3 ms·
The difference in terms of fusion and fission is not that large. In fact I would argue that any likely fussion plant would have the exact same capx problem that
by nickik 8y ago
The difference in terms of fusion and fission is not that large. In fact I would argue that any likely fussion plant would have the exact same capx problem that fission now has.
If we can't get fission to work, fusion will not help us.
Compared to carbon based fuel fission is 10^-12 more dense, while fusion is 10^-15. While that is a large change I don't think it matters when competing with wind.
> even with the new advanced plants
I disagree. Once we mass produce nuclear plants the price would be radically reduced, just like in any other mass produced object.
The problem at the moment is nuclear is almost to dense and long running. Its hard getting the scale you need to do that. Specially if every single place you want to put a reactor you get sued 200x by Greenpeace and everybody else.
Compare a nuclear reactor to a rocket engine. SpaceX produces rocket engines for incredibly cheap amounts and he produces 100s a year. A nuclear reactor does not need all that different materials or attention to detail.
The problem with nuclear is the development cost and the regulatory hurdle. If you clear that then you have to find costumers enough to have mass production.
That is why it has not happened and unlikely to on a large scale.
However if nuclear reactors were produced like solar panels and you had global markets, nuclear would trounce solar in terms of price.
- yazr 8y agoI wish i could be a fusion (and new nuclear) believer. But it is just so complicated. The free market is happy to produce 1M trucks a year. And 10M air conditioning units. And a gazillions flat screen TVs. How can you possibly compete as the free market works hard to produce just as many wind turbines and solar panels? IMHO ;)
- philipkglass 8y agoThe minimum commercially viable size of a power reactor is much larger than the size of a commercially viable wind turbine or PV module. A typical wind turbine today is rated for 2-4 megawatts peak output. A solar module is 0.2-0.4 kilowatts-peak. Commercial light water reactors under construction today are rated for more than 1000 megawatts. Even "small" reactors like NuScale is designing would generate 60 megawatts each. The large capacity and high capacity factor of nuclear reactors has some significant benefits: once they start operating, they can rapidly displace use of fossil fuels. But it also means that there are many fewer opportunities to iterate on designs. A single large solar project can use a million panels and be constructed over a few years. The millionth panel installed on the site can be significantly improved vs. the first. Most solar manufacturers are tuning module production lines near-continuously and formally introducing new models frequently. To generate the same amount of power with a nuclear reactor, it would take just a portion of a current Generation III reactor or maybe 2 small modular reactors. To the nearest whole number, there are 0-1 opportunities to upgrade equipment on the fly with a nuclear project vs. the dozens of opportunities with comparable-output utility scale renewable projects.