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The problem with nuclear power is that it's too expensive unless you choose to simply ignore the long-term cost of the nuclear waste problem. At this point it

The problem with nuclear power is that it's too expensive unless you choose to simply ignore the long-term cost of the nuclear waste problem. At this point it makes more sense to invest in solar, wind power and energy storage capacity to reduce CO2 emissions.

realusername 8y ago
Solar & wind + batteries isn't enough, you also need a stable source of energy to compensate when the production is going down (those are not stable sources), if you are a country without good hydro possibilities, your only option for that is nuclear.
- Tade0 8y ago
  There's natural gas for that. Sure, it's pretty CO2-intensive, but with enough overprovisioning of renewables and some storage it will rarely be used - if at all. Cheaper than having an inflexible nuclear plant.
  - jabl 8y ago
    If we're going to have any chance of hitting the 2C climate targets, electricity production must be more or less completely emissions-free by mid-century (preferably ASAP). So, any non-trivial amount of natural gas usage is out. Also, there's the rough rule of thumb saying that when variable sources (like wind or solar) approach a fraction of total generation in the grid equal to the capacity factor of said source, system integration costs start to rise rapidly (because that's, at the latest, the point where you'll start needing large amounts of storage, curtailment, or long-range transmission). Thus, in most grids wind+solar will unlikely see much larger than 50% of total generation without massive extra investment and/or breakthroughs in storage costs. If we're going for lowest-cost deep decarbonization, it looks like the share of nuclear will start to rise when we go deep enough, see e.g. slide 41 in https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Getting_to_Zero.pdf https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Getting...
  - nickik 8y ago
    So basically an incredibly complicated solution that barely even solves the problem an requires overlap capacity. And your counter argument is 'nuclear plant' are inflexible? What? Nuclear are not actually inflexible specially new ones compared to those we build 50 years ago. Furthermore nuclear industry has finally again started to innovate and the next generation of reactors will be able to be fully load following. What is actually inflexible is solar and wind, that about the most inflexible technologies that exist.
    - Tade0 8y ago
      Ok, here's another counterargument: nuclear is currently losing in terms of economics with renewables + gas and this problem is only going to get bigger. That ship has sailed already.
      - nickik 8y ago
        Yes renewables get pushed forward to the term of 100s of billions in subsidies globally. Germany is a perfect example, insane amount of money and they are not even close to solving the problem. Nuclear in west fails because of regulatory issue, and this is totally clear if you look at the history of nuclear construction. > That ship has sailed already. That's just a dumb attitude. Gas had many ups and downs. Wind did as well. Even coal. Saying nuclear is dead because currently in the west or the US its not growing as fast is wrong. China will be building 100s of nuclear reactors and they are very interested in starting to sell these globally.
  - fabatka 8y ago
    I frequently hear this argument, and my first reaction was to agree with this. However I don't think that creating a flexible grid that can handle the erratic generation and consumption of power is as easy as it sounds. My gut feeling is that the devil is in the details, and it may take much longer than non-experts think (most of who I presume think that simply slapping energy storages to a system with varying input-output rates solves everything). Unfortunately I'm not an expert in this field, and I'm not even sure what the field of engineering is called that deals with large energy grids.
nickik 8y ago
That is wrong. The only reason nuclear is expensive is because low volume production and build. In fact, the money needed for waste storage has long been accumulate by a fee in the US and is literally on the bank account of the government . There is already enough money to build a facility. The problem is all political. > At this point it makes more sense to invest in solar, wind power and energy storage capacity to reduce CO2 emissions. No its actually not. Countries that try to reduce CO2 with these methods are pretty slow and struggle heavily. Even worse, the larger part of your overall grid depends on these the more difficult it sill be to balance the grid. Furthermore, any sustained drop-down in one of these can shut down part of the country. Why do we keep claiming that climate change is a existential problem but then we are like 'we can't do the easy solution because nuclear waste is slightly problematic'. Guess what, I much rather deal with nuclear waste in 100 years then with the result of climate change. France showed the world 50 years ago that it is a pretty easy thing to have low CO2 electricity and had other countries adopted this, we would be in a better situation. Germany is the perfect example, had they done their 'Energiewende' towards nuclear they would be closing their goals by now.
s21n 8y ago
The problem with nuclear waste is exaggerated. It can be safely stored in warehouses, there's no need to bury it. The fuel rods are solid, so there's no risk of leakage. Dry cask storage containers are made of steel and concrete, they stop all the radiation and can withstand plane crashes and earthquakes. You can't steal the fuel, it's too heavy to load it on a truck, and even if you found a suitable vehicle, you need to convoy it when they're shooting at you… Our current solutions to short-term storage are perfectly adequate long-term solutions. And we don't even need to store it that long, because soon we'll need it to produce fuel for next generation reactors. The real problem with nuclear waste management are impossible and unnecessary safety requirements. The cost of waste management is already included in the cost of nuclear energy. The cost of energy storage is not included in the cost of renewables, thus they may appear as cheaper, and indeed they are – for now – because we currently don't need energy storage. But as the renewables penetration rises, the cost of energy storage will skyrocket: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611683/the-25-trillion-reason-we-cant-rely-on-batteries-to-clean-up-the-grid/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611683/the-25-trillion-re...
- maxerickson 8y ago
  Trying to build enough storage to handle seasonal shifts in generation and demand is a fools errand, but we can easily afford $2.5 trillion.

realusername 8y ago

Solar & wind + batteries isn't enough, you also need a stable source of energy to compensate when the production is going down (those are not stable sources), if you are a country without good hydro possibilities, your only option for that is nuclear.

Tade0 8y ago
There's natural gas for that. Sure, it's pretty CO2-intensive, but with enough overprovisioning of renewables and some storage it will rarely be used - if at all. Cheaper than having an inflexible nuclear plant.
- jabl 8y ago
  If we're going to have any chance of hitting the 2C climate targets, electricity production must be more or less completely emissions-free by mid-century (preferably ASAP). So, any non-trivial amount of natural gas usage is out. Also, there's the rough rule of thumb saying that when variable sources (like wind or solar) approach a fraction of total generation in the grid equal to the capacity factor of said source, system integration costs start to rise rapidly (because that's, at the latest, the point where you'll start needing large amounts of storage, curtailment, or long-range transmission). Thus, in most grids wind+solar will unlikely see much larger than 50% of total generation without massive extra investment and/or breakthroughs in storage costs. If we're going for lowest-cost deep decarbonization, it looks like the share of nuclear will start to rise when we go deep enough, see e.g. slide 41 in https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Getting_to_Zero.pdf https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Getting...
- nickik 8y ago
  So basically an incredibly complicated solution that barely even solves the problem an requires overlap capacity. And your counter argument is 'nuclear plant' are inflexible? What? Nuclear are not actually inflexible specially new ones compared to those we build 50 years ago. Furthermore nuclear industry has finally again started to innovate and the next generation of reactors will be able to be fully load following. What is actually inflexible is solar and wind, that about the most inflexible technologies that exist.
  - Tade0 8y ago
    Ok, here's another counterargument: nuclear is currently losing in terms of economics with renewables + gas and this problem is only going to get bigger. That ship has sailed already.
    - nickik 8y ago
      Yes renewables get pushed forward to the term of 100s of billions in subsidies globally. Germany is a perfect example, insane amount of money and they are not even close to solving the problem. Nuclear in west fails because of regulatory issue, and this is totally clear if you look at the history of nuclear construction. > That ship has sailed already. That's just a dumb attitude. Gas had many ups and downs. Wind did as well. Even coal. Saying nuclear is dead because currently in the west or the US its not growing as fast is wrong. China will be building 100s of nuclear reactors and they are very interested in starting to sell these globally.
- fabatka 8y ago
  I frequently hear this argument, and my first reaction was to agree with this. However I don't think that creating a flexible grid that can handle the erratic generation and consumption of power is as easy as it sounds. My gut feeling is that the devil is in the details, and it may take much longer than non-experts think (most of who I presume think that simply slapping energy storages to a system with varying input-output rates solves everything). Unfortunately I'm not an expert in this field, and I'm not even sure what the field of engineering is called that deals with large energy grids.

nickik 8y ago

That is wrong. The only reason nuclear is expensive is because low volume production and build. In fact, the money needed for waste storage has long been accumulate by a fee in the US and is literally on the bank account of the government . There is already enough money to build a facility. The problem is all political. > At this point it makes more sense to invest in solar, wind power and energy storage capacity to reduce CO2 emissions. No its actually not. Countries that try to reduce CO2 with these methods are pretty slow and struggle heavily. Even worse, the larger part of your overall grid depends on these the more difficult it sill be to balance the grid. Furthermore, any sustained drop-down in one of these can shut down part of the country. Why do we keep claiming that climate change is a existential problem but then we are like 'we can't do the easy solution because nuclear waste is slightly problematic'. Guess what, I much rather deal with nuclear waste in 100 years then with the result of climate change. France showed the world 50 years ago that it is a pretty easy thing to have low CO2 electricity and had other countries adopted this, we would be in a better situation. Germany is the perfect example, had they done their 'Energiewende' towards nuclear they would be closing their goals by now.

s21n 8y ago

The problem with nuclear waste is exaggerated. It can be safely stored in warehouses, there's no need to bury it. The fuel rods are solid, so there's no risk of leakage. Dry cask storage containers are made of steel and concrete, they stop all the radiation and can withstand plane crashes and earthquakes. You can't steal the fuel, it's too heavy to load it on a truck, and even if you found a suitable vehicle, you need to convoy it when they're shooting at you… Our current solutions to short-term storage are perfectly adequate long-term solutions. And we don't even need to store it that long, because soon we'll need it to produce fuel for next generation reactors. The real problem with nuclear waste management are impossible and unnecessary safety requirements. The cost of waste management is already included in the cost of nuclear energy. The cost of energy storage is not included in the cost of renewables, thus they may appear as cheaper, and indeed they are – for now – because we currently don't need energy storage. But as the renewables penetration rises, the cost of energy storage will skyrocket: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611683/the-25-trillion-reason-we-cant-rely-on-batteries-to-clean-up-the-grid/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611683/the-25-trillion-re...

maxerickson 8y ago
Trying to build enough storage to handle seasonal shifts in generation and demand is a fools errand, but we can easily afford $2.5 trillion.