5 ms·

Wait until this guy finds out France is nearly all nuclear and did it at 1/10th the cost of solar and wind. Are people not able to do an internet search for th

Wait until this guy finds out France is nearly all nuclear and did it at 1/10th the cost of solar and wind. Are people not able to do an internet search for this stuff? All this data is right out there in the open.

dv_dt 6y ago
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a33499619/france-nuclear-reactor-epr-expensive-mess/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a33499619/fr... France is going to retire end of life nuclear reactors and replace them with renewables, while their new generation reactors have had all the same cost and schedule overruns as elsewhere. Including BTW, China, which did all the construction expertise management for nuclear that the experts recommend - e.g. using the same crews the build multiple reactors, moving them from project to project. China too stopped building new reactors in favor of more renewables.
- wahern 6y ago
  > while their new generation reactors have had all the same cost and schedule overruns as elsewhere Reactor, singular. They've only tried to build one new reactor this century, Flamanville #3. Civaux reactors were finished in 1997. As in the U.S., it's clear the cost issue is primarily related to public sentiment, not fundamentals. France's existing nuclear energy infrastructure was built at a time when France was very pro-nuclear, and nuclear was a matter of national pride, thus the gall to sink the Rainbow Warrior. Times have changed, for better (less investment in nuclear weapons, appetite for murdering civilians) and worse (less support for nuclear energy). > China too stopped building new reactors in favor of more renewables. "China will build six to eight nuclear reactors a year between 2020 and 2025 and raise total capacity to 70 gigawatts (GW), up 43.5% compared to the end of May, the official China Daily said on Thursday, citing the country’s nuclear association." https://in.reuters.com/article/china-nuclearpower/china-to-build-6-8-nuclear-reactors-a-year-from-2020-2025-report-idINKBN24A0DL https://in.reuters.com/article/china-nuclearpower/china-to-b... Since 2011, over 30 reactors have come online, 3 of which began construction after Fukushima: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#China
  - dv_dt 6y ago
    It's been a while, so things might have changed, but this article had indicated that while having plants still on the schedule, China had drastically cut their actual nuclear project starts, electing to finish out started plants, with the exception of the one of their internal design. https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/12/12/138271/chinas-losing-its-taste-for-nuclear-power-thats-bad-news/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/12/12/138271/chinas-lo... We will see if those announcements actually go forward.
    - wahern 6y ago
      It's fair to say that China's enthusiasm for nuclear has diminished, but it seems energy demand in China is too great to completely sideline nuclear the way Western countries have. FWIW, here'a a May 2020 video purporting to show a construction milestone, placement of the second steel containment ring, for the first Zhangzhou reactor: https://www.facebook.com/ChinaNationalNuclear/videos/254793102470042/ https://www.facebook.com/ChinaNationalNuclear/videos/2547931...
jeffreyrogers 6y ago
It's a coping mechanism. They want to believe solar and wind will solve all the problems because it is comforting. Of course, it also totally ignores how renewables are enabled by peaker plants burning natural gas. And that renewables generate less electricity as a percentage of total usage now than in the 1950s. But somehow batteries are going to solve that problem. Of course, they haven't calculated how large the battery would need to be for that scenario to work out either.
- dv_dt 6y ago
  Renewables + storage is already cheaper than many workloads where natural gas peaker plants applied for short runs. The prices for nat gas plants is basically mature, while renewables and storage are on a manufacturing S-curve cost decline. Basically this means there will be expanding workloads where it makes no financial sense to use natural gas at all, let alone nuclear. It's a matter of when, and we should be accelerating financial threshold to fight the climate crisis.
  - jeffreyrogers 6y ago
    I understand what you are saying, but extrapolate out further. If we have 50% renewables how many batteries will be required? It's a lot of batteries. These batteries require lots of material inputs (copper, lithium, lead, cobalt, etc., depending on the chemistry). I did the calculation a while ago and it convinced me that it is not possible to consume as much energy as we currently do and meet the need with battery storage. Edit: You have to be able to handle the worst case. Which means you've maxed what you can get from non-renewables and you have a period where renewables are generating less than normal (e.g. low-wind and or cloudy for a few days). Right now, renewables work because you just fire up your peaker plants when you have no sun or wind, so you also don't need much storage. What happens when you need more storage? You have to build batteries (or pumped-water or whatever).
    - epistasis 6y ago
      Your calculations don't agree with the majority of what gets published in peer reviewed literature. Many different groups have come up with tunable models to match current energy consumption with renewable build from 80% to 100%, with tunable parameters to cost optimize. General consensus is that nuclear at a small percentage would help greatly. However these models tend to use cost curve estimates from 5 years ago, so they assume that nuclear is far cheaper than reality, and meanwhile wind solar and storage have been ourperforming their predicted cost curves. I would be willing to bet a dollar that for 95% of the earth, a wind/solar/storage/hydro grid will be cheaper, use fewer toxic resources, and produce more excess energy than one that includes nuclear. Because once you don't plan for that baseload, you start overbuilding cheap solar and wind to give excess capacity. A renewables-based grid is one with excess unused capacity nearly all the time, and one that is right at capacity for ~week per year.
epistasis 6y ago
Oh I know about that. I also know about their attempts to do it again in the past decades.... not looking good! Don't forget the Canada examples too! They were able to build effectively. I don't think corporate culture in the US is capable of it. Ironically the one thing that may have saved Westinghouse is if there had been more regulation, and the NRC has to not only evaluate safety of the designs, but also "can we even build this thing." Something that an exec with long term thinking would ensure! But current executive culture is about cost cutting in the moment, and it has pervaded even those companies that need to be thinking on decade long builds of projects that need to last half a century or more.

dv_dt 6y ago

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a33499619/france-nuclear-reactor-epr-expensive-mess/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a33499619/fr... France is going to retire end of life nuclear reactors and replace them with renewables, while their new generation reactors have had all the same cost and schedule overruns as elsewhere. Including BTW, China, which did all the construction expertise management for nuclear that the experts recommend - e.g. using the same crews the build multiple reactors, moving them from project to project. China too stopped building new reactors in favor of more renewables.

wahern 6y ago
> while their new generation reactors have had all the same cost and schedule overruns as elsewhere Reactor, singular. They've only tried to build one new reactor this century, Flamanville #3. Civaux reactors were finished in 1997. As in the U.S., it's clear the cost issue is primarily related to public sentiment, not fundamentals. France's existing nuclear energy infrastructure was built at a time when France was very pro-nuclear, and nuclear was a matter of national pride, thus the gall to sink the Rainbow Warrior. Times have changed, for better (less investment in nuclear weapons, appetite for murdering civilians) and worse (less support for nuclear energy). > China too stopped building new reactors in favor of more renewables. "China will build six to eight nuclear reactors a year between 2020 and 2025 and raise total capacity to 70 gigawatts (GW), up 43.5% compared to the end of May, the official China Daily said on Thursday, citing the country’s nuclear association." https://in.reuters.com/article/china-nuclearpower/china-to-build-6-8-nuclear-reactors-a-year-from-2020-2025-report-idINKBN24A0DL https://in.reuters.com/article/china-nuclearpower/china-to-b... Since 2011, over 30 reactors have come online, 3 of which began construction after Fukushima: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#China
- dv_dt 6y ago
  It's been a while, so things might have changed, but this article had indicated that while having plants still on the schedule, China had drastically cut their actual nuclear project starts, electing to finish out started plants, with the exception of the one of their internal design. https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/12/12/138271/chinas-losing-its-taste-for-nuclear-power-thats-bad-news/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/12/12/138271/chinas-lo... We will see if those announcements actually go forward.
  - wahern 6y ago
    It's fair to say that China's enthusiasm for nuclear has diminished, but it seems energy demand in China is too great to completely sideline nuclear the way Western countries have. FWIW, here'a a May 2020 video purporting to show a construction milestone, placement of the second steel containment ring, for the first Zhangzhou reactor: https://www.facebook.com/ChinaNationalNuclear/videos/254793102470042/ https://www.facebook.com/ChinaNationalNuclear/videos/2547931...

jeffreyrogers 6y ago

It's a coping mechanism. They want to believe solar and wind will solve all the problems because it is comforting. Of course, it also totally ignores how renewables are enabled by peaker plants burning natural gas. And that renewables generate less electricity as a percentage of total usage now than in the 1950s. But somehow batteries are going to solve that problem. Of course, they haven't calculated how large the battery would need to be for that scenario to work out either.

dv_dt 6y ago
Renewables + storage is already cheaper than many workloads where natural gas peaker plants applied for short runs. The prices for nat gas plants is basically mature, while renewables and storage are on a manufacturing S-curve cost decline. Basically this means there will be expanding workloads where it makes no financial sense to use natural gas at all, let alone nuclear. It's a matter of when, and we should be accelerating financial threshold to fight the climate crisis.
- jeffreyrogers 6y ago
  I understand what you are saying, but extrapolate out further. If we have 50% renewables how many batteries will be required? It's a lot of batteries. These batteries require lots of material inputs (copper, lithium, lead, cobalt, etc., depending on the chemistry). I did the calculation a while ago and it convinced me that it is not possible to consume as much energy as we currently do and meet the need with battery storage. Edit: You have to be able to handle the worst case. Which means you've maxed what you can get from non-renewables and you have a period where renewables are generating less than normal (e.g. low-wind and or cloudy for a few days). Right now, renewables work because you just fire up your peaker plants when you have no sun or wind, so you also don't need much storage. What happens when you need more storage? You have to build batteries (or pumped-water or whatever).
  - epistasis 6y ago
    Your calculations don't agree with the majority of what gets published in peer reviewed literature. Many different groups have come up with tunable models to match current energy consumption with renewable build from 80% to 100%, with tunable parameters to cost optimize. General consensus is that nuclear at a small percentage would help greatly. However these models tend to use cost curve estimates from 5 years ago, so they assume that nuclear is far cheaper than reality, and meanwhile wind solar and storage have been ourperforming their predicted cost curves. I would be willing to bet a dollar that for 95% of the earth, a wind/solar/storage/hydro grid will be cheaper, use fewer toxic resources, and produce more excess energy than one that includes nuclear. Because once you don't plan for that baseload, you start overbuilding cheap solar and wind to give excess capacity. A renewables-based grid is one with excess unused capacity nearly all the time, and one that is right at capacity for ~week per year.

epistasis 6y ago

Oh I know about that. I also know about their attempts to do it again in the past decades.... not looking good! Don't forget the Canada examples too! They were able to build effectively. I don't think corporate culture in the US is capable of it. Ironically the one thing that may have saved Westinghouse is if there had been more regulation, and the NRC has to not only evaluate safety of the designs, but also "can we even build this thing." Something that an exec with long term thinking would ensure! But current executive culture is about cost cutting in the moment, and it has pervaded even those companies that need to be thinking on decade long builds of projects that need to last half a century or more.