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Do you see nuclear as a stopgap between coal and renewable, or do you think that 100% renewable is not going to be possible? I'm with you as being pretty pro n

• toomuchtodo 7y ago
  You can replace all current nuclear generation in the US with solar and batteries in less than 2 years, for a lower cost (nuclear generators take at least 10 years to build, and almost always go over budget; some are never finished and abandoned [See Duke in Florida, ratepayers got soaked on a nuclear plant they gave up on]). Your point is spot on. Nuclear lost (for commercial generation; edge cases like the Arctic circle and marine applications are still valid). It’s time we get over it and build as much solar, wind, and batteries as we can, and get Americans trained to deploy these technologies. Anything else is deck chairs on the Titanic. Drive out fossil fuel use through any means necessary.
  • calvinbhai 7y ago
    Do you mean, replace just the nuclear with solar in 2 years, but keep the rest of the infra (Coal and other source of power generation) as is? If so, it can only mean exponentially more coal/gas power generation to supply power during peak demand. How does that help?
    • toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Coal is going away regardless due to it not being competitive against natural gas, no solar required. I’m saying nuclear should stick around until it’s the last base load left, but not bother building one more nuclear generating unit. Safely extend operating licenses whenever possible. Batteries and their lower costs will meet us at peaking needs in 3-5 years. There are hundreds of GWs of battery manufacturing capacity coming online over that time frame. Every million Tesla EVs is 10GW of controllable battery storage load on demand (example used only because I’m familiar with their presentation on it, and have seen it’s orchestration demo).
      • calvinbhai 7y ago
        I agree
    • wongarsu 7y ago
      Natural gas burns fairly clean and will likely be supplanted by as better gridscale storage technologies reach the market (which will happen now that demand is there). Coal is on its way out anyways because it can't compete with natural gas. Coal is more expensive than natural gas and the plants are more expensive to operate and can't react to demand as quickly (you can turn a gas valve faster than you can light coal). Coal will silently vanish as existing plants reach the end of their life and no new ones are built.
      • StreamBright 7y ago
        You are arguing that we should keep burning (400.000-1M years old technology) instead of using nuclear fission (70 years old tech) because natural gas burns fairly clean?
  • curiousgeorgio 7y ago
    I feel like all the waste created from those batteries (since wind and solar can't meet peek demand) will ultimately be worse for the environment than any waste created by modern nuclear technology. If you compare the waste created by the two at the scale needed to cover peek demand, nuclear actually creates less. Yes, batteries can be recycled[1], but from what I've seen, many of the efficiency figures are grossly overstated (or absolute best-case scenarios rarely seen in practice). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  • manfredo 7y ago
    Nuclear only lost because the government picks winners and losers. Wind and solar are getting subsidies. France manages to produce its electricity at 1/10th the cost as Germany, while also emitting less C02 because of its investment in nuclear power. American nuclear plants tended to be one-off projects of unique designs. This is drastically less cost efficient than what the French did, design a handful of standardized designs and do serial production.
    • toomuchtodo 7y ago
      France heavily subsidizes their nuclear fleet operator (EDF), and continues to own 85% of the company. No one wants to wait decades for ROI on funding a nuclear power plant, and no one (besides governments) will insure them from black swan events. Everyone gets subsidies, provide them wisely. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lectricit%C3%A9_de_France#Status_of_EDF https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lectricit%C3%A9_de_Fra...
      • manfredo 7y ago
        And we're heavily subsidizing wind and solar - it's just as much of a black swan event. The market will always pick the most cost effective power generation: fossil fuels. And for what it's worth, ~70 billion Euros of debt in order to bring a country like France up to ~70-80% nuclear electricity generation is dirt cheap compared to this $16 trillion dollar plan. If the government is going to pick our power source, then there's little justification not to choose the source that is more cost effective and does not require complex energy storage. The main reason I see why democrats stay away from nuclear power is twofold. One, nuclear plant operators are typically traditional power companies and thus Republican donors. Democrats don't want to give contracts to the people that fund their political opponents. Second, the cost efficiency of nuclear power in the long term mens that it won't result in as many jobs. The reality the emphasis on the phrase "Green New Deal" is on the latter two words. These plans are promising 10-20 million jobs. These are federal jobs programs with the word "green" prepended to them.
      • StreamBright 7y ago
        Just wait for the first blackout caused by careless implementation of renewables.
  • agumonkey 7y ago
    Maybe it depends on the country. USA have enough heavy sun areas to go full. But in France people think it's gonna be just too irregular to be the main generation.
    • toomuchtodo 7y ago
      “Europe Could Power The Entire World With Onshore Wind Farms Alone” (2019) https://www.sciencealert.com/europe-could-power-the-entire-world-with-enough-onshore-wind-farms/ https://www.sciencealert.com/europe-could-power-the-entire-w... https://www.sussex.ac.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/id/49312 https://www.sussex.ac.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/id... I’ve also seen a proposal to transmit electricity from Northern Africa solar generation to Europe, but nothing has come of it. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161129-the-colossal-african-solar-farm-that-could-power-europe http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161129-the-colossal-africa... (2016)
      • agumonkey 7y ago
        nobody wants to depend on another continent for energy, let's be realistic
        • toomuchtodo 7y ago
          The point was there’s enough renewables everywhere. You don’t have to rely on another continent if you don’t want to. No more energy geopolitics. It’s absolutely silly to keep arguing against renewables. Enough sunlight falls on the Earth in an hour to power humanity for a year. The wind blows almost everywhere.
          • agumonkey 7y ago
            I mentioned something about irregular sunlight being a problem in some countries. I didn't do the math, but some dudes (officially half pro nuclear) say that you cannot run industries on "maybe sun will power your furnace today".
• jkahrs595 7y ago
  Exactly this. I don't understand the nuclear circlejerk. We get it, it's safe and clean. But the waste is also extremely hazardous and if we can power the grid with solar/wind/geothermal/etc... what's the point?
• stochastic_monk 7y ago
  It’s certainly not sustainable. We can’t handle the radioactive waste we already have unless there are some massive overhauls.
  • xvector 7y ago
    Does nuclear waste really take up that much space? My understanding was that it's negligible for the amount of power it provides.
    • stochastic_monk 7y ago
      Handling it takes money and effort no one wants to spend. John Oliver covered the situation a couple years back [0]. [0] https://time.com/4908330/john-oliver-nuclear-waste-last-week-tonight/ https://time.com/4908330/john-oliver-nuclear-waste-last-week...
      • curiousgeorgio 7y ago
        Why then would people "want to spend" money and effort on handling the waste created by batteries? Let's be fair about the stick we're using to measure people's environmental altruism - it cuts both ways.
    • notJim 7y ago
      It seems like an objective fact that we cannot handle nuclear waste, at least in the US. IMO you have to consider the political situation as part of the whole system. If we as a society cannot deal with having nuclear waste repositories in our backyard, it is irresponsible to create more nuclear waste.
      • teilo 7y ago
        This argument amounts to: "People freak out about nuclear waste. Therefore nuclear waste is bad even if it's not bad."
    • manfredo 7y ago
• manfredo 7y ago
  Nuclear is the "future ideal". Non intermittent power means no need for complex and costly energy storage. Seawater uranium extraction has been demonstrated, and scientists have found cost-effective ways of producing it (not quite as cost effective as mining at the moment, but enough to supplant it once the mining capacity is exhausted). Why bother with energy storage if we can just deliver enough capacity to meet peak demand 24/7 and use the excess energy to sequester carbon out of the atmosphere during non-peak hours? If we don't just want to stop emitting CO2 but actually reverse climate change, then we need truly immense amounts of energy. 1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-seawater-extraction-makes-nuclear-power-completely-renewable/#13bb353f159a https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-s... 2. https://newatlas.com/nuclear-uranium-seawater-fibers/55033/ https://newatlas.com/nuclear-uranium-seawater-fibers/55033/
  • teilo 7y ago
    Not only that, but modern nuclear technology, especially closed cycle breed reactors of various types, not only produce far less waste and more energy per unit than the old-school enriched uranium reactors, but the waste is safer, and they can be smaller, far more geographically diverse, and cost a fraction of the equivalent for the same output in renewables when infrastructure and maintenance is fully taken into account.