6 ms·

> No, in practice humanity never figured out how to safely and efficiently use this power source and now renewables are a way safer and cheaper bet Take a look

by mabbo 6y ago

> No, in practice humanity never figured out how to safely and efficiently use this power source and now renewables are a way safer and cheaper bet Take a look at Ontario's power generation data right now: https://ieso.ca/en/Power-Data https://ieso.ca/en/Power-Data We have a steady state of about 8.3 GW of nuclear power generation as our base supply of power, representing most power generation in the province. Electricity prices are pretty good- but they used to be better even before it was all privatized. The CANDU reactor design is safe and practical. We can't rely on solar this far north- the days get too short in the winter. We have wind, but it's too unstable to be a sole source. You can see in the graphs what happens when the wind dies down- we fire up the gas plants to make up the difference. We have hydroelectric dams, and they're wonderful for variable supply- like a self-refilling battery- but we only have so much capacity there without damming the whole province. In conclusion: we have figured out a way to safely and efficiently use nuclear. Renewables are cheap, but not steady enough to be usable here. The alternatives are fossil fuels. Nuclear works.

Retric 6y ago
First the price customers see ignores subsides. That’s essentially what subsides do. Also, Ontario’s production is weighted towards nuclear, but it’s second by second usage is significantly less so. They export a lot of nuclear power and import non nuclear power. That arrangement only works because nuclear is less common in other areas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_power_transmission_grid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_power_transmiss... Also, hydro complements Nuclear extremely well as it can shift production across time, thus maximizing each nuclear power plant’s capacity factor. However, wind fills the same niche more cheaply even with significant excess capacity. This shows up as a grid where the wholesale price frequently sits around zero, which makes nuclear even less economically viable. I personally expect nuclear to stick around for various reasons like bulk radioactive isotope production, but ramping up to become a significantly larger chunk of global electricity production would take dramatically lower unsubsidized prices.
- ggm 6y ago
  Hydro complementing Nuclear is Pumped Hydro Storage. I like this but economists will note, it has system loss: the energy costs to store, include losses which can't be recovered: the value proposition is that SOME (large) amount of energy is shifted in time, behind the dam wall. So its real. but, its not perfect. All systems have losses. The losses in PHES are not necessarily a huge problem.
  - Retric 6y ago
    By adding extra turbines to any large dam regular Hydro is effectively self filling pumped storage. The losses end up roughly identical and you can release at the maximum or minimum rate at any point over a week as long as the total stays the same it’s almost free peaking production. The only issue is it’s location dependent and thus can’t scale. This is why retrofitted dams generally increase the maximum power production rate even if the average remains the same time shifted power is extremely valuable.
- pydry 6y ago
  >I personally expect nuclear to stick around for various reasons Nuclear arsenals. It's the only reason I can think of for paying inflation linked £92.50 per MwH for 35 years for Hinkley point c when the UK can build wind or solar for £35-40 now and probably less in future years. The economics are insane.
  - epistasis 6y ago
    The lobbying effort in the mid 2000s for a "nuclear renaissance" was absolutely a tour de force. It passed laws in US states that put all construction economic risk (the biggest risk of nuclear) onto rate payers rather than the utilities that start nuclear construction projects. These sorts of shady laws sneak through state legislatures all the time, but these ones in particular were the only reason that utilities in Georgia and South Carolina embarked on construction projects. Of course, these have been massive economic and management failures, as nuclear too often is. All the US/UK efforts are echoes from that lobbying push. And in the mid 2000s, nuclear seemed to be a much better idea. Solar and wind were more expensive, not far less expensive, than estimated nuclear costs. It seemed like nuclear was going to be an absolutely essential part of a carbon neutral or negative society. Fifteen years later, we have had an energy technology revolution, and we are still in the middle of it. Personally, I don't see a future for nuclear, and for that matter I see only niche applications for thermally generated electricity. Other technology will undercut the steam turbine driven electricity that has been the basis of grids for a century. We might have some chemical storage in hydrogen, methanol, methane, or longer carbon chains that comes from atmospherically extracted CO2 for use in extreme scenarios, but it also seems likely that long-duration battery storage (e.g. vanadium flow batteries) will get cheap enough to replace even that.
mcot2 6y ago
Canada sure does have a lot of untapped offshore wind power and hydro power from the east cost you could be exporting to Ontario.
- kevincox 6y ago
  Energy transmission has a significant cost. Wiring the east cost to Toronto is probably not the best use of the wind energy produced there.
  - mcot2 6y ago
    Well they are building high voltage dc lines to connect Quebec to Massachusetts so it is very possible.
stevenjgarner 6y ago
Can you explain how the total cost of ownership is economic, when you include the cost of managing nuclear wastes for thousands of years? There is such a woeful global record of adequate safety measures not being included in any total cost budgeting for nuclear power. Real safety seems to always be an off-budget item. Not to mention the weapons proliferation risk. No thanks.
- mabbo 6y ago
  Let's break down the problem you've stated. > managing nuclear wastes for thousands of years There's a fun way to think about this: the more dangerous the isotopes in terms of radiation, the faster it becomes safer. That radiation is the isotope breaking down into something else, something more stable. For the most dangerous waste, the stuff that has proliferation risks, in a few decades it's not nearly as dangerous. So "thousands of years" is a popular misunderstanding, in my view. > There is such a woeful global record of adequate safety measures There have been a small number of incidents- Chernobyl and Fukishima primarily- but that mostly boils down to poor initial designs or choices for locations. No CANDU[0]-based reactor design has ever had a dangerous safety incident. I know I'm trying to convince you of something you don't agree with, but give this link[1] a chance. It has a lot of answers to some of your oppositions- maybe you agree with them, maybe you don't, but I think it's well written at least. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor [1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-wastes-myths-and-realities.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu...
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > So "thousands of years" is a popular misunderstanding, in my view. "Thousands of years" comes from the half life of Plutonium-239, which is 24,000 years. Pu-239 isn't unusually dangerous for an isotope. It's chemically toxic and somewhat radioactive but so is tons of stuff. The biggest problem with it is that you can make nuclear weapons from it. Most commercial reactors make both Pu-239 and Pu-240. They're infeasible to separate (harder than separating U-235 from natural uranium) and enough Pu-240 makes the plutonium unsuitable for weapons. But Pu-240 has a shorter half life than Pu-239. So if you take the plutonium out of a legacy reactor and bury it in the ground for a long time, it turns into weapons-grade plutonium. Burying it in the ground is very stupid because then you have to guard it for tens of thousands of years to keep anyone from going in and taking it to make nuclear weapons from. But that ship has sailed. We have a half century of the stuff already. Half again as much or not makes no difference, we need a solution for what do with what we already have regardless of whether we make any more. The solution is that newer reactors can use plutonium as fuel, which permanently eliminates it. So far from nuclear waste being a reason not to build newer reactors, it's the reason we should, so we can get rid of what we already have before it becomes suitable for weapons.
pfdietz 6y ago
Now look at Ontario's recent effort to get bids for new nuclear power plants. The bids they got weren't remotely competitive.

by mabbo 6y ago

Retric 6y ago

First the price customers see ignores subsides. That’s essentially what subsides do. Also, Ontario’s production is weighted towards nuclear, but it’s second by second usage is significantly less so. They export a lot of nuclear power and import non nuclear power. That arrangement only works because nuclear is less common in other areas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_power_transmission_grid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_power_transmiss... Also, hydro complements Nuclear extremely well as it can shift production across time, thus maximizing each nuclear power plant’s capacity factor. However, wind fills the same niche more cheaply even with significant excess capacity. This shows up as a grid where the wholesale price frequently sits around zero, which makes nuclear even less economically viable. I personally expect nuclear to stick around for various reasons like bulk radioactive isotope production, but ramping up to become a significantly larger chunk of global electricity production would take dramatically lower unsubsidized prices.

ggm 6y ago
Hydro complementing Nuclear is Pumped Hydro Storage. I like this but economists will note, it has system loss: the energy costs to store, include losses which can't be recovered: the value proposition is that SOME (large) amount of energy is shifted in time, behind the dam wall. So its real. but, its not perfect. All systems have losses. The losses in PHES are not necessarily a huge problem.
- Retric 6y ago
  By adding extra turbines to any large dam regular Hydro is effectively self filling pumped storage. The losses end up roughly identical and you can release at the maximum or minimum rate at any point over a week as long as the total stays the same it’s almost free peaking production. The only issue is it’s location dependent and thus can’t scale. This is why retrofitted dams generally increase the maximum power production rate even if the average remains the same time shifted power is extremely valuable.
pydry 6y ago
>I personally expect nuclear to stick around for various reasons Nuclear arsenals. It's the only reason I can think of for paying inflation linked £92.50 per MwH for 35 years for Hinkley point c when the UK can build wind or solar for £35-40 now and probably less in future years. The economics are insane.
- epistasis 6y ago
  The lobbying effort in the mid 2000s for a "nuclear renaissance" was absolutely a tour de force. It passed laws in US states that put all construction economic risk (the biggest risk of nuclear) onto rate payers rather than the utilities that start nuclear construction projects. These sorts of shady laws sneak through state legislatures all the time, but these ones in particular were the only reason that utilities in Georgia and South Carolina embarked on construction projects. Of course, these have been massive economic and management failures, as nuclear too often is. All the US/UK efforts are echoes from that lobbying push. And in the mid 2000s, nuclear seemed to be a much better idea. Solar and wind were more expensive, not far less expensive, than estimated nuclear costs. It seemed like nuclear was going to be an absolutely essential part of a carbon neutral or negative society. Fifteen years later, we have had an energy technology revolution, and we are still in the middle of it. Personally, I don't see a future for nuclear, and for that matter I see only niche applications for thermally generated electricity. Other technology will undercut the steam turbine driven electricity that has been the basis of grids for a century. We might have some chemical storage in hydrogen, methanol, methane, or longer carbon chains that comes from atmospherically extracted CO2 for use in extreme scenarios, but it also seems likely that long-duration battery storage (e.g. vanadium flow batteries) will get cheap enough to replace even that.

mcot2 6y ago

Canada sure does have a lot of untapped offshore wind power and hydro power from the east cost you could be exporting to Ontario.

kevincox 6y ago
Energy transmission has a significant cost. Wiring the east cost to Toronto is probably not the best use of the wind energy produced there.
- mcot2 6y ago
  Well they are building high voltage dc lines to connect Quebec to Massachusetts so it is very possible.

stevenjgarner 6y ago

Can you explain how the total cost of ownership is economic, when you include the cost of managing nuclear wastes for thousands of years? There is such a woeful global record of adequate safety measures not being included in any total cost budgeting for nuclear power. Real safety seems to always be an off-budget item. Not to mention the weapons proliferation risk. No thanks.

mabbo 6y ago
Let's break down the problem you've stated. > managing nuclear wastes for thousands of years There's a fun way to think about this: the more dangerous the isotopes in terms of radiation, the faster it becomes safer. That radiation is the isotope breaking down into something else, something more stable. For the most dangerous waste, the stuff that has proliferation risks, in a few decades it's not nearly as dangerous. So "thousands of years" is a popular misunderstanding, in my view. > There is such a woeful global record of adequate safety measures There have been a small number of incidents- Chernobyl and Fukishima primarily- but that mostly boils down to poor initial designs or choices for locations. No CANDU[0]-based reactor design has ever had a dangerous safety incident. I know I'm trying to convince you of something you don't agree with, but give this link[1] a chance. It has a lot of answers to some of your oppositions- maybe you agree with them, maybe you don't, but I think it's well written at least. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor [1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-wastes-myths-and-realities.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu...
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > So "thousands of years" is a popular misunderstanding, in my view. "Thousands of years" comes from the half life of Plutonium-239, which is 24,000 years. Pu-239 isn't unusually dangerous for an isotope. It's chemically toxic and somewhat radioactive but so is tons of stuff. The biggest problem with it is that you can make nuclear weapons from it. Most commercial reactors make both Pu-239 and Pu-240. They're infeasible to separate (harder than separating U-235 from natural uranium) and enough Pu-240 makes the plutonium unsuitable for weapons. But Pu-240 has a shorter half life than Pu-239. So if you take the plutonium out of a legacy reactor and bury it in the ground for a long time, it turns into weapons-grade plutonium. Burying it in the ground is very stupid because then you have to guard it for tens of thousands of years to keep anyone from going in and taking it to make nuclear weapons from. But that ship has sailed. We have a half century of the stuff already. Half again as much or not makes no difference, we need a solution for what do with what we already have regardless of whether we make any more. The solution is that newer reactors can use plutonium as fuel, which permanently eliminates it. So far from nuclear waste being a reason not to build newer reactors, it's the reason we should, so we can get rid of what we already have before it becomes suitable for weapons.

pfdietz 6y ago

Now look at Ontario's recent effort to get bids for new nuclear power plants. The bids they got weren't remotely competitive.