5 ms·

> Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change, because it is the only carbon-free, scalable energy source that’s available 24 hours a day. The problems wit

by rtx 8y ago

> Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change, because it is the only carbon-free, scalable energy source that’s available 24 hours a day. The problems with today’s reactors, such as the risk of accidents, can be solved through innovation. So refreshing to see someone with his reach pushing for nuclear.

Retric 8y ago
Though still missing the mark. Nuclear’s biggest issue is cost. If it was cheap enough companies would have built more and scaled them up and down to meet demand, instead France only got mostly Nuclear by exporting its excess and nobody else really got very close to full nuclear. The problem today is wind costs less. But, when you add a lot of wind during times of high wind your nuclear becomes useless. This ends up driving up the effective cost of nuclear even higher. Storage makes this worse as you would then just want ever more wind due to cost.
- SCHiM 8y ago
  The cost is a political problem. It's easier for the opponents of nuclear to find support for stricter and stricter safety laws for new reactors. Driving up the cost, making them economically nonviable. Meanwhile the older and far more dangerous reactors are rotting away and cannot be replaced (or are replaced with fossil fuels). It's been pointed out again, again and again. Coal plants pump out more radioactive waste than is ever released by all the accidents to date, catching a plane will irradiate you more than living next to one, etc. etc.
  - Retric 8y ago
    If that where true China would happily jump on the nuclear bandwagon. Instead, they use minimal Nuclear because the basic cost of running a nuclear power plant reasonably safely can’t become really cheap. Nuclear in China is 40.6 GW vs 290GW or so total power production. They are adding 14 GW but these things take time so the ratio will stay about the same. Meanwhile they are ramping up wind and solar extremely quickly with a stated goal of 1,300 GW of peak solar capacity by 2050 which they are on pace to reach. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China
    - opo 8y ago
      Your comparisons between power production of nuclear and solar is somewhat misleading since you are forgetting the low capacity factor of solar. In terms of power production of solar in China: >...The contribution to the total electric energy production remains modest[8] as the average capacity factor of solar power plants is relatively low at 17% on average. Of the 6,412 TWh electricity produced in China in 2017,[9] 118.2 TWh was generated by solar power, equivalent to 1.84% of total electricity production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China In comparison: >...Nuclear power contributed 3% of the total electricity production in 2015, with 170 TWh,[1] and was the fastest-growing electricity source, with 29% growth over 2014.[4 As far as long range plans in China: >...By mid-century fast neutron reactors are seen as the main technology, with a planned 1400 GW capacity by 2100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China In short, it looks like China is doing what any smart country is trying to do: develop all non-carbon based energy sources that they can.
      - Retric 8y ago
        First, however you want to slice it Nuclear is a low percentage of China’s production. Even nuclear + wind + solar is not that huge, still the trends are very promising. But, I want to say that growth figure is misleading as it’s comparing as specific year when a power plant came online. In terms of total TWh and rate of increase wind beats nuclear. In terms of relative percentage increase Solar is insane. Solar 2013 9 TWh Solar 2017 118.2 TWh Nuclear 2013 124 TWh Nuclear 2017 246 TWh Wind 2013 134.9 TWh Wind 2017 305.7 TWh Looking at 2018 Solar’s insane year over year growth is starting to have a huge impact and does not seem to be slowing down. In some ways even 2017 numbers are misleading. Solar, *capacity* added per year. 2014 10,560 2015 15,130 2016 34,540 2017 52,830
  - WhompingWindows 8y ago
    I disagree; politics are a small factor, but up-front capital costs are by far the bigger issue. The most salient example is South Carolina, where it was up-front construction costs that axed the project. They poured billions into the plant multiple times and it never was completed. I'm all for advanced nuclear but it's never going to happen with such high start-up costs, especially outside of an authoritarian economy like China, which is basically the only country making major expansions to nuclear today. Maybe traveling wave or molten salt or modular reactors could be cheaper and better on fundamentals, but if the cost to start-up is still very high, the LCOE isn't going to beat renewables/storage in the medium/long term. On top of this, look at energy widely. Demand is flat, old coal is shutting down, new renewables/storage and new-ish gas turbines are going to be online for a couple decades. Where is the payback potential for an expensive nuclear plant in a flat-demand environment? Renewables kill the wholesale cost to boot, so nuclear would be running a deficit in windy or sunny times. It's just hard to make the numbers work.
    - selimthegrim 8y ago
      I always wondered how they came up with that north of 30% interest rate for the financing for the rest of the project that caused them to abandon it. Probably the banks just saying FYAD politely.
- tyu1000 8y ago
  Large parts of the U.S., Japan and Canada all have good nuclear. Gates' has always been about pushing research in the area to get better nuclear, which he outlines clearly in this note.
  - Retric 8y ago
    It’s also subsidized in those areas. As I said in another post, counties like China don’t use a lot of Nuclear power even with minimal political issues because of core economic issues. Saudi Arabia for example is aiming for 15% nuclear by 2040. They have plenty of money etc, it’s just not a great solution to scale. Further, any advances you make today take a long time to put into production meaning we can’t wait for ‘better tech’.
- irq-1 8y ago
  Nationalize any nuclear plant that has an "accident". Investors would have a financial justification to spend on safety.
  - Retric 8y ago
    It’s not a US or western problem. China, Saudi Arabia, Russia etc also use minimal nuclear power because of basic economic issues. It’s fine under 10%, but as you scale up the problems get worse. PS: Rosenergoatom which runs Russia’s nuclear power plants has seemingly made progress in lowering operating costs, but it’s not clear how much of that progress is real. Though Russia is planning to ramp up to ~35% nuclear and is pushing a lot of R&D which is promising. Then again they have issues with solar.
    - irq-1 8y ago
      Bill Gates thinks he can run nuclear power-plants at a profit, and safely. Nationalizing plants that aren't safe would let investors try. Governments could reduce up-front regulations by punishing reckless investors.
      - Retric 8y ago
        Considering the ~US$187 billion dollar cleanup effort after the most recent failure, just let them try can be an extremely expensive proposition. Operate for 50 years then say, sorry cleanup is your problem now suckers is similarly an issue. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_disaster_cleanup https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_disaster_cleanup That’s the catch 22, you need to not just be extremely safe but able to convince others outside your organization that it’s going to work. Having been burned twice by failure modes outside the original context it becomes even more difficult to innovate. Novel designs have novel problems and unknown unkowns can be a huge deal. Can you get away with fewer guards? Well probably, but the minimum is not clear. How about thinner walls, again probably but can you convince others it’s a good tradeoff? Now extend that to everything.
  - handelaar 8y ago
- wmil 8y ago
  The big problem with nuclear is that it's only economical to run the reactors at full blast 24/7. However demand goes up through the day and down over night. You need to pair it with some sort of grid energy storage. That's not quite a solved problem. Personally I'm a fan of offshore compressed air... https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/toronto-hydro-pilots-worlds-first-offshore-compressed-air-energy-storage https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/toronto-hydro-p...
- koheripbal 8y ago
  This is like punching someone in the face, and then accusing them of having a nose-bleeding problem. Nuclear is expensive because the rampant fear-mongering generates massive amounts of litigation, construction delays, and outdated/unreasonable regulations. If you look at the cost of reactors in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc, they are one-tenth the US cost for the exact same reactor design.
  - Retric 8y ago
    None of the counties you mentioned use a higher percentage of nuclear power than the US. Russia plans to eventually hit 35% but unlike most of the rest of the world they can’t rely on cheap solar. We already use nuclear power around the world, but to displace fossil fuels it needs to become cheaper without subsides.

by rtx 8y ago

Retric 8y ago

Though still missing the mark. Nuclear’s biggest issue is cost. If it was cheap enough companies would have built more and scaled them up and down to meet demand, instead France only got mostly Nuclear by exporting its excess and nobody else really got very close to full nuclear. The problem today is wind costs less. But, when you add a lot of wind during times of high wind your nuclear becomes useless. This ends up driving up the effective cost of nuclear even higher. Storage makes this worse as you would then just want ever more wind due to cost.

SCHiM 8y ago
The cost is a political problem. It's easier for the opponents of nuclear to find support for stricter and stricter safety laws for new reactors. Driving up the cost, making them economically nonviable. Meanwhile the older and far more dangerous reactors are rotting away and cannot be replaced (or are replaced with fossil fuels). It's been pointed out again, again and again. Coal plants pump out more radioactive waste than is ever released by all the accidents to date, catching a plane will irradiate you more than living next to one, etc. etc.
- Retric 8y ago
  If that where true China would happily jump on the nuclear bandwagon. Instead, they use minimal Nuclear because the basic cost of running a nuclear power plant reasonably safely can’t become really cheap. Nuclear in China is 40.6 GW vs 290GW or so total power production. They are adding 14 GW but these things take time so the ratio will stay about the same. Meanwhile they are ramping up wind and solar extremely quickly with a stated goal of 1,300 GW of peak solar capacity by 2050 which they are on pace to reach. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China
  - opo 8y ago
    Your comparisons between power production of nuclear and solar is somewhat misleading since you are forgetting the low capacity factor of solar. In terms of power production of solar in China: >...The contribution to the total electric energy production remains modest[8] as the average capacity factor of solar power plants is relatively low at 17% on average. Of the 6,412 TWh electricity produced in China in 2017,[9] 118.2 TWh was generated by solar power, equivalent to 1.84% of total electricity production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China In comparison: >...Nuclear power contributed 3% of the total electricity production in 2015, with 170 TWh,[1] and was the fastest-growing electricity source, with 29% growth over 2014.[4 As far as long range plans in China: >...By mid-century fast neutron reactors are seen as the main technology, with a planned 1400 GW capacity by 2100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China In short, it looks like China is doing what any smart country is trying to do: develop all non-carbon based energy sources that they can.
    - Retric 8y ago
      First, however you want to slice it Nuclear is a low percentage of China’s production. Even nuclear + wind + solar is not that huge, still the trends are very promising. But, I want to say that growth figure is misleading as it’s comparing as specific year when a power plant came online. In terms of total TWh and rate of increase wind beats nuclear. In terms of relative percentage increase Solar is insane. Solar 2013 9 TWh Solar 2017 118.2 TWh Nuclear 2013 124 TWh Nuclear 2017 246 TWh Wind 2013 134.9 TWh Wind 2017 305.7 TWh Looking at 2018 Solar’s insane year over year growth is starting to have a huge impact and does not seem to be slowing down. In some ways even 2017 numbers are misleading. Solar, *capacity* added per year. 2014 10,560 2015 15,130 2016 34,540 2017 52,830
- WhompingWindows 8y ago
  I disagree; politics are a small factor, but up-front capital costs are by far the bigger issue. The most salient example is South Carolina, where it was up-front construction costs that axed the project. They poured billions into the plant multiple times and it never was completed. I'm all for advanced nuclear but it's never going to happen with such high start-up costs, especially outside of an authoritarian economy like China, which is basically the only country making major expansions to nuclear today. Maybe traveling wave or molten salt or modular reactors could be cheaper and better on fundamentals, but if the cost to start-up is still very high, the LCOE isn't going to beat renewables/storage in the medium/long term. On top of this, look at energy widely. Demand is flat, old coal is shutting down, new renewables/storage and new-ish gas turbines are going to be online for a couple decades. Where is the payback potential for an expensive nuclear plant in a flat-demand environment? Renewables kill the wholesale cost to boot, so nuclear would be running a deficit in windy or sunny times. It's just hard to make the numbers work.
  - selimthegrim 8y ago
    I always wondered how they came up with that north of 30% interest rate for the financing for the rest of the project that caused them to abandon it. Probably the banks just saying FYAD politely.
tyu1000 8y ago
Large parts of the U.S., Japan and Canada all have good nuclear. Gates' has always been about pushing research in the area to get better nuclear, which he outlines clearly in this note.
- Retric 8y ago
  It’s also subsidized in those areas. As I said in another post, counties like China don’t use a lot of Nuclear power even with minimal political issues because of core economic issues. Saudi Arabia for example is aiming for 15% nuclear by 2040. They have plenty of money etc, it’s just not a great solution to scale. Further, any advances you make today take a long time to put into production meaning we can’t wait for ‘better tech’.
irq-1 8y ago
Nationalize any nuclear plant that has an "accident". Investors would have a financial justification to spend on safety.
- Retric 8y ago
  It’s not a US or western problem. China, Saudi Arabia, Russia etc also use minimal nuclear power because of basic economic issues. It’s fine under 10%, but as you scale up the problems get worse. PS: Rosenergoatom which runs Russia’s nuclear power plants has seemingly made progress in lowering operating costs, but it’s not clear how much of that progress is real. Though Russia is planning to ramp up to ~35% nuclear and is pushing a lot of R&D which is promising. Then again they have issues with solar.
  - irq-1 8y ago
    Bill Gates thinks he can run nuclear power-plants at a profit, and safely. Nationalizing plants that aren't safe would let investors try. Governments could reduce up-front regulations by punishing reckless investors.
    - Retric 8y ago
      Considering the ~US$187 billion dollar cleanup effort after the most recent failure, just let them try can be an extremely expensive proposition. Operate for 50 years then say, sorry cleanup is your problem now suckers is similarly an issue. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_disaster_cleanup https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_disaster_cleanup That’s the catch 22, you need to not just be extremely safe but able to convince others outside your organization that it’s going to work. Having been burned twice by failure modes outside the original context it becomes even more difficult to innovate. Novel designs have novel problems and unknown unkowns can be a huge deal. Can you get away with fewer guards? Well probably, but the minimum is not clear. How about thinner walls, again probably but can you convince others it’s a good tradeoff? Now extend that to everything.
- handelaar 8y ago
wmil 8y ago
The big problem with nuclear is that it's only economical to run the reactors at full blast 24/7. However demand goes up through the day and down over night. You need to pair it with some sort of grid energy storage. That's not quite a solved problem. Personally I'm a fan of offshore compressed air... https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/toronto-hydro-pilots-worlds-first-offshore-compressed-air-energy-storage https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/toronto-hydro-p...
koheripbal 8y ago
This is like punching someone in the face, and then accusing them of having a nose-bleeding problem. Nuclear is expensive because the rampant fear-mongering generates massive amounts of litigation, construction delays, and outdated/unreasonable regulations. If you look at the cost of reactors in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc, they are one-tenth the US cost for the exact same reactor design.
- Retric 8y ago
  None of the counties you mentioned use a higher percentage of nuclear power than the US. Russia plans to eventually hit 35% but unlike most of the rest of the world they can’t rely on cheap solar. We already use nuclear power around the world, but to displace fossil fuels it needs to become cheaper without subsides.