46 ms·

This is stupid. Once you divide those costs by the power generated, they become almost negligible. To replace a nuclear power plant the size of an office build

This is stupid. Once you divide those costs by the power generated, they become almost negligible. To replace a nuclear power plant the size of an office building you need a solar or wind farm the size of a decent village. And it's exponential. To replace a large nuclear power plant, you need a solar farm that would rival the average state capital in size. That makes those costs look very different.

fulafel 7y ago
Area in obviously linear vs PV power, not exponential. Yes, the difference vs nuclear gets exponential because nuclear reactors are 3D, but in practice the reactor core size is always so small that it takes trivial space in the land use sense. There is no dearth of space in most countries to fit village / farm sized solar arrays. 1 hectare per 1 MWH approx works out to good numbers considering you can use the non arable land. You can google around about how land owners bargain about leasing land to pv farms, it's pretty obviosu that even at the current artificially low energy prices[1] it's working out well. [1] meaning fossil plants mostly don't pay for externalities so electricity price is largely determined by just fossil plant fuel / equipment costs.
- candiodari 7y ago
  Sorry to say, but that doesn't work. 1 hectare/Mwh, abstract over any issues. What happens when renewables actually achieve what they set out to do: what happens when PV gets used for 50% of power ? What happens when it's at 80% ? 1 hectare/Mwh = 1e-5 km2/kwh 1e-5 km2/kwh * 450 billion kwh / 650000 km2 = 7 times the area of France Obviously this is not practical. At 10% you'd have to destroy significant amounts of the remaining nature in France. God help Belgium and the Netherlands should they try this, so France is definitely not a worst case scenario. You'd have to get the power from Africa. Yes, the US could (just barely, and only with a much bigger electricity grid). Russia could. China is actually dicey (at 7% growth per year it won't stay dicey for long and dive into "not happening" soon). Not many others. Also: at any scale solar PV will displace so much nature it will be worse for the planet than fossil fuels. At 1% ? No problem. But at 1%, fossil fuels aren't a problem either. At 1%, coal would be tolerable. At 100% ? Nuclear works. Alternatives ... uh ... None (I mean, there's fusion when it starts working) Simcity was right. https://www.worlddata.info/europe/france/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/europe/france/energy-consumption.... https://www.google.com/search?q=france+area https://www.google.com/search?q=france+area
  - fulafel 7y ago
    I mixed the units, obviously it's per MW and not MWh. Anyway, many people have done this calculation and the lamd required in an 100 % pv scenario seems pretty reasonable: https://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127 https://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127 https://energy-age.blogspot.com/2017/04/how-much-land-area-does-100-solar.html?m=1 https://energy-age.blogspot.com/2017/04/how-much-land-area-d... Doing my own napkin calc for 100% PV globally: using 2.5e6 MW world consumption, and 150 e6 sq km of land i get 60 km2 (6000 hectares) existing land for each MW consumed. So panels would take 1/6000 of land, or maybe 1/1000 if the 1 MW was for rated max power and we actually average 1/6 of that
perfunctory 7y ago
"The levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for a new nuclear plant in 2018, based on Lazard, is $151 (112 to 189)/MWh. This compares with $43 (29 to 56)/MWh for onshore wind and $41 (36 to 46)/MWh for utility-scale solar PV from the same source. " "The levelized cost of energy (LCOE) is a measure of a power source that allows comparison of different methods of electricity generation on a consistent basis. It is an economic assessment of the average total cost to build and operate a power-generating asset over its lifetime divided by the total energy output of the asset over that lifetime. The LCOE can also be regarded as the average minimum price at which electricity must be sold in order to break-even over the lifetime of the project." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
stareatgoats 7y ago
So why is nuclear deemed uneconomical in countries like Sweden? They have not banned it, but decided the industry should carry its own costs - with the result that the industry is not building any new reactors, and not even refurbishing existing reactors. It is a dying technology.

fulafel 7y ago

Area in obviously linear vs PV power, not exponential. Yes, the difference vs nuclear gets exponential because nuclear reactors are 3D, but in practice the reactor core size is always so small that it takes trivial space in the land use sense. There is no dearth of space in most countries to fit village / farm sized solar arrays. 1 hectare per 1 MWH approx works out to good numbers considering you can use the non arable land. You can google around about how land owners bargain about leasing land to pv farms, it's pretty obviosu that even at the current artificially low energy prices[1] it's working out well. [1] meaning fossil plants mostly don't pay for externalities so electricity price is largely determined by just fossil plant fuel / equipment costs.

candiodari 7y ago
Sorry to say, but that doesn't work. 1 hectare/Mwh, abstract over any issues. What happens when renewables actually achieve what they set out to do: what happens when PV gets used for 50% of power ? What happens when it's at 80% ? 1 hectare/Mwh = 1e-5 km2/kwh 1e-5 km2/kwh * 450 billion kwh / 650000 km2 = 7 times the area of France Obviously this is not practical. At 10% you'd have to destroy significant amounts of the remaining nature in France. God help Belgium and the Netherlands should they try this, so France is definitely not a worst case scenario. You'd have to get the power from Africa. Yes, the US could (just barely, and only with a much bigger electricity grid). Russia could. China is actually dicey (at 7% growth per year it won't stay dicey for long and dive into "not happening" soon). Not many others. Also: at any scale solar PV will displace so much nature it will be worse for the planet than fossil fuels. At 1% ? No problem. But at 1%, fossil fuels aren't a problem either. At 1%, coal would be tolerable. At 100% ? Nuclear works. Alternatives ... uh ... None (I mean, there's fusion when it starts working) Simcity was right. https://www.worlddata.info/europe/france/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/europe/france/energy-consumption.... https://www.google.com/search?q=france+area https://www.google.com/search?q=france+area
- fulafel 7y ago
  I mixed the units, obviously it's per MW and not MWh. Anyway, many people have done this calculation and the lamd required in an 100 % pv scenario seems pretty reasonable: https://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127 https://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127 https://energy-age.blogspot.com/2017/04/how-much-land-area-does-100-solar.html?m=1 https://energy-age.blogspot.com/2017/04/how-much-land-area-d... Doing my own napkin calc for 100% PV globally: using 2.5e6 MW world consumption, and 150 e6 sq km of land i get 60 km2 (6000 hectares) existing land for each MW consumed. So panels would take 1/6000 of land, or maybe 1/1000 if the 1 MW was for rated max power and we actually average 1/6 of that

perfunctory 7y ago

"The levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for a new nuclear plant in 2018, based on Lazard, is $151 (112 to 189)/MWh. This compares with $43 (29 to 56)/MWh for onshore wind and $41 (36 to 46)/MWh for utility-scale solar PV from the same source. " "The levelized cost of energy (LCOE) is a measure of a power source that allows comparison of different methods of electricity generation on a consistent basis. It is an economic assessment of the average total cost to build and operate a power-generating asset over its lifetime divided by the total energy output of the asset over that lifetime. The LCOE can also be regarded as the average minimum price at which electricity must be sold in order to break-even over the lifetime of the project." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

stareatgoats 7y ago

So why is nuclear deemed uneconomical in countries like Sweden? They have not banned it, but decided the industry should carry its own costs - with the result that the industry is not building any new reactors, and not even refurbishing existing reactors. It is a dying technology.