Earlier quoted context omitted.
BPA is a federal agency. The Trump administration has been very supportive of zero carbon nuclear i believe they have promised $80 billion dollars to build new nuclear plants. Staff cuts dont mean they oppose using those energy sources.
US deploys nuclear energy at over $10/watt meanwhile solar and wind are deployed around $2/watt (for levelized cost of electricity) including battery storage which means they are deployed for roughly the same cost as natural gas (so, direct competitors). Don't let comments like this fool you, nuclear is far from being competitive with natural gas. Even in countries like south korea that can deploy nuclear the cheapes…
It is important for base load power and overnight power and should always be the backing of the grid frequency. Total loss of grid frequency is much more difficult to recover from with synthetic inertia.
A healthy grid should have all of the following - Nuclear base load that keeps the grid stable and pick up from low solar
- Gas plants for surge power and base load when nuclear/solar/wind cannot take up the slack
- Battery storage for surge/storage during off peak
- Solar for very low-cost cheap energy during peak usage hours
- Wind for other power source ie when the sun isnt shining as much
source: https://grid.iamkate.com/