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Compared to renewables. One of the unanticipated side effects of our current focus on solar/wind is that being decentralized technologies compared to a single c

Compared to renewables. One of the unanticipated side effects of our current focus on solar/wind is that being decentralized technologies compared to a single complex for coal/gas/hydro/nuclear/whatever mandated a focus on unit reliability since you can't have someone babysit each unit when those units are smeared across a 10 square miles or mounted on an entire suburbs' rooflines. This focus is in direct contrast to nuclear's greatest weakness that no one talks about; it's maintenance and manpower costs. Turns out using a power source that works by restructuring everything around it on the atomic level is a bit hard on the surrounding infrastructure.

vkou 7y ago
> This focus is in direct contrast to nuclear's greatest weakness that no one talks about; it's maintenance and manpower costs. You say weakness - and I say that more people die from falls, from installing rooftop solar panels, than do in nuclear accidents. Power generation is inherentantly dangerous. Just because you distribute the danger around, instead of centralizing it, does not mean that you've reduced the danger. As for the economics of nuclear, as time goes on we are finding that the actual alternative to nuclear is not renewables. It's natural gas, sourced from either fracking, or Russia. Compared to the uptick in natural gas, renewables are a rounding error.
- tomatotomato37 7y ago
  Manpower salary weakness, not literal life/death weakness. Paying the population of Rhode Island to use exercise bikes connected to generators all day would also be a way to generate pollution-free safe power (in fact considering the obesity rate it would probably end up saving lives), yet there's still an obvious economic reason why such an idea would be completely stupid.
  - vkou 7y ago
    Sure, the economics of nuclear aren't great. The economics of non-nuclear are terrible, though. All roads that don't include it as a major generator of electricity rely on burning carbon, in the form of natural gas. If you think I'm wrong - would you mind explaining why natural gas deployment last two years (~20% increase, so about ~5% of global energy generation) was as much as the deployment of renewables, for the last decade? (also ~5% of global generation) If you are right - could you give me your best guess for when you expect gas plant deployment to go net negative? 2020? 2025? 2050? 20-never? What mechanism (political, economic, etc) do you expect to drive that inflection point? [1] https://yearbook.enerdata.net/natural-gas/gas-consumption-data.html https://yearbook.enerdata.net/natural-gas/gas-consumption-da... [2] https://yearbook.enerdata.net/renewables/wind-solar-share-electricity-production.html https://yearbook.enerdata.net/renewables/wind-solar-share-el...
- Dumblydorr 7y ago
  Renewables aren't a rounding error, unless you consider multiple percentage points of growth in every power market in the 2010s as rounding errors. Yes LNG has accounted for 3 or 4X the coal closures, however renewables don't incur methane leakage. Overall, both renewables and LNG are greening the grid by killing coal.
  - Iwan-Zotow 7y ago
    > Overall, both renewables and LNG are greening the grid by killing coal. in your dream Coal production is growing last three years

vkou 7y ago

> This focus is in direct contrast to nuclear's greatest weakness that no one talks about; it's maintenance and manpower costs. You say weakness - and I say that more people die from falls, from installing rooftop solar panels, than do in nuclear accidents. Power generation is inherentantly dangerous. Just because you distribute the danger around, instead of centralizing it, does not mean that you've reduced the danger. As for the economics of nuclear, as time goes on we are finding that the actual alternative to nuclear is not renewables. It's natural gas, sourced from either fracking, or Russia. Compared to the uptick in natural gas, renewables are a rounding error.

tomatotomato37 7y ago
Manpower salary weakness, not literal life/death weakness. Paying the population of Rhode Island to use exercise bikes connected to generators all day would also be a way to generate pollution-free safe power (in fact considering the obesity rate it would probably end up saving lives), yet there's still an obvious economic reason why such an idea would be completely stupid.
- vkou 7y ago
  Sure, the economics of nuclear aren't great. The economics of non-nuclear are terrible, though. All roads that don't include it as a major generator of electricity rely on burning carbon, in the form of natural gas. If you think I'm wrong - would you mind explaining why natural gas deployment last two years (~20% increase, so about ~5% of global energy generation) was as much as the deployment of renewables, for the last decade? (also ~5% of global generation) If you are right - could you give me your best guess for when you expect gas plant deployment to go net negative? 2020? 2025? 2050? 20-never? What mechanism (political, economic, etc) do you expect to drive that inflection point? [1] https://yearbook.enerdata.net/natural-gas/gas-consumption-data.html https://yearbook.enerdata.net/natural-gas/gas-consumption-da... [2] https://yearbook.enerdata.net/renewables/wind-solar-share-electricity-production.html https://yearbook.enerdata.net/renewables/wind-solar-share-el...
Dumblydorr 7y ago
Renewables aren't a rounding error, unless you consider multiple percentage points of growth in every power market in the 2010s as rounding errors. Yes LNG has accounted for 3 or 4X the coal closures, however renewables don't incur methane leakage. Overall, both renewables and LNG are greening the grid by killing coal.
- Iwan-Zotow 7y ago
  > Overall, both renewables and LNG are greening the grid by killing coal. in your dream Coal production is growing last three years