> I don't know the actual numbers, but what if peak load is 50% higher than average load
You'd know if you read the link I provided.
Nuclear plants in Germany had no issues scaling up and down between 400-600MW and 1200-1400MW per reactor per day.
Now, with renewables you do have this issue. Because due to their intermittent nature you're required to both overbuild them and provide enough grid-scale storage to last for hours.
> It's just not efficient to keep nuclear power at a capacity lower than their peak capacity.
For some politically-motivated definition of efficient. Additional costs to running nuclear plants in load following mode are immaterial.
> Ramping down renewables is lots faster and easier.
And the source for this is? Because reality seems to disagree with you
> The stability argument is just populistic bullshit. Plausible on the surface, not a concern in actual practice
You're surprised that renewable energy is intermittent and you need to significantly overbuild them?
> You are acting like those who plan and build this renewable capacity never thought of that.
So many decisions in this space are made purely for political points, so you can see how yes, people who are building this rarely if ever talk abou this.
> The goal with renewables is to reduce the total emissions.
Note how if you don't shut down nuclear power plants you don't need to burn coal to make up for the difference.
Funny how for renewables it's "certainly it's doable" and "powerlines can be built", but for nuclear "The problem of course is the proximity to power consumers"