Countries don’t actually minimize anything largely due to diminishing returns. Hell the US has lost many nuclear weapons, that’s the kind of thing that seems like it should be a much larger priority but all budgets end up being finite.
> a plant that would provide power 24/7
Solar + batteries provide more electricity in CA than nuclear for roughly 16 hours a day. Midnight to 5AM demand is so low they are actually charging grid batteries, something that could be cheaply time shifted to daytime solar if demand actually increased. New nuclear just doesn’t fit especially if it’s taking 4+ years to build.
>...Midnight to 5AM demand is so low they are actually charging grid batteries
This is misleading. Demand from midnight to 5 AM in CA is much higher than you imply and unfortunately the largest provider of power at night is generally natural gas.
As I said before:
>>Diablo Canyon provides close to 18,000 GWh per year of clean power. If that goes away this year, it will obviously take a while to be able to replace the power with other clean power.
>...New nuclear just doesn’t fit especially if it’s taking 4+ years to build.
I find that those who actually want to decarbonize the grid, don't particularly care what clean technology is used and different countries will have a different mix of technologies they use. The mix that works best in say CA, might not be what works best, in say, Canada.
Countries don’t actually minimize anything largely due to diminishing returns. Hell the US has lost many nuclear weapons, that’s the kind of thing that seems like it should be a much larger priority but all budgets end up being finite.
> a plant that would provide power 24/7
Solar + batteries provide more electricity in CA than nuclear for roughly 16 hours a day. Midnight to 5AM demand is so low they are actually charging grid batteries, something that could be cheaply time shifted to daytime solar if demand actually increased. New nuclear just doesn’t fit especially if it’s taking 4+ years to build.