Re: Well, two thoughts...
Saying solar and wind can compete with nuclear is a bit like saying a clipper ship can compete with a nuclear submarine.
ESPECIALLY if you rule out hydro..
Let's run the idiot scenario of a solar wind and nuclear grid. Now these are technologies that actually do exist, so we don't need to invent pixie dust and powdered unicorn horn fuelled devices. We just go with what we know.
First of all, there will be times. Dark cold still winter evenings, typically in January or February when we will need around 60GW of power on today's grid, and the wind won't be blowing anywhere and the sun will have set.
So to cover these, we need 60GW of nuclear power.
That 60GW of nuclear power can run the entire nation. Its costly to build but its dirt cheap to run and emits no carbon. Neither does it need any fossil fuel. And without fossil fuel we have to have it anyway.
Why on earth would we add renewables to it?
To add energy security? we don't need to. Nukes already have a decade or two of fuel stored and to bulk buy more to make that 100 years would be peanuts.
To reduce emissions? Pardon me, emissions are, once the nukes are built, already zero. And you have to build the nukes. Building the renewables would increase emissions in the build process. And probably the maintenance phase as well.
To reduce fuel burn? why would we even BOTHER since nuclear fuel has a massive EROI anyway, and is dirt cheap.
No, gentlemen, once we have an adequacy of nuclear power, intermittent renewables simply cannot compete. They are more expensive they cannot be dispatched and they cannot be stored and they add nothing anybody wants or needs to an all-out nuclear grid.
They are all cost and absolutely NO BENEFIT WHATSOEVER.
Once you say 'lets have some nuclear power' at ALL, the (rational*) case for having any renewables actually vanishes.
This is why the anti-nuclear lobby is so vociferous. The intermittent renewables have no chance whatsoever of competing with nuclear, which is why if you have companies like Vattenfall and Siemens in your country running your grid, you have to BAN nuclear altogether, or people will start asking questions.
As indeed they are, already...
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/new-uk-nuclear-reactor-spurs-reexamination-of-german-policy-a-930822.html
The ONLY situation where intermittent renewables 'work' is there they can be offset with a lot of pre-existant paid for hydro that can't be run flat because its rainfall limited. THAT can then be turned down on windy or sunny days to conserve water.
But even there, the costs exceed using nuclear to do the same job. Switzerland is about IIRC 60/40 nuclear hydro and it works marvellously. The 60% nuclear covers the base load and the 40% hydro is used to cover the peaks.
IN short there is not a single job that intermittent renewables can do that can't be done better and cheaper by nuclear power.
Beware of people who say we will need, or the future is, 'nuclear and renewables': they are not logical people who understand power generation. They are politically motivated or profit motivated to keep 'renewables' alive long past the time when the stench of green corruptions has begun to become obvious to everyone.
*The 'case for renewables' is in fact not rational at all in any case, they represent a cosmetic solution that doesn't actually work (overall integrating them into a real world fossil grid makes no impact on its emissions commensurate with the amount they generate) to a problem that probably does not exist either. CO2 impact is widely seen as either insignificant, beneficial, or a mild combination of both. Its real purpose is top make money and capture the illiterate green vote.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
