OT: Drax to be turned off whenever it's "too" windy or sunny

That's overwhelmingly for economic, not technical, reasons.

You must be heading for dementia then. Long distance AC transmission was actually *possible* ~100 years ago, unlike long distance DC transmission which has now only become possible in the 'modern' era

a) HVDC was also possible in the 1880s, using motor-generators (just uneconomic), b) TNP's point was that long distance power transmission is expensive for either DC or AC.

I'm not convinced by the economics of local generation, in general, in terms of an overall optimal economic solution, but there is no point in denying long distance transmission costs money.

Don't be silly. Long distance DC transmissions has always been *possible*.

But that is irrelevant., You said that the switch to AC caused power stations to be remotely located. I showed how stupid a statement that was, since Battersea was built 40 years or more AFTER AC was common place, right inside London.

Because it was cost effective to do it. Demand and generation not separated by massive cables

Power station location is a cost benefit optimisation between where demand is, where fuel or energy source is and cost of transmission, and of course politics. The ideal place to shove a 5GW nuclear power station is right up Sadiqs arse, in Battersea.

River cooling, zero transmission losses and costs and a network of district heating pipes already in place.

Cabora Basa to Pretoria has been around for a long while. Depends on what you call "modern"

I do picture Dr. Evil when I read your million volts line. :-)

I was browsing in Currys yesterday for a DECT phone and I failed to see any fridges, cookers, washing m/c's, air-fryers, microwaves, or electric heaters that only ran on DC. I wonder why ?.

Because only a stupid f****ng idiot would persist in trying to win an argument he lost 6 posts back

Talking to yourself again then

Current nuclear doesn't like being power cycled. OTOH once built it's cheap and reliable, and tends to be run flat out 24/7, so it doesn't matter.

If we had mostly nuclear that would become a problem.

Andy

If we had mostly nuclear, modern nuclear can be designed for a certain amount of load varying, but any excess could simply go into producing Hydrogen for where portable fuel supplies are better.

Exactly.

Well there is no need. They can be run at fairly fixed power levels until they need refuelling or maintenance. They have some dispatch capability but mostly it is cost effective to run them baseload

The ideal mix would be around 30GW of nuclear, 10GW of hydro and 10GW of gas. And no renewables. For today's needs. Probably around 3 times that on gas and nuclear for anticipated 'E-coli-technology'

Just go 100% nuclear and use the excess, at times of low demand, to produce Hydrogen for mobile power.