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The economics of building nuclear power plants is directly affected by the availability of tooling and volume of the production. The reduced number of new plan
by Meandering 7y ago
The economics of building nuclear power plants is directly affected by the availability of tooling and volume of the production.
The reduced number of new plants has resulted in increased costs for the parts required to build a plant. If we build more plants, capital costs will be reduced.
I agree that solar, wind, and other alternative energy sources are ideal for smaller installations. Although, battery technology, manufacturing capacity, and available raw resources will not be capable of supporting radical change anytime soon.
New nuclear can be a solution. Or, at least, it will need to be part of the process if we are going to replace large scale carbon emitting power production facilities.
- pfdietz 7y agoIt doesn't need to be part of the process. As renewables build out, it's less and less clear how nuclear can fit in at all. Renewables crash the price of power too often for nuclear to compete.
- Meandering 7y agoNuclear power offers large scale production with a reduced physical footprint. For instance, New York city would be more suited to the physical logistics of a nuclear power plant. The availability of light(winter months) and land area doesn't play well for solar/wind generation. I'm not saying it couldn't be done but, I doubt New York will be able to go 100% renewable for decades, if not a century.
- pfdietz 7y agoIf only there were things called "transmission lines" that could carry power hundreds of miles and concentrate it into locations with high power use. And as I argued, renewables don't have to go 100% to kill nuclear. Just forcing nuclear to be intermittent, when the renewables and short term storage are not available, is sufficient.