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It's shocking to me that the best solution we have for climate change gets downvoted on a site that's generally pro-science. But it seems to happen with every d

by Reedx 7y ago

It's shocking to me that the best solution we have for climate change gets downvoted on a site that's generally pro-science. But it seems to happen with every discussion about nuclear energy. Also surprising how even Bill Gates gets ignored on this issue. He's talked repeatedly about why nuclear[1][2][3], yet doesn't get a lot of traction. 1. https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Year-in-Review-2018 https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Year-in-Review-2... 2. https://youtu.be/d1EB1zsxW0k?t=520 https://youtu.be/d1EB1zsxW0k?t=520 3. https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy

rbanffy 7y ago
> best solution For some values of "best". There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all power source.
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  While I sympathise with your sentiment, viable is enough. We aren't exactly sd spoilt for choice
  - rbanffy 7y ago
    There are many other things we could do that are as viable, if not more - we barely started using wind or solar, and while wind and solar may be poor replacements for coal, hydro or nuclear, it's excellent for cars and trucks and they are a significant portion of our energy matrix. We will eventually need to increase the fission base, if fusion continues to be 10 years away for much longer, but that's something that can wait until we have better designs than the current generations. What nuclear really excels at is at replacing coal. It's pretty much a plug-in replacement: nuclear generation can be built pretty much wherever coal can and, from the grid's perspective, it looks a lot like coal. This, along with industry subsidies (both direct and as military expenditure) has always shifted economics towards it.
    - pfdietz 7y ago
      Why will we eventually need to increase the fission base? I see no good justification for that. > What nuclear really excels at is at replacing coal Coal is being displaced, but not by nuclear. Nuclear is actually rather bad at displacing coal. People were building coal fired power plants for decades when they could have been building nuclear plants, because nuclear failed at being attractive enough to replace coal.
      - rbanffy 7y ago
        Nuclear is dense and constant, far more dense than wind or solar. BTW, burning coal for energy should be considered a crime against humanity. It should be replaced by anything, regardless of energy output ;-)
        pfdietz 7y ago
        "Density" only matters insofar as it affects cost. And wind and PV come out much cheaper than nuclear, so density is clearly not very important. One could have figured this out by looking at the cost of land vs. the cost of wind/solar equipment put on that land. As for constancy... this is actually a negative for nuclear, since the business case for nuclear assumes it can sell its output at a high average price, 24/7. And increasingly that market isn't there.
        rbanffy 7y ago
        Density will eventually become relevant. What is the maximum human population of the Earth? How much energy would a planet-sized city need? How much space for cultivation or food manufacture? Agreed about the current market factors, but constant is easier to manage.
        pfdietz 7y ago
        If density becomes relevant for solar, then nuclear is no solution. At that very high power usage, the raw thermal pollution from nuclear will limit it to below what solar can provide. Of course, this will be at an energy usage that is so incredibly high that it has no relevance to anything we do today. So it's a silly point of no relevance to current decisions.
rayiner 7y ago
It’s political. The American left has taken an anti-science, moralistic stance on climate change.[1] Fixing climate change through technology, without changing the economy or politics, doesn’t serve desired ends. While most people here are scientifically minded, they’re also generally left leaning, and the opposition to nuclear power is part of that platform. [1] That’s not to suggest the right has embraced science by denying climate change is happening. As far as I can tell, the right’s solution to climate change is “god won’t let anything bad happen.” The left’s isn’t any better or more realistic. I’m at a Costco in the Maryland exurbs. A hugely diverse crowd (black, Hispanic, Asian, white) is doing their weekend shopping. Families with 2+ children in tow. No joke, some just shouted out “living the suburban dream” while we were eating froyo. Then they’re going to get into their SUVs and go home to their, on average, 2,000+ square foot house. The idea that we’re going to solve climate change by having all these people move to 500 square foot apartments in the city, going only where the government decides to build public transit, and limiting themselves to one kid, is utter fantasy. In fact the opposite will happen. Chinese, Indians, Bangladeshis, Africans... they’ll get Costco and SUVs. Hoping otherwise is just as unrealistic as thinking God will fix things.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  I'm fairly pro nuclear. There was a time when nuclear was probably the best solution to stop climate change. But that time was 5, maybe 10, years back. Since then, solar and wind have caught up significantly in terms of efficiency. And given the dearth of new nuclear in the us, safely bringing up a reactor, if we started building tomorrow (ignoring the political challenges of where), would take the better part of a decade to be operational. Solar and wind brings faster returns. Really we just need to stop subsidizing coal and similar.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    It’s not just a matter of efficiency. Investment in nuclear has major collateral effects that investment into wind and solar does not have. You won’t have wind powered spaceships. You can’t use wind power to for weapons or aircraft carriers. Nuclear fusion is going to be the bedrock of the next generation of world superpowers. Wind and solar are technological dead ends.
pfdietz 7y ago
It's shocking because you are laboring under the misconception that nuclear is the "best solution".
- Reedx 7y ago
  It's the best known solution we have today. The misconception is that wind and solar are able to replace fossil fuels. They can't as of now, that's just the unfortunate reality. They're a good supplement, but they don't produce 24/7, don't recycle well, take up tons of space, and batteries are orders of magnitude too expensive to be a complete solution. See the video I linked to where Gates explains this.
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    Batteries are orders of magnitude too expensive if you expect to cover seasonal differences with batteries. But no one in their right mind would do that. You are engaging in a kind of strawman argument I call the Argument from Bad Engineering. Instead, batteries would be used for short term leveling (diurnal, perhaps a few days). Beyond that, leveling would be by demand dispatch, transmission, dispatchable demand, and long term chemical storage (for example, hydrogen or ammonia). In the shorter term, covering the last 10% with natural gas would be workable, even if the CO2 had to be captured and sequestered.
    - Reedx 7y ago
      I didn't set up that strawman. They're too expensive for a lot more than that. Seriously, watch Bill's response to this and I'd be interested if you or anyone has a better answer: https://youtu.be/d1EB1zsxW0k?t=520 https://youtu.be/d1EB1zsxW0k?t=520
      - pfdietz 7y ago
        A utility scale battery system might impose a cost of $200-300/MWh (source: Lazard 2018) You might say "nuclear is only $110-180/MWh!". But that's for every MWh that nuclear pumps out; batteries are only on the hook for (some of) the times wind and solar aren't covering demand. So the levelized cost of stored and direct power from renewables will be cheaper. Batteries are also declining rapidly in cost. Any nuclear plant started today will come online when storage costs could be half of what they are today, if this trend continues. I will add that DC-coupled storage in PV fields should be cheaper than this, because the batteries don't need their own inverters or grid connection.

by Reedx 7y ago

rbanffy 7y ago

> best solution For some values of "best". There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all power source.

ClumsyPilot 7y ago
While I sympathise with your sentiment, viable is enough. We aren't exactly sd spoilt for choice
- rbanffy 7y ago
  There are many other things we could do that are as viable, if not more - we barely started using wind or solar, and while wind and solar may be poor replacements for coal, hydro or nuclear, it's excellent for cars and trucks and they are a significant portion of our energy matrix. We will eventually need to increase the fission base, if fusion continues to be 10 years away for much longer, but that's something that can wait until we have better designs than the current generations. What nuclear really excels at is at replacing coal. It's pretty much a plug-in replacement: nuclear generation can be built pretty much wherever coal can and, from the grid's perspective, it looks a lot like coal. This, along with industry subsidies (both direct and as military expenditure) has always shifted economics towards it.
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    Why will we eventually need to increase the fission base? I see no good justification for that. > What nuclear really excels at is at replacing coal Coal is being displaced, but not by nuclear. Nuclear is actually rather bad at displacing coal. People were building coal fired power plants for decades when they could have been building nuclear plants, because nuclear failed at being attractive enough to replace coal.
    - rbanffy 7y ago
      Nuclear is dense and constant, far more dense than wind or solar. BTW, burning coal for energy should be considered a crime against humanity. It should be replaced by anything, regardless of energy output ;-)
      - pfdietz 7y ago
        "Density" only matters insofar as it affects cost. And wind and PV come out much cheaper than nuclear, so density is clearly not very important. One could have figured this out by looking at the cost of land vs. the cost of wind/solar equipment put on that land. As for constancy... this is actually a negative for nuclear, since the business case for nuclear assumes it can sell its output at a high average price, 24/7. And increasingly that market isn't there.
        rbanffy 7y ago
        Density will eventually become relevant. What is the maximum human population of the Earth? How much energy would a planet-sized city need? How much space for cultivation or food manufacture? Agreed about the current market factors, but constant is easier to manage.
        pfdietz 7y ago
        If density becomes relevant for solar, then nuclear is no solution. At that very high power usage, the raw thermal pollution from nuclear will limit it to below what solar can provide. Of course, this will be at an energy usage that is so incredibly high that it has no relevance to anything we do today. So it's a silly point of no relevance to current decisions.

rayiner 7y ago

It’s political. The American left has taken an anti-science, moralistic stance on climate change.[1] Fixing climate change through technology, without changing the economy or politics, doesn’t serve desired ends. While most people here are scientifically minded, they’re also generally left leaning, and the opposition to nuclear power is part of that platform. [1] That’s not to suggest the right has embraced science by denying climate change is happening. As far as I can tell, the right’s solution to climate change is “god won’t let anything bad happen.” The left’s isn’t any better or more realistic. I’m at a Costco in the Maryland exurbs. A hugely diverse crowd (black, Hispanic, Asian, white) is doing their weekend shopping. Families with 2+ children in tow. No joke, some just shouted out “living the suburban dream” while we were eating froyo. Then they’re going to get into their SUVs and go home to their, on average, 2,000+ square foot house. The idea that we’re going to solve climate change by having all these people move to 500 square foot apartments in the city, going only where the government decides to build public transit, and limiting themselves to one kid, is utter fantasy. In fact the opposite will happen. Chinese, Indians, Bangladeshis, Africans... they’ll get Costco and SUVs. Hoping otherwise is just as unrealistic as thinking God will fix things.

joshuamorton 7y ago
I'm fairly pro nuclear. There was a time when nuclear was probably the best solution to stop climate change. But that time was 5, maybe 10, years back. Since then, solar and wind have caught up significantly in terms of efficiency. And given the dearth of new nuclear in the us, safely bringing up a reactor, if we started building tomorrow (ignoring the political challenges of where), would take the better part of a decade to be operational. Solar and wind brings faster returns. Really we just need to stop subsidizing coal and similar.
- rayiner 7y ago
  It’s not just a matter of efficiency. Investment in nuclear has major collateral effects that investment into wind and solar does not have. You won’t have wind powered spaceships. You can’t use wind power to for weapons or aircraft carriers. Nuclear fusion is going to be the bedrock of the next generation of world superpowers. Wind and solar are technological dead ends.

pfdietz 7y ago

It's shocking because you are laboring under the misconception that nuclear is the "best solution".

Reedx 7y ago
It's the best known solution we have today. The misconception is that wind and solar are able to replace fossil fuels. They can't as of now, that's just the unfortunate reality. They're a good supplement, but they don't produce 24/7, don't recycle well, take up tons of space, and batteries are orders of magnitude too expensive to be a complete solution. See the video I linked to where Gates explains this.
- pfdietz 7y ago
  Batteries are orders of magnitude too expensive if you expect to cover seasonal differences with batteries. But no one in their right mind would do that. You are engaging in a kind of strawman argument I call the Argument from Bad Engineering. Instead, batteries would be used for short term leveling (diurnal, perhaps a few days). Beyond that, leveling would be by demand dispatch, transmission, dispatchable demand, and long term chemical storage (for example, hydrogen or ammonia). In the shorter term, covering the last 10% with natural gas would be workable, even if the CO2 had to be captured and sequestered.
  - Reedx 7y ago
    I didn't set up that strawman. They're too expensive for a lot more than that. Seriously, watch Bill's response to this and I'd be interested if you or anyone has a better answer: https://youtu.be/d1EB1zsxW0k?t=520 https://youtu.be/d1EB1zsxW0k?t=520
    - pfdietz 7y ago
      A utility scale battery system might impose a cost of $200-300/MWh (source: Lazard 2018) You might say "nuclear is only $110-180/MWh!". But that's for every MWh that nuclear pumps out; batteries are only on the hook for (some of) the times wind and solar aren't covering demand. So the levelized cost of stored and direct power from renewables will be cheaper. Batteries are also declining rapidly in cost. Any nuclear plant started today will come online when storage costs could be half of what they are today, if this trend continues. I will add that DC-coupled storage in PV fields should be cheaper than this, because the batteries don't need their own inverters or grid connection.