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Nuclear being safer than other major sources just means we shouldn't demonize it and stop everything right now out of panic. it means it's just an important ass

Nuclear being safer than other major sources just means we shouldn't demonize it and stop everything right now out of panic. it means it's just an important asset while waiting for renewables to take off.

beat 9y ago
See my argument above, though... it's going to be faster and cheaper to replace a standard deviation's worth of fossil electricity with solar/wind than it would be to replace it with nuclear. So the "transitional power" argument doesn't really hold.
- sliverstorm 9y ago
  That ignores another factor- we've been decommissioning nuclear and replacing it with natural gas & coal capacity while we wait for the eventual renewable ramp.
  - beat 9y ago
    Yes, but that's not an effective argument for building new plants in the face of my critique. It's possibly an argument for delaying the decommissioning of older nuclear plants, but those decommissions are probably due to age-related safety concerns - the owners would likely prefer to keep the old plant running, if possible. I've argued elsewhere for a flat-out ban on new domestic coal-fired plants. Coal is by far the worst safety and environmental offender. If we forced power companies onto a renewable-or-nothing path, we might see faster progress.
    - _Tev 9y ago
      It IS an effective argument when public accepts solutions like Energiewende - ignore age of nuclear plants and decomisdion them all while building coal capacity. Guess why so many people like nuclear when observing such stupidity.
- Regist 9y ago
  I have a hard time buying into this. What's the lifespan of an solar farm with equal output to a nuclear plant? We're about to approve nukes for 80 year life spans. Nuclear has super low operating cost and a long lifespan. The only real economic downside is how flipping expense they are to build and a major reason for that is we don't have much experience building them (because they've lasted so many decades). You're also assuming that solar/wind will be faster when we don't have any real solutions for using those sources as a baseload. Storage and distribution is nowhere near being able to handle such demand. The cost of revamping our grid once those technologies do reach maturity is going to be staggering aswell. Solar and wind are promising but they are still a __long__ way from being proven enough to gamble an entire energy plan on.
  - beat 9y ago
    Are you arguing that a solar/wind grid can't be done, or just that it's going to be challenging?
    - _Tev 9y ago
      It seems to me like he argues that scaling nuclear is mostly known (but expensive) problem. And that scaling renewables is largely unexplored, and very likely similarly expensive problem.

beat 9y ago

See my argument above, though... it's going to be faster and cheaper to replace a standard deviation's worth of fossil electricity with solar/wind than it would be to replace it with nuclear. So the "transitional power" argument doesn't really hold.

sliverstorm 9y ago
That ignores another factor- we've been decommissioning nuclear and replacing it with natural gas & coal capacity while we wait for the eventual renewable ramp.
- beat 9y ago
  Yes, but that's not an effective argument for building new plants in the face of my critique. It's possibly an argument for delaying the decommissioning of older nuclear plants, but those decommissions are probably due to age-related safety concerns - the owners would likely prefer to keep the old plant running, if possible. I've argued elsewhere for a flat-out ban on new domestic coal-fired plants. Coal is by far the worst safety and environmental offender. If we forced power companies onto a renewable-or-nothing path, we might see faster progress.
  - _Tev 9y ago
    It IS an effective argument when public accepts solutions like Energiewende - ignore age of nuclear plants and decomisdion them all while building coal capacity. Guess why so many people like nuclear when observing such stupidity.
Regist 9y ago
I have a hard time buying into this. What's the lifespan of an solar farm with equal output to a nuclear plant? We're about to approve nukes for 80 year life spans. Nuclear has super low operating cost and a long lifespan. The only real economic downside is how flipping expense they are to build and a major reason for that is we don't have much experience building them (because they've lasted so many decades). You're also assuming that solar/wind will be faster when we don't have any real solutions for using those sources as a baseload. Storage and distribution is nowhere near being able to handle such demand. The cost of revamping our grid once those technologies do reach maturity is going to be staggering aswell. Solar and wind are promising but they are still a __long__ way from being proven enough to gamble an entire energy plan on.
- beat 9y ago
  Are you arguing that a solar/wind grid can't be done, or just that it's going to be challenging?
  - _Tev 9y ago
    It seems to me like he argues that scaling nuclear is mostly known (but expensive) problem. And that scaling renewables is largely unexplored, and very likely similarly expensive problem.