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> "Nuclear is vastly more efficient than wind and solar" With current technology, nuclear is significantly less efficient than solar and wind in one very impor
by Reason077 5y ago
> "Nuclear is vastly more efficient than wind and solar"
With current technology, nuclear is significantly less efficient than solar and wind in one very important metric: cost. Or to put it another way, a dollar invested in solar or wind will produce more energy and offset more carbon emissions more quickly than if that dollar was invested in nuclear.
This may change when we're chasing after the last 10-20% of grid emissions, but for now there's still a lot of low-hanging fruit.
- option 5y agothat “cost” in nuclear has more to do with regulations rather than technology.
- apcragg 5y agoWhat regulations, specifically, do you mean?
- danhor 5y agoThe regulations are a consequence of the technology being risky if not properly regulated. This does not apply to most renewables (with the exception of dams for electricity generation)
- bassman9000 5y agoI don't think we've even started to account the immense costs of reciclying solar panels. Not even mentioning wind turbines, which today are partly not even recyclable. A nuclear power plant can last 50-75 years. What are we going to do with millions of heavy-metal filled solar panels?
- Reason077 5y ago> "immense costs of reciclying solar panels ... A nuclear power plant can last 50-75 years." How long do you think it takes to "recycle" a nuclear power plant after it finishes operation? Decommissioning an old nuclear power plant can take more than 100 years and costs billions. Decommissioning and clean-up of the UK's fleet of 17 retired Magnox reactors, built between the 1950s and 1970s, is estimated to cost in excess of £100 billion, and will still be ongoing well into the 22nd century: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR-UK-nuclear-clean-up-cost-estimate-dips-to-154-billion-15071602.html https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR-UK-nuclear-clean-up-co... Is it really fair for us to keep offloading these costs and problems onto future generations?
- pfdietz 5y agoThe cost of recycling solar panels is maybe $.01/watt, if that? It's a small fraction of the cost of installing the solar panels. This also assumes the solar panels even need to be recycled. Maybe to recover silver from front contact wires?
- pydry 5y agoDeregulated nuclear power is a terrifying prospect.
- option 5y agowhy is it always one extreme or another in US?! Have a look at France - they get over 70% of their electricity from nuclear just fine. And it is much cleaner and cheaper than in Germany which opts for Russian gas instead.
- pydry 5y agoFrance is fine for the next 10 years but all of its plants will start aging out - more or less at the same time. That either means a gargantuan cost to build new plants (making germany's recent renewables building spree look cheap) or trying to make a plant that was designed for 80 years last 100 with all of the exciting safety concerns which go with it.
- bassman9000 5y agoThose plants can be licensed, easily, for another 25 years. What about solar panels?
- Reason077 5y ago> "Have a look at France - they get over 70% of their electricity from nuclear just fine" Even France has cooled on nuclear due to the high costs involved. As old reactors are decommissioned, they plan to replace them mainly with renewables: https://www.power-technology.com/comment/renewable-energy-to-lead-the-capacity-mix-over-nuclear-power-in-france-by-2028/ https://www.power-technology.com/comment/renewable-energy-to...
- JamesBarney 5y agoJust like you can't compare a gigabyte of cloud storage with 90% uptime to one with 99.9% uptime you can't really compare a kw/h of raw solar/wind to nuclear. And once you install enough storage to make the 9's comparable, the solar/wind is quite a bit more expensive than the nuclear.
- Reason077 5y agoYou're right that a kW of nuclear can't be compared to a kW of solar, because the load factors will be very different. But power stations are contracted/paid on the basis of the energy (ie MWh) they generate. And solar and wind can produce each MWh significantly cheaper than new-build nuclear can.
- JamesBarney 5y agoIt's true that most energy providers aren't really compensated well enough for uptime ( As seen in Texas this past winter). But that mispricing of current power doesn't solve any of the issues we'll need to solve to migrate to a lower carbon energy infrastructure.
- throwaway210222 5y ago> But power stations are contracted/paid on the basis of the energy (ie MWh) they generate. But will they be continue to be paid by the solidified alumunium smelter and the gunged-up paper mill the week after the cloudy weather? That said, in interesting innovation that may deal with dispatch-ratio limitations of renewable energy has become popular here in Africa for domestic lighting. As you know, we have 'moved on' from electricity to candles and bush-fires for reasons relating to what is euphemistically called a skills-shortage. Many of us are now using LED light bulbs with batteries in them. They charge when the power is available (Deo Volente) and offer ~4 hours light. And we get to see the stars now.
- bryanlarsen 5y agoWrong. Solar + batteries has been built in the Mojave for $40/MWh, about a fifth the cost of nuclear. https://www.energy-storage.news/news/developer-8minute-says-more-than-24gwh-of-batteries-included-in-its-us-sola https://www.energy-storage.news/news/developer-8minute-says-...