In 2023, I performed an analysis of U.K. wind generation. The results are in a report titled, “The Cost of Increasing UK Wind Power Capacity - A Reality Check”. It revealed many things about the U.K. wind experiment. One, was the truly staggering cost of the experiment. Another was the amazing feat that U.K. grid operators perform in balancing supply with demand—amazing because of the formidable task of using dispatchable gas turbine power to compensate for vacillating wind turbine power in addition to shifting demand. It is the lynchpin that holds the whole scheme together. However, there is a price to pay for rapid ramping of gas turbines. Their thermal efficiency drops from 60% to 50% and due to the additional thermal and mechanical stress, their lifespan is shortened.
I would not expect readers of this article to be acquainted with all the details of U.K. wind generation, although some of you may be, but I would expect that someone hoping to copy the U.K. experiment in New York state would have a passing familiarity with them. Apparently, that is not the case.
After my recent article, “Virtue signaling with nuclear power”, appeared, I corresponded with Lindsay Anderson, a Cornell University professor and booster of Hochul’s plan, about the purpose of Governor Hochul’s 2GW advanced nuclear power proposal. Lindsay responded with the following:
We need dispatchable resources to ensure reliability as we expand renewable energy sources, and advanced nuclear power is one of the technologies that can support this. While 2GW isn’t sufficient to solve the problem, it’s a practical step forward. I don’t think we should accept business as usual as the only path, and no other large-scale options are currently deployable.
That is a rather candid admission on the part of Lindsay that no other large-scale options are currently deployable as a dispatchable emission-free resource (DEFR). However, even the assertion that advanced nuclear power can function as a proposed DEFR is questionable. I say questionable because the ramp rate of a small module reactor (SMR) is 5–10 MW/min, significantly less than the 20–50 MW/min ramp rate of a closed-cycle gas turbine (CCGT). This leaves doubt as to whether SMRs can follow the rapid shifts in wind power that occur in the UK and potentially in New York State making them an unsuitable substitute for CCGTs.
It would seem that the people providing advice to Governor Hochul are ill-informed. Cory Booker once likened the effort to reach net-zero emissions to a moonshot. When co-sponsoring the Green New Deal resolution in 2019, he echoed President Kennedy’s famed moon challenge, saying: “If we used to govern our dreams that way we would’ve never gone to the moon.” With the approach that Governor Hochul and her advisors are taking, they may never get off the launchpad.
Image from Grok.