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Maybe it's time to recognize investing in renewable energies is better than in the dying nuclear power. Nuclear is a fossil fuel too (uranium has to be extract

Maybe it's time to recognize investing in renewable energies is better than in the dying nuclear power. Nuclear is a fossil fuel too (uranium has to be extracted and is limited), costs a tremendous amount of money in power-plant building and dismantling costs, and concentrate the production of energy in a few remote places (which makes transport costs higher). Meanwhile, the number of places running on 100% renewable energies is surprisingly high (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy#Places_with_around_100.25_renewable_electricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy#Places...). Why would we need nuclear again?

tombert 11y ago
While I agree that the long-term solution is absolutely to use renewable stuff (especially solar), I don't know that the renewable tech is completely ready to power 7 billion people. Nuclear is messy, and far from ideal, but it doesn't spew chemicals into the air, with a high yield of power, and we already have decent(ish) nuclear tech.
- ewzimm 11y ago
  I've been hearing just the opposite for the last few years, that nuclear power no longer makes economic sense in comparison to renewable energy. Renewables are just getting cheaper much, much faster than nuclear and don't require the enormous initial investment and construction time. I'm no expert, and this is just based on several things I've heard over the years, so I'd suggest just starting at the Wikipedia article if you wanted more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla... It's showing a range of estimates between $0.067-$0.30/kWh. In comparison, solar was around $0.25/kWh in 2008, $0.15/kWh in 2011, and continues to fall quickly.
  - VLM 11y ago
    The problem is how do megacorps and their privately owned properties such as media and government do their FIRE sector thing to profit off distributed solar panels... Well, they could issue subprime loans and all kinds of weird financialization for people to buy panels. The factories are all all in china but some games can be played there. That's about it. Its not as profitable as building billion dollar class nuke plants... They don't like being frozen out of a market, in this case the energy market, so we're all going to have to sit thru a lot of what boils down to sponsored content about how "we" need plants not panels (who is this "we" anyway?), and how panels are going to destroy the grid and motherhood and apple pie, etc.
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    That is sadly not counting in the cost of energy storage and is counting the huge regulatory overhead and major inefficiencies in building nuclear plants so far. And the fact that you'd need massive areas of high quality solar panels - it's not like the solar panels will continue to get infinitely cheaper. And massive numbers of energy storage plants which do not exist. (Even lithium-ion does not have enough energy density and it's very limited on lithium mining.) Check the Lazard (2015) numbers. A comparable PV plant in a favorable location itself is only 25-30% more expensive than modern nuclear plant, but the batteries required put it an order of magnitude higher. Plus nuclear plants scale better - they looked into medium-sized power plants.
deelowe 11y ago
huh? We are squarely in the eternal September of HN at this point. I get what you're saying, but Uranium/thorium is categorically not a fossil fuel. They are elements for crying out loud and quite abundant ones too.
adrianN 11y ago
Uranium being limited is a red herring. Breeder reactors and Thorium can provide us with power for hundreds of years. Similarly, renewables are also fairly concentrated (optimal conditions for wind power or solar are not evenly distributed) and need excellent transmission networks because production is fluctuating.
- atemerev 10y ago
  Not hundreds. Millions!
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Hundreds of years isn't a long time.
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    Enough to figure out properly working fusion if trends keep up.
nicwolff 11y ago
Er, what animal or plant fossilizes into uranium?
aianus 10y ago
> concentrate the production of energy in a few remote places (which makes transport costs higher). Huh? I can drive from downtown Toronto to the nearest nuclear power plant in under 30 minutes. This is one of the largest plants in the world, mind you.

tombert 11y ago

While I agree that the long-term solution is absolutely to use renewable stuff (especially solar), I don't know that the renewable tech is completely ready to power 7 billion people. Nuclear is messy, and far from ideal, but it doesn't spew chemicals into the air, with a high yield of power, and we already have decent(ish) nuclear tech.

ewzimm 11y ago
I've been hearing just the opposite for the last few years, that nuclear power no longer makes economic sense in comparison to renewable energy. Renewables are just getting cheaper much, much faster than nuclear and don't require the enormous initial investment and construction time. I'm no expert, and this is just based on several things I've heard over the years, so I'd suggest just starting at the Wikipedia article if you wanted more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla... It's showing a range of estimates between $0.067-$0.30/kWh. In comparison, solar was around $0.25/kWh in 2008, $0.15/kWh in 2011, and continues to fall quickly.
- VLM 11y ago
  The problem is how do megacorps and their privately owned properties such as media and government do their FIRE sector thing to profit off distributed solar panels... Well, they could issue subprime loans and all kinds of weird financialization for people to buy panels. The factories are all all in china but some games can be played there. That's about it. Its not as profitable as building billion dollar class nuke plants... They don't like being frozen out of a market, in this case the energy market, so we're all going to have to sit thru a lot of what boils down to sponsored content about how "we" need plants not panels (who is this "we" anyway?), and how panels are going to destroy the grid and motherhood and apple pie, etc.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  That is sadly not counting in the cost of energy storage and is counting the huge regulatory overhead and major inefficiencies in building nuclear plants so far. And the fact that you'd need massive areas of high quality solar panels - it's not like the solar panels will continue to get infinitely cheaper. And massive numbers of energy storage plants which do not exist. (Even lithium-ion does not have enough energy density and it's very limited on lithium mining.) Check the Lazard (2015) numbers. A comparable PV plant in a favorable location itself is only 25-30% more expensive than modern nuclear plant, but the batteries required put it an order of magnitude higher. Plus nuclear plants scale better - they looked into medium-sized power plants.

deelowe 11y ago

huh? We are squarely in the eternal September of HN at this point. I get what you're saying, but Uranium/thorium is categorically not a fossil fuel. They are elements for crying out loud and quite abundant ones too.

adrianN 11y ago

Uranium being limited is a red herring. Breeder reactors and Thorium can provide us with power for hundreds of years. Similarly, renewables are also fairly concentrated (optimal conditions for wind power or solar are not evenly distributed) and need excellent transmission networks because production is fluctuating.

atemerev 10y ago
Not hundreds. Millions!
dredmorbius 10y ago
Hundreds of years isn't a long time.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  Enough to figure out properly working fusion if trends keep up.

nicwolff 11y ago

Er, what animal or plant fossilizes into uranium?

aianus 10y ago

> concentrate the production of energy in a few remote places (which makes transport costs higher). Huh? I can drive from downtown Toronto to the nearest nuclear power plant in under 30 minutes. This is one of the largest plants in the world, mind you.