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Nuclear loses to alternatives on a pure ROI basis. Even in places where political opposition or legislation is a total non issue (eg China) you see exactly the

Nuclear loses to alternatives on a pure ROI basis. Even in places where political opposition or legislation is a total non issue (eg China) you see exactly the same bad math when it comes to the $. I feel like a broken record posting this in every thread about nuclear. There's too many people on this forum that have some sort of smug attitude about not being "scared" of nuclear power and don't bother to learn what's actually constraining things.

93po 6y ago
I feel like a broken record when people always focus on ROI and up front costs and completely ignore the millon+ people that did every year from fossil fuel usage
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  Thank you for making this point. I completely agree. I make the ROI argument here because it's the one people listen to, sadly. Living next to a coal or oil fired power plant is one of the worst decisions you could make health wise, particularly for children.
sir_bearington 6y ago
Nobody was under any impression that decarbonizing the energy sector would cost more than continuing to emit carbon. The reality is that renewables have no plan to eliminate carbon emissions that isn't contingent on a massive breakthrough in energy storage. The US currently had under 10 minutes of energy storage. Renewables offer better carbon emissions reductions on a dollar by dollar basis until they saturate the market during peak production. Then they don't help. Sure, nuclear is more expensive but it is the only existing solution that aims to actually eliminate carbon emissions. Not just supplement fossil fuels.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  Go through Lazard's levelized cost of energy storage slides. We're currently hitting the tipping point where renewables + storage wins based on pure $ without subsidy. It's completely disingenuous to claim that nuclear is the only solution that aims to eliminate CO2 emissions.
  - sir_bearington 6y ago
    And what form of storage are you using? There's only 20 minutes of storage available via lithium ion batteries with current mining methods. Others like hydroelectric are geographically dependent, and are large concrete and earth moving projects much like nuclear plants. Lazard uses current commercial cost figures. If people actually tri d to deploy grid storage on a wide scale, prices would skyrocket as supply fails to match demand.
    - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
      The sweet spot in most models is a mix of hydro, batteries, and H2. While scaling up the industry isn't trivial, it's absurd to claim it's impossible or that demand outpacing supply will somehow reduce investment in greater supply.
      - sir_bearington 6y ago
        Well let's hear it then. What is the mix? How many GWh of each storage type are we going to use? Typically plans for renewables + storage assumes some magical silver bullet like hydrogen or thermal storage that will make storage nearly free. Except neither of those have actually seen commercial deployment so they're no telling if they'll actually pan out. You haven't actually given a plan to provision this much storage - or even specified how much storage we'll need for that matter - so yeah I'm still very comfortable in claiming it is not possible. At least not without some massive breakthrough in storage technology, which doesn't yet exist.
        Hypx 6y ago
        Hydrogen could achieve something like 84.8 PWh: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/16/hydrogen-storage-in-salt-caverns/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/16/hydrogen-storage-in-s... While it's unlikely to reach this value, it's such a high figure that actually can solve the energy storage problem altogether.
        6y ago

93po 6y ago

I feel like a broken record when people always focus on ROI and up front costs and completely ignore the millon+ people that did every year from fossil fuel usage

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
Thank you for making this point. I completely agree. I make the ROI argument here because it's the one people listen to, sadly. Living next to a coal or oil fired power plant is one of the worst decisions you could make health wise, particularly for children.

sir_bearington 6y ago

Nobody was under any impression that decarbonizing the energy sector would cost more than continuing to emit carbon. The reality is that renewables have no plan to eliminate carbon emissions that isn't contingent on a massive breakthrough in energy storage. The US currently had under 10 minutes of energy storage. Renewables offer better carbon emissions reductions on a dollar by dollar basis until they saturate the market during peak production. Then they don't help. Sure, nuclear is more expensive but it is the only existing solution that aims to actually eliminate carbon emissions. Not just supplement fossil fuels.

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
Go through Lazard's levelized cost of energy storage slides. We're currently hitting the tipping point where renewables + storage wins based on pure $ without subsidy. It's completely disingenuous to claim that nuclear is the only solution that aims to eliminate CO2 emissions.
- sir_bearington 6y ago
  And what form of storage are you using? There's only 20 minutes of storage available via lithium ion batteries with current mining methods. Others like hydroelectric are geographically dependent, and are large concrete and earth moving projects much like nuclear plants. Lazard uses current commercial cost figures. If people actually tri d to deploy grid storage on a wide scale, prices would skyrocket as supply fails to match demand.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
    The sweet spot in most models is a mix of hydro, batteries, and H2. While scaling up the industry isn't trivial, it's absurd to claim it's impossible or that demand outpacing supply will somehow reduce investment in greater supply.
    - sir_bearington 6y ago
      Well let's hear it then. What is the mix? How many GWh of each storage type are we going to use? Typically plans for renewables + storage assumes some magical silver bullet like hydrogen or thermal storage that will make storage nearly free. Except neither of those have actually seen commercial deployment so they're no telling if they'll actually pan out. You haven't actually given a plan to provision this much storage - or even specified how much storage we'll need for that matter - so yeah I'm still very comfortable in claiming it is not possible. At least not without some massive breakthrough in storage technology, which doesn't yet exist.
      - Hypx 6y ago
        Hydrogen could achieve something like 84.8 PWh: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/16/hydrogen-storage-in-salt-caverns/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/16/hydrogen-storage-in-s... While it's unlikely to reach this value, it's such a high figure that actually can solve the energy storage problem altogether.
        6y ago