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> But rather than placing unfounded faith in the ability of nuclear power to save the planet, we need to focus on the real threat: the changing climate. And we

> But rather than placing unfounded faith in the ability of nuclear power to save the planet, we need to focus on the real threat: the changing climate. And we need strong government support of noncarbon-emitting energy technologies that are ready to be deployed today, not ten or 20 years from now, because we have run out of time. We cannot wait a minute longer. So, are those technologies actually ready to go? Or is there a different article about why those technologies are not immediately up to the challenge of battling climate change? Renewables will doubtless play an important role, but there are well-known reasons that they are not a panacea, such as the intermittency and storage issues. Beware of thinkpieces that talk about how good or bad X is without considering X relative to the alternatives. I forget where I read it first, but I recall some smart folks consider this to be the most common and elementary fallacy in policy deliberation.

adrianN 5y ago
Solar panels and wind turbines are ready to go. They can take you to at least 50% renewable electricity without help of any other more experimental technology. Heat pumps are ready to go in most climates. They can electrify almost all of your heating needs. Electric cars are ready to go for many use cases. They can electrify a large part of your transportation. Of course there is also technology that is a hundred years old and could help: better insulation for houses, better public transport and the like. While you introduce all of those technologies until they reach some point where they're not completely suitable yet, you have time to improve the cost effectiveness of the puzzle pieces that are only kind of available, like grid scale storage, long range transportation, various industrial processes, etc. Maybe it turns out that by the time we've electrified everything and taken renewables as far as they go without killing the grid somebody has come up with a modular molten salt Thorium reactor that can cheaply cover the remaining electricity needs. Maybe power2gas becomes amazingly cheap, or we discover awesome batteries. But it doesn't really make sense not to build as much renewables as you can and electrify as much as you can while you wait for that.
- civilized 5y ago
  I support scaling up renewables. The question is, should we bet on the solution of fundamental unsolved science and engineering problems that currently keep them from scaling further? Or hedge our bets by scaling up nuclear to cover the gaps left by renewables?
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    What is one of those fundamental problems? Fusion has unsolved problems. Batteries do not.
    - civilized 5y ago
      How confident are you that using batteries to reliably serve energy at a civilization scale has no fundamental unsolved problems? Because in my reading about this topic, it comes up quite frequently.
      - jeffbee 5y ago
        I'm fairly confident that if you want to throw FUD it's your responsibility, not mine, to give some example.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    As far as I know there are no unsolved problems, power2gas could scale to grid scale storage and we have enough room for solar and wind to cover our energy needs. The problems are purely economical right now: power2gas is pretty expensive. So I think it makes sense to ask whether nuclear can realistically beat that. Nuclear is not known to be a particularly cheap source of power either. I defer to people who do more detailed analysis than I can to answer this question. Meanwhile I think we should just build more wind and solar and electrify as much of our energy demand as we can.
    - js8 5y ago
      I completely agree with you, I would just add the big unknown is the shift in demand. If renewables are going to be much cheaper in certain times (they are already cheaper than nuclear, on average, for example https://www.visualcapitalist.com/electricity-from-renewable-energy-sources-is-now-cheaper-than-ever/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/electricity-from-renewable-...), it will be worth shifting energy-intensive industries to utilize that. This might significantly reduce the demand for the base load, and reduce the need for power2gas (and so its cost) significantly.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Some notes on renewables readiness, that I made yesterday while thinking about California’s heat wave. In California, we now serve up to 95% of grid demand from renewables at certain times of day. This is up from 85% last year. Solar peak capacity grew by 15% last year to over 13GW. Yesterday, batteries discharged 999MW over a five-minute average, a record, just missing the 1GW milestone. Utility-scale batteries have grown 10x in a single year. None of this includes distributed solar and battery storage, which is widespread and has been lowering grid demand for years.
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    See also this graph of annual nuclear vs. (non-hydro) renewable generation, in TWh. Now extrapolate that renewable curve forward 10 years, to when any nuclear plant that was started today might be coming online. https://i.imgur.com/HLUmcDk.png https://i.imgur.com/HLUmcDk.png
pfdietz 5y ago
Renewables and storage are advancing so quickly that by the time any nuclear plant greenlighted today could be turned on, it wouldn't be worth turning it on.
- civilized 5y ago
  I don't understand why we should be so confident in this?
js8 5y ago
I have been just doing some research about this for another discussion. Here's some article quotes: From https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/4/7/15159034/100-renewable-energy-studies https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/4/7/15159034...: "The professional energy community used to be quite convinced that wind and solar could play no serious role in the power system because of their variability. Then, for a long time, conventional wisdom was that they could provide no more than 20 percent of power before the grid started falling apart. That number has kept creeping up. Now CW has it around 60 percent. Which direction do you suppose it will go in the next few decades? It’s a similar story with batteries and EVs. They keep outpacing forecasts, getting cheaper and better, finding new applications. Is there any reason to think that won’t continue?" From https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/3/28/21195056/renewable-energy-100-percent-clean-electricity-power-to-gas-methane https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/3/28/2119505...: "To some extent, sun, wind, and water balance one another out; where it is not sunny, it is often windy. With a good national transmission system, renewables could supply up to 60 percent, maybe 80 percent of electricity in the US, but after that, things get expensive and something else is needed to fill the gaps." So here you go, we could go 60-80% renewable today, and worry about the rest when we get there. Most likely these problems are going to be solved, or the (non-intermittent) energy will simply be more expensive.

adrianN 5y ago

Solar panels and wind turbines are ready to go. They can take you to at least 50% renewable electricity without help of any other more experimental technology. Heat pumps are ready to go in most climates. They can electrify almost all of your heating needs. Electric cars are ready to go for many use cases. They can electrify a large part of your transportation. Of course there is also technology that is a hundred years old and could help: better insulation for houses, better public transport and the like. While you introduce all of those technologies until they reach some point where they're not completely suitable yet, you have time to improve the cost effectiveness of the puzzle pieces that are only kind of available, like grid scale storage, long range transportation, various industrial processes, etc. Maybe it turns out that by the time we've electrified everything and taken renewables as far as they go without killing the grid somebody has come up with a modular molten salt Thorium reactor that can cheaply cover the remaining electricity needs. Maybe power2gas becomes amazingly cheap, or we discover awesome batteries. But it doesn't really make sense not to build as much renewables as you can and electrify as much as you can while you wait for that.

civilized 5y ago
I support scaling up renewables. The question is, should we bet on the solution of fundamental unsolved science and engineering problems that currently keep them from scaling further? Or hedge our bets by scaling up nuclear to cover the gaps left by renewables?
- jeffbee 5y ago
  What is one of those fundamental problems? Fusion has unsolved problems. Batteries do not.
  - civilized 5y ago
    How confident are you that using batteries to reliably serve energy at a civilization scale has no fundamental unsolved problems? Because in my reading about this topic, it comes up quite frequently.
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      I'm fairly confident that if you want to throw FUD it's your responsibility, not mine, to give some example.
- adrianN 5y ago
  As far as I know there are no unsolved problems, power2gas could scale to grid scale storage and we have enough room for solar and wind to cover our energy needs. The problems are purely economical right now: power2gas is pretty expensive. So I think it makes sense to ask whether nuclear can realistically beat that. Nuclear is not known to be a particularly cheap source of power either. I defer to people who do more detailed analysis than I can to answer this question. Meanwhile I think we should just build more wind and solar and electrify as much of our energy demand as we can.
  - js8 5y ago
    I completely agree with you, I would just add the big unknown is the shift in demand. If renewables are going to be much cheaper in certain times (they are already cheaper than nuclear, on average, for example https://www.visualcapitalist.com/electricity-from-renewable-energy-sources-is-now-cheaper-than-ever/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/electricity-from-renewable-...), it will be worth shifting energy-intensive industries to utilize that. This might significantly reduce the demand for the base load, and reduce the need for power2gas (and so its cost) significantly.
jeffbee 5y ago
Some notes on renewables readiness, that I made yesterday while thinking about California’s heat wave. In California, we now serve up to 95% of grid demand from renewables at certain times of day. This is up from 85% last year. Solar peak capacity grew by 15% last year to over 13GW. Yesterday, batteries discharged 999MW over a five-minute average, a record, just missing the 1GW milestone. Utility-scale batteries have grown 10x in a single year. None of this includes distributed solar and battery storage, which is widespread and has been lowering grid demand for years.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  See also this graph of annual nuclear vs. (non-hydro) renewable generation, in TWh. Now extrapolate that renewable curve forward 10 years, to when any nuclear plant that was started today might be coming online. https://i.imgur.com/HLUmcDk.png https://i.imgur.com/HLUmcDk.png

pfdietz 5y ago

Renewables and storage are advancing so quickly that by the time any nuclear plant greenlighted today could be turned on, it wouldn't be worth turning it on.

civilized 5y ago
I don't understand why we should be so confident in this?

js8 5y ago

I have been just doing some research about this for another discussion. Here's some article quotes: From https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/4/7/15159034/100-renewable-energy-studies https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/4/7/15159034...: "The professional energy community used to be quite convinced that wind and solar could play no serious role in the power system because of their variability. Then, for a long time, conventional wisdom was that they could provide no more than 20 percent of power before the grid started falling apart. That number has kept creeping up. Now CW has it around 60 percent. Which direction do you suppose it will go in the next few decades? It’s a similar story with batteries and EVs. They keep outpacing forecasts, getting cheaper and better, finding new applications. Is there any reason to think that won’t continue?" From https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/3/28/21195056/renewable-energy-100-percent-clean-electricity-power-to-gas-methane https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/3/28/2119505...: "To some extent, sun, wind, and water balance one another out; where it is not sunny, it is often windy. With a good national transmission system, renewables could supply up to 60 percent, maybe 80 percent of electricity in the US, but after that, things get expensive and something else is needed to fill the gaps." So here you go, we could go 60-80% renewable today, and worry about the rest when we get there. Most likely these problems are going to be solved, or the (non-intermittent) energy will simply be more expensive.