Edit: Just realized I think you missed the main point. You want a (functionally) 100% reliable baseline to meet your energy needs. That's why you don't use renewables, at the moment anyway. You want as much renewable as possible on top of that.

[–] argv_minus_one@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Batteries, at the colossal capacity required for this purpose, are nowhere even close to existing.

[–] notapantsday@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

First of all, nuclear is anything but reliable. Germany had to supply huge amounts of electricity to France last year because half of their nuclear plants had to be shut down. They would have had major blackouts without support from their European neighbors.

But my main point is that baseload power does not mix with renewable sources at all. Using batteries and other solutions to store renewable energy during times of little wind or sunlight is actually the goal. But that also eliminates the need for baseload.

Baseload was never really a feature anyway, it was a necessity. Nuclear and certain types of coal power plants were unable to follow demand, they had to be run at close to full load all the time, either for technical or for economic reasons. To compensate for that, other more expensive plants had to be used to cover times of higher demand.