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>...Nuclear is too late. Advocates do a disservice when they ignore the realities of capacity factors. As Bill Gates said in an interview: "…They have this st
by opo 8y ago
>...Nuclear is too late.
Advocates do a disservice when they ignore the realities of capacity factors. As Bill Gates said in an interview: "…They have this statement that the cost of solar photovoltaic is the same as hydrocarbon’s. And that’s one of those misleadingly meaningless statements. What they mean is that at noon in Arizona, the cost of that kilowatt-hour is the same as a hydrocarbon kilowatt-hour. But it doesn’t come at night, it doesn’t come after the sun hasn’t shone, so the fact that in that one moment you reach parity, so what? The reading public, when they see things like that, they underestimate how hard this thing is. So false solutions like divestment or “Oh, it’s easy to do” hurt our ability to fix the problems. Distinguishing a real solution from a false solution is actually very complicated." https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/11/we-need-an-energy-miracle/407881/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/11/we-need...
Gates is investing in 4th gen nuclear and energy storage companies so he is putting his money where his mouth is.
China is investing a lot of money in solar (maybe more than the US), but they don't pretend that will solve all the problems of producing power and we shouldn't either. China plans to have 1400 GW of nuclear power by 2100, so they also realize that decarbonizing energy production will require a multi-faceted approach.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
- beat 8y agoChina is currently 2% nuclear - the same ballpark that leads people in this discussion to poo-poo solar as miniscule and irrelevant. I'd bet real money that the US reaches 6% solar/wind long before China reaches its target of 6% nuclear.
- philipkglass 8y agoAs of 2017, wind supplied 6.3% of total US electrical generation and solar supplied 1.3%: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 According to an archived version of the page, the shares were 4.7% wind and 0.6% solar in 2015: https://web.archive.org/web/20170322023509/https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://web.archive.org/web/20170322023509/https://www.eia.g...
- opo 8y ago>...China is currently 2% nuclear Do you have a source for that? According to wikipedia it would look to be at least 50% higher than that: >...Nuclear power contributed 3% of the total production in 2015, with 170 TWh,[5] and was the fastest-growing electricity source, with 29% growth over 2014.[6] Nuclear generation increased again in 2016 to 213 TWh, a 25% increase,[7] and in 2017 to 246 TWh, a 15% increase.[8] China ranks fourth in the world in total nuclear power capacity installed, and third by nuclear power generated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China >...that leads people in this discussion to poo-poo solar as miniscule and irrelevant. I haven't seen anyone here saying that solar is "miniscule and irrlevant".
- beat 8y agoDon't remember... I looked it up the other day as a data point in a discussion of the lack of nuclear power penetration in the market. (I was arguing against the popular idea that the limiting factor on nuclear is the cost of those liberal treehugger regulations, by pointing out that neither Russia nor China have significantly more, despite their disdain for environmentalism.) I was kind of shocked by the numbers, actually. Russia and the US are basically equal in nuclear output percentage-wise, but China lags far behind. If my numbers were dated even a few years, China is probably doing better, due to current crash efforts to scale up nuclear power. Still, 3% isn't exactly huge market penetration.