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How do wind and solar provide a solid baseline power. And China builds nuclear plants a lot faster and cheaper than we do, and no known accidents. Maybe we can

How do wind and solar provide a solid baseline power. And China builds nuclear plants a lot faster and cheaper than we do, and no known accidents. Maybe we can learn something from them. Plus the whole 90% of a nuclear plant's cost is servicing the debt. Once completed the operational costs are a rounding error.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> How do wind and solar provide a solid baseline power. Properly built and managed distribution networks, along with utility scale battery storage. > And China builds nuclear plants a lot faster and cheaper than we do, and no known accidents. Yet. China still gets more power from wind than nuclear, and they're building out wind generation capacity far faster than nuclear: http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2015/highlights50 http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2015/highlights5... > Maybe we can learn something from them. Indeed. When you're an authoritarian regime, you can operate more fluidly "at scale" (fuck you, I do what I want). > Plus the whole 90% of a nuclear plant's cost is servicing the debt. And yet, someone has to pony up those billions of dollars. A kickstarter perhaps? > Once completed the operational costs are a rounding error. And when you fail hard, it costs billions of dollars to cleanup: http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-health-policy-institute/responses/costs-and-consequences-of-fukushima.html http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-heal... I'll take solar and wind, thanks.
- merpnderp 11y ago
  utility scale battery storage seems highly improbable to ever be cheaper than nuclear. If we figure a pretty generous 50% loss of energy, that means you need twice as much power production to service the nights and windless days.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    Lithium batteries are in no way going to be so inefficient as to have a 50% loss of energy. They're already cost competitive in Hawaii for utility scale storage: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/hawaii-co-op-solarcity-ink-deal-for-dispatchable-power-from-solar-storage/405408/ http://www.utilitydive.com/news/hawaii-co-op-solarcity-ink-d...
    - hamiltonkibbe 11y ago
      What happens when when 52MWh (~216 tons of lithium iron batteries) goes into thermal runaway?
      - Faint 11y ago
        You don't have have to put all of the 52MWh side-by-side.
- cthalupa 11y ago
  >And when you fail hard, it costs billions of dollars to cleanup: http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-heal.. http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-heal.... Using Fukushima as an argument against nuclear is such a silly thing to do, and the decades long freeze on any sort of real progress in meaningfully upgraded or new commercial reactors makes this sort of thing a self fulfilling prophecy. How many industries have catastrophic failures? How many people have been killed by hydro-electric dams? How much financial damage? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam We've created a climate where a completely viable power option that is better than what we have now has had innovation massively stifled due to politics and fearmongering, which has in turn made it more difficult for nuclear plants to be a safe option, which then allows for even more politics and fear mongering. Fukushima? Yes, it was a catastrophic failure. But it was hit by a 9.0 earthquake and then a tsunami. It was scheduled to be shut down two weeks from the earthquake. It was a 4 decade old plant that was being shut down due to it's age hit by some of the worst possible natural disasters, and even then some better design choices, such as a higher seawall, or not storing the backup generators underground would have prevented it. The condenser units also hadn't been inspected or had maintenance performed on them since basically the reactor's opening. Everything that happened with Fukushima could have been prevented even with it's old technology despite being batter with one of the worst natural disasters in modern history. And this is with 4 decade old technology. With a more favorable political climate, how many advances in safety and efficiency could have been made over those decades?
  - JabavuAdams 11y ago
    It's not just about trusting the technology, it's about trusting the human processes that govern and maintain that technology. You say that Fukushima could have been prevented, and yet -- it wasn't prevented. Humans are greedy, generally corrupt, and bad at maintenance when things are going well. To really trust nuclear, we need better humans, since the accidents can be so catastrophic.
Retric 11y ago
Over capacity and in the US Hydro can easily cover most issues. Other areas may use peaking power plants or grid storage just like today. PS: If you build more wind than you need it does get slightly more expensive, but the wasted peaks are a fairly low percentage of energy generation so there not that important. ie. If you build 5% more wind than you need the cost only increases by 5% but you need to time shift far less power. Considering how much cheaper wind is than Nuclear you can have a lot of extra capacity factor.

toomuchtodo 11y ago

> How do wind and solar provide a solid baseline power. Properly built and managed distribution networks, along with utility scale battery storage. > And China builds nuclear plants a lot faster and cheaper than we do, and no known accidents. Yet. China still gets more power from wind than nuclear, and they're building out wind generation capacity far faster than nuclear: http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2015/highlights50 http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2015/highlights5... > Maybe we can learn something from them. Indeed. When you're an authoritarian regime, you can operate more fluidly "at scale" (fuck you, I do what I want). > Plus the whole 90% of a nuclear plant's cost is servicing the debt. And yet, someone has to pony up those billions of dollars. A kickstarter perhaps? > Once completed the operational costs are a rounding error. And when you fail hard, it costs billions of dollars to cleanup: http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-health-policy-institute/responses/costs-and-consequences-of-fukushima.html http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-heal... I'll take solar and wind, thanks.

merpnderp 11y ago
utility scale battery storage seems highly improbable to ever be cheaper than nuclear. If we figure a pretty generous 50% loss of energy, that means you need twice as much power production to service the nights and windless days.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Lithium batteries are in no way going to be so inefficient as to have a 50% loss of energy. They're already cost competitive in Hawaii for utility scale storage: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/hawaii-co-op-solarcity-ink-deal-for-dispatchable-power-from-solar-storage/405408/ http://www.utilitydive.com/news/hawaii-co-op-solarcity-ink-d...
  - hamiltonkibbe 11y ago
    What happens when when 52MWh (~216 tons of lithium iron batteries) goes into thermal runaway?
    - Faint 11y ago
      You don't have have to put all of the 52MWh side-by-side.
cthalupa 11y ago
>And when you fail hard, it costs billions of dollars to cleanup: http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-heal.. http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-heal.... Using Fukushima as an argument against nuclear is such a silly thing to do, and the decades long freeze on any sort of real progress in meaningfully upgraded or new commercial reactors makes this sort of thing a self fulfilling prophecy. How many industries have catastrophic failures? How many people have been killed by hydro-electric dams? How much financial damage? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam We've created a climate where a completely viable power option that is better than what we have now has had innovation massively stifled due to politics and fearmongering, which has in turn made it more difficult for nuclear plants to be a safe option, which then allows for even more politics and fear mongering. Fukushima? Yes, it was a catastrophic failure. But it was hit by a 9.0 earthquake and then a tsunami. It was scheduled to be shut down two weeks from the earthquake. It was a 4 decade old plant that was being shut down due to it's age hit by some of the worst possible natural disasters, and even then some better design choices, such as a higher seawall, or not storing the backup generators underground would have prevented it. The condenser units also hadn't been inspected or had maintenance performed on them since basically the reactor's opening. Everything that happened with Fukushima could have been prevented even with it's old technology despite being batter with one of the worst natural disasters in modern history. And this is with 4 decade old technology. With a more favorable political climate, how many advances in safety and efficiency could have been made over those decades?
- JabavuAdams 11y ago
  It's not just about trusting the technology, it's about trusting the human processes that govern and maintain that technology. You say that Fukushima could have been prevented, and yet -- it wasn't prevented. Humans are greedy, generally corrupt, and bad at maintenance when things are going well. To really trust nuclear, we need better humans, since the accidents can be so catastrophic.

Retric 11y ago

Over capacity and in the US Hydro can easily cover most issues. Other areas may use peaking power plants or grid storage just like today. PS: If you build more wind than you need it does get slightly more expensive, but the wasted peaks are a fairly low percentage of energy generation so there not that important. ie. If you build 5% more wind than you need the cost only increases by 5% but you need to time shift far less power. Considering how much cheaper wind is than Nuclear you can have a lot of extra capacity factor.