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>I keep thinking discussions are stacked against nuclear unfairly. One of the major reasons for that is that there is a misconception that renewables (solar an

>I keep thinking discussions are stacked against nuclear unfairly. One of the major reasons for that is that there is a misconception that renewables (solar and wind specifically) can actually replace fossil fuels. In other words, that we have better options than nuclear. We're going to lose a few decades before we realize that that won't work.

baybal2 6y ago
>I keep thinking discussions are stacked against nuclear unfairly. Very fairly. Nuclear will always be many times more expensive than equivalent power hydrocarbon powerplant. It's not because of any manufacturing intricacies, but largely from just the material cost. It's not possible to "science it out" how to make ultra reliable pressure vessels with less steel, and metalworking, and large industrial building with less cement. Nuclear reactors are fairly dumb industrial implements, basically very huge, and expensive water boilers. The biggest advantage of nuclear is very cheap fuel, and fuel logistics. Nuclear fuel is cheaper than even coal. The price of transporting coal also makes not a small part of its cost. 40-50 years, that advantage was what pushed nuclear power to prominence. Now, the cost of fuel, and its transport is not considered that significant, and nuclear lost this advantage. Costs of some fuels actually went down as extraction scaled up, and itself became cheaper. Transport costs also went down. Power plants got more efficient. To regain this advantage, nuclear plants need to produce many times more electricity, and heat for their cost. This is why I was always telling people that scale is what is the real problem for nuclear now. Four, and up to ten+ gigawatt reactors is what will make difference for nuclear.
- 7952 6y ago
  Delivering 4GW in a single project would certainly set it apart. Perhaps the sweet spot for nuclear is not the traditional 1GW level. Although that would create a very large single point of failure that would need peakers/batteries/pumped hydro to backup on failure. An interesting project would be to stick a 5GW reactor in the middle of the North Sea and run export cables to all the surrounding countries. Build near an old oil well for hydrogen storage and include a thermal hydrogen generator.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    Yes, a 4GW reactor is certainly not for any country to build for above reasons (shut down a double digit of your generation every time you refuel.) Even moderately industrialised countries will think twice, but it is indeed very logical for top 10 economies. The biggest problem will be building a containment building this big. A dilemma it is. Containment building can't do anything about reactor explosion. Either steam explosion from Chernobil like event, or hydrogen explosion is not survivable by containment building of any reactor in service. And containment building for a reactor this big will be even less useful. This means abandoning them, and going for Chernobil like no containment building construction.
    - fuoqi 6y ago
      >hydrogen explosion is not survivable by containment building of any reactor in service Or you can simply include specialized hydrogen burners like in the modern VVER reactors, which have complied with the post-Fukushima requirements even before the event has happened. Also a Chernobyl-like event is simply impossible on PWR reactors.
      - baybal2 6y ago
        > simply impossible on PWR reactors. Easily possible. I'll give you a few scenarios I came up within just minutes. Loss of coolant -> drop in reactivity -> overheat of core -> core melts, and falls into puddle of remaining water at the bottom of the reactor -> instant reactivity boost -> boom Loss of coolant -> drop in reactivity -> overheat of core -> coolant comes back -> water spayed onto hot fuel -> steam flash -> steam-cladding reaction -> boom
        fuoqi 6y ago
        I can reply to you with only one thing: please, learn more about modern reactor designs and their safety systems, don't embarrass yourself. Also learn why the Chernobyl event was so nasty and why its impact is significantly bigger compared to Fukushima (hint: graphite moderation).
- webreac 6y ago
  I do not think this is fair. Cost of fossil fuels is largely undervalued: most of the cost (wars and pollution) is not taken into account.
- omgJustTest 6y ago
  You don’t understand true costs, and carbon is not well priced right now. Ultimate costs of doing this will be: wildfires, floods, power outages, etc. even the commodity and exchanges commission (a us financial institution) is calling for orders of magnitude cost increase in carbon credit costs.
- Accujack 6y ago
  >Nuclear will always be many times more expensive than equivalent power hydrocarbon powerplant. No, you're behind the times. You're thinking of present nuclear plant technology, and in that you're correct. Newer plant designs solve most of the issues with construction and management cost, nuclear proliferation, and even reduce the waste that must be stored. Arguing for greater use of the 1960s technology that's presently in power plants is silly, and no one is really advocating that. Google "small modular reactors" and read up.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    Please tell me how can you make reactor vessels cheaper by making 2 smaller vessels instead of 1 bigger one on current reactor scales. Their math is plainly wrong. The "small modular reactor" community is a bit of a cult. Be extra wary of everything they say.
    - 2trill2spill 6y ago
      The SMR community does have a lot of hype, but the general idea seems fairly sound. Instead of building huge reactors on site, as basically big one off projects. Instead, mass produce a bunch of smaller modular reactors at a factory. That doesn't seem much different than a modular home vs a custom home to me, with the modular home being way cheaper. But we will see if it actually works. But for me the biggest issue is, if fighting climate change is so important, why wouldn't we try everything possible? Why do so many people insist on only renewables?
      - baybal2 6y ago
        You have smaller logistics costs for smaller reactor, yes... But you don't have reduction in marginal logistics cost per unit of energy produced. While reactor vessels themselves are most expensive single piece in the nuclear power station, they are not going to save much on them by making them smaller, and they would not get any cheaper from mass manufacturing.
        6y ago
phaemon 6y ago
I live in Scotland. We've gone from ~15% renewable electricity to >90%, replacing fossil fuels. When you're claiming that something can't possibly be done, when it has already actually been done, it's hardly a surprise that no-one takes your argument seriously. Go look up a list of countries that have, say, >70% renewables and explain to me why they are managing something you claim is impossible.
- phtrivier 6y ago
  My first hunch would be to answer "importing", but it's not always possible to check. In the case of Scotland, is [1] giving a realistic view of Scotland (it mixes Scotland / England, so I can't really tell ?) At the time of reading, the mix (again, for GB) of consummed electricity is about 40% wind+solar, 30% gas, 10% whatever, 10% domestic nuclear, and 10% "electricity imported from France", wich is usually 70% nuclear. I'm writing this middle of the day, in March, so I assume the wind+solar part is working at a nice capacity (it would be much more unfair to compare it in the middle of the night.) So on a very first approximation that I'm really ready to dismiss based on more data, it seems that Scotland produces a lot of electricity from renewables (a good thing !), and consumes electricy made from a bunch of sources, some of which are not renewables. Is that fair ? Follow-up questions: are there countries that managed to ditch fossil fuels for their electricity production and to not rely on imports / neighboors without renewables ? The only examples I have in mind are those relying on hydro (Norway, Costa Rica, maybe ?) who were blessed with mountains. [1]: https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/GB https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/GB
  - saalweachter 6y ago
    My vague understanding based on "stuff I've heard or read at various points" is that you can stuff up to like 80-85% wind+solar on a grid before you start having real problems with the fluctuations in production. If my vague recollections are recollecting something that was correct and not BS when I heard it, Scotland might be fine with it's ~17% nuclear, replacing the remaining 30% gas with more wind+solar.
- LockAndLol 6y ago
legulere 6y ago
But it is nuclear that cannot replace fossil fuels, because it can only supply base load. Also what are you doing when rivers are too low, too hot or frozen and you cannot get the water needed for nuclear power?
- macspoofing 6y ago
  Heh. Check out France on this map: https://www.electricitymap.org/map https://www.electricitymap.org/map Imagine if every developed economy invested in nuclear at the same level of France even if you still need to rely on fossil fuel peaker plants - that's a good start no? France, even with fossil-fuel backup has far lower emissions than most other countries (3x lower emissions than the darling of renewable energy, Germany ... which by the way relies on France's nuclear power too) Here's something to get depressed at: Imagine if every developed economy invested in nuclear at the same level as France but in the 70s. Think of the trillions and trillions of tons of CO2 that would not have been emitted into the atmosphere. It would have bought us decades to get global warming under control. When history passes judgment, it won't be the climate-denialists that will take the brunt of criticism, but anti-nuke environmentalists who fucked things up (and continue to do so) for our species.
  - redwall_hp 6y ago
    Some of them already have recanted their previous stance. That's a large part of the Pandora's Promise documentary (a Sundance film): former anti-nuclear activists who reversed their stance.
  - legulere 6y ago
    Just 60% nuclear according the map. Why not 100%? A lot of countries have more than that in renewables: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable_electricity_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable...

baybal2 6y ago

>I keep thinking discussions are stacked against nuclear unfairly. Very fairly. Nuclear will always be many times more expensive than equivalent power hydrocarbon powerplant. It's not because of any manufacturing intricacies, but largely from just the material cost. It's not possible to "science it out" how to make ultra reliable pressure vessels with less steel, and metalworking, and large industrial building with less cement. Nuclear reactors are fairly dumb industrial implements, basically very huge, and expensive water boilers. The biggest advantage of nuclear is very cheap fuel, and fuel logistics. Nuclear fuel is cheaper than even coal. The price of transporting coal also makes not a small part of its cost. 40-50 years, that advantage was what pushed nuclear power to prominence. Now, the cost of fuel, and its transport is not considered that significant, and nuclear lost this advantage. Costs of some fuels actually went down as extraction scaled up, and itself became cheaper. Transport costs also went down. Power plants got more efficient. To regain this advantage, nuclear plants need to produce many times more electricity, and heat for their cost. This is why I was always telling people that scale is what is the real problem for nuclear now. Four, and up to ten+ gigawatt reactors is what will make difference for nuclear.

7952 6y ago
Delivering 4GW in a single project would certainly set it apart. Perhaps the sweet spot for nuclear is not the traditional 1GW level. Although that would create a very large single point of failure that would need peakers/batteries/pumped hydro to backup on failure. An interesting project would be to stick a 5GW reactor in the middle of the North Sea and run export cables to all the surrounding countries. Build near an old oil well for hydrogen storage and include a thermal hydrogen generator.
- baybal2 6y ago
  Yes, a 4GW reactor is certainly not for any country to build for above reasons (shut down a double digit of your generation every time you refuel.) Even moderately industrialised countries will think twice, but it is indeed very logical for top 10 economies. The biggest problem will be building a containment building this big. A dilemma it is. Containment building can't do anything about reactor explosion. Either steam explosion from Chernobil like event, or hydrogen explosion is not survivable by containment building of any reactor in service. And containment building for a reactor this big will be even less useful. This means abandoning them, and going for Chernobil like no containment building construction.
  - fuoqi 6y ago
    >hydrogen explosion is not survivable by containment building of any reactor in service Or you can simply include specialized hydrogen burners like in the modern VVER reactors, which have complied with the post-Fukushima requirements even before the event has happened. Also a Chernobyl-like event is simply impossible on PWR reactors.
    - baybal2 6y ago
      > simply impossible on PWR reactors. Easily possible. I'll give you a few scenarios I came up within just minutes. Loss of coolant -> drop in reactivity -> overheat of core -> core melts, and falls into puddle of remaining water at the bottom of the reactor -> instant reactivity boost -> boom Loss of coolant -> drop in reactivity -> overheat of core -> coolant comes back -> water spayed onto hot fuel -> steam flash -> steam-cladding reaction -> boom
      - fuoqi 6y ago
        I can reply to you with only one thing: please, learn more about modern reactor designs and their safety systems, don't embarrass yourself. Also learn why the Chernobyl event was so nasty and why its impact is significantly bigger compared to Fukushima (hint: graphite moderation).
webreac 6y ago
I do not think this is fair. Cost of fossil fuels is largely undervalued: most of the cost (wars and pollution) is not taken into account.
omgJustTest 6y ago
You don’t understand true costs, and carbon is not well priced right now. Ultimate costs of doing this will be: wildfires, floods, power outages, etc. even the commodity and exchanges commission (a us financial institution) is calling for orders of magnitude cost increase in carbon credit costs.
Accujack 6y ago
>Nuclear will always be many times more expensive than equivalent power hydrocarbon powerplant. No, you're behind the times. You're thinking of present nuclear plant technology, and in that you're correct. Newer plant designs solve most of the issues with construction and management cost, nuclear proliferation, and even reduce the waste that must be stored. Arguing for greater use of the 1960s technology that's presently in power plants is silly, and no one is really advocating that. Google "small modular reactors" and read up.
- baybal2 6y ago
  Please tell me how can you make reactor vessels cheaper by making 2 smaller vessels instead of 1 bigger one on current reactor scales. Their math is plainly wrong. The "small modular reactor" community is a bit of a cult. Be extra wary of everything they say.
  - 2trill2spill 6y ago
    The SMR community does have a lot of hype, but the general idea seems fairly sound. Instead of building huge reactors on site, as basically big one off projects. Instead, mass produce a bunch of smaller modular reactors at a factory. That doesn't seem much different than a modular home vs a custom home to me, with the modular home being way cheaper. But we will see if it actually works. But for me the biggest issue is, if fighting climate change is so important, why wouldn't we try everything possible? Why do so many people insist on only renewables?
    - baybal2 6y ago
      You have smaller logistics costs for smaller reactor, yes... But you don't have reduction in marginal logistics cost per unit of energy produced. While reactor vessels themselves are most expensive single piece in the nuclear power station, they are not going to save much on them by making them smaller, and they would not get any cheaper from mass manufacturing.
      - 6y ago

phaemon 6y ago

I live in Scotland. We've gone from ~15% renewable electricity to >90%, replacing fossil fuels. When you're claiming that something can't possibly be done, when it has already actually been done, it's hardly a surprise that no-one takes your argument seriously. Go look up a list of countries that have, say, >70% renewables and explain to me why they are managing something you claim is impossible.

phtrivier 6y ago
My first hunch would be to answer "importing", but it's not always possible to check. In the case of Scotland, is [1] giving a realistic view of Scotland (it mixes Scotland / England, so I can't really tell ?) At the time of reading, the mix (again, for GB) of consummed electricity is about 40% wind+solar, 30% gas, 10% whatever, 10% domestic nuclear, and 10% "electricity imported from France", wich is usually 70% nuclear. I'm writing this middle of the day, in March, so I assume the wind+solar part is working at a nice capacity (it would be much more unfair to compare it in the middle of the night.) So on a very first approximation that I'm really ready to dismiss based on more data, it seems that Scotland produces a lot of electricity from renewables (a good thing !), and consumes electricy made from a bunch of sources, some of which are not renewables. Is that fair ? Follow-up questions: are there countries that managed to ditch fossil fuels for their electricity production and to not rely on imports / neighboors without renewables ? The only examples I have in mind are those relying on hydro (Norway, Costa Rica, maybe ?) who were blessed with mountains. [1]: https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/GB https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/GB
- saalweachter 6y ago
  My vague understanding based on "stuff I've heard or read at various points" is that you can stuff up to like 80-85% wind+solar on a grid before you start having real problems with the fluctuations in production. If my vague recollections are recollecting something that was correct and not BS when I heard it, Scotland might be fine with it's ~17% nuclear, replacing the remaining 30% gas with more wind+solar.
LockAndLol 6y ago

legulere 6y ago

But it is nuclear that cannot replace fossil fuels, because it can only supply base load. Also what are you doing when rivers are too low, too hot or frozen and you cannot get the water needed for nuclear power?

macspoofing 6y ago
Heh. Check out France on this map: https://www.electricitymap.org/map https://www.electricitymap.org/map Imagine if every developed economy invested in nuclear at the same level of France even if you still need to rely on fossil fuel peaker plants - that's a good start no? France, even with fossil-fuel backup has far lower emissions than most other countries (3x lower emissions than the darling of renewable energy, Germany ... which by the way relies on France's nuclear power too) Here's something to get depressed at: Imagine if every developed economy invested in nuclear at the same level as France but in the 70s. Think of the trillions and trillions of tons of CO2 that would not have been emitted into the atmosphere. It would have bought us decades to get global warming under control. When history passes judgment, it won't be the climate-denialists that will take the brunt of criticism, but anti-nuke environmentalists who fucked things up (and continue to do so) for our species.
- redwall_hp 6y ago
  Some of them already have recanted their previous stance. That's a large part of the Pandora's Promise documentary (a Sundance film): former anti-nuclear activists who reversed their stance.
- legulere 6y ago
  Just 60% nuclear according the map. Why not 100%? A lot of countries have more than that in renewables: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable_electricity_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable...