4 ms·

> We just need the will to scale up. When you ignore all problems of scale and cost then you don't actually solve the problem. Facts are that it has been prov

by nickik 8y ago

> We just need the will to scale up. When you ignore all problems of scale and cost then you don't actually solve the problem. Facts are that it has been proven that you can (and quite cheaply) produce energy for a modern industrial nation with nuclear power. And we know that no country, however much investment in all these 'hip' technologies you are talking about, has managed to even come close to powering the whole country with these technologies. And in those that have pushed on these its the opposite of cheap. Centralized production has won out because the waste majority of the time it is a far better idea. And as somebody has lived in a low energy house in northern Europe its neither cheap nor easy to have all these systems and any 'solution' that assumes we can do that for all houses is doomed to fail.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Nuclear hasn't compared at all well on cost. The planned new build in the Lake District has finally failed after a succession of business failures and others pulling out of the consortium starting with Westinghouse's failure. It was announced just this week that Toshiba had decided to liquidate what was left of the project. Hinkley C is going ahead, and currently estimated to cost almost double wind and solar per MWh at current prices Building isn't expected to start until next year and generation some time in the mid 2020s. Wind and solar costs are still falling steadily. Not what I would call "quite cheaply". The French govt (majority owner of EDF) looks to be getting the best of that particular deal. But I don't claim we can instantly switch to fully decentralised renewables. Nuclear is a sensible part of a withdrawal from fossil, if nothing else to buy us an extra few decades and baseload, as I've commented elsewhere. Whilst it performs poorly on cost it does well on CO2 so has a place. By the same token we couldn't go entirely nuclear without dramatically over-specifying grid capacity as nuclear doesn't respond well to transient peak demand. We'd still need a good chunk of diesel, battery or pumped hydro for shorter term reserves, and more intense demand management. Centralised production works when it's a multi GW coal plant next to the colliery, or gas near the pipeline etc. As we adopt an increasing amount of renewables the grid becomes necessarily more localised as weather and climate will differ between regions and the grid is served by thousands of generation sources instead of a few dozen. Simple economics are driving that transition not whether they are 'hip' or not. As for claiming a low energy house isn't cheap, well that makes no sense considering the size of bill reductions.
- nickik 8y ago
  You are looking at a very limited sample size only in the western world. You need scale in nuclear just as with anything else. Whenever people build lots of nuclear plants the cost go down and the build becomes much faster. You can easily go to South Korea or China and have them build you a massive capacity of nuclear in the next 10 years. > By the same token we couldn't go entirely nuclear without dramatically over-specifying grid capacity as nuclear doesn't respond well to transient peak demand. That is a actually not really correct if you build modern plants. Even modern Gen3+ do a OK job, and if you have lots of them, together the can actually do a pretty good job. Furthermore there is a fair amount of innovation in fuels that improve load following capacity. If you go to GenIV they are great at following load. Not to mention that in a GenIV you already have a hot salt loop that you can use as a heat battery (uses basically the same heat storage as a solar plants do) for peaking if that what the grid needs. Look at the design of Moltex Energy for example. The see that because of renewable the value of JIT based power delivery is gone go way up they build a GenIV nuclear plant that will be 1GW but the have a huge salt loop and 3GW of turbines in order to peak if there is no sun or wind. That is of course an extreme case that is rather unneeded if you have an all nuclear grid. > Centralised production works when it's a multi GW coal plant next to the colliery, or gas near the pipeline etc. As we adopt an increasing amount of renewables the grid becomes necessarily more localised as weather and climate will differ between regions and the grid is served by thousands of generation sources instead of a few dozen. Simple economics are driving that transition not whether they are 'hip' or not. But that is the whole point. Why should you have more renewables at all? Its a total anti goal, low carbon is the goal not renewable. If we had picked nuclear then this would be a non issue, its only an issue because of renewables in the first place. And if you have some ideological 'anti centralisation' thing then GenIV nuclear offers lots of options. In fact one of the main research areas is nuclear for communities cut of from the grid, like military or research outpost. You can get reactors that you can put on a truck and they run for 10-20 years, after that you simply pick it up and drop another one. However the reality is that most humans live in cities and centralization into large plants makes sense if you have the market. > As for claiming a low energy house isn't cheap, well that makes no sense considering the size of bill reductions. Yeah but that requires that the majority of houses in the world have to be rebuilt. And its not really worth it most of the time, at best it is worth it after like 30 years.

by nickik 8y ago

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

Nuclear hasn't compared at all well on cost. The planned new build in the Lake District has finally failed after a succession of business failures and others pulling out of the consortium starting with Westinghouse's failure. It was announced just this week that Toshiba had decided to liquidate what was left of the project. Hinkley C is going ahead, and currently estimated to cost almost double wind and solar per MWh at current prices Building isn't expected to start until next year and generation some time in the mid 2020s. Wind and solar costs are still falling steadily. Not what I would call "quite cheaply". The French govt (majority owner of EDF) looks to be getting the best of that particular deal. But I don't claim we can instantly switch to fully decentralised renewables. Nuclear is a sensible part of a withdrawal from fossil, if nothing else to buy us an extra few decades and baseload, as I've commented elsewhere. Whilst it performs poorly on cost it does well on CO2 so has a place. By the same token we couldn't go entirely nuclear without dramatically over-specifying grid capacity as nuclear doesn't respond well to transient peak demand. We'd still need a good chunk of diesel, battery or pumped hydro for shorter term reserves, and more intense demand management. Centralised production works when it's a multi GW coal plant next to the colliery, or gas near the pipeline etc. As we adopt an increasing amount of renewables the grid becomes necessarily more localised as weather and climate will differ between regions and the grid is served by thousands of generation sources instead of a few dozen. Simple economics are driving that transition not whether they are 'hip' or not. As for claiming a low energy house isn't cheap, well that makes no sense considering the size of bill reductions.

nickik 8y ago
You are looking at a very limited sample size only in the western world. You need scale in nuclear just as with anything else. Whenever people build lots of nuclear plants the cost go down and the build becomes much faster. You can easily go to South Korea or China and have them build you a massive capacity of nuclear in the next 10 years. > By the same token we couldn't go entirely nuclear without dramatically over-specifying grid capacity as nuclear doesn't respond well to transient peak demand. That is a actually not really correct if you build modern plants. Even modern Gen3+ do a OK job, and if you have lots of them, together the can actually do a pretty good job. Furthermore there is a fair amount of innovation in fuels that improve load following capacity. If you go to GenIV they are great at following load. Not to mention that in a GenIV you already have a hot salt loop that you can use as a heat battery (uses basically the same heat storage as a solar plants do) for peaking if that what the grid needs. Look at the design of Moltex Energy for example. The see that because of renewable the value of JIT based power delivery is gone go way up they build a GenIV nuclear plant that will be 1GW but the have a huge salt loop and 3GW of turbines in order to peak if there is no sun or wind. That is of course an extreme case that is rather unneeded if you have an all nuclear grid. > Centralised production works when it's a multi GW coal plant next to the colliery, or gas near the pipeline etc. As we adopt an increasing amount of renewables the grid becomes necessarily more localised as weather and climate will differ between regions and the grid is served by thousands of generation sources instead of a few dozen. Simple economics are driving that transition not whether they are 'hip' or not. But that is the whole point. Why should you have more renewables at all? Its a total anti goal, low carbon is the goal not renewable. If we had picked nuclear then this would be a non issue, its only an issue because of renewables in the first place. And if you have some ideological 'anti centralisation' thing then GenIV nuclear offers lots of options. In fact one of the main research areas is nuclear for communities cut of from the grid, like military or research outpost. You can get reactors that you can put on a truck and they run for 10-20 years, after that you simply pick it up and drop another one. However the reality is that most humans live in cities and centralization into large plants makes sense if you have the market. > As for claiming a low energy house isn't cheap, well that makes no sense considering the size of bill reductions. Yeah but that requires that the majority of houses in the world have to be rebuilt. And its not really worth it most of the time, at best it is worth it after like 30 years.