8 ms·

I agree that nuclear isn’t technically the only option, but statements like “Can’t be built fast enough to make a difference” is also not true, particularly if

I agree that nuclear isn’t technically the only option, but statements like “Can’t be built fast enough to make a difference” is also not true, particularly if you use historical examples YES in France. We’re going to need deep decarbonization, and actually the most likely scenario is it will take decades, so there’s actually substantial time for nuclear to make a difference. It doesn’t HAVE to take a long time to build a nuclear power plant. I’m firmly in the “every zero carbon option now, as fast as possible.” And nuclear is definitely part of that. I’ve become worried about the stalling solar power deployment rate in the US (and other places). It hasn’t stopped, but it no longer appears to be on the same exponential growth curve we needed it to be on. We’re going to need everything we can get.

dv_dt 8y ago
France itself is saying it shouldn't build a new round of of nuclear power plants and instead should invest in renewables & storage (and would save money and risk) going that route. If you look at the timeline and frequent schedule overruns of nuclear plants we can't build them fast enough in the US to make a critical difference at this point. If you look at China without many of the supposed anti-nuclear legal deterrents, their projects were getting more and more overrun vs estimates and they halted all new plants except for a couple plants of their own design. (and those obviously have self-development motivations). They're trying to finish their initial round of plants right now and likely have come to a similar conclusion of too slow, too expensive vs renewables.
- Robotbeat 8y ago
  France is not immune to the social forces impacting the rest of the world.
  - dv_dt 8y ago
    I assert is more of a financial & time to carbon reduction question: France calculates it would save $45B by going to renewable energy instead of replacing aging nuclear power plants with new ones. https://futurism.com/the-byte/nuclear-plants-renewable-energy-france https://futurism.com/the-byte/nuclear-plants-renewable-energ...
imtringued 8y ago
The statistics tell me a different story. Seasonal differences in the renewable share are almost nonexistent. Maybe somewhere around +-20%. Sure we will need storage that lets us bridge weeks and if it is economic even up to a whole month but anything beyond that is not about trying to compensate energy shortages, it's about capturing the overproduced energy to sequester carbon. https://www.energy-charts.de/ren_share.htm?year=2018&source=ren-share&period=monthly https://www.energy-charts.de/ren_share.htm?year=2018&source=... Also I recommend you to take a look at the daily variance. https://www.energy-charts.de/ren_share.htm?year=2018&source=ren-share&period=daily https://www.energy-charts.de/ren_share.htm?year=2018&source=... Anything below the average of 40% is awful. The longest interval below 40% I have found was from 19.03 to 29.03. A month of storage is more than we would ever need. two weeks would be the sweet spot, one or zero weeks is doable if we use gas plants. Really the only amount energy storage that I would consider absolutely mandatory is 24 hours because we still want to use solar energy at night and wind power that is mostly generated at night during the day.
- petre 8y ago
  You still need 60% from somewhere. This is why France's new policy of replacing 20…25% nuclear out of 70…75% with renewables is good. Germany is just obliviously burning almost 50% coal instead.

dv_dt 8y ago

France itself is saying it shouldn't build a new round of of nuclear power plants and instead should invest in renewables & storage (and would save money and risk) going that route. If you look at the timeline and frequent schedule overruns of nuclear plants we can't build them fast enough in the US to make a critical difference at this point. If you look at China without many of the supposed anti-nuclear legal deterrents, their projects were getting more and more overrun vs estimates and they halted all new plants except for a couple plants of their own design. (and those obviously have self-development motivations). They're trying to finish their initial round of plants right now and likely have come to a similar conclusion of too slow, too expensive vs renewables.

Robotbeat 8y ago
France is not immune to the social forces impacting the rest of the world.
- dv_dt 8y ago
  I assert is more of a financial & time to carbon reduction question: France calculates it would save $45B by going to renewable energy instead of replacing aging nuclear power plants with new ones. https://futurism.com/the-byte/nuclear-plants-renewable-energy-france https://futurism.com/the-byte/nuclear-plants-renewable-energ...

imtringued 8y ago

The statistics tell me a different story. Seasonal differences in the renewable share are almost nonexistent. Maybe somewhere around +-20%. Sure we will need storage that lets us bridge weeks and if it is economic even up to a whole month but anything beyond that is not about trying to compensate energy shortages, it's about capturing the overproduced energy to sequester carbon. https://www.energy-charts.de/ren_share.htm?year=2018&source=ren-share&period=monthly https://www.energy-charts.de/ren_share.htm?year=2018&source=... Also I recommend you to take a look at the daily variance. https://www.energy-charts.de/ren_share.htm?year=2018&source=ren-share&period=daily https://www.energy-charts.de/ren_share.htm?year=2018&source=... Anything below the average of 40% is awful. The longest interval below 40% I have found was from 19.03 to 29.03. A month of storage is more than we would ever need. two weeks would be the sweet spot, one or zero weeks is doable if we use gas plants. Really the only amount energy storage that I would consider absolutely mandatory is 24 hours because we still want to use solar energy at night and wind power that is mostly generated at night during the day.

petre 8y ago
You still need 60% from somewhere. This is why France's new policy of replacing 20…25% nuclear out of 70…75% with renewables is good. Germany is just obliviously burning almost 50% coal instead.