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I often wonder too about the "nuclear is too expensive and complex" objection that is brought up so often. Any solution to climate change is likely going to be

I often wonder too about the "nuclear is too expensive and complex" objection that is brought up so often. Any solution to climate change is likely going to be the most expensive and complex effort in human history to date. No doubt every option is going to be hard, but how is nuclear harder than anything else? I've also heard a number of people lament that nuclear is really the best choice from many angles, but solar and wind are winning, so let's just throw out nuclear and run with the winner. I'm not comfortable with either of these conclusions. If nuclear is the right thing to do, let's do it. And while we're at it, let's switch to Thorium also to address the weaponization issue. Yes it will be super expensive, yes we are on the wide end of the uncertaintity cone at the moment, but it's climate change so let's get moving.

manicdee 7y ago
Flash, I love you, but we only have fifteen minutes to save the world! The major problem with nuclear is the up front cost and lead time. The up front cost includes the carbon pollution created by the mountains of concrete required for the facility, so any carbon savings will come at some distant point down the track when the plant has not only been built and commissioned but has been in operation for a decade or more. The lead time in construction means that it could be two years or twenty years before the plant you start building today will be operational. Simply getting a sufficient supply of the right quality of concrete will be one of the fundamental hurdles to overcome. The “thorium” cycle isn’t even commercialised yet so there is no option to switch to it. How long until commercial plant is available? Nobody knows. Wind, solar, and storage are the relatively cheap, well known and abundant tools we have right now. There is no time to waste.
- mbostleman 7y ago
  Understood, but citing costs without also including the resulting benefit or without comparing to other options (like solar), doesn't really answer any questions. I wouldn't be concerned if the cost is 2x if the output is 10x. I worked for a solar manufacturer for almost 10 years. I had my blood tested regularly to monitor Cadmium. What is going to be the cost of dealing with all the Cadmium in the 50,000 two foot by four foot modules that we made daily? That's right, daily. Not annually. And we were one manufacturer. What about the acreage that is consumed and the resulting environmental damage that comes from trying to capture the extremely diffused energy source and then convert a small fraction of it in to energy only to lose a third of it in transmission by the time it gets to power plant? And cost of development - hasn't taken about 50 years to achieve only about 15% efficiency (assuming economically practical technology). My point is it doesn't seem like solar is quite as cheap, simple, clean, and safe as it's made out to be while at the same time it seems to get harder and harder to squeeze out more efficiency. It seems to me that nuclear has almost the opposite dynamic.
  - manicdee 7y ago
    The cost of nuclear is two or three times higher than coal for the same output, with capital costs amortised over the 50 year life of the plant. The cadmium you worked with was either a result of handling dopants in a wafer manufacturing plant, or dust from finishing cells in a panel assembly plant. There is insignificant exposure between assembly and disposal, and even then disposal can include reclamation of materials so that we don’t have panels filling garbage dumps for the rest of eternity. Do you worry this much about the chemicals used to manufacture your plates or cutlery? As for transmission losses, the same applies for every energy source that isn’t collocates with point of consumption. Solar is as comparatively clean cheap and simple as it has been claimed to be because the options are so incredibly dirty and destructive.

manicdee 7y ago

Flash, I love you, but we only have fifteen minutes to save the world! The major problem with nuclear is the up front cost and lead time. The up front cost includes the carbon pollution created by the mountains of concrete required for the facility, so any carbon savings will come at some distant point down the track when the plant has not only been built and commissioned but has been in operation for a decade or more. The lead time in construction means that it could be two years or twenty years before the plant you start building today will be operational. Simply getting a sufficient supply of the right quality of concrete will be one of the fundamental hurdles to overcome. The “thorium” cycle isn’t even commercialised yet so there is no option to switch to it. How long until commercial plant is available? Nobody knows. Wind, solar, and storage are the relatively cheap, well known and abundant tools we have right now. There is no time to waste.

mbostleman 7y ago
Understood, but citing costs without also including the resulting benefit or without comparing to other options (like solar), doesn't really answer any questions. I wouldn't be concerned if the cost is 2x if the output is 10x. I worked for a solar manufacturer for almost 10 years. I had my blood tested regularly to monitor Cadmium. What is going to be the cost of dealing with all the Cadmium in the 50,000 two foot by four foot modules that we made daily? That's right, daily. Not annually. And we were one manufacturer. What about the acreage that is consumed and the resulting environmental damage that comes from trying to capture the extremely diffused energy source and then convert a small fraction of it in to energy only to lose a third of it in transmission by the time it gets to power plant? And cost of development - hasn't taken about 50 years to achieve only about 15% efficiency (assuming economically practical technology). My point is it doesn't seem like solar is quite as cheap, simple, clean, and safe as it's made out to be while at the same time it seems to get harder and harder to squeeze out more efficiency. It seems to me that nuclear has almost the opposite dynamic.
- manicdee 7y ago
  The cost of nuclear is two or three times higher than coal for the same output, with capital costs amortised over the 50 year life of the plant. The cadmium you worked with was either a result of handling dopants in a wafer manufacturing plant, or dust from finishing cells in a panel assembly plant. There is insignificant exposure between assembly and disposal, and even then disposal can include reclamation of materials so that we don’t have panels filling garbage dumps for the rest of eternity. Do you worry this much about the chemicals used to manufacture your plates or cutlery? As for transmission losses, the same applies for every energy source that isn’t collocates with point of consumption. Solar is as comparatively clean cheap and simple as it has been claimed to be because the options are so incredibly dirty and destructive.