Comment by realusername
Comment by realusername 2 hours ago
I'm not sure I get your comment, France has 2 years worth of uranium ready to use + 5 years of uranium not enriched.
I don't think there's any other form of energy in the country which has a 7 years emergency reserve.
> As we switch to BEVs repurpose that for grid duties while ensuring the inputs also decarbonize.
BEV will make the storage problem worse because they consume more in winter and you can't tell people how to use their own cars.
The uranium reserves does not help when a winter storm rolls through and grid usage spikes. That is "emergency reserves" or the completely black and white "must work 100% or completely unusable" statement you led with.
Take a look at France. They generally export quite large amounts of electricity. But whenever a cold spell hits that export flow is reversed to imports and they have to start up local fossil gas and coal based production.
What they have done is that they have outsourced the management of their grid to their neighbors and rely on 35 GW of fossil based electricity production both inside France and their neighbors grids. Because their nuclear power produces too much when no one wants the electricity and too little when it is actually needed.
Their neighbors are able to both absorb the cold spell which very likely hits them as well, their own grid as the French exports stops and they start exporting to France.
> BEV will make the storage problem worse because they consume more in winter and you can't tell people how to use their own cars.
I don't think you quite get how the grid works? BEVs are like the ultimate consumers for a renewable grid since they can utilize surpluses matching supply and demand.
Everyone I know with a BEV and an hourly contract times their charging to perfection to reduce costs.
They are of course willing to pay a premium to charge now if their schedule demands it, but that is a tiny tiny subset of the household BEV fleet.