7 ms·

It would really help the believability of your argument if you gave some proper argumentation for why you think we "are simply not there yet", which is a really

It would really help the believability of your argument if you gave some proper argumentation for why you think we "are simply not there yet", which is a really big claim that I would say you are almost hilariously wrong about. If you were going to claim a lack of being able to meet spot demands I would be able to follow along with you, but seeing as you're promoting nuclear here that is evidently not the main selling point. So what is?

numlock86 7y ago
Maybe he's referring to the fact that nuclear power has the lowest carbon footprint of currently available technology when it comes to generating consumable electric power for the masses. Just a wild guess, though.
- myspy 7y ago
  And again the question which decides the future of every nuclear power plant. Where to put the fuel after usage? No one wants it, tax payers have to pay for the disposal.
  - isostatic 7y ago
    The externalities should be covered by the cost of the electricity it generates - same as the externalities of solar or coal production.
  - numlock86 7y ago
    We have working solutions for storage and disposal. Yes, no one wants those, they cost a lot of money and are at best temporary. But they are practical. The same isn't true for carbon, or rather the "fuel after usage" when it comes to gas or coal power plants. I don't much like the situation or nuclear power plants either, but considering the time we have to fix this (climate change) it seems like a valid solution.
    - cujo 7y ago
      > Yes, no one wants those, they cost a lot of money and are at best temporary. But they are practical. I don't understand this, and would love if someone could point me to a resource on it. How is it practical to essentially "kick the can" on storage/disposal? As I understand it, the plan o more or less bury the stuff and hope we figure it out in the future. I read this as "just let some future generation deal with a catastrophic failure". That sounds awfully similar to how we've dealt with the climate/environment in general.
      - krageon 7y ago
        You're exactly right about the current stance on long-term storage of radioactive waste.
      - viraptor 7y ago
        What do you mean by "deal with a catastrophic failure" in this case? Yes, we pretty much bury the stuff. That doesn't sound like a catastrophy to me.
      - numlock86 7y ago
        Ok, storing carbon in the air and oceans is much more practical as it basically comes for free. Well, not counting in the cost of climate change of course. Burying atomic waste on the other hand requires laughable amounts of space if you want to compare atomic waste vs carbon for let's say 100 years of global energy production. We already have to deal with the "catastrophic failure" of carbon storage as a "future generation" as you already mentioned. I know a lot of people like to imagine that getting rid of atomic waste is basically some people with shovels digging holes for some hazardous yellow barrels, hoping in a thousand years no one will find them. Well, no. Atomic waste is much more manageable. And to be honest: If we had a way to say efficiently compact/solidify/whatever carbon then we would do the same with that stuff today already, just with the difference that we would leave much much much more waste behind for future generations.
        TeMPOraL 7y ago
        Also, I think people keep underestimating just how little actual radioactive fuel goes into a powerplant and how little actual waste goes out.
  - Agustus 7y ago
    The United States of America already solved this issue with the perfect Mojave desert option. Unfortunately, politics caused mayhem to the program.
  - TheHypnotist 7y ago
    Typically kept on site in concrete casks. The spent fuel takes up shockingly little space. At least around where I am, "tax payers" don't foot the bill.
    - logfromblammo 7y ago
      Also, the "spent" fuel can still be used as fuel in a different type of reactor (fast-neutron), or reprocessed to recover the unused fuel back into slow-neutron light-water reactor fuel. The reason why it sits in on-site storage is because on-site storage is about the only option in the US, due to anti-proliferation regulation, and the politicization of Yucca Mountain. France's 55+ reactors send their spent fuel to a single facility in La Hague, where it only consumes half the facility's capacity. The remaining capacity is resold to other countries' nuclear plants, inasmuch as other countries still operate nuclear plants after Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters. Reprocessing is about 6% the cost of their entire nuclear program. The program in turn can supply about 1/6th of the program's nuclear fuel. But they stockpile it, unenriched, whenever original processing of mined uranium ores would be cheaper. The non-Pu, non-U radioactives still have to be extracted in a separate step or be buried somewhere for their 100-year cooling-off period, but the volume is much lower than it would otherwise be without reprocessing. If Yucca Mtn were ever fully opened, and if it took only post-reprocessing waste, it could bury all the world's vitrified waste until it becomes cooler than the average parking lot, much more safely than the current status quo.
  - acidburnNSA 7y ago
    Finland chose to solve the problem. The US could do the same. Anti-nuclear activists who claim to be worried about nuclear waste used politics to shut down our attempt at yucca mountain with the cynical goal of just making it expensive. Ironically doing so made everyone at least a little less safe. Also, tax payers don't pay for nuclear waste. Rate payers do. It's factored into the sale price of nuclear electricity via the Nuclear Waste Fund. https://psmag.com/ideas/the-hiding-place-inside-the-worlds-first-long-term-storage-facility-for-highly-radioactive-nuclear-waste https://psmag.com/ideas/the-hiding-place-inside-the-worlds-f...
  - beobab 7y ago
    Some varieties of Gen IV can use the nuclear waste from previous generations as fuel.
- wingi 7y ago
  Coal-fired power plants produce CO2 daily as waste products, nuclear power plants use fuel rods annually and solar energy uses nothing. The costs for coal-fired and nuclear power plants are after 50 years, for solar cells probably after 15 years. So the environmental impact is expected to be 50 years, although Chernobyl cannot be recycled forever.
Agustus 7y ago
Base load power. Solar and wind do not provide this. Storing the power from these solutions is not possible in our current scientific state. We have people who claim there are storage solutions just around the corner, but the corner has been stated since the beginning of renewables. Nuclear can be used in conjunction with the renewables for no carbon solutions.
- MH15 7y ago
  Power can be stored in other mediums besides batteries. See reservoirs, winches, etc.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    None of those are cheap enough to use for baseload power on a utility scale. Maybe in the future, but then we're getting into the "around the corner" from the GP.
    - nate_meurer 7y ago
      No, pumped hydro is still quite economical. For the time being I believe it's the cheapest from of utility-scale energy storage. The whole "baseload" thing is largely a myth pushed by the coal and nuclear lobbies. It hasn't been relevant in new generating capacity in a long time. Instead, new capacity is being planned and built with multiple "overlapping" dispatchable sources along with storage. Eventually the term will go away completely. http://redgreenandblue.org/2017/07/18/myth-baseload-power-not-think/ http://redgreenandblue.org/2017/07/18/myth-baseload-power-no...
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        > pumped hydro is still quite economical. For the time being I believe it's the cheapest from of utility-scale energy storage. Where it's cheap/possible to build, you mean. It's very uneconomical if you don't have any appropriate geological formations nearby. > The whole "baseload" thing is largely a myth pushed by the coal and nuclear lobbies. Ok, fine. "This term is used by evil people" doesn't change the problem of "we need cheap storage to completely switch away from carbon fuels, and we don't have cheap storage" or even "we need power on calm nights". And even the article linked still suggests keeping around natural gas. > multiple "overlapping" dispatchable sources along with storage. Pretty sure that "dispatchable" means "not wind or solar" [0] and generally simplifies to "carbon, nuclear or hydro". 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation
coldtea 7y ago
>why you think we "are simply not there yet", which is a really big claim that I would say you are almost hilariously wrong about Actually he is hilariously right about it. Renewables are nowhere near adequate to replace conventional (fossil, etc) fuels. Even if everything was great (costs, externalities, energy storage, etc), the cost and scale of replacing existing fossil fuel based infrastructure would be ginormous. It's simply not possible in any scale smaller than 3-5 decades... Aside from other problems, we are nowhere near the capacity of producing the required number of renewable units (turbines, solar panels). And that's for a steady target, whereas energy demands increase. Solar and wind still provide a tiny amount of total energy, and even that with fossil fuel backups (due to intermittency).
- kragen 7y ago
  I'm interested to see the calculations from which you derived “3–5 decades”. My calculation in 2017 was that, for example, Japan had enough exports to import enough solar panels to reach energy autarky by 2028. But prices have fallen dramatically since 2017. Clearly this would involve continued investment in production capacity for photovoltaic panels; you are correct that if production capacity remained stuck at 2019 levels, we would not be able to make the transition. Were you assuming that would be the case? That seems like a an unwarrantedly pessimistic assumption, even more so than my assumption that prices would remain constant. Indeed, your assumption (if it is indeed yours) would entail that photovoltaic panels would suddenly start to get more and more expensive! My calculations are in notes/japan-energy-autarky.html in http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano-20190724.tar.gz http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano-20190724.tar.gz.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >Were you assuming that would be the case? That seems like a an unwarrantedly pessimistic assumption, even more so than my assumption that prices would remain constant. Indeed, your assumption (if it is indeed yours) would entail that photovoltaic panels would suddenly start to get more and more expensive! Which is not really far fetched: "Reuters is reporting that Eric Luo, president of one of the largest solar panel makers in China, predicts that “the party is definitely over.” Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Luo said that prices have quit dropping and he expected industry consolidation to cause prices to rise by as much as 15% over the next two years." And that's with current-ish levels of demand. Imagine the increase in demand for replacing most of fossil fuel and other conventional sources with photovoltaics...

numlock86 7y ago

Maybe he's referring to the fact that nuclear power has the lowest carbon footprint of currently available technology when it comes to generating consumable electric power for the masses. Just a wild guess, though.

myspy 7y ago
And again the question which decides the future of every nuclear power plant. Where to put the fuel after usage? No one wants it, tax payers have to pay for the disposal.
- isostatic 7y ago
  The externalities should be covered by the cost of the electricity it generates - same as the externalities of solar or coal production.
- numlock86 7y ago
  We have working solutions for storage and disposal. Yes, no one wants those, they cost a lot of money and are at best temporary. But they are practical. The same isn't true for carbon, or rather the "fuel after usage" when it comes to gas or coal power plants. I don't much like the situation or nuclear power plants either, but considering the time we have to fix this (climate change) it seems like a valid solution.
  - cujo 7y ago
    > Yes, no one wants those, they cost a lot of money and are at best temporary. But they are practical. I don't understand this, and would love if someone could point me to a resource on it. How is it practical to essentially "kick the can" on storage/disposal? As I understand it, the plan o more or less bury the stuff and hope we figure it out in the future. I read this as "just let some future generation deal with a catastrophic failure". That sounds awfully similar to how we've dealt with the climate/environment in general.
    - krageon 7y ago
      You're exactly right about the current stance on long-term storage of radioactive waste.
    - viraptor 7y ago
      What do you mean by "deal with a catastrophic failure" in this case? Yes, we pretty much bury the stuff. That doesn't sound like a catastrophy to me.
    - numlock86 7y ago
      Ok, storing carbon in the air and oceans is much more practical as it basically comes for free. Well, not counting in the cost of climate change of course. Burying atomic waste on the other hand requires laughable amounts of space if you want to compare atomic waste vs carbon for let's say 100 years of global energy production. We already have to deal with the "catastrophic failure" of carbon storage as a "future generation" as you already mentioned. I know a lot of people like to imagine that getting rid of atomic waste is basically some people with shovels digging holes for some hazardous yellow barrels, hoping in a thousand years no one will find them. Well, no. Atomic waste is much more manageable. And to be honest: If we had a way to say efficiently compact/solidify/whatever carbon then we would do the same with that stuff today already, just with the difference that we would leave much much much more waste behind for future generations.
      - TeMPOraL 7y ago
        Also, I think people keep underestimating just how little actual radioactive fuel goes into a powerplant and how little actual waste goes out.
- Agustus 7y ago
  The United States of America already solved this issue with the perfect Mojave desert option. Unfortunately, politics caused mayhem to the program.
- TheHypnotist 7y ago
  Typically kept on site in concrete casks. The spent fuel takes up shockingly little space. At least around where I am, "tax payers" don't foot the bill.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    Also, the "spent" fuel can still be used as fuel in a different type of reactor (fast-neutron), or reprocessed to recover the unused fuel back into slow-neutron light-water reactor fuel. The reason why it sits in on-site storage is because on-site storage is about the only option in the US, due to anti-proliferation regulation, and the politicization of Yucca Mountain. France's 55+ reactors send their spent fuel to a single facility in La Hague, where it only consumes half the facility's capacity. The remaining capacity is resold to other countries' nuclear plants, inasmuch as other countries still operate nuclear plants after Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters. Reprocessing is about 6% the cost of their entire nuclear program. The program in turn can supply about 1/6th of the program's nuclear fuel. But they stockpile it, unenriched, whenever original processing of mined uranium ores would be cheaper. The non-Pu, non-U radioactives still have to be extracted in a separate step or be buried somewhere for their 100-year cooling-off period, but the volume is much lower than it would otherwise be without reprocessing. If Yucca Mtn were ever fully opened, and if it took only post-reprocessing waste, it could bury all the world's vitrified waste until it becomes cooler than the average parking lot, much more safely than the current status quo.
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  Finland chose to solve the problem. The US could do the same. Anti-nuclear activists who claim to be worried about nuclear waste used politics to shut down our attempt at yucca mountain with the cynical goal of just making it expensive. Ironically doing so made everyone at least a little less safe. Also, tax payers don't pay for nuclear waste. Rate payers do. It's factored into the sale price of nuclear electricity via the Nuclear Waste Fund. https://psmag.com/ideas/the-hiding-place-inside-the-worlds-first-long-term-storage-facility-for-highly-radioactive-nuclear-waste https://psmag.com/ideas/the-hiding-place-inside-the-worlds-f...
- beobab 7y ago
  Some varieties of Gen IV can use the nuclear waste from previous generations as fuel.
wingi 7y ago
Coal-fired power plants produce CO2 daily as waste products, nuclear power plants use fuel rods annually and solar energy uses nothing. The costs for coal-fired and nuclear power plants are after 50 years, for solar cells probably after 15 years. So the environmental impact is expected to be 50 years, although Chernobyl cannot be recycled forever.

Agustus 7y ago

Base load power. Solar and wind do not provide this. Storing the power from these solutions is not possible in our current scientific state. We have people who claim there are storage solutions just around the corner, but the corner has been stated since the beginning of renewables. Nuclear can be used in conjunction with the renewables for no carbon solutions.

MH15 7y ago
Power can be stored in other mediums besides batteries. See reservoirs, winches, etc.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  None of those are cheap enough to use for baseload power on a utility scale. Maybe in the future, but then we're getting into the "around the corner" from the GP.
  - nate_meurer 7y ago
    No, pumped hydro is still quite economical. For the time being I believe it's the cheapest from of utility-scale energy storage. The whole "baseload" thing is largely a myth pushed by the coal and nuclear lobbies. It hasn't been relevant in new generating capacity in a long time. Instead, new capacity is being planned and built with multiple "overlapping" dispatchable sources along with storage. Eventually the term will go away completely. http://redgreenandblue.org/2017/07/18/myth-baseload-power-not-think/ http://redgreenandblue.org/2017/07/18/myth-baseload-power-no...
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      > pumped hydro is still quite economical. For the time being I believe it's the cheapest from of utility-scale energy storage. Where it's cheap/possible to build, you mean. It's very uneconomical if you don't have any appropriate geological formations nearby. > The whole "baseload" thing is largely a myth pushed by the coal and nuclear lobbies. Ok, fine. "This term is used by evil people" doesn't change the problem of "we need cheap storage to completely switch away from carbon fuels, and we don't have cheap storage" or even "we need power on calm nights". And even the article linked still suggests keeping around natural gas. > multiple "overlapping" dispatchable sources along with storage. Pretty sure that "dispatchable" means "not wind or solar" [0] and generally simplifies to "carbon, nuclear or hydro". 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation

coldtea 7y ago

>why you think we "are simply not there yet", which is a really big claim that I would say you are almost hilariously wrong about Actually he is hilariously right about it. Renewables are nowhere near adequate to replace conventional (fossil, etc) fuels. Even if everything was great (costs, externalities, energy storage, etc), the cost and scale of replacing existing fossil fuel based infrastructure would be ginormous. It's simply not possible in any scale smaller than 3-5 decades... Aside from other problems, we are nowhere near the capacity of producing the required number of renewable units (turbines, solar panels). And that's for a steady target, whereas energy demands increase. Solar and wind still provide a tiny amount of total energy, and even that with fossil fuel backups (due to intermittency).

kragen 7y ago
I'm interested to see the calculations from which you derived “3–5 decades”. My calculation in 2017 was that, for example, Japan had enough exports to import enough solar panels to reach energy autarky by 2028. But prices have fallen dramatically since 2017. Clearly this would involve continued investment in production capacity for photovoltaic panels; you are correct that if production capacity remained stuck at 2019 levels, we would not be able to make the transition. Were you assuming that would be the case? That seems like a an unwarrantedly pessimistic assumption, even more so than my assumption that prices would remain constant. Indeed, your assumption (if it is indeed yours) would entail that photovoltaic panels would suddenly start to get more and more expensive! My calculations are in notes/japan-energy-autarky.html in http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano-20190724.tar.gz http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano-20190724.tar.gz.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >Were you assuming that would be the case? That seems like a an unwarrantedly pessimistic assumption, even more so than my assumption that prices would remain constant. Indeed, your assumption (if it is indeed yours) would entail that photovoltaic panels would suddenly start to get more and more expensive! Which is not really far fetched: "Reuters is reporting that Eric Luo, president of one of the largest solar panel makers in China, predicts that “the party is definitely over.” Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Luo said that prices have quit dropping and he expected industry consolidation to cause prices to rise by as much as 15% over the next two years." And that's with current-ish levels of demand. Imagine the increase in demand for replacing most of fossil fuel and other conventional sources with photovoltaics...