3 ms·
The problem with nuclear is the enormous up-front costs of constructing, even if we could somehow get rid of all the red tape involved. There's some experiments
by henrikschroder 11y ago
The problem with nuclear is the enormous up-front costs of constructing, even if we could somehow get rid of all the red tape involved. There's some experiments on small-scale fission plants, but there's no market, no buyers, no deployments.
Meanwhile, solar power has a market, has deployments, and is on a path of incremental changes that will take the cost of solar below coal. And once you're below coal, the market will automatically make the switch without any lobbying whatsoever.
I fully agree that we need to keep all existing nuclear as long as possible though, but I'm not so sure it's something it makes sense to invest in.
- petra 11y agoMoltex is claiming they have a design for a nuclear reactor with capital costs cheaper than coal: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:A7XF4_1gu1AJ:www.moltexenergy.com/thessr/lowcostnuclearenergy/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=il http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:A7XF4_1...
- henrikschroder 11y agoYeah, that perfectly fits what I said: > There's some experiments on small-scale fission plants, but there's no market, no buyers, no deployments.
- petra 11y agoSure we're far from commercialization , it's a slow business. But it may be cheaper than solar+storage. And china may be a market - they are throwing serious money at it , and maybe not the only one. And it may be more scalable, maybe. And let's not forget - solar is tiny. If you wanted to replace the energy infrastructure with solar - it would take decades , it would require a massive share of the world steel supply ,and it would be a huge building project, and the EROI would not be so big. So it might be too early to say who will win the race.