What I said:

>All it means is that you want to have your power system producing enough power to meet the minimum load over a unit of time.

What the first sentence of your link says:

>The base load[1] (also baseload) is the minimum level of demand on an electrical grid over a span of time, for example, one week

If that isn't a near perfect paraphrase, then I don't understand English.

>You clearly didn't read the literal definition of base load being the minimum level of demand. Its not a layman term, its a literal grid term. But nice try.

I literally design power systems for a living. I've been doing it for more than a decade. Nobody in the industry refers to "base load". What we concern ourselves with is meeting the loads at any given point in time. We have countless tools at our disposal to do this. Base load is antiquated. It was a much bigger concern before SCADA systems gave us control over power flow and instantaneous feedback about grid conditions on a station by station, line by line basis.

>Capacity factor of nuclear plants is literally the highest out of EVERY energy source

Wow. You are the literal definition of a layperson. Capacity factor is the ratio between nameplate capacity and actual power delivered.

Dispatchability is the ability of a generation asset to ramp up or down quickly to meet the real time variability of loads.

You ought to be embarrassed by how confidently wrong you are.

Capacity factor isn't a meaningful concern. At fucking all. You design your system for the power that will be delivered by any asset. Since this is a known quantity and renewables, even with their CF between .25-.35, still outperform every other generation type in cost.

>ALL of your grid with renewables would require an absolutely stupid amount of storage

No, storage is not a major requirement. It is only necessary if you don't want to overbuild. But having too much energy at any point in time allows for all sorts of technological solutions that can be turned on or off by grid operators. On when we are over producing. Off when demand is approaching production. Things like making fertilizer, desalinating water, using carbon capture technologies, pumping water, recycling and many many other things. It would have huge consequences for reducing production costs of nearly everything and lead to a post scarcity in energy. Overbuild should be the GOAL, not something to be feared. It also ensures that you are ready for future demand increases.

>I'm a big proponent of hydrogen storage

Of course you are. Sigh. You are demonstrating that you haven't really thought about and lack the engineering background to separate the wheat from the chaff. You are literally a walking popular mechanics magazine. Hydrogen will never be a solution to anything but coking steel.

>too expensive as a base load option versus throwing up a natural gas plant.

This is the second time you have brought up the cost of gas plants. The only energy in the world more expensive than nuclear is gas peaker plants.

>most likely not economically feasible

You clearly haven't done the math on any of this stuff. The cost to completely decarbonize the entire US energy and transportation system is in the neighborhood of 7 trillion. That's electricity, gas heating, and meeting the grid needs of a national fleet of only EVs (something that absolutely shouldn't be done, but that's the math). $7 trillion is less than a decade of military spending, less than 3 years of what Americans spend on their personal cars, less than a decade of projected annual climate change costs, and about 2 years of federal spending.

We aren't talking about an insurmountable task here. The only part of it that's insurmountable is the political will to do it, which is no doubt stunted by laypeople throwing their erroneous opinions into the political ring and shouting over the people who actually do this shit for a living.

>Solar + storage. Way to take something out of context.

K. When you show your own math on this, we'll talk. For now, 82% of the new generation coming down the pike is renewables.