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There is nothing cheaper and easier and more scalable than nuclear for baseload gigawatt generation, especially when you actually account for the insane amount

There is nothing cheaper and easier and more scalable than nuclear for baseload gigawatt generation, especially when you actually account for the insane amount of batteries required to make wind/solar/etc viable as a baseload technology. People point at solar panel progress and always conveniently stay silent on the big battery problem (the mining problem, the scalability problem, the toxicity problem, etc) Nuclear did and does work out. It was not overhyped and it has delivered as expected. I would argue that solar is overhyped and has continually underdelivered. Anyone who has installed a solar system on their house has seen the significant issues with it. Nuclear remains the best way to replace coal/gas electricity generation for baseload power, to generate enough energy to power industries and cities, and is cleaner than filling a city with atrocious rare earth batteries that are required to paper over the problems with other inconsistently generating technologies. It is what it is, but if nuclear isn't the future, then coal isn't going anywhere.

keewee7 5y ago
>baseload gigawatt generation This is very important for the heavy industries yet opponents of Nuclear still pretend that solar and wind can cover it. They are fine with Nuclear as long as it is in China.
- atomicusit 5y ago
  Why is China building as we speak 184 coal plants than? https://www.canadianenergycentre.ca/commentary-china-is-building-184-coal-plants-guess-what-that-will-do-to-carbon-emissions/ https://www.canadianenergycentre.ca/commentary-china-is-buil...
  - epistasis 5y ago
    Interpreting Chinese policy can be difficult foe an outsider, but the most likely reason seems to be the politics dominance of coal interests combined with inertia from plans made a long time ago. The coal capital expenditures into coal will likely be underutilized over the next 30 years, but that happens when there are massive plans that are set in motion over the course of many years without adjustment.
jopsen 5y ago
Cost at scale is hard to predict. I think a bigger question is, do we have enough "political capital" to pay for nuclear energy? Even if our politicians all agreed to it, across counties even, what are the odds that they would get ousted before the reactors are built and delivering cost efficiency energy.
- a9h74j 5y ago
  Worth pondering the extent to which anti-nuclear sentiment was funded early by big-coal money.
epistasis 5y ago
> the mining problem, the scalability problem, the toxicity problem, etc These are all trivial compared to nuclear's construction problem. But I've never heard that batteries are not "scalable," when they are actually one of the most incredibly scalable technologies out there. Want a few watt hours? No problem. Want 10GWh? No problem. Want to distribute a MWh at every distribution station across a country? No problem. Batteries scale as small or large as we can conceive. > atrocious rare earth batteries There aren't rare earth elements in batteries. It's been funny to watch "rare earth" become a synonym for "harmful" because this does not seem to have any basis in fact that I can understand. > coal isn't going anywhere Coal is already a dead man walking. Most of its use in the US is uneconomic, and loses money for utility customers. Bad financial agreements, executive incompetence, and misaligned economic incentives between utilities and their customers are the only reason its still on the grid. Everybody who bet on coal 10 years ago was foolish, and should lose their capital, but since that section of our economy is run on cronyism instead of capitalism, people bad at capital allocation are not losing their shirts like they should.
- WA 5y ago
  Even more weird: most people think rare earth is rare as in: "there isn’t a lot in the ground and it is easily depleted". Whereas in reality, rare earth means that it is less common per cubic meter of earth than other minerals. But there is plenty.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    Yes, this is all important information to know. The best I can understand is that "rare earths" became associated with dependence on China (not true), which led to people being against rare earths in general. But it's tough to figure out what's going on with people's opinion on the matter, I still don't know what I said in my comment above yours that was so disagreeable.
  - saati 5y ago
    It actually means it doesn't form many minerals worth to mine, they aren't rare on average per volume.

keewee7 5y ago

>baseload gigawatt generation This is very important for the heavy industries yet opponents of Nuclear still pretend that solar and wind can cover it. They are fine with Nuclear as long as it is in China.

atomicusit 5y ago
Why is China building as we speak 184 coal plants than? https://www.canadianenergycentre.ca/commentary-china-is-building-184-coal-plants-guess-what-that-will-do-to-carbon-emissions/ https://www.canadianenergycentre.ca/commentary-china-is-buil...
- epistasis 5y ago
  Interpreting Chinese policy can be difficult foe an outsider, but the most likely reason seems to be the politics dominance of coal interests combined with inertia from plans made a long time ago. The coal capital expenditures into coal will likely be underutilized over the next 30 years, but that happens when there are massive plans that are set in motion over the course of many years without adjustment.

jopsen 5y ago

Cost at scale is hard to predict. I think a bigger question is, do we have enough "political capital" to pay for nuclear energy? Even if our politicians all agreed to it, across counties even, what are the odds that they would get ousted before the reactors are built and delivering cost efficiency energy.

a9h74j 5y ago
Worth pondering the extent to which anti-nuclear sentiment was funded early by big-coal money.

epistasis 5y ago

> the mining problem, the scalability problem, the toxicity problem, etc These are all trivial compared to nuclear's construction problem. But I've never heard that batteries are not "scalable," when they are actually one of the most incredibly scalable technologies out there. Want a few watt hours? No problem. Want 10GWh? No problem. Want to distribute a MWh at every distribution station across a country? No problem. Batteries scale as small or large as we can conceive. > atrocious rare earth batteries There aren't rare earth elements in batteries. It's been funny to watch "rare earth" become a synonym for "harmful" because this does not seem to have any basis in fact that I can understand. > coal isn't going anywhere Coal is already a dead man walking. Most of its use in the US is uneconomic, and loses money for utility customers. Bad financial agreements, executive incompetence, and misaligned economic incentives between utilities and their customers are the only reason its still on the grid. Everybody who bet on coal 10 years ago was foolish, and should lose their capital, but since that section of our economy is run on cronyism instead of capitalism, people bad at capital allocation are not losing their shirts like they should.

WA 5y ago
Even more weird: most people think rare earth is rare as in: "there isn’t a lot in the ground and it is easily depleted". Whereas in reality, rare earth means that it is less common per cubic meter of earth than other minerals. But there is plenty.
- epistasis 5y ago
  Yes, this is all important information to know. The best I can understand is that "rare earths" became associated with dependence on China (not true), which led to people being against rare earths in general. But it's tough to figure out what's going on with people's opinion on the matter, I still don't know what I said in my comment above yours that was so disagreeable.
- saati 5y ago
  It actually means it doesn't form many minerals worth to mine, they aren't rare on average per volume.