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Cost matters. If you can build renewable power at a fraction of the price, why go nuclear? We can keep gas as backup until storage solutions are better develope

Cost matters. If you can build renewable power at a fraction of the price, why go nuclear? We can keep gas as backup until storage solutions are better developed. If money was no issue you could just build a ton of pumped hydro in Scotland and or batter storage. And if you absolutely want to spend on nuclear power, spend it in SMRs and molten salt reactors. ThorCon is probably not that far from a working solution if given enough funding.

jodrellblank 6y ago
> If money was no issue you could just build a ton of pumped hydro in Scotland and or batter storage. Wikipedia says "The potential for further practical and viable hydroelectricity power stations in the UK is estimated to be in the region of 146 to 248 MW for England and Wales,[4] and up to 2,593 MW for Scotland.[5] However, by the nature of the remote and rugged geographic locations of some of these potential sites, in national parks or other areas of outstanding natural beauty, it is likely that environmental concerns would mean that many of them would be deemed unsuitable, or could not be developed to their full theoretical potential." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity_in_the_United... Pumped-hydro storage doesn't need existing water, but the national grid averages 30GW and peaks at 40GW ( http://grid.iamkate.com/ http://grid.iamkate.com/ ) are there enough places to build "a ton of pumped hydro" for that kind of size which are suitable for the above criteria as well?
- skitout 6y ago
  There are many other solutions than traditional pumped hydro when it comes to electrical storage : new pump hydro on isolated reservoirs (eg gordon butte), battries (eg flow batteries), compressed air, liquid air, stacked bloks, heat to energy come in mind And you can store energy as heat or cold, which is easier and cheaper, with a bigger potential And you can have an impact on the demand side, with energy efficiency and demand-response
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
petre 6y ago
Renewables are intermittent, pumped hydro could work at the expense of destroying Scottish national parks. Freewheel storage could also work. But SMRs are not ready yet, as outlined in the article. MSR thorium reactors are far in the future, probably past 2030. The closest to being done is NuScale's design which is a natural circulation PWR. But it was just approved this year. Also Russia has a barge with two naval reactors, but theycre small and I don't see the UK licensing Russian designs anytime soon.
Udik 6y ago
> If you can build renewable power at a fraction of the price We keep thinking of "building renewable power" as "we can produce this amount of watts at peak". What we should demand of these projects instead is "we can provide this amount of renewable power 24/7". There is a big difference. We're ending up in a situation where we can "build renewable power at a fraction of the price" for half of the time. For the other half we rely on fossil fuels but we don't see the issue because we're focused on the amount of clean watts we get at peak.
- grey-area 6y ago
  This is a solved problem, particularly in the UK. Battery prices are constantly dropping and pumped storage is a proven solution. It requires investment, but far less than fission plants.
  - evgen 6y ago
    It is far from a solved problem, in fact it is a problem that shows the simple solutions to be infeasible. Battery prices are several orders of magnitude above where they would need to be to provide true grid-scale storage and production capacity is a fraction of what would be required for same. Pumped storage is a dead-end solution because we have simply run out of places for effective hydro and are quire soon going to run out of places where we can turn existing hydro resources into pumped storage. There is no level of investment that can magic away the storage problems of current renewables, which is why they continue to become a bigger and bigger problem as more and more production shifts in that direction.
    - grey-area 6y ago
      > Battery prices are several orders of magnitude above where they would need to be to provide true grid-scale storage and production capacity is a fraction of what would be required for same. Thankfully prices are falling, efficiency improving, and massive battery factories are planned. The growth of EV means that will continue. Peaker plants are already being replaced with batteries. > Pumped storage is a dead-end solution because we have simply run out of places for effective hydro Nope. There is large pumped storage being built in Scotland right now and there are hundreds more glens where it would be feasible. >There is no level of investment that can magic away the storage problems of current renewables Just as one example that may well magic away these problems, grid attached storage in the form of electric cars and home storage is growing massively right now. It may be we rethink entirely our centralised approach to production and storage. Fission is expensive, centralised and carries heavy decommissioning costs and extreme tail risks. Fusion may someday give renewables a worthy rival but till then the falling prices mean nuclear has had its day.
belorn 6y ago
> We can keep gas as backup until storage solutions are better developed. No thanks. Continuing burning fossil fuels until a better solution exist is not going to work. Climate change is already causing long term damage on a global scale, causing species to go extinct, raises water levels, expands deserts, displaces people, and is a problem that need to be taken serious. No waiting for a future technology yet undiscovered. If we stop building new fossil fuel plants and only build nuclear and renewable, then maybe in 20-30 years we will reach a zero carbon energy grid. Given some of the most optimistic research, that might give us a small chance in prevent global crisis. A small chance. Continuing to burn gas until we have something better developed will rob us of that small chance. A 2x cost in energy, while somewhat costly, is still small cost compared to the consequences long term if we continue to burn fossil fuels.

jodrellblank 6y ago

> If money was no issue you could just build a ton of pumped hydro in Scotland and or batter storage. Wikipedia says "The potential for further practical and viable hydroelectricity power stations in the UK is estimated to be in the region of 146 to 248 MW for England and Wales,[4] and up to 2,593 MW for Scotland.[5] However, by the nature of the remote and rugged geographic locations of some of these potential sites, in national parks or other areas of outstanding natural beauty, it is likely that environmental concerns would mean that many of them would be deemed unsuitable, or could not be developed to their full theoretical potential." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity_in_the_United... Pumped-hydro storage doesn't need existing water, but the national grid averages 30GW and peaks at 40GW ( http://grid.iamkate.com/ http://grid.iamkate.com/ ) are there enough places to build "a ton of pumped hydro" for that kind of size which are suitable for the above criteria as well?

skitout 6y ago
There are many other solutions than traditional pumped hydro when it comes to electrical storage : new pump hydro on isolated reservoirs (eg gordon butte), battries (eg flow batteries), compressed air, liquid air, stacked bloks, heat to energy come in mind And you can store energy as heat or cold, which is easier and cheaper, with a bigger potential And you can have an impact on the demand side, with energy efficiency and demand-response
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

petre 6y ago

Renewables are intermittent, pumped hydro could work at the expense of destroying Scottish national parks. Freewheel storage could also work. But SMRs are not ready yet, as outlined in the article. MSR thorium reactors are far in the future, probably past 2030. The closest to being done is NuScale's design which is a natural circulation PWR. But it was just approved this year. Also Russia has a barge with two naval reactors, but theycre small and I don't see the UK licensing Russian designs anytime soon.

Udik 6y ago

> If you can build renewable power at a fraction of the price We keep thinking of "building renewable power" as "we can produce this amount of watts at peak". What we should demand of these projects instead is "we can provide this amount of renewable power 24/7". There is a big difference. We're ending up in a situation where we can "build renewable power at a fraction of the price" for half of the time. For the other half we rely on fossil fuels but we don't see the issue because we're focused on the amount of clean watts we get at peak.

grey-area 6y ago
This is a solved problem, particularly in the UK. Battery prices are constantly dropping and pumped storage is a proven solution. It requires investment, but far less than fission plants.
- evgen 6y ago
  It is far from a solved problem, in fact it is a problem that shows the simple solutions to be infeasible. Battery prices are several orders of magnitude above where they would need to be to provide true grid-scale storage and production capacity is a fraction of what would be required for same. Pumped storage is a dead-end solution because we have simply run out of places for effective hydro and are quire soon going to run out of places where we can turn existing hydro resources into pumped storage. There is no level of investment that can magic away the storage problems of current renewables, which is why they continue to become a bigger and bigger problem as more and more production shifts in that direction.
  - grey-area 6y ago
    > Battery prices are several orders of magnitude above where they would need to be to provide true grid-scale storage and production capacity is a fraction of what would be required for same. Thankfully prices are falling, efficiency improving, and massive battery factories are planned. The growth of EV means that will continue. Peaker plants are already being replaced with batteries. > Pumped storage is a dead-end solution because we have simply run out of places for effective hydro Nope. There is large pumped storage being built in Scotland right now and there are hundreds more glens where it would be feasible. >There is no level of investment that can magic away the storage problems of current renewables Just as one example that may well magic away these problems, grid attached storage in the form of electric cars and home storage is growing massively right now. It may be we rethink entirely our centralised approach to production and storage. Fission is expensive, centralised and carries heavy decommissioning costs and extreme tail risks. Fusion may someday give renewables a worthy rival but till then the falling prices mean nuclear has had its day.

belorn 6y ago

> We can keep gas as backup until storage solutions are better developed. No thanks. Continuing burning fossil fuels until a better solution exist is not going to work. Climate change is already causing long term damage on a global scale, causing species to go extinct, raises water levels, expands deserts, displaces people, and is a problem that need to be taken serious. No waiting for a future technology yet undiscovered. If we stop building new fossil fuel plants and only build nuclear and renewable, then maybe in 20-30 years we will reach a zero carbon energy grid. Given some of the most optimistic research, that might give us a small chance in prevent global crisis. A small chance. Continuing to burn gas until we have something better developed will rob us of that small chance. A 2x cost in energy, while somewhat costly, is still small cost compared to the consequences long term if we continue to burn fossil fuels.