It is a source of base load, low-carbon and largely fixed-cost power for many utilities.
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Yet their combined total capacity was still insufficient to even begin to keep pace with base load demands.
The only way that we can resolve these challenges, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions in a timeframe that avoids the worst consequences of climate change, is to develop next-generation sources of clean base load power.
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They went over a comprehensive energy reform plan, and based on their study, they realized that they would be dependent on liquid fuels, but base load wise, they could be energy independent through nuclear power.
Since the USGC pipeline flows are basically base load and at capacity, only pipeline expansion would make a difference and this is more of a question of what customers want to make the ship and pay financial committments to underwrite the pipeline expansions.
The report does point to the benefits of nuclear power, including competitive pricing, strong base-load power provision, and low-carbon emissions.
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Base-load power is the minimum required to keep things ticking over the demands of three o'clock in the morning, or thereabouts.
Once the concept is shown to be feasible, the developers can then build on the smaller facilities to form a larger base-load plant.
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Moreover, it could do so reliably and that means wind power could be used for what is known in the jargon as base-load power supply.
Babcock builds smaller nuclear units of 100 megawatts, which can also be aggregated together to supply as much power as a base-load nuclear generator, or 1, 000 megawatts.
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That is well above the base power load and the surge is supplied by less efficient fossil fuel power generators as well as some peak pumped water storage.
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Critics such as Heartland and ALEC are saying that most base-load generators are designed to go all-day, every-day and not to crank up and down so that they can back up wind and solar.
Because geothermal produces consistent, base-load power--it doesn't depend on the wind blowing or the sun shining--utilities will pay up to three times more for geothermal electricity than for electricity from an intermittent source, like wind.
This would not only add to our GDP, it would also broaden the tax base, softening the burden on those currently shouldering the load.
Load balancing means dividing and distributing the workload between multiple base stations.
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