6 ms·

Wind and Solar are now cost-competetive with nuclear, without its nasty side effects. And the cost of storage for nuclear waste has not really been calculated y

by _ph_ 10y ago

Wind and Solar are now cost-competetive with nuclear, without its nasty side effects. And the cost of storage for nuclear waste has not really been calculated yet.

nl 10y ago
Whoever downvoted this should take a look again. While being pro-nuclear was all counter-conventional wisdom cool 5 years ago, the math is changing very, very quickly. PV power is so much cheaper in terms of startup costs, and it scales both up and (more importantly) down.
- sanxiyn 10y ago
  Indeed, it is amazing how quickly things are changing. If we solve intermittency, there won't be any reason to be pro-nuclear.
  - orangecat 10y ago
    If. Meanwhile as long as we are burning any amount of coal, we should be building nuclear plants as fast as possible, and we should have been doing that for the last 30 years. The fact that so-called "environmentalists" made that impossible due to their incessant FUD is why I hold them much more responsible for our current situation than Exxon.
- Jaruzel 10y ago
  Was reading about this the other day. As far back as three years ago they predicted that Solar would undercut Nuclear. there's many articles out there, this is one of them: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-16/new-wind-solar-power-cheaper-than-nuclear-option-study-shows http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-16/new-wind-s...
- s_q_b 10y ago
  Nuclear power isn't some counter-cultural fad. It's the top recommendation and consensus among climate scientists. This messianic fantasy that solar and wind will save us, to which every anti-nuclear technologist clings, is not only wrong, but dangerous. Global warming is no longer a theoretical issue. It is here. Now. Within 20 years people will begin abandoning the Persian Gulf, sending a wave of refugees across Europe that will make current migration look like a trickle. We are facing an existential threat to global civilization. There's no longer time to bet on a solar moonshot. We're discussing geoengineering for god's sake. We need proven technology, and we need it now.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    And within 20 years, how many of those reactors will actually be built? Especially within the Persian Gulf, where nuclear weapons proliferation is a big issue. How many decades did Iran spend under sanctions while building a reactor? The solution can't be first-world-only, and local solar is a much better bet in equatorial but poor and politically unstable parts of the world.
  - DasIch 10y ago
    Nuclear reactors aren't economical, don't scale well, can't be deployed everywhere and it takes forever to build them. Even if everyone would agree to convert everything to nuclear reactors now it would probably take a decade before the first goes online and several decades until enough of them are online. That's far too long. In that same period you can easily get far more energy quicker with decentralized renewables.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    Nuclear power have all types of problems for competing on the energy market. From its several sizes available: from incredibly big to absolutely huge, to its bad PR problem and NIMBY, to expensive waste treatment, to any company that runs them getting bankrupt sooner of later. Solar and wind are are here now. And they get in all form-factors, including single-home sized. Besides, photovoltaics are way behind in the Moore's law, and still have a lot to improve. Today, pushing nuclear energy is almost guaranteed to get you no result, while solar will probably get you the biggest improvement you can get.
  - soundwave106 10y ago
    Unfortunately, nuclear has one big issue in addition to the issues already described (long time to build a plant; geo-political concerns on the link between plants and atomic weapons): when it goes bad, it can go spectacularly wrong. No other power source has produced a singular disaster like Chernobyl where about 2500 square km of land is basically uninhabitable for a few hundred years+. Coal fires are the only thing that come close. For that reason, the NIMBY forces / politics against nuclear are much stronger than average (both in building the plant and storing the waste). Never mind that, on average, nuclear power is much safer than fossil fuels. People fear the spectacular more than the mundane. Take terrorism vs. car crashes, in the Western world you're more likely to die in a car crash by far, but it's terrorism that stirs up the fears. As far as global warming is concerned, power generation is only part of the puzzle anyways. Such contributors as transportation and deforestation are also important. Honestly, solar and wind are pretty competitive right now... except for one angle. The main problem with solar / wind / etc. energy generation right now is variability, so the real "moonshot" for this technology is energy storage. (Which is the same real issue with electric transport as well).
- tomp 10y ago
  The problem isn't price. The problem is consistency. Nuclear is a complete (day & night) power solution. Solar/wind isn't.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    Energy storage solves that problem. The technology exists, the only potential trouble is cost, so it comes back to price again. Storage costs are also dropping rapidly. A proper comparison of nuclear to wind/solar needs to account for the cost of storage as well, but even if you add that in I suspect it's approaching parity.
    - bluehazed 10y ago
      "Energy storage solves that problem" Yes, but we don't have that solution.
      - mikeash 10y ago
        I'm puzzled as to why you quote part of my comment and then act like I didn't think of the point you're making, when I made the exact opposite point just one sentence later. Batteries, pumped hydro, thermal storage, and many other technologies exist. They just need to become cheap enough. Thus, the problem is once again price.
        tomp 10y ago
        It's not just price. None of the technologies you mention scale to anywhere near the levels of a nuclear powerplant. It's a huge engineering issue that, while most likely solvable, simply hasn't been solved yet.
        mikeash 10y ago
        How so? Pretty much any building you can point at has enough space for batteries to sustain its power needs overnight. The only reason we haven't all run out and done it is because, first, it's not necessary with the grid as it is now, and second, it costs a whole lot. The engineering issues are in getting this stuff to be sufficiently cost effective that we can afford to put them into wide use.
knz 10y ago
Isn't another benefit of wind and solar the fact that it's distributed rather than concentrated into a few locations? Between the increase in frequency and severity of storms associated with climate change and the threat of terrorism/accidents, I would think the distributed nature of renewables would be a consideration even if nuclear remains a key part of the national grid.
- s_q_b 10y ago
  That's a fair point. However, nuclear plants can be modularized and produced industrially. These are called SMRs, and in fact they are actually the recommendation issued in the joint letter to the President on climate change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor
barkbro 10y ago
The problem is that wind and solar are only a supplementary to nuclear power at the moment. It won't be able to replace nuclear until we find a better way to store energy.
- davidf18 10y ago
  Battery technology is improving significantly.
  - s_q_b 10y ago
    You're right about that. Molten salt storage will even bring it down below the price of natural gas turbines used now. However, even with all the projected improvements and price declines in recent years, solar still will not be enough to serve global energy needs in time to stave off disaster.
  - melling 10y ago
    Can you quantify "significantly"? That's one of those words people throw around to make a point without making a real point. Are we talking 20%, 100%, 300%. And whatever the number, is it sufficient? Also, what's the timeline? A decade?
    - davidf18 10y ago
      https://evannex.com/blogs/news/18110144-battery-costs-falling-part-1-electric-vehicles https://evannex.com/blogs/news/18110144-battery-costs-fallin... https://evannex.com/blogs/news/34327493-battery-costs-falling-part-2-tesla-motors https://evannex.com/blogs/news/34327493-battery-costs-fallin... "Most recently, Tesla landed a 500MWh grid storage deal with Advanced Microgrid Solutions‬. And, outside the U.S., others have taken notice. Italy's Enel Green Power SpA announced it will partner with Tesla for 1.5-3MWh battery storage, and, Ireland's Gaelectric Group entered into an agreement with Tesla Motors to build a 1 MW demonstration utility-scale project." [there are hyperlinks in the original paragraph]
      - 10y ago

by _ph_ 10y ago

Wind and Solar are now cost-competetive with nuclear, without its nasty side effects. And the cost of storage for nuclear waste has not really been calculated yet.

nl 10y ago

Whoever downvoted this should take a look again. While being pro-nuclear was all counter-conventional wisdom cool 5 years ago, the math is changing very, very quickly. PV power is so much cheaper in terms of startup costs, and it scales both up and (more importantly) down.

sanxiyn 10y ago
Indeed, it is amazing how quickly things are changing. If we solve intermittency, there won't be any reason to be pro-nuclear.
- orangecat 10y ago
  If. Meanwhile as long as we are burning any amount of coal, we should be building nuclear plants as fast as possible, and we should have been doing that for the last 30 years. The fact that so-called "environmentalists" made that impossible due to their incessant FUD is why I hold them much more responsible for our current situation than Exxon.
Jaruzel 10y ago
Was reading about this the other day. As far back as three years ago they predicted that Solar would undercut Nuclear. there's many articles out there, this is one of them: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-16/new-wind-solar-power-cheaper-than-nuclear-option-study-shows http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-16/new-wind-s...
s_q_b 10y ago
Nuclear power isn't some counter-cultural fad. It's the top recommendation and consensus among climate scientists. This messianic fantasy that solar and wind will save us, to which every anti-nuclear technologist clings, is not only wrong, but dangerous. Global warming is no longer a theoretical issue. It is here. Now. Within 20 years people will begin abandoning the Persian Gulf, sending a wave of refugees across Europe that will make current migration look like a trickle. We are facing an existential threat to global civilization. There's no longer time to bet on a solar moonshot. We're discussing geoengineering for god's sake. We need proven technology, and we need it now.
- pjc50 10y ago
  And within 20 years, how many of those reactors will actually be built? Especially within the Persian Gulf, where nuclear weapons proliferation is a big issue. How many decades did Iran spend under sanctions while building a reactor? The solution can't be first-world-only, and local solar is a much better bet in equatorial but poor and politically unstable parts of the world.
- DasIch 10y ago
  Nuclear reactors aren't economical, don't scale well, can't be deployed everywhere and it takes forever to build them. Even if everyone would agree to convert everything to nuclear reactors now it would probably take a decade before the first goes online and several decades until enough of them are online. That's far too long. In that same period you can easily get far more energy quicker with decentralized renewables.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  Nuclear power have all types of problems for competing on the energy market. From its several sizes available: from incredibly big to absolutely huge, to its bad PR problem and NIMBY, to expensive waste treatment, to any company that runs them getting bankrupt sooner of later. Solar and wind are are here now. And they get in all form-factors, including single-home sized. Besides, photovoltaics are way behind in the Moore's law, and still have a lot to improve. Today, pushing nuclear energy is almost guaranteed to get you no result, while solar will probably get you the biggest improvement you can get.
- soundwave106 10y ago
  Unfortunately, nuclear has one big issue in addition to the issues already described (long time to build a plant; geo-political concerns on the link between plants and atomic weapons): when it goes bad, it can go spectacularly wrong. No other power source has produced a singular disaster like Chernobyl where about 2500 square km of land is basically uninhabitable for a few hundred years+. Coal fires are the only thing that come close. For that reason, the NIMBY forces / politics against nuclear are much stronger than average (both in building the plant and storing the waste). Never mind that, on average, nuclear power is much safer than fossil fuels. People fear the spectacular more than the mundane. Take terrorism vs. car crashes, in the Western world you're more likely to die in a car crash by far, but it's terrorism that stirs up the fears. As far as global warming is concerned, power generation is only part of the puzzle anyways. Such contributors as transportation and deforestation are also important. Honestly, solar and wind are pretty competitive right now... except for one angle. The main problem with solar / wind / etc. energy generation right now is variability, so the real "moonshot" for this technology is energy storage. (Which is the same real issue with electric transport as well).
tomp 10y ago
The problem isn't price. The problem is consistency. Nuclear is a complete (day & night) power solution. Solar/wind isn't.
- mikeash 10y ago
  Energy storage solves that problem. The technology exists, the only potential trouble is cost, so it comes back to price again. Storage costs are also dropping rapidly. A proper comparison of nuclear to wind/solar needs to account for the cost of storage as well, but even if you add that in I suspect it's approaching parity.
  - bluehazed 10y ago
    "Energy storage solves that problem" Yes, but we don't have that solution.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      I'm puzzled as to why you quote part of my comment and then act like I didn't think of the point you're making, when I made the exact opposite point just one sentence later. Batteries, pumped hydro, thermal storage, and many other technologies exist. They just need to become cheap enough. Thus, the problem is once again price.
      - tomp 10y ago
        It's not just price. None of the technologies you mention scale to anywhere near the levels of a nuclear powerplant. It's a huge engineering issue that, while most likely solvable, simply hasn't been solved yet.
        mikeash 10y ago
        How so? Pretty much any building you can point at has enough space for batteries to sustain its power needs overnight. The only reason we haven't all run out and done it is because, first, it's not necessary with the grid as it is now, and second, it costs a whole lot. The engineering issues are in getting this stuff to be sufficiently cost effective that we can afford to put them into wide use.

knz 10y ago

Isn't another benefit of wind and solar the fact that it's distributed rather than concentrated into a few locations? Between the increase in frequency and severity of storms associated with climate change and the threat of terrorism/accidents, I would think the distributed nature of renewables would be a consideration even if nuclear remains a key part of the national grid.

s_q_b 10y ago
That's a fair point. However, nuclear plants can be modularized and produced industrially. These are called SMRs, and in fact they are actually the recommendation issued in the joint letter to the President on climate change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor

barkbro 10y ago

The problem is that wind and solar are only a supplementary to nuclear power at the moment. It won't be able to replace nuclear until we find a better way to store energy.

davidf18 10y ago
Battery technology is improving significantly.
- s_q_b 10y ago
  You're right about that. Molten salt storage will even bring it down below the price of natural gas turbines used now. However, even with all the projected improvements and price declines in recent years, solar still will not be enough to serve global energy needs in time to stave off disaster.
- melling 10y ago
  Can you quantify "significantly"? That's one of those words people throw around to make a point without making a real point. Are we talking 20%, 100%, 300%. And whatever the number, is it sufficient? Also, what's the timeline? A decade?
  - davidf18 10y ago
    https://evannex.com/blogs/news/18110144-battery-costs-falling-part-1-electric-vehicles https://evannex.com/blogs/news/18110144-battery-costs-fallin... https://evannex.com/blogs/news/34327493-battery-costs-falling-part-2-tesla-motors https://evannex.com/blogs/news/34327493-battery-costs-fallin... "Most recently, Tesla landed a 500MWh grid storage deal with Advanced Microgrid Solutions‬. And, outside the U.S., others have taken notice. Italy's Enel Green Power SpA announced it will partner with Tesla for 1.5-3MWh battery storage, and, Ireland's Gaelectric Group entered into an agreement with Tesla Motors to build a 1 MW demonstration utility-scale project." [there are hyperlinks in the original paragraph]
    - 10y ago