is by choosing the BEST wind locations with the lowest ROI times. As additional farms go in, they go in worse and worse places.
Furthermore, the time to replace a wind farm is quite low in actual experience.
I guess you didn't bother to read my comment?
I countered your "current are experimental" - it is compete B.S., not borne out by the actual data.