Pretty accurate, but nuclear can spin up and down, by controlling the fuel rods. This is one of the major advantage of the technology and why many suggest it be used in combination with solar, wind, and hydro (many as in the IPCC, which is why CNN pushed hard on everyone during the climate debates). It can be used to provide a base load (greatly reducing the need for batteries (or the need to invent good enough ones!) And can also scale back when it's sunny and windy. All while producing no emissions when running.
Chernobyl happened during a scheduled shut-down test that was delayed by 10 hours because there was higher than expected electricity demand. They tried to speed-up the shut-down and the results did not go as expected. I think it may be a little naive to say that nuclear can spin up and down by controlling the fuel rods.
I think Three Mile Island and Fukushima also had issues with getting rid of residual heat during a shut-down that at a minimum damaged the fuel and resulted in a loss of the unit at TMI and a melt-down and major cleanup at Fukushima. It seems to be the basic safety issue with fission and not one that can be dismissed so easily. 6-10 hours for a controlled shut-down seems to be the minimum safety margin.
> I think it may be a little naive to say that nuclear can spin up and down by controlling the fuel rods.
I'm not sure. Because that's exactly what control rods do. The carbon is a neutron moderator. Neutrons are the "heat" in the reaction (that creates actual heat). Less neutrons the colder the reaction is. You'll find this in any elementary nuclear or atomic textbook (which I have read).
As for Chernobyl the show actually got a lot right. But there's a lot of important things that get glossed over because it's dramatized. Like the fact that it had a positive void coefficient and no other reactor operates that way because everyone knew it had a chance is blowing up.
Similarly there's a lot wrong with your analysis about three mile and Fukushima. Both of which killed zero people btw. I'd listen to the experts on this one.
I don't know what experts you are listening to, but the idea of shutting down a nuclear reactor by lowering the control rods when the sun shines or the wind blows is just plain silly, for economic and safety reasons. Maybe for some future Gen IV design without fuel rods, but what you are talking about would require doubling the staffing and would defeat any cost savings in fuel use.
Better to curtail the wind and solar or find ways to store the excess energy in batteries, hydro, or fuel.
EDIT: Perhaps you mean something else by "spin up and spin down" but the usual sense of the words implies a complete shut-down. Nuclear reactors do have a normal operating range which can safely be reduced to half-power on a diurnal cycle (typically at night, but could just as easily be during the day.)
No I mean vary the output levels. Not complete shutdown and restart. That's how the spin up and down phrase was being used in the context of this thread (I had also used the phrase "scale back"). So you and I are in agreement.
There was a video I saw a while ago, but I don't remember where, explaining that modern nuclear designs use passive safety mechanisms, whereas the original (currently in use) designs have active safety mechanisms that require ridiculous amounts of fallback and backup systems that make it much more difficult to guarantee safe operation in the event of an anomaly.
I think it had something to do with there being a salt plug that would melt if things got to hot, at which point everything would drain into a vessel designed to stop the reaction getting out of hand. So the cooling systems have to actively keep operating temperatures in range otherwise the plug melts and it goes into safe mode.
This is in contrast with what you describe where "shut down" is an elaborate process that takes time and correct order of operations in order to occur safely.
You're thinking of liquid reactors, probably gen IV. But I'll say that given the track record of nuclear, it is pretty safe. Only one that beats it out for safety per TW (least deaths per TW) is hydro (even wind and solar are more dangerous). The environmental damage isn't really high either, you should check out radiation maps of Japan. They're pretty much livable expect for inside the daiichi reactor. It definitely was bad, but at the same time it was sensationalized.
I can also say that there is a resistance to implementing new reactors and storage methods because they "aren't proven". I'll let you decide the irony to that statement.
