5 ms·

> it would be much nicer to see the nuclear ... climbing at a faster rate. Good luck convincing a nation of fear mongering people that nuclear energy is safe.

> it would be much nicer to see the nuclear ... climbing at a faster rate. Good luck convincing a nation of fear mongering people that nuclear energy is safe. The whole argument of not in my backyard comes to mind. Solar panel prices are dropping fast enough that I may actually consider putting one on my house and keeping my house at a nice 70 degrees all year round.

sliverstorm 10y ago
Normally I feel AC is something we should try to do without. But come to think of it, if you can actually power an AC unit with panels on your roof, aside from manufacturing the system, it's fairly elegant. You're harvesting & then releasing energy that was bound for that patch of land anyway. Like capturing rainwater on your property and redirecting it through your garden.
toomuchtodo 10y ago
> Good luck convincing a nation of fear mongering people that nuclear energy is safe. I despise nuclear be its no longer cost effective, not because it uses uranium for energy production. I'd live near a nuclear plant if they offered me free heat in the winter! But alas, nuclear's time has come and gone for commercial electrical generation.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  The IEA World Energy Outlook, and other realistic detailed future energy scenarios (including IPCC reports) say we're going to double or even triple nuclear power production from now until 2050.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    Have a citation? All OECD reports I've seen show little to no expansion of nuclear except in possibly China and India. Nuclear power is going to need to come in under 3 cents/kwh to compete against solar and wind.
    - civilian 10y ago
      Nuclear power doesn't have to compete with solar and wind during quiet winter nights-- it gets to compete against batteries + solar/wind. Grids with a lot of renewables are also dealing with a lot of stress on the electrical grid: http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-04-07/when-grid-says-no-wind-and-solar-power-companys-technology-helps-it-say-yes-again http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-04-07/when-grid-says-no-wind... It's a solvable engineering problem, but the meta operations problem is: "is it cheaper to have a grid that is 50% nuclear and 50% renewable, or a grid that is 100% renewables with a lot of battery-stations to absorb/emit the variances"
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - rgbrenner 10y ago
    Only in the most pro-nuclear estimate is that true. The 2014 IEA report gives two numbers, 413 GWe (low nuclear) and 1092 GWe (high nuclear) estimates for 2050. Compared with today's 377 GWe. And they've been revising those numbers downward each of the past several years since Fukushima. http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/world-energy-needs-and-nuclear-power.aspx http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and...
jogjayr 10y ago
Not an expert, but I thought nuclear waste disposal was a huge unsolved problem too, rather than plant safety.

sliverstorm 10y ago

Normally I feel AC is something we should try to do without. But come to think of it, if you can actually power an AC unit with panels on your roof, aside from manufacturing the system, it's fairly elegant. You're harvesting & then releasing energy that was bound for that patch of land anyway. Like capturing rainwater on your property and redirecting it through your garden.

toomuchtodo 10y ago

> Good luck convincing a nation of fear mongering people that nuclear energy is safe. I despise nuclear be its no longer cost effective, not because it uses uranium for energy production. I'd live near a nuclear plant if they offered me free heat in the winter! But alas, nuclear's time has come and gone for commercial electrical generation.

semi-extrinsic 10y ago
The IEA World Energy Outlook, and other realistic detailed future energy scenarios (including IPCC reports) say we're going to double or even triple nuclear power production from now until 2050.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  Have a citation? All OECD reports I've seen show little to no expansion of nuclear except in possibly China and India. Nuclear power is going to need to come in under 3 cents/kwh to compete against solar and wind.
  - civilian 10y ago
    Nuclear power doesn't have to compete with solar and wind during quiet winter nights-- it gets to compete against batteries + solar/wind. Grids with a lot of renewables are also dealing with a lot of stress on the electrical grid: http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-04-07/when-grid-says-no-wind-and-solar-power-companys-technology-helps-it-say-yes-again http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-04-07/when-grid-says-no-wind... It's a solvable engineering problem, but the meta operations problem is: "is it cheaper to have a grid that is 50% nuclear and 50% renewable, or a grid that is 100% renewables with a lot of battery-stations to absorb/emit the variances"
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- rgbrenner 10y ago
  Only in the most pro-nuclear estimate is that true. The 2014 IEA report gives two numbers, 413 GWe (low nuclear) and 1092 GWe (high nuclear) estimates for 2050. Compared with today's 377 GWe. And they've been revising those numbers downward each of the past several years since Fukushima. http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/world-energy-needs-and-nuclear-power.aspx http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and...

jogjayr 10y ago

Not an expert, but I thought nuclear waste disposal was a huge unsolved problem too, rather than plant safety.