17 ms·

I agree. How about the radical move of deciding not to shut down a large nuclear power plant in California in 2025[1] that could power millions of these cars, c

I agree. How about the radical move of deciding not to shut down a large nuclear power plant in California in 2025[1] that could power millions of these cars, carbon free. Trying to fix climate change without nuclear power is likely impossible at this point, but very few climate change activists support it. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant

notJim 6y ago
I'm not saying I completely agree with closing the plant, but to be fair to the argument they make, the agreement does seem to spell out that the plant will be replaced with greenhouse gas free energy sources, including renewables + storage. IMO the biggest problem with nuclear is the cost and time to construct. I don't think the energy industry would be so keen to shut them down if they were cost effective.
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  They are expensive and take long to construct because of political and environmental requirements on them. This is not an inherent property of nuclear, and can be solved with a single stroke of the pen. This is not going to happen, though, because people tend to think that if something is "environmental", then it must be good.
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    That’s pretty naive. Companies will always put off big capital expenses as long as possible, especially if someone else holds the risk.
    - xyzzyz 6y ago
      No, companies are extremely happy to make huge capital expenses, if they expect to make a good profit on them. For example, California's PG&E is planning to spend a whopping $40B in investment over next 5 years, because California government guarantees 10% annual return on investment.
      - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        Wtf is the point of sourcing market investment if you are going to guarantee profits? All the usual market mechanisms to ensure efficiency don't work, you are just handing out free money at the expence of the taxpayer. You might as well just issue bonds and invest money directly.
        Spooky23 6y ago
        Or having a municipality just build and operate the resource. There’s a reason roads aren’t private.
        xyzzyz 6y ago
        It is by no means clear that if “municipality” built it, it would be any cheaper. Experience suggests the opposite.
        Spooky23 6y ago
        Maybe in California. In Plattsburgh, NY, electric rates are 75% less than the state average. Pretty sure the other municipal utilities are similar. (About 30 in NY) With civil service employees, management overhead costs are usually way lower. Corporate management usually gets overpaid.
        ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        I you want to use 'free market', then use it properly. If the state guarantees profit, you get the worst of both worlds.
        xyzzyz 6y ago
        Right. There are many things the government could possibly do, and it could theoretically do them as well as private sector does, and in many case even better than private sector (as governments enjoy many privileges that private companies don't). However, this is upper bound of what we could get from governments running things. Most of us need to settle with governments as they actually exist, and the actual outcomes. The track record does not seem encouraging, and arguments of the sort "this time it will be different, we'll just put our people in charge, who are better than people who were previously in charge" aren't particularly appealing.
- vondur 6y ago
  I'm not sure about that goal, California currently imports around 32% of its power now. That number will likely increase if we shut down all of the remaining nuclear.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    California can import clean solar from Arizona and Nevada (which have enormous solar potential), as well as hydro and wind from the pacific northwest.
    - tialaramex 6y ago
      How much night time solar can Arizona and Nevada give them, today, or in say ten years? Serious question. The nice thing about Nuclear is that it's boringly reliable. You buy a 500MW nuclear power plant, you're getting ~500MW from that maybe 80-90% of the time. Own a half dozen of those (3GW nameplate capacity) and you can have 2GW or more pretty much always. You buy 3GW of solar panels obviously they don't do anything for a big portion of every day because the sun is on the far side of the planet, so then either you're also buying a lot of storage and more panels, or you don't have a replacement for the nuke plant. Now, if you have 3GW of molten salt concentrated solar maybe you can hit that 80-90% reliability on the individual units and replace the nuke plant, but do Nevada and Arizona have any of those today? Are they expected to build a California nuke plant's worth any time soon?
      - epistasis 6y ago
        Serious answer: as much nigh time solar as you want, via battery storage, at cost competitive prices. Here's a three year old project in Arizona for solar plus storage at less than $45/MWh: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/how-can-tucson-electric-get-solar-storage-for-45kwh/443715/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/how-can-tucson-electric-get... Since then, the public bidding processes in Nevada and Colorado have revealed many more projects at similar costs. Since utility planning is typically on a five year timeline, bids are expected to be at the cost of storage at the time of delivery, and since the cost of storage is falling 20% per year, outsiders think that these projects are taking future cost drops into account. But if a three year old project is so affordable, anything delivered in the next six months will be pretty equivalent.
dv_dt 6y ago
Personally I don't support it because the plant is on an earthquake fault, the design lifetime of that plant is near the end of life anyway, upgrade of nuclear plants has gone bad in CA before[1], and finally the upgrade resources could be better applied to renewable resources. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_...
- takeda 6y ago
  Also don't forget that it is run by PG&E.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Fjolsvith 6y ago
    With rolling blackouts.
- cbmuser 6y ago
  Plants can operate well beyond their planned lifespan: > https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-reactor-much-longer-you-might-think https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-re...
  - dv_dt 6y ago
    Can is not the same as should. Between economic and risk considerations, Diablo canyon has been judged as a case of should not.
Rapzid 6y ago
The advances in reactor design, especially from a safety standpoint, are pretty amazing IMHO. Shut it down and and start building these newer reactors like crazy is what I say.
- howlgarnish 6y ago
  They're trying to build newer EPRs in Europe, but 3 out of 3 are a decade plus delayed and way the hell over the budget. (The only ones actually operating are in China, and even those were years late.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)
  - deepsun 6y ago
    Every project takes longer when doing it for the first time. But we can learn from their mistakes and plan accordingly.
    - Skgqie1 6y ago
      What always seems especially disingenuous in these discussions, is the abnormal focus on nuclear projects going over budget (regardless if it's a first pass or not). It's almost a truism at this point, to say that a look large infrastructure project is going to go over time and over budget. But when nuclear is in the picture, this seems to be wheeled out like its somehow a fault of nuclear alone.
      - 7952 6y ago
        Perhaps because solar and wind are orders of magnitude less complex. So they are less likely to go massively over budget. Because most of the work streams can be bought at fixed cost from reliable contractors.
renewiltord 6y ago
Well, you have to convince the locals there since you and your neighbours aren't willing to have a plant next door.
adrr 6y ago
Operating generation two reactors makes no sense. There is a risk of a meltdown with them and it has happened multiple times which has had negative impact on the adoption of nuclear reactors. We need to shut them all down and replace them with generator 4 reactors. They are more efficient and produce less hazardous waste. Most importantly they are much safer which will help restore public opinion of nuclear power.
- jabl 6y ago
  As long as we're producing electricity by burning fossil fuels, keeping existing nuclear power plants running is the lower risk option.
  - neuronic 6y ago
    Not happening, nuclear is too expensive and will not be economically sustainable against renewables. They are simply cheaper.
    - stjohnswarts 6y ago
      Technology has a way of making things cheaper, it's not limited to renewables. You'll be shocked when you see what's available in a few years from Gen 4 and beyond reactors.
hristov 6y ago
It would be truly radical to keep this plant running that far past its originally designed life time. In fact it will be more like suicidal. Not to mention that it is in a seismically dangerous area. There is plenty of energy in renewables that is far cheaper and safer than nuclear.
athms 6y ago
Every nuclear power plant in the United States has been a money pit and produced the most expensive electricity. Not a single one has opened on time or stayed within its budget, and all have required government assistance. Plus, the spent fuel has no place to go, it stays on site in concrete casks, potentially forever.
- ebg13 6y ago
  > Every nuclear power plant in the United States has been a money pit Let's pretend that this is unequivocally true. Sometimes doing things for public health and safety costs money. It seems like the main question we should ask is "would switching to nuclear significantly save lives and improve the environment?". Most research says yes. See e.g.: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d... https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy And since that's the case, then we can ask a new question: "Does your 'money pit' statement account for the benefits of reduced mortality and greenhouse emissions, or are you only thinking about the electric bill?"
  - athms 6y ago
    >Let's pretend that this is unequivocally true. I don't have to pretend, it is true. Not a single nuclear plant in the United States has opened on time and on budget. Not a single one. In the 1950s, nuclear power was heralded as the cheapest electricity possible, so cheap that it would be almost free. Electricity generated from nuclear is about four times more expensive than solar and wind. >Does your 'money pit' statement account for the benefits of reduced mortality and greenhouse emissions, or are you only thinking about the electric bill? I don't live in fantasy land, somebody has to pay for it. I am already on the hook for PG&E's misdeeds. Having tens of nuclear graveyards, especially close to population centers is not a good idea when California is covered with active faults. Nuclear needs water and lots of it. Perhaps you are not familiar with California.
    - jerzyt 6y ago
unchocked 6y ago
Downvoted for whataboutism.
epistasis 6y ago
I think you've got that a bit reversed, trying to fix climate change with nuclear is a bit impossible at this point. We can't build it! Why is this plant shutting down? Not because of some sort of hate of nuclear technology, as many would have us believe. No, the real reason this plant is shutting down is because, like every other thermal generation plant, extending its lifetime past the original license means complying with environmental impact laws on waste heat. Once-through waste heat systems are no longer legal [1]. So why not just build a waste heat system and keep it running? Because when the utility tried to come up with one, the cost of the cooling system alone ran into the billions of dollars! Much better to just by a few billion dollars worth of batteries and site them on location. At current costs, today, $1B gets you 5GWh at 1.25GW, roughly. The very cheapest estimate for a cooling system was $7B and they ran to over $10B for a new cooling system [2]. So even without the inevitable cost overruns, one could purchase 35-50GWh and 9-12GW of batteries. A 40GWh/10GW battery would be a far better grid asset for California, and massive increase reliability far beyond what Diablo Canyon could ever produce. When the mere cooling system for nuclear is more expensive than a better battery, the technology is dead, dead, dead. We don't need it and we have better alternatives. [1] https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/environment/article39459930.html https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/environment/article... [2] https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/ocean/cwa316/rcnfpp/docs/subbechcom_111314.pdf https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/ocean/c...
- andbberger 6y ago
  > I think you've got that a bit reversed, trying to fix climate change with nuclear is a bit impossible at this point. We can't build it! Can't or won't?
  - epistasis 6y ago
    In the US, it's mostly can't. The last attempt caused massive risk to Toshiba as its subsidiary Westinghouse was destroyed by its attempts. In the UK, at Wylfa, it's more "won't", Hitachi just refused to go forward with a new build, since it couldn't find external investors despite very generous guaranteed pricing for its energy. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-54158091 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-54158091 At least, it appears to be "won't", because who knows if a construction project that was started would ever be finished. If the new nuclear startups come through, everything has changed. But the new small ones they are designing are not really anything like the nuclear reactors of yore, so we have to wait and see if they pan out on costs. And in the decades they need to come online, storage and solar and wind keep halving in price every few years. But at the moment, pretend you're Jeff Bezos and want to buy $50B of nuclear reactors, however much that ends up in practice. Who do you go to? Toshiba, Hitachi? No. EDF? Hell no. Maybe South Korea? But they had their recent corruption scandal for inspections of nuclear plants. Rosatom? Feel like getting into bed with Putin? What's left of the industry?
Robotbeat 6y ago
I agree about not shutting down nuclear but I also disagree about it being impossible without it (see: https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ ) as well as disagree about "very few climate change activists support it." It's supported by the official 2020 Democratic Party platform: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbryce/2020/08/23/after-48-years-democrats-endorse-nuclear-energy-in-platform/#1fb93b885829 https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbryce/2020/08/23/after-48... Renewables (as well as storage) have reduced in cost (and continue to reduce in cost) much faster than has been expected by groups like the EIA.gov. While I fully support nuclear of all sorts, it's likely not to have a massive impact beyond the ~19% of electricity it provides today. It just takes too long to build, and proving a new design that'd be faster to build would also take a while, so it'd be supplemental to the energy transition, not the primary power source. This is much different from 20 years ago when even wind power was still much more expensive than it is today, when off-shore wind was an expensive science project, when solar was literally over 10x (EDIT: more like 20x) the price as well as battery storage. At that point, yeah, I would've agreed nuclear was our only option for a rapid transition.
- cbmuser 6y ago
  Germany has 50% renewables in its electricity mix, France has 70% nuclear. France produces 50 grams of CO2 for every kWh, Germany 400 grams. If Germany hadn’t shutdown 11 nuclear power plants since 2011, emissions in the electricity sector would now be 50% to 70% lower.
  - rfw300 6y ago
    I agree with your point that Germany shouldn’t have shut down their nuclear plants, but their emissions problem isn’t the 50% renewables, it’s the ~40% that comes from burning coal.
    - evgen 6y ago
      I believe the point being made was that if it had not shut down its nuclear plants it would not need baseload generation from coal. Nuclear for base plus renewables and some small amount of storage capacity seems to be the ideal mix for cutting CO2 emissions.
newacct583 6y ago
Why is everything a whataboutist answer to nuclear fans? Diablo Canyon is over 50 years old. It's not considered a particularly safe design. Stretching a few more years out of it isn't going to make a significant impact, certainly not relative to the auto regulation under discussion. I mean, look, sure. I "support" extending Diablo Canyon in principle. But that takes a ton of money, and I'd like to see numbers showing that isn't better spent on a bunch of wind farms.
option 6y ago
because of shutdowns like these, CA (LA county specifically) now buys more coal generated electricity from Utah
nswest23 6y ago
I do not understand why we are not putting more resources into figuring out nuclear fusion.

notJim 6y ago

I'm not saying I completely agree with closing the plant, but to be fair to the argument they make, the agreement does seem to spell out that the plant will be replaced with greenhouse gas free energy sources, including renewables + storage. IMO the biggest problem with nuclear is the cost and time to construct. I don't think the energy industry would be so keen to shut them down if they were cost effective.

xyzzyz 6y ago
They are expensive and take long to construct because of political and environmental requirements on them. This is not an inherent property of nuclear, and can be solved with a single stroke of the pen. This is not going to happen, though, because people tend to think that if something is "environmental", then it must be good.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  That’s pretty naive. Companies will always put off big capital expenses as long as possible, especially if someone else holds the risk.
  - xyzzyz 6y ago
    No, companies are extremely happy to make huge capital expenses, if they expect to make a good profit on them. For example, California's PG&E is planning to spend a whopping $40B in investment over next 5 years, because California government guarantees 10% annual return on investment.
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      Wtf is the point of sourcing market investment if you are going to guarantee profits? All the usual market mechanisms to ensure efficiency don't work, you are just handing out free money at the expence of the taxpayer. You might as well just issue bonds and invest money directly.
      - Spooky23 6y ago
        Or having a municipality just build and operate the resource. There’s a reason roads aren’t private.
        xyzzyz 6y ago
        It is by no means clear that if “municipality” built it, it would be any cheaper. Experience suggests the opposite.
        Spooky23 6y ago
        Maybe in California. In Plattsburgh, NY, electric rates are 75% less than the state average. Pretty sure the other municipal utilities are similar. (About 30 in NY) With civil service employees, management overhead costs are usually way lower. Corporate management usually gets overpaid.
        ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        I you want to use 'free market', then use it properly. If the state guarantees profit, you get the worst of both worlds.
        xyzzyz 6y ago
        Right. There are many things the government could possibly do, and it could theoretically do them as well as private sector does, and in many case even better than private sector (as governments enjoy many privileges that private companies don't). However, this is upper bound of what we could get from governments running things. Most of us need to settle with governments as they actually exist, and the actual outcomes. The track record does not seem encouraging, and arguments of the sort "this time it will be different, we'll just put our people in charge, who are better than people who were previously in charge" aren't particularly appealing.
vondur 6y ago
I'm not sure about that goal, California currently imports around 32% of its power now. That number will likely increase if we shut down all of the remaining nuclear.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  California can import clean solar from Arizona and Nevada (which have enormous solar potential), as well as hydro and wind from the pacific northwest.
  - tialaramex 6y ago
    How much night time solar can Arizona and Nevada give them, today, or in say ten years? Serious question. The nice thing about Nuclear is that it's boringly reliable. You buy a 500MW nuclear power plant, you're getting ~500MW from that maybe 80-90% of the time. Own a half dozen of those (3GW nameplate capacity) and you can have 2GW or more pretty much always. You buy 3GW of solar panels obviously they don't do anything for a big portion of every day because the sun is on the far side of the planet, so then either you're also buying a lot of storage and more panels, or you don't have a replacement for the nuke plant. Now, if you have 3GW of molten salt concentrated solar maybe you can hit that 80-90% reliability on the individual units and replace the nuke plant, but do Nevada and Arizona have any of those today? Are they expected to build a California nuke plant's worth any time soon?
    - epistasis 6y ago
      Serious answer: as much nigh time solar as you want, via battery storage, at cost competitive prices. Here's a three year old project in Arizona for solar plus storage at less than $45/MWh: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/how-can-tucson-electric-get-solar-storage-for-45kwh/443715/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/how-can-tucson-electric-get... Since then, the public bidding processes in Nevada and Colorado have revealed many more projects at similar costs. Since utility planning is typically on a five year timeline, bids are expected to be at the cost of storage at the time of delivery, and since the cost of storage is falling 20% per year, outsiders think that these projects are taking future cost drops into account. But if a three year old project is so affordable, anything delivered in the next six months will be pretty equivalent.

dv_dt 6y ago

Personally I don't support it because the plant is on an earthquake fault, the design lifetime of that plant is near the end of life anyway, upgrade of nuclear plants has gone bad in CA before[1], and finally the upgrade resources could be better applied to renewable resources. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_...

takeda 6y ago
Also don't forget that it is run by PG&E.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Fjolsvith 6y ago
  With rolling blackouts.
cbmuser 6y ago
Plants can operate well beyond their planned lifespan: > https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-reactor-much-longer-you-might-think https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-re...
- dv_dt 6y ago
  Can is not the same as should. Between economic and risk considerations, Diablo canyon has been judged as a case of should not.

Rapzid 6y ago

The advances in reactor design, especially from a safety standpoint, are pretty amazing IMHO. Shut it down and and start building these newer reactors like crazy is what I say.

howlgarnish 6y ago
They're trying to build newer EPRs in Europe, but 3 out of 3 are a decade plus delayed and way the hell over the budget. (The only ones actually operating are in China, and even those were years late.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)
- deepsun 6y ago
  Every project takes longer when doing it for the first time. But we can learn from their mistakes and plan accordingly.
  - Skgqie1 6y ago
    What always seems especially disingenuous in these discussions, is the abnormal focus on nuclear projects going over budget (regardless if it's a first pass or not). It's almost a truism at this point, to say that a look large infrastructure project is going to go over time and over budget. But when nuclear is in the picture, this seems to be wheeled out like its somehow a fault of nuclear alone.
    - 7952 6y ago
      Perhaps because solar and wind are orders of magnitude less complex. So they are less likely to go massively over budget. Because most of the work streams can be bought at fixed cost from reliable contractors.

renewiltord 6y ago

Well, you have to convince the locals there since you and your neighbours aren't willing to have a plant next door.

adrr 6y ago

Operating generation two reactors makes no sense. There is a risk of a meltdown with them and it has happened multiple times which has had negative impact on the adoption of nuclear reactors. We need to shut them all down and replace them with generator 4 reactors. They are more efficient and produce less hazardous waste. Most importantly they are much safer which will help restore public opinion of nuclear power.

jabl 6y ago
As long as we're producing electricity by burning fossil fuels, keeping existing nuclear power plants running is the lower risk option.
- neuronic 6y ago
  Not happening, nuclear is too expensive and will not be economically sustainable against renewables. They are simply cheaper.
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    Technology has a way of making things cheaper, it's not limited to renewables. You'll be shocked when you see what's available in a few years from Gen 4 and beyond reactors.

hristov 6y ago

It would be truly radical to keep this plant running that far past its originally designed life time. In fact it will be more like suicidal. Not to mention that it is in a seismically dangerous area. There is plenty of energy in renewables that is far cheaper and safer than nuclear.

athms 6y ago

Every nuclear power plant in the United States has been a money pit and produced the most expensive electricity. Not a single one has opened on time or stayed within its budget, and all have required government assistance. Plus, the spent fuel has no place to go, it stays on site in concrete casks, potentially forever.

ebg13 6y ago
> Every nuclear power plant in the United States has been a money pit Let's pretend that this is unequivocally true. Sometimes doing things for public health and safety costs money. It seems like the main question we should ask is "would switching to nuclear significantly save lives and improve the environment?". Most research says yes. See e.g.: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d... https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy And since that's the case, then we can ask a new question: "Does your 'money pit' statement account for the benefits of reduced mortality and greenhouse emissions, or are you only thinking about the electric bill?"
- athms 6y ago
  >Let's pretend that this is unequivocally true. I don't have to pretend, it is true. Not a single nuclear plant in the United States has opened on time and on budget. Not a single one. In the 1950s, nuclear power was heralded as the cheapest electricity possible, so cheap that it would be almost free. Electricity generated from nuclear is about four times more expensive than solar and wind. >Does your 'money pit' statement account for the benefits of reduced mortality and greenhouse emissions, or are you only thinking about the electric bill? I don't live in fantasy land, somebody has to pay for it. I am already on the hook for PG&E's misdeeds. Having tens of nuclear graveyards, especially close to population centers is not a good idea when California is covered with active faults. Nuclear needs water and lots of it. Perhaps you are not familiar with California.
  - jerzyt 6y ago

unchocked 6y ago

Downvoted for whataboutism.

epistasis 6y ago

I think you've got that a bit reversed, trying to fix climate change with nuclear is a bit impossible at this point. We can't build it! Why is this plant shutting down? Not because of some sort of hate of nuclear technology, as many would have us believe. No, the real reason this plant is shutting down is because, like every other thermal generation plant, extending its lifetime past the original license means complying with environmental impact laws on waste heat. Once-through waste heat systems are no longer legal [1]. So why not just build a waste heat system and keep it running? Because when the utility tried to come up with one, the cost of the cooling system alone ran into the billions of dollars! Much better to just by a few billion dollars worth of batteries and site them on location. At current costs, today, $1B gets you 5GWh at 1.25GW, roughly. The very cheapest estimate for a cooling system was $7B and they ran to over $10B for a new cooling system [2]. So even without the inevitable cost overruns, one could purchase 35-50GWh and 9-12GW of batteries. A 40GWh/10GW battery would be a far better grid asset for California, and massive increase reliability far beyond what Diablo Canyon could ever produce. When the mere cooling system for nuclear is more expensive than a better battery, the technology is dead, dead, dead. We don't need it and we have better alternatives. [1] https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/environment/article39459930.html https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/environment/article... [2] https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/ocean/cwa316/rcnfpp/docs/subbechcom_111314.pdf https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/ocean/c...

andbberger 6y ago
> I think you've got that a bit reversed, trying to fix climate change with nuclear is a bit impossible at this point. We can't build it! Can't or won't?
- epistasis 6y ago
  In the US, it's mostly can't. The last attempt caused massive risk to Toshiba as its subsidiary Westinghouse was destroyed by its attempts. In the UK, at Wylfa, it's more "won't", Hitachi just refused to go forward with a new build, since it couldn't find external investors despite very generous guaranteed pricing for its energy. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-54158091 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-54158091 At least, it appears to be "won't", because who knows if a construction project that was started would ever be finished. If the new nuclear startups come through, everything has changed. But the new small ones they are designing are not really anything like the nuclear reactors of yore, so we have to wait and see if they pan out on costs. And in the decades they need to come online, storage and solar and wind keep halving in price every few years. But at the moment, pretend you're Jeff Bezos and want to buy $50B of nuclear reactors, however much that ends up in practice. Who do you go to? Toshiba, Hitachi? No. EDF? Hell no. Maybe South Korea? But they had their recent corruption scandal for inspections of nuclear plants. Rosatom? Feel like getting into bed with Putin? What's left of the industry?

Robotbeat 6y ago

I agree about not shutting down nuclear but I also disagree about it being impossible without it (see: https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ ) as well as disagree about "very few climate change activists support it." It's supported by the official 2020 Democratic Party platform: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbryce/2020/08/23/after-48-years-democrats-endorse-nuclear-energy-in-platform/#1fb93b885829 https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbryce/2020/08/23/after-48... Renewables (as well as storage) have reduced in cost (and continue to reduce in cost) much faster than has been expected by groups like the EIA.gov. While I fully support nuclear of all sorts, it's likely not to have a massive impact beyond the ~19% of electricity it provides today. It just takes too long to build, and proving a new design that'd be faster to build would also take a while, so it'd be supplemental to the energy transition, not the primary power source. This is much different from 20 years ago when even wind power was still much more expensive than it is today, when off-shore wind was an expensive science project, when solar was literally over 10x (EDIT: more like 20x) the price as well as battery storage. At that point, yeah, I would've agreed nuclear was our only option for a rapid transition.

cbmuser 6y ago
Germany has 50% renewables in its electricity mix, France has 70% nuclear. France produces 50 grams of CO2 for every kWh, Germany 400 grams. If Germany hadn’t shutdown 11 nuclear power plants since 2011, emissions in the electricity sector would now be 50% to 70% lower.
- rfw300 6y ago
  I agree with your point that Germany shouldn’t have shut down their nuclear plants, but their emissions problem isn’t the 50% renewables, it’s the ~40% that comes from burning coal.
  - evgen 6y ago
    I believe the point being made was that if it had not shut down its nuclear plants it would not need baseload generation from coal. Nuclear for base plus renewables and some small amount of storage capacity seems to be the ideal mix for cutting CO2 emissions.

newacct583 6y ago

Why is everything a whataboutist answer to nuclear fans? Diablo Canyon is over 50 years old. It's not considered a particularly safe design. Stretching a few more years out of it isn't going to make a significant impact, certainly not relative to the auto regulation under discussion. I mean, look, sure. I "support" extending Diablo Canyon in principle. But that takes a ton of money, and I'd like to see numbers showing that isn't better spent on a bunch of wind farms.

option 6y ago

because of shutdowns like these, CA (LA county specifically) now buys more coal generated electricity from Utah

nswest23 6y ago

I do not understand why we are not putting more resources into figuring out nuclear fusion.