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You can find the same bias in the pro-Nuclear crowd. It seems like the reasoning is that there is science in nuclear so it must be the best thing to use. The b

You can find the same bias in the pro-Nuclear crowd. It seems like the reasoning is that there is science in nuclear so it must be the best thing to use. The biggest reason that nuclear didn't take over is of financial nature. Nuclear is simply too expensive in developed countries. This only gets worse as construction costs rise with the living standard of people. Just look at the financial disasters Flamanville 3, Olkiluoto 3 and Hinkley Point C. Meanwhile renewables are getting cheaper and cheaper.

acidburnNSA 8y ago
Also look at Korean and Japanese builds that were record-breaking in terms of being on time and on budget. Nukes are hard to build the first of, but once you serialize their construction, they're quite reasonable. Especially given their unique ability to produce full-time carbon-free energy. Renewables are indeed doing great but they're in an environment where the grids can handle the variability due to high-tech natural gas turbines. As penetrations increase towards 30%-50%, this gets much harder with wind and solar's 35% and 25% capacity factors (US average). You have to overbuild like crazy and then back it up, sometimes for weeks at a time, in either methane-producing reservoirs or massive chemical batteries. These costs aren't factored into renewable's price yet so it's not quite a fair comparison.
nickik 8y ago
> You can find the same bias in the pro-Nuclear crowd. It seems like the reasoning is that there is science in nuclear so it must be the best thing to use. Everything is 'science' in that sense so that was not my argument. My argument is that we can measure what nuclear power is and how it works. We can measure what its effect on people are. > The biggest reason that nuclear didn't take over is of financial nature. Nuclear is simply too expensive in developed countries. This only gets worse as construction costs rise with the living standard of people. No its not. Nuclear was by far the cheapest energy source. They were building lots of nuclear plants Nuclear is like everything else, larger scale and a good workforce reduces cost. However you can't have that if you don't build new plants. > Just look at the financial disasters Flamanville 3, Olkiluoto 3 and Hinkley Point C. Meanwhile renewables are getting cheaper and cheaper. In science we don't look at examples but rather at overall data. Overall data is perfectly clear, anyplace that builds many nuclear power plants gets massively cheaper. All these western 1ofs that were built as a political compromise are of course gone be overpriced. Look at China or Korea and you will see that there is 0 reason why the west could not do the same.

acidburnNSA 8y ago

Also look at Korean and Japanese builds that were record-breaking in terms of being on time and on budget. Nukes are hard to build the first of, but once you serialize their construction, they're quite reasonable. Especially given their unique ability to produce full-time carbon-free energy. Renewables are indeed doing great but they're in an environment where the grids can handle the variability due to high-tech natural gas turbines. As penetrations increase towards 30%-50%, this gets much harder with wind and solar's 35% and 25% capacity factors (US average). You have to overbuild like crazy and then back it up, sometimes for weeks at a time, in either methane-producing reservoirs or massive chemical batteries. These costs aren't factored into renewable's price yet so it's not quite a fair comparison.

nickik 8y ago

> You can find the same bias in the pro-Nuclear crowd. It seems like the reasoning is that there is science in nuclear so it must be the best thing to use. Everything is 'science' in that sense so that was not my argument. My argument is that we can measure what nuclear power is and how it works. We can measure what its effect on people are. > The biggest reason that nuclear didn't take over is of financial nature. Nuclear is simply too expensive in developed countries. This only gets worse as construction costs rise with the living standard of people. No its not. Nuclear was by far the cheapest energy source. They were building lots of nuclear plants Nuclear is like everything else, larger scale and a good workforce reduces cost. However you can't have that if you don't build new plants. > Just look at the financial disasters Flamanville 3, Olkiluoto 3 and Hinkley Point C. Meanwhile renewables are getting cheaper and cheaper. In science we don't look at examples but rather at overall data. Overall data is perfectly clear, anyplace that builds many nuclear power plants gets massively cheaper. All these western 1ofs that were built as a political compromise are of course gone be overpriced. Look at China or Korea and you will see that there is 0 reason why the west could not do the same.