4 ms·

> It's gonna cost money. It's gonna require work. It's going to not only be opportunity cost, but require us to do stuff. This is what it means to have climate

by jnxx 6y ago

> It's gonna cost money. It's gonna require work. It's going to not only be opportunity cost, but require us to do stuff. This is what it means to have climate change as a priority. It's a priority above money, above GDP growth, above even the standard of living. It is clear that climate change is an emergency. However, the amount of resources, including money, to address that emergency is finite, so it would be illogical (or even unethical) not to use resources in the most economical way possible. New nuclear power plants have a cost of, for example, over 90 £ / MWh. New solar and wind energy can deliver at less than half that price: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_... There is also another motication to build nuclear power plants - they subsidize military use of nuclear weapons. To cite from the article above: "On 12 October 2017, The Guardian reported that researchers informed MPs that the UK government was using the expensive Hinkley Point C project to cross-subsidise the UK military's nuclear-related activity by maintaining nuclear skills. The researchers from the University of Sussex, Prof. Andy Stirling and Dr. Phil Johnstone, stated that the costs of the Trident nuclear submarine programme would be prohibitive without "an effective subsidy from electricity consumers to military nuclear infrastructure".[97]" (The linked reference [97] is https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/electricity-consumers-to-fund-nuclear-weapons-through-hinkley-point-c https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/electricity-...) On top of that, such plants, even with very conventional nuclear technology, take more than a decade to build. To address climate change, we need big and radical changes in energy production in the next twenty years. Building new nuclear energy is very clearly too slow to achieve that. So, at that point, using nuclear to address climate change is merely a distraction. There are much better ways to address this problem.

DrBazza 6y ago
The only problem with nuclear power is Government oversight, as you rightly point out: "they subsidize military use of nuclear weapons". If Governments allow commercial development of nuclear power stations that cannot be used to produce enriched uranium (thorium being one of those), then free market forces will push the cost of design, and building them down, making the price of nuclear electricity much lower. There's no economy of scale to the current nuclear industry. Each power station design is different in some way. Imagine a commercial small sized, modular nuclear power plant, produced at scale. Nuclear subs, and aircraft carriers already have a version. "Building new nuclear energy is very clearly too slow to achieve that." I'd disagree, it is, as usual politics getting in the way of science, not the engineers or physicists. If the financial incentives are there, it would be solved very quickly. Fission isn't fusion, and the physics and engineering is well understood. Not directly comparable, but look at what SpaceX has achieved in 20 years in terms of design and engineering.
- pydry 6y ago
  >If Governments allow commercial development of nuclear power stations that cannot be used to produce enriched uranium (thorium being one of those), then free market forces will push the cost of design Nuclear plants have always been uninsurable without an explicit liability cap (currently set at $200 million). The "free market" would never have let it happen in the first place without that subsidy (& several others). Nuclear only ever exists and will only ever continue to existing because of subsidies. The desire for subsidies is probably why this article exists, in fact.
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    The other market distortion that enabled nuclear to be built was the regulated monopolies of electric utilities. These utilities earn based on their capital investment, so the larger the capital investment they can get the regulators to swallow, the better. And this is best done by systems with large up front costs, costs that can be underestimated then escalated after the initial fixed investment. What really killed the first wave of nuclear in the US was not TMI or over-regulation, but the passage of PURPA that began to open the markets to competition from non-utility suppliers.
  - DrBazza 6y ago
    Prior to 2000, the space industry was thought to be extremely complex and expensive and viable only by state sponsored efforts, i.e. NASA, ESA, and so on. And then SpaceX, Blue Origin, and others have come along and shown that an industry that expensive can be profitable, cheap, and safe. It's not a perfect analogy by a long shot, but it's similar in terms of (historical) investment. There's no reason to believe that nuclear should be any different. The engineering and physics is well understood. I'd say that you've omitted the word "current", i.e. "current Nuclear plants have always been uninsurable", and "current Nuclear only ever exists and will only ever continue to existing because of subsidies." I'll re-iterate my previous comment, if Governments would step back from over regulation, and the desire for reactors to produce weapons grade uranium and plutonium as a by-product, then new designs could be achieved quickly, cheaply, and safely. Molten-salt is being actively researched: https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/09/04/166330/meltdown-proof-nuclear-reactors-get-a-safety-check-in-europe/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/09/04/166330/meltdown-...

by jnxx 6y ago

DrBazza 6y ago

The only problem with nuclear power is Government oversight, as you rightly point out: "they subsidize military use of nuclear weapons". If Governments allow commercial development of nuclear power stations that cannot be used to produce enriched uranium (thorium being one of those), then free market forces will push the cost of design, and building them down, making the price of nuclear electricity much lower. There's no economy of scale to the current nuclear industry. Each power station design is different in some way. Imagine a commercial small sized, modular nuclear power plant, produced at scale. Nuclear subs, and aircraft carriers already have a version. "Building new nuclear energy is very clearly too slow to achieve that." I'd disagree, it is, as usual politics getting in the way of science, not the engineers or physicists. If the financial incentives are there, it would be solved very quickly. Fission isn't fusion, and the physics and engineering is well understood. Not directly comparable, but look at what SpaceX has achieved in 20 years in terms of design and engineering.

pydry 6y ago
>If Governments allow commercial development of nuclear power stations that cannot be used to produce enriched uranium (thorium being one of those), then free market forces will push the cost of design Nuclear plants have always been uninsurable without an explicit liability cap (currently set at $200 million). The "free market" would never have let it happen in the first place without that subsidy (& several others). Nuclear only ever exists and will only ever continue to existing because of subsidies. The desire for subsidies is probably why this article exists, in fact.
- pfdietz 6y ago
  The other market distortion that enabled nuclear to be built was the regulated monopolies of electric utilities. These utilities earn based on their capital investment, so the larger the capital investment they can get the regulators to swallow, the better. And this is best done by systems with large up front costs, costs that can be underestimated then escalated after the initial fixed investment. What really killed the first wave of nuclear in the US was not TMI or over-regulation, but the passage of PURPA that began to open the markets to competition from non-utility suppliers.
- DrBazza 6y ago
  Prior to 2000, the space industry was thought to be extremely complex and expensive and viable only by state sponsored efforts, i.e. NASA, ESA, and so on. And then SpaceX, Blue Origin, and others have come along and shown that an industry that expensive can be profitable, cheap, and safe. It's not a perfect analogy by a long shot, but it's similar in terms of (historical) investment. There's no reason to believe that nuclear should be any different. The engineering and physics is well understood. I'd say that you've omitted the word "current", i.e. "current Nuclear plants have always been uninsurable", and "current Nuclear only ever exists and will only ever continue to existing because of subsidies." I'll re-iterate my previous comment, if Governments would step back from over regulation, and the desire for reactors to produce weapons grade uranium and plutonium as a by-product, then new designs could be achieved quickly, cheaply, and safely. Molten-salt is being actively researched: https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/09/04/166330/meltdown-proof-nuclear-reactors-get-a-safety-check-in-europe/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/09/04/166330/meltdown-...