5 ms·

All three of these points are either outright wrong, or misleading. 1. Nevada has a operational storage facility that has space to hold ALL of the waste for th

All three of these points are either outright wrong, or misleading. 1. Nevada has a operational storage facility that has space to hold ALL of the waste for the entire United States. It has been rated as stable by geologists for at least the next 700,000 years. Nuclear reactors produce 1 barrel of waste per year. That is an easily manageable quantity. The reason they are not holding more is purely fearmongering polits, it's neither a scientific nor an engineering problem. 2. Nuclear power is not cost competitive because outdated and overzealous regulations and litigious environmental organizations. China, for example, is building 24 state of the art reactors, at a fraction of the cost that western countries are building them - for the exact same internationally approved design. Reactor construction is regularly delayed by local political litigation. This is like pushing someone off of a cliff and then accusing them of being clumsy. 3. I'm not sure what you are comparing to in this point. There is currently NO renewable power plant capable of producing baseload in the quantities we need to avert climate change. If we spent the next 2-3 decades averting climate change by building nuclear power plants, we would be smart. There are currently ZERO renewable projects for building baseload. EDIT: You added some points about renewables storage - the costs of running a grid on 100% renewables with 100% storage capability far far exceed the costs of nuclear power. When you factor things like transmission losses of 35-45%, January solar production at 10% June levels, the intermittent nature of wind power, and the critical requirement that baseload be met 99.95% of the time - you quickly realize that there are absolutely no storage solutions that can get us to a 100% renewable grid (or even a 50% renewable grid).

toomuchtodo 7y ago
1. Yucca mountain is not operational, and has had no federal funding since 2011 [1]. 2. Even stripping away regulations and environmental requirements, wind and solar are still cheaper at sub 2 cents/kwh utility scale, having no marginal fuel cost. China has set their nuclear price floor at 6.49 cents/kwh [2]. 3. I do not want nuclear reactors built to Chinese standards in my first world country. 4. Storage and renewables aren't an investment, operational, or proliferation risk. EDIT: Transmission losses are minimized with renewables, as generation occurs closer to load centers. Not so with nuclear. Also, storage costs will continue to decline as EV battery manufacturing scales up (see: Tesla's Hornsdale Power Reserve). Nuclear is a solution looking for a problem, when renewables, transmission, storage, and demand response can meet market needs faster. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r... [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/china-energy-nuclear/update-1-china-sets-floor-prices-for-3rd-gen-nuclear-projects-idUSL3N21J12S https://www.reuters.com/article/china-energy-nuclear/update-...
- koheripbal 7y ago
  1. The facility is not accepting new deposits but it is operational. Regardless, this is a political fearmongering challenge, not a scientific one. 2. This is absolutely false because you are not including the costs of STORAGE. Without massive storage, they are useless in providing year-round baseload. 3. Gen III+ reactors are built to international standards. Racism is not an adequate argument.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    We agree to disagree then. Good luck to nuclear proponents attempting to make their case to the general public (who don't want it), investors (who won't invest in it), and political leaders (who don't want to risk their careers on it). In the meantime, progress marches on: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_d.png https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_d... (Generating unit retirements, Nov 2019 through Oct 2020) https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_c.png https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_c... (Generating unit additions, Nov 2019 through Oct 2020) Source: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/#tabs_unit-4 https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/#tabs_unit-4 (EIA Electric Power Monthly)
    - merpnderp 7y ago
      This is agreeing you were wrong, but your false claims still win because the people are suckers. When climate change is still roaring along 30 years from now and the laws of physics haven’t changed to allow solar and wind to completely displace fossil fuels, you can really be proud of your win.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        I'm not proud nuclear proponents are ignorant of the reality of the situation. They care more about being "right" than what is feasible today. Nuclear would've been fine to go all in on 20 or 30 years ago; today, it's too late (considering the timeline between first kwh produced and breaking ground today). Mourning a tragedy isn't a strategy for success. If you can get it built, why isn't it built yet? Or at the very least, under construction.
7952 7y ago
I am generally in favour of nuclear. But objectively a nuclear reactor is massively more complex than say a turbine or solar panel. It is harder to mass produce, more difficult to model, requires more skilled workers, and needs higher levels of security. It has stringent safety requirements as a result of radioactivity. All of that has to cost money. Nuclear physics is difficult and we should not underestimate the challenges. And we do have to make these things work in risk averse capitalist democracy. A perfect technology that you can't get consent for is useless. We are trying to generate energy, not build a techno utopia. It is not an academic question, but a practical one. Renewables wins because it is highly contentious but NOT difficult to build. Nuclear fails because it is highly contentious AND difficult to build Also, the storage debate leaves out interconnectors. That lets you use excess power now which is cheaper than storage.
- koheripbal 7y ago
  There are some incorrect arguments here - as well as some valid ones. You claim that a reactor is more complex than a turbine (I assume you mean a wind turbine) or a solar panel. This isn't an apples to apples comparison because a reactor provides 24x7x365 baseload power, whereas solar and wind would require MASSIVE storage facilities to be comparable. That is both cost-inefficient and complex. You claim the required number of highly skilled workers is high. Well, is that really true on a PER GWh basis? Reactors generate on average 1GW of power. Solar plants generate 50MW of power, at a highly variable rate. Even excluding the storage requirements, nuclear power likely employs fewer people. You claim that nuclear physics is difficult and complex and therefore costs money. A refined process and established international design can remove these bottlenecks. In the same way that we have immensely complex silicon wafer chips with tens of millions of 9 nano meter scale transistors in them - for only hundreds of dollars. You claim that safety costs money. That's true. But is it an unreasonable amount of money for the amount of power we're providing? A lot of the costs are borne from issues we cause ourselves. The Nevada storage facility is capable of holding literally ALL of the nuclear waste in America. Yet is remains closed because of fearmongering politics. (I think) You claim that storage can be largely solved by national interconnects. But if you look at the massive power distribution systems in Northern Canada - they lose around 25% of the power in transmission alone, going only a fraction of the way that a NATIONAL power transmission grid would require. The problem with renewables remains the storage problem. There are few practical solutions on the scale that are needed, and I find that most anti-nuclear pro-renewable advocates are simply not doing the math.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

1. Yucca mountain is not operational, and has had no federal funding since 2011 [1]. 2. Even stripping away regulations and environmental requirements, wind and solar are still cheaper at sub 2 cents/kwh utility scale, having no marginal fuel cost. China has set their nuclear price floor at 6.49 cents/kwh [2]. 3. I do not want nuclear reactors built to Chinese standards in my first world country. 4. Storage and renewables aren't an investment, operational, or proliferation risk. EDIT: Transmission losses are minimized with renewables, as generation occurs closer to load centers. Not so with nuclear. Also, storage costs will continue to decline as EV battery manufacturing scales up (see: Tesla's Hornsdale Power Reserve). Nuclear is a solution looking for a problem, when renewables, transmission, storage, and demand response can meet market needs faster. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r... [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/china-energy-nuclear/update-1-china-sets-floor-prices-for-3rd-gen-nuclear-projects-idUSL3N21J12S https://www.reuters.com/article/china-energy-nuclear/update-...

koheripbal 7y ago
1. The facility is not accepting new deposits but it is operational. Regardless, this is a political fearmongering challenge, not a scientific one. 2. This is absolutely false because you are not including the costs of STORAGE. Without massive storage, they are useless in providing year-round baseload. 3. Gen III+ reactors are built to international standards. Racism is not an adequate argument.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  We agree to disagree then. Good luck to nuclear proponents attempting to make their case to the general public (who don't want it), investors (who won't invest in it), and political leaders (who don't want to risk their careers on it). In the meantime, progress marches on: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_d.png https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_d... (Generating unit retirements, Nov 2019 through Oct 2020) https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_c.png https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_c... (Generating unit additions, Nov 2019 through Oct 2020) Source: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/#tabs_unit-4 https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/#tabs_unit-4 (EIA Electric Power Monthly)
  - merpnderp 7y ago
    This is agreeing you were wrong, but your false claims still win because the people are suckers. When climate change is still roaring along 30 years from now and the laws of physics haven’t changed to allow solar and wind to completely displace fossil fuels, you can really be proud of your win.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      I'm not proud nuclear proponents are ignorant of the reality of the situation. They care more about being "right" than what is feasible today. Nuclear would've been fine to go all in on 20 or 30 years ago; today, it's too late (considering the timeline between first kwh produced and breaking ground today). Mourning a tragedy isn't a strategy for success. If you can get it built, why isn't it built yet? Or at the very least, under construction.

7952 7y ago

I am generally in favour of nuclear. But objectively a nuclear reactor is massively more complex than say a turbine or solar panel. It is harder to mass produce, more difficult to model, requires more skilled workers, and needs higher levels of security. It has stringent safety requirements as a result of radioactivity. All of that has to cost money. Nuclear physics is difficult and we should not underestimate the challenges. And we do have to make these things work in risk averse capitalist democracy. A perfect technology that you can't get consent for is useless. We are trying to generate energy, not build a techno utopia. It is not an academic question, but a practical one. Renewables wins because it is highly contentious but NOT difficult to build. Nuclear fails because it is highly contentious AND difficult to build Also, the storage debate leaves out interconnectors. That lets you use excess power now which is cheaper than storage.

koheripbal 7y ago
There are some incorrect arguments here - as well as some valid ones. You claim that a reactor is more complex than a turbine (I assume you mean a wind turbine) or a solar panel. This isn't an apples to apples comparison because a reactor provides 24x7x365 baseload power, whereas solar and wind would require MASSIVE storage facilities to be comparable. That is both cost-inefficient and complex. You claim the required number of highly skilled workers is high. Well, is that really true on a PER GWh basis? Reactors generate on average 1GW of power. Solar plants generate 50MW of power, at a highly variable rate. Even excluding the storage requirements, nuclear power likely employs fewer people. You claim that nuclear physics is difficult and complex and therefore costs money. A refined process and established international design can remove these bottlenecks. In the same way that we have immensely complex silicon wafer chips with tens of millions of 9 nano meter scale transistors in them - for only hundreds of dollars. You claim that safety costs money. That's true. But is it an unreasonable amount of money for the amount of power we're providing? A lot of the costs are borne from issues we cause ourselves. The Nevada storage facility is capable of holding literally ALL of the nuclear waste in America. Yet is remains closed because of fearmongering politics. (I think) You claim that storage can be largely solved by national interconnects. But if you look at the massive power distribution systems in Northern Canada - they lose around 25% of the power in transmission alone, going only a fraction of the way that a NATIONAL power transmission grid would require. The problem with renewables remains the storage problem. There are few practical solutions on the scale that are needed, and I find that most anti-nuclear pro-renewable advocates are simply not doing the math.