5 ms·

Yes. We need more nuclear. By far the safest way to tackle climate change.

epistasis 6y ago
I disagree, it is one of the riskiest ways to try to confront climate change. Any Western nation that has tried in the past 30 years has had terrible experiences with building it. Construction of nuclear in Western economies is too financially risky to pursue. It's too delayed. Even if we start 200 reactors tomorrow, expecting half of the construction projects to fail, we would not be able to finish them in time to have a significant climate impact, because they take too long to build.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  > we would not be able to finish them in time to have a significant climate impact, And you'd probably accelerate climate change because of all the carbon released in building those reactors.
- jakehop 6y ago
  There has been no other technology faster at decarbonizing the energy sector, than nuclear power. France and Sweden still hold the record for that exact same reason.
  - epistasis 6y ago
    This was true 50 years ago, but has not been true in the last thirty years. The technology has changed. Within the past 30 years, nuclear has become more expensive than alternatives, and a dollar invested in nuclear correlates with seven-fold less drop in emissions than that same dollar invested in renewables: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/53376 http://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/53376 Note that the above story has been criticized as being correlative, but that correlative reasoning is the same reasoning that's used when saying that France and Sweden have decarbonized with nuclear. (And Sweden owes a lot to hydropower, which is 45% of its electricity)
    - jakehop 6y ago
      You are simply not correct. I have read the study you cite. I don't question whether you've read the full study or only the news story, but the study has quite a few flaws and (what I view as) false assumptions. I'll argue against the news story, so I'm sure not to exclude anybody. >Nuclear and other renewables don't co-exist well, and both lead to lock-in and path dependancies Why should they co-exist? If you have 100% of your electricity generated by nuclear power, that is literally zero sense in buying wind turbines. The path dependancies are obvious: Wind farms require infrastructure that can handle 100% of the total power output, but will only see around 30-40% average capacity used. This requires a larger, decentral power grid, with a ton of resources poured into additional load balancing, as well as storage in times of low wind. Modern nuclear power has a capacity factor of >90%. It requires the grid to be dimensioned to the needed power; not huge spikes in production. It doesn't require storage and it doesn't require expensive balancing systems, needed for intermittent sources of energy. >Countries with high GDP and nuclear lower their CO2-emissions slower than similar countries with other renewables In Denmark, our taxes on energy has increased tremendously alongside the roll-out of "cheap" renewables. This obviously changes demand, which is why the study is indeed correlative. And in Denmark we're cheating right now: Our biofuels (mainly wood from Estonia and the US) count as zero emissions, since they "grow back in 60 years". This type of fraudulent behaviour changes our balance sheet. And even with our massive expansion of wind energy, our average CO2-emissions per kWh of electricity used is still around 3-6x that of Sweden. To the question of something being "true 50 years ago, but not true in the last 30 years", look to figure 2 in the link below and you will see how your statement is not correct. The figure (and the article it originates from) clearly argues that e.g. my country of birth, Denmark, which has spent an incredibly large amount of money (relative to the size of our economy) propping up the wind industry and constructing large wind farms, have been much* slower at adding non-carbon energy sources to the production of electricity. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6299/547.figures-only https://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6299/547.figures-... I know how Sweden produces its electricity, but I don't know what makes hydro relevant here? I am purely talking about the Swedish expansion of nuclear power, which was the fastest expansion of stable green electricity production in the world, to date. That it happened more than 30 years ago only begs the question, as to how no one has caught up to that yet. Having asked the Swedish state nuclear authority about the possibility of expanding nuclear power, they state that given a positive political climate (e.g. removing red tape and vetocracy, but keeping a high level of safety), they could roll out new reactors in around 5 years, at $4100 pr. kW capacity. This is 10-30% cheaper than 2020 off-shore wind farms – without solving the storage issue! For me, climate change is a serious issue, requiring serious solutions. This is where I see nuclear energy. All the talk of "slow roll-out" simply goes against the facts and oddly enough, the same people are also against rolling it out – talk about correlation! Nuclear has the stability, economics and climate factors right. And newer technologies will only make this better. It must be done in a safe way. We can't have old plants not being maintained properly. No new power plants have been built in the EU or US for the last 30 years, which has lead to brain drain in the industry. Newer plants might cost more in the start, but that too will level off. The same argument that one uses for their own preferred tech mustn't be forgotten for the opposing side. I understand that you are invested in this debate, but it is simply indefensible to make these types of straw-man arguments. If you want to criticise nuclear power, try making a steel-man argument and argue against that. This is far more efficient – and respectful to your debate partner - than speaking against concrete facts.
- Aachen 6y ago
  Those projects failing is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's the public narrative that makes laws and funding disappear and reappear every 4 years, not to mention continuous brainwashing in climate groups. But realistically speaking, I take your point. I just don't want to dismiss nuclear for the wrong reason. We need to make a choice of how much energy to build where, using which technology, and by when. Let's make it. Realistically people are going to hate on nuclear for stupid reasons? Fine, then please let us find an energy mix that works where we reach our climate goals. And we can still adjust those projects whose start-by date hasn't passed if, say, fusion is looking good. We just shouldn't wait and pray, as we're currently doing for the most part, because that mistake will catch up to us. Rather, let's make the plan and only adjust parts with other parts that work rather than leave huge, huge blanks.
  - epistasis 6y ago
    Where nuclear has failed, at Vogtle in South Carolina, at VC Summer in Georgia, at Wylfa, all of EDFs projects, the failure hasn't been from funding showing up and disappearing. It hasn't been from regulations changing. It's all been due to lack of expertise and project mismanagement. In the US they plowed forward with designs that "couldn't be constructed" and wasted money building something different from what had been designed. With the French EPR design, welding skills weren't there to deal with insanely complex and difficult welding jobs. The failures of nuclear construction have been internal to the industry, they haven't been foisted on the industry. We should build now with the clear path we have to 80%-90% decarbonization, and see where the chips fall. So I think we are in agreement there? Maybe in 2045 NuScale (Or Terrapower or whoever) will be shipping reliably and have brought down costs quite a bit from what they currently think they can hit. Maybe not, and we will go with whatever the cheapest alternative is to meet our reliability needs. There's certainly adequate VC money to get these nuclear startups off the ground. Personally, I don't think any of it is "smart" money, but rather just hedging money. Which is to say I'm really glad that people are investing in it, even though I don't think it's a likely bet, it's a necessary bet.
- txru 6y ago
  This is a little pedantic, but I don't think it's fair to say France has also had a terrible experience with nuclear energy. According to Wikipedia [1], they've have about 15 major incidents totaling about 1 death and 300 million dollars in additional cost, while 70% of their electricity is nuclear. Additionally, the TGV has been a rousing success (they closed down their domestic airline because it couldn't compete in price) in part because they had access to such cheap, consistent power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Accidents_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Accide...
  - epistasis 6y ago
    While France has had good experiences with operation of existing facilities, they have not had good experiences with building reactors that could replace their aging fleet. For example at Flamanville: > EDF estimated the cost at €3.3 billion[4] and stated it would start commercial operations in 2012, after construction lasting 54 months.[5] The latest cost estimate (July 2020) is at €19.1 billion, with commissioning planned tentatively at the end of 2022.[6][2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Unit_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...

I disagree, it is one of the riskiest ways to try to confront climate change. Any Western nation that has tried in the past 30 years has had terrible experiences with building it. Construction of nuclear in Western economies is too financially risky to pursue. It's too delayed. Even if we start 200 reactors tomorrow, expecting half of the construction projects to fail, we would not be able to finish them in time to have a significant climate impact, because they take too long to build.

rbanffy 6y ago
> we would not be able to finish them in time to have a significant climate impact, And you'd probably accelerate climate change because of all the carbon released in building those reactors.
jakehop 6y ago
There has been no other technology faster at decarbonizing the energy sector, than nuclear power. France and Sweden still hold the record for that exact same reason.
- epistasis 6y ago
  This was true 50 years ago, but has not been true in the last thirty years. The technology has changed. Within the past 30 years, nuclear has become more expensive than alternatives, and a dollar invested in nuclear correlates with seven-fold less drop in emissions than that same dollar invested in renewables: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/53376 http://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/53376 Note that the above story has been criticized as being correlative, but that correlative reasoning is the same reasoning that's used when saying that France and Sweden have decarbonized with nuclear. (And Sweden owes a lot to hydropower, which is 45% of its electricity)
  - jakehop 6y ago
    You are simply not correct. I have read the study you cite. I don't question whether you've read the full study or only the news story, but the study has quite a few flaws and (what I view as) false assumptions. I'll argue against the news story, so I'm sure not to exclude anybody. >Nuclear and other renewables don't co-exist well, and both lead to lock-in and path dependancies Why should they co-exist? If you have 100% of your electricity generated by nuclear power, that is literally zero sense in buying wind turbines. The path dependancies are obvious: Wind farms require infrastructure that can handle 100% of the total power output, but will only see around 30-40% average capacity used. This requires a larger, decentral power grid, with a ton of resources poured into additional load balancing, as well as storage in times of low wind. Modern nuclear power has a capacity factor of >90%. It requires the grid to be dimensioned to the needed power; not huge spikes in production. It doesn't require storage and it doesn't require expensive balancing systems, needed for intermittent sources of energy. >Countries with high GDP and nuclear lower their CO2-emissions slower than similar countries with other renewables In Denmark, our taxes on energy has increased tremendously alongside the roll-out of "cheap" renewables. This obviously changes demand, which is why the study is indeed correlative. And in Denmark we're cheating right now: Our biofuels (mainly wood from Estonia and the US) count as zero emissions, since they "grow back in 60 years". This type of fraudulent behaviour changes our balance sheet. And even with our massive expansion of wind energy, our average CO2-emissions per kWh of electricity used is still around 3-6x that of Sweden. To the question of something being "true 50 years ago, but not true in the last 30 years", look to figure 2 in the link below and you will see how your statement is not correct. The figure (and the article it originates from) clearly argues that e.g. my country of birth, Denmark, which has spent an incredibly large amount of money (relative to the size of our economy) propping up the wind industry and constructing large wind farms, have been much* slower at adding non-carbon energy sources to the production of electricity. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6299/547.figures-only https://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6299/547.figures-... I know how Sweden produces its electricity, but I don't know what makes hydro relevant here? I am purely talking about the Swedish expansion of nuclear power, which was the fastest expansion of stable green electricity production in the world, to date. That it happened more than 30 years ago only begs the question, as to how no one has caught up to that yet. Having asked the Swedish state nuclear authority about the possibility of expanding nuclear power, they state that given a positive political climate (e.g. removing red tape and vetocracy, but keeping a high level of safety), they could roll out new reactors in around 5 years, at $4100 pr. kW capacity. This is 10-30% cheaper than 2020 off-shore wind farms – without solving the storage issue! For me, climate change is a serious issue, requiring serious solutions. This is where I see nuclear energy. All the talk of "slow roll-out" simply goes against the facts and oddly enough, the same people are also against rolling it out – talk about correlation! Nuclear has the stability, economics and climate factors right. And newer technologies will only make this better. It must be done in a safe way. We can't have old plants not being maintained properly. No new power plants have been built in the EU or US for the last 30 years, which has lead to brain drain in the industry. Newer plants might cost more in the start, but that too will level off. The same argument that one uses for their own preferred tech mustn't be forgotten for the opposing side. I understand that you are invested in this debate, but it is simply indefensible to make these types of straw-man arguments. If you want to criticise nuclear power, try making a steel-man argument and argue against that. This is far more efficient – and respectful to your debate partner - than speaking against concrete facts.
Aachen 6y ago
Those projects failing is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's the public narrative that makes laws and funding disappear and reappear every 4 years, not to mention continuous brainwashing in climate groups. But realistically speaking, I take your point. I just don't want to dismiss nuclear for the wrong reason. We need to make a choice of how much energy to build where, using which technology, and by when. Let's make it. Realistically people are going to hate on nuclear for stupid reasons? Fine, then please let us find an energy mix that works where we reach our climate goals. And we can still adjust those projects whose start-by date hasn't passed if, say, fusion is looking good. We just shouldn't wait and pray, as we're currently doing for the most part, because that mistake will catch up to us. Rather, let's make the plan and only adjust parts with other parts that work rather than leave huge, huge blanks.
- epistasis 6y ago
  Where nuclear has failed, at Vogtle in South Carolina, at VC Summer in Georgia, at Wylfa, all of EDFs projects, the failure hasn't been from funding showing up and disappearing. It hasn't been from regulations changing. It's all been due to lack of expertise and project mismanagement. In the US they plowed forward with designs that "couldn't be constructed" and wasted money building something different from what had been designed. With the French EPR design, welding skills weren't there to deal with insanely complex and difficult welding jobs. The failures of nuclear construction have been internal to the industry, they haven't been foisted on the industry. We should build now with the clear path we have to 80%-90% decarbonization, and see where the chips fall. So I think we are in agreement there? Maybe in 2045 NuScale (Or Terrapower or whoever) will be shipping reliably and have brought down costs quite a bit from what they currently think they can hit. Maybe not, and we will go with whatever the cheapest alternative is to meet our reliability needs. There's certainly adequate VC money to get these nuclear startups off the ground. Personally, I don't think any of it is "smart" money, but rather just hedging money. Which is to say I'm really glad that people are investing in it, even though I don't think it's a likely bet, it's a necessary bet.
txru 6y ago
This is a little pedantic, but I don't think it's fair to say France has also had a terrible experience with nuclear energy. According to Wikipedia [1], they've have about 15 major incidents totaling about 1 death and 300 million dollars in additional cost, while 70% of their electricity is nuclear. Additionally, the TGV has been a rousing success (they closed down their domestic airline because it couldn't compete in price) in part because they had access to such cheap, consistent power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Accidents_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Accide...
- epistasis 6y ago
  While France has had good experiences with operation of existing facilities, they have not had good experiences with building reactors that could replace their aging fleet. For example at Flamanville: > EDF estimated the cost at €3.3 billion[4] and stated it would start commercial operations in 2012, after construction lasting 54 months.[5] The latest cost estimate (July 2020) is at €19.1 billion, with commissioning planned tentatively at the end of 2022.[6][2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Unit_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...