alt Hacker NewsThe problem is that the economics of a ”firming”/”peaking” nuclear reactor is absolutely stupid due to essentially being only fixed costs.
It is already stupidly expensive when running at 100% 24/7. Now try running it only when renewables and storage doesn’t deliver.
That's a fundamental problem with nuclear plants. Their classic "baseload" niche is gone. Like the intermittent sources, wind and solar, they need storage to hold what they overproduce during peak periods.
This is also true of geothermal, which, like nuclear, is almost all fixed capital cost.