Technically, the deal is: we don’t have seasonal energy storage.
Thankfully, we are actually solving this problem by just making solar panels comically cheap. We are going to solve seasonal swings in power demand by just spamming the ever-loving-hell out of solar panels. Solar is so vastly cheaper than nuclear that this is the better option.
If the panels are cheap enough, you can build enough of them to meet your needs even on a cloudy winter day. Then the rest of the year you have dirt-cheap energy. In turn, a lot of power-intensive industries can move to a seasonal model to take advantage of the nearly-free energy during the warmer months. We have a crop growing season, why not a steel smelting season, or an AI model training season?
The key is that, watt for watt, new solar right now costs about a quarter what new fission does. The cost difference has gotten that ridiculous. There are other options as well of course. We can use that superabundant power in the summer to split water and make lots of hydrogen, and use that for power in the winter. We can even use it to pull CO2 from the air, convert it to synthetic fuels like synthetic methane, and just run our old natural gas plants for power in the winter.
And we’re easily headed to a world where watt for watt, solar is 1/10th the cost of new fission. At that point, even at high latitudes, it makes more sense to use solar power even in winter. I mean sure, if you’re at such extreme latitudes that you have months of total darkness, then solar will have a problem there. Maybe small modular reactors make sense for those niche applications. But even then, those areas are probably better relying on synthetic fuels made from solar power plants at lower latitudes. Or even better, those higher latitudes also get very long days during the summer months, so they can make their own hydrogen during the summer and run their grids off tanks of that in the winter. Or, if nothing else, we can always just run some long power cables north-to-south.
Thankfully, we are actually solving this problem by just making solar panels comically cheap. We are going to solve seasonal swings in power demand by just spamming the ever-loving-hell out of solar panels. Solar is so vastly cheaper than nuclear that this is the better option.
If the panels are cheap enough, you can build enough of them to meet your needs even on a cloudy winter day. Then the rest of the year you have dirt-cheap energy. In turn, a lot of power-intensive industries can move to a seasonal model to take advantage of the nearly-free energy during the warmer months. We have a crop growing season, why not a steel smelting season, or an AI model training season?
That’s a pretty big gap to cover with spamming more panels. I would venture to guess: this approach would work up to latitude 45 or so.
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/surface-solar-radiation-d_1213.html
Where I live, in midwinter, the day is 6 hours long. Over here, wind turns more heads than solar. But yes, solar is riduculously quick to install.
The key is that, watt for watt, new solar right now costs about a quarter what new fission does. The cost difference has gotten that ridiculous. There are other options as well of course. We can use that superabundant power in the summer to split water and make lots of hydrogen, and use that for power in the winter. We can even use it to pull CO2 from the air, convert it to synthetic fuels like synthetic methane, and just run our old natural gas plants for power in the winter.
And we’re easily headed to a world where watt for watt, solar is 1/10th the cost of new fission. At that point, even at high latitudes, it makes more sense to use solar power even in winter. I mean sure, if you’re at such extreme latitudes that you have months of total darkness, then solar will have a problem there. Maybe small modular reactors make sense for those niche applications. But even then, those areas are probably better relying on synthetic fuels made from solar power plants at lower latitudes. Or even better, those higher latitudes also get very long days during the summer months, so they can make their own hydrogen during the summer and run their grids off tanks of that in the winter. Or, if nothing else, we can always just run some long power cables north-to-south.