> Actually its not, What seems to be the problem is that people want to >> do it
>> on the cheap. I think, in the end we have to go nuclear, as the >> population
>> of the world is getting bigger and resources smaller...
>
> One problem with nuclear power is that it is not really suitable for
> meeting quickly changing power demands. The output can be varied, but
> that takes more time than it does with a fossil fuel plant. We have a
> limited amount of stored energy, such as Dinorwig, which can cope with
> quick changes, but not enough to allow nuclear to be the sole method of
> generation. Even France only managed to achieve about 70% of its supply
> from nuclear energy.
>
The slew rates on nuclear are similar to coal.
We built dinorwig to have faster slew rates.
France did not need to have more than 70% from nuclear - it has abundant hydro.
To this day it has very little fossil generation at al.
As far as nuclear power goes it costs virtually the same whether you use it or not, so the potential for dumnoping either waste heat or electricity into some kind of industrial process like desalination or electrolysis that requires little or no real time resposnse, is there.
>