5 ms·

Ontario has made nuclear work. But it's hard to do. There are three types of energy production, as I see it: those that have little control of their production

by mabbo 7y ago

Ontario has made nuclear work. But it's hard to do. There are three types of energy production, as I see it: those that have little control of their production (wind, solar); those that have control of their production but are hard to change (nuclear); and those that can rapidly change their production (fossil fuels, hydro-electric). Demand, on the other hand, fluctuates based on all the wants and needs of humans. You need a mix of all three. http://www.ieso.ca/power-data http://www.ieso.ca/power-data (the supply graph over the last week is the most interesting). Ontario has made nuclear work by demanding from it what it is absolutely best at: an unchanging, fixed supply of a large amount of electricity. 10.3-10.6 GW at all times for the last week (and probably a lot longer). Wind and solar help, but their inputs are so variable that they can't suffice. Gas and hydro make up the rest because it's easy for them to adjust their production. Nuclear can work and be profitable, but only as a piece of the puzzle.

pfdietz 7y ago
And by subsidizing the heck out of it. Oh, and by not buying any more when recently it came in at 3x the cost of other energy options (after which they sold the Candu IP to a private firm for $15M). https://www.thestar.com/business/2009/07/14/26b_cost_killed_nuclear_bid.html https://www.thestar.com/business/2009/07/14/26b_cost_killed_...
gizmo686 7y ago
Demand can also be broken up into those same categories.
worik 7y ago
Do you really think that "nuclear can... be profitable" if the operators have to pay insurance premiums against the possibility of catastrophic failure? What about paying to store the (albeit small amount of) long lived waste? What is the cost of permanently, and safely, storing a tonne of very poisonous material for hundreds of thousands of years? And do not say " deep-geologic placement" as there is no geological structure that we know of that is stable and seperated from the biosphere for those periods. Nuclear power is socialising extraordinary risk and making future generations pay for today's energy. Yes it can be profitable. But never moral
- ChrisLomont 7y ago
  Nuclear is about the safest power source mankind has. Most research looks like this https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d... And more modern designs than most countries use are much safer than the ones in the link.
  - PeCaN 7y ago
    It's safe in terms of deaths, but most power sources' failure modes don't include "render a large area uninhabitable for a century".
    - traverseda 7y ago
      Have you looked at Hiroshima on google maps? This is where the detonation occurred https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hiroshima+Atomic+Bomb+Hypocenter/@34.3896179,132.4532512,1178a,35y,19.52h,29.12t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x0:0x0!2zMzTCsDIzJzQxLjMiTiAxMzLCsDI3JzE2LjkiRQ!3b1!8m2!3d34.3948!4d132.4547!3m4!1s0x355aa20cfb72be19:0x2fa8b78b04761f58!8m2!3d34.3947199!4d132.4547131 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hiroshima+Atomic+Bomb+Hypo... It's not particularly relevant, but I thought it was interesting seeing the people living so close to the site of a nuclear detonation.
      - jpindar 7y ago
        And they never have been able to keep people from staying in, or moving back into, the area around Chernobyl. There's an interesting documentary, "The Babushkas of Chernobyl" about some women who refused to leave.
        Krasnol 7y ago
        Meanwhile NGOs like the http://www.hilfe-tschernobyl.de/ http://www.hilfe-tschernobyl.de/ fund the removal of tumours of kids from Belarus who suffer due to the accident and support local hospitals and hospices where victims are being treated or live their last days.
tinus_hn 7y ago
You can also store energy in various ways and change demand by large consumers.
- mabbo 7y ago
  You need a lot of ways to store energy, is the problem. Consider the Hornsdale Power Reserve- the big set of Tesla batteries in Australia that everyone uses as an example of storage working. Very successful project. Storage for 129 MWh of energy. Ontario's baseline need for energy, at the dead of night, is 11GW. This means you would need 85 of those facilities to handle just one hour where there's no wind (nor sunlight, given it's night time). In the winter, we have 15 hours of night per day in this province, so we need nearly 1300 of those facilities. And that's very dense energy storage. Others have proposed pumped-water, which is actually a great fit given the number of dams we have, but is a problematic choice during times of drought when there's simply no water to pump (which are more and more common because of climate change). This is made worse when drought correlates with hot days when everyone wants to use their air conditioner. To me, the ideal solution is a baseline of nuclear, along with solar + wind + batteries.

by mabbo 7y ago

pfdietz 7y ago

And by subsidizing the heck out of it. Oh, and by not buying any more when recently it came in at 3x the cost of other energy options (after which they sold the Candu IP to a private firm for $15M). https://www.thestar.com/business/2009/07/14/26b_cost_killed_nuclear_bid.html https://www.thestar.com/business/2009/07/14/26b_cost_killed_...

gizmo686 7y ago

Demand can also be broken up into those same categories.

worik 7y ago

Do you really think that "nuclear can... be profitable" if the operators have to pay insurance premiums against the possibility of catastrophic failure? What about paying to store the (albeit small amount of) long lived waste? What is the cost of permanently, and safely, storing a tonne of very poisonous material for hundreds of thousands of years? And do not say " deep-geologic placement" as there is no geological structure that we know of that is stable and seperated from the biosphere for those periods. Nuclear power is socialising extraordinary risk and making future generations pay for today's energy. Yes it can be profitable. But never moral

ChrisLomont 7y ago
Nuclear is about the safest power source mankind has. Most research looks like this https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d... And more modern designs than most countries use are much safer than the ones in the link.
- PeCaN 7y ago
  It's safe in terms of deaths, but most power sources' failure modes don't include "render a large area uninhabitable for a century".
  - traverseda 7y ago
    Have you looked at Hiroshima on google maps? This is where the detonation occurred https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hiroshima+Atomic+Bomb+Hypocenter/@34.3896179,132.4532512,1178a,35y,19.52h,29.12t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x0:0x0!2zMzTCsDIzJzQxLjMiTiAxMzLCsDI3JzE2LjkiRQ!3b1!8m2!3d34.3948!4d132.4547!3m4!1s0x355aa20cfb72be19:0x2fa8b78b04761f58!8m2!3d34.3947199!4d132.4547131 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hiroshima+Atomic+Bomb+Hypo... It's not particularly relevant, but I thought it was interesting seeing the people living so close to the site of a nuclear detonation.
    - jpindar 7y ago
      And they never have been able to keep people from staying in, or moving back into, the area around Chernobyl. There's an interesting documentary, "The Babushkas of Chernobyl" about some women who refused to leave.
      - Krasnol 7y ago
        Meanwhile NGOs like the http://www.hilfe-tschernobyl.de/ http://www.hilfe-tschernobyl.de/ fund the removal of tumours of kids from Belarus who suffer due to the accident and support local hospitals and hospices where victims are being treated or live their last days.

tinus_hn 7y ago

You can also store energy in various ways and change demand by large consumers.

mabbo 7y ago
You need a lot of ways to store energy, is the problem. Consider the Hornsdale Power Reserve- the big set of Tesla batteries in Australia that everyone uses as an example of storage working. Very successful project. Storage for 129 MWh of energy. Ontario's baseline need for energy, at the dead of night, is 11GW. This means you would need 85 of those facilities to handle just one hour where there's no wind (nor sunlight, given it's night time). In the winter, we have 15 hours of night per day in this province, so we need nearly 1300 of those facilities. And that's very dense energy storage. Others have proposed pumped-water, which is actually a great fit given the number of dams we have, but is a problematic choice during times of drought when there's simply no water to pump (which are more and more common because of climate change). This is made worse when drought correlates with hot days when everyone wants to use their air conditioner. To me, the ideal solution is a baseline of nuclear, along with solar + wind + batteries.