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I completely agree. I imagine using electricity to power everything paired with basically free nuclear power makes for a pretty sweet future. For whatever reaso
by read_if_gay_ 7y ago
I completely agree. I imagine using electricity to power everything paired with basically free nuclear power makes for a pretty sweet future. For whatever reason though, people and even “green” politicians generally seem opposed to nuclear.
- simonh 7y agoI do believe nuclear should have a role, but please don’t peddle the ‘basically free’ fantasy.
- read_if_gay_ 7y agoCan you elaborate in what way it is a fantasy?
- baq 7y agoIt’s actually very expensive.
- ben_w 7y agoUSA electricity demand was 12071 kWh/person over 2016. Multiply by $0.1/kWh (cost of nuclear power given elsewhere in replies to this submission) means Americans would have spent $1207 on electricity, per person not per household, for that year.
- pjc50 7y agoIt's expensive to build and maintain to the required level of safety? Even if, somehow, you had a perfectly safe magic hot rock that could put out a gigawatt, all the plumbing and turbine machinery would still have a minimum cost level that would be cheap but still metered. Maybe something like half the cost of natural gas.
- cygx 7y agoBecause nuclear is more expensive than on-shore wind and solar (as well as natural gas, for that matter). The problem with renewables today is not cost, but concerns about variability of the output.
- 7952 7y agoIn conservative western countries a large proportion of people are opposed to new development of all kings most of the time. That is absolutely true of energy developments, new housing, infrastructure. Dealing with public opposition is a basic neccessity of building stuff.
- ianai 7y agoSociety could literally decide how much energy they want and grow it at whatever rate. No need to be bound by how much oil is in a deposit.
- patall 7y agoYou mean "basically free" as in 10ct/kwh (the price HinkleyPointC in the UK got guaranteed). While most renewable sources on the market get guarantees in the range 2-5 ct/kwh. Even Power2gas2power seems cheaper at this point. And let's not talk how long it currently takes to build a nuclear power plant. In Europe we are currently at about 20 years for that to happen. Sure that happens partially because people oppose it but people also oppose green energy in their backyard and even coal power plants are built faster. If it is clever to shut down existing nuclear power plants (which are very often past planned life time) one can argue, but building new ones? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#...
- hannob 7y agoAre you a time traveller? Because I've only read about the "basically free nuclear" myth in some books from the early 80s.
- mcv 7y agoNuclear energy is not free, though. Doing it safely is pretty expensive. The "whatever" reason that many people were opposed to it, is that nuclear disaster and nuclear waste are serious issues. Just not nearly as serious as global warming is. It's possible that the risks posed by nuclear energy have been overestimated, while the risks of fossil fuels have been underestimated quite a bit.
- Reason077 7y ago> "imagine using electricity to power everything paired with basically free nuclear power" The problem with this fantasy is that nuclear power is not by any stretch of the imagination "basically free". New build nuclear is very expensive, costing much more on a per-MWh basis than most renewables. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't be developing new technology to improve the cost effectiveness of nuclear in the future. But right now, each dollar spent on renewables delivers more carbon savings than each dollar spent on nuclear.