4 ms·

Of course interconnection is a big help, but transmission isn't "free" or unlimited, the flows between individual European countries is typically a small fracti

by derriz 5y ago

Of course interconnection is a big help, but transmission isn't "free" or unlimited, the flows between individual European countries is typically a small fraction (less than 10%) of the national consumption and generation. And there are cases like Ireland which has its own grid - with very limited external interconnection - and yet achieved 42% renewable share last year. Techniques/engineering/theory for integrating intermittent sources has advanced considerably in the last ten years.

kergonath 5y ago
> Of course interconnection is a big help, but transmission isn't "free" or unlimited, the flows between individual European countries is typically a small fraction (less than 10%) of the national consumption and generation. It’s more than a little help. Just imagine how a blackout involving 10% of the population or Germany would look like, never mind the EU. > And there are cases like Ireland which has its own grid - with very limited external interconnection - and yet achieved 42% renewable share last year. You cannot really compare Ireland with many of the other EU countries, either in term of population or industry, though. > Techniques/engineering/theory for integrating intermittent sources has advanced considerably in the last ten years. They have. And it is a good thing, because it really should not be a competition between nuclear and renewables. They still have several issues, which are very difficult to solve without either a massive reduction in consumption, or a massive increase in price. I really struggle to understand how almost all mainstream “green” parties see fossil fuels as a lesser menace than nuclear. The truth is, if you read their manifesto, that they don’t care about particle pollution beyond “cars are bad” (which is true, but insufficient) or climate change. It is not a competition, it is a struggle to get rid of fossil fuels, which are an existential threat to our societies. We can sort that out and talk about fusion once we’ve done it. In the meantime, getting rid of fossil fuels is a massive undertaking, and we would be stupid not to use every card in our hand.
- derriz 5y ago
  In what way is it not a competition? We live in a world of finite resources. When considering the significant task of decarbonizing energy, there are lots of technologies potentially available. But some deliver more value than others. Unfortunately nuclear is not _currently_ one of the options which delivers value in this regard. Flamenville 3 - the newest French reactor will cost $22B to build 1.6GW of capacity and will have taken nearly 20 years from the start of construction to deliver a watt. The same amount of money could deliver over 20GW of wind capacity which could be deployed almost instantly as it's an easily parallelizable low-risk, relatively low-tech engineering task relying on mass-production for most of the installation. None of these benefits are available to nuclear reactor construction. Even with a capacity factor of 40% for on-shore wind vs 90%+ for nuclear, nuclear just isn't close. I'm not against nuclear. If the nuclear industry can step up and deliver reactors on time and on budget which can provide power at competitive prices, then I'd be all in favour. It would be wonderful to have an alternative in the race to decarbonize energy. But all I see is a long trail of massively delayed or abandoned projects with incredible cost-overruns (Flamanville, Olkiluoto, V.C. Summer, Vogtle, etc). These failures are hard-engineering failures, nothing to do with politics. With such a litany of recent failures, the incredible capital expense, the extra security required, the slowness of delivery, it's clear why resources have been directed away from nuclear toward other technologies which are quick and easy to roll-out and have already significantly contributed to reducing the the CO2 intensity of Europe's electricity (which is now less than half of what it was 30 years ago). Btw, it isn't just nuclear that loses in this regard; bio-fuels, domestic-solar PV, green hydrogen, etc. all fail to compete in the new world of ultra-cheap solar PV and wind.
  - kergonath 5y ago
    > In what way is it not a competition? Nuclear is bottlenecked by the availability of properly trained engineers (and you really need those for such projects). The need in resources would not impact installations of either wind turbines or solar panels. Nuclear+renewables is not more expensive than all renewables, particularly if you consider the fact that at the moment renewables benefit from an industry that is entirely dependent on subsidised fuel. And that nuclear reactors would be much cheaper per unit if we stopped building only a couple of each class. Also, a nuclear power plant is expensive, but so is the equivalent capacity in wind turbines plus the required storage. A nuclear baseline mitigates the issues of wind turbines, and wind turbines are a good complement to nuclear. Both are mostly mutually exclusive for political reasons. > Flamenville 3 - the newest French reactor will cost $22B to build 1.6GW of capacity and will have taken nearly 20 years from the start of construction to deliver a watt. The same amount of money could deliver over 20GW of wind capacity which could be deployed almost instantly as it's an easily parallelizable low-risk, relatively low-tech engineering task relying on mass-production for most of the installation. None of these benefits are available to nuclear reactor construction. Even with a capacity factor of 40% for on-shore wind vs 90%+ for nuclear, nuclear just isn't close. The same reactor was built on time and on budget in China, and is currently operating. Hinckley point is also going more or less as planned. Areva/Orano’s abysmal performance is more related to their mismanagement than the reactor itself. You also need to factor stuff like storage, and the fact that we have a limited shore length to use. > I see is a long trail of massively delayed or abandoned projects with incredible cost-overruns (Flamanville, Olkiluoto, V.C. Summer, Vogtle, etc). These failures are hard-engineering failures, nothing to do with politics. Olkiluoto and Flamanville are all the consequences of mismanagement coupled with politics. They re-designed Olkiluoto whilst it was being built to adapt it to changing regulations, it is obviously a recipe for disaster. Most of Flamanville delays are due to poor quality control and issues with contractors and suppliers, i.e., mismanagement. The problem with nuclear is that it requires a high initial capital investment, this is not a secret. This is also why private companies are not suited for this: they don’t price national interest and reliability of the energy supply at the scale of a continent. Nuclear programmes that do account for this (like France in the 1970s/1980s and China today) are massively successful. Look at it this way: no more fossil fuel means that you can divert a sliver of the money that’s being spent on the military to secure oil supply to large infrastructure projects. You could build nuclear power plants with the yearly increase of the US military budget. It is only a matter of strategy. > Btw, it isn't just nuclear that loses in this regard; bio-fuels, domestic-solar PV, green hydrogen, etc. all fail to compete in the new world of ultra-cheap solar PV and wind. Well, good riddance to bio-fuels (which cause soil degradation, deforestation and dangerous monocultures) and green hydrogen (which is just greenwashed fossil fuel at the moment and does not make much thermodynamical sense in most scenarios). Super-cheap wind turbines won’t be super-cheap anymore if they are the only tool we have.

by derriz 5y ago

kergonath 5y ago

> Of course interconnection is a big help, but transmission isn't "free" or unlimited, the flows between individual European countries is typically a small fraction (less than 10%) of the national consumption and generation. It’s more than a little help. Just imagine how a blackout involving 10% of the population or Germany would look like, never mind the EU. > And there are cases like Ireland which has its own grid - with very limited external interconnection - and yet achieved 42% renewable share last year. You cannot really compare Ireland with many of the other EU countries, either in term of population or industry, though. > Techniques/engineering/theory for integrating intermittent sources has advanced considerably in the last ten years. They have. And it is a good thing, because it really should not be a competition between nuclear and renewables. They still have several issues, which are very difficult to solve without either a massive reduction in consumption, or a massive increase in price. I really struggle to understand how almost all mainstream “green” parties see fossil fuels as a lesser menace than nuclear. The truth is, if you read their manifesto, that they don’t care about particle pollution beyond “cars are bad” (which is true, but insufficient) or climate change. It is not a competition, it is a struggle to get rid of fossil fuels, which are an existential threat to our societies. We can sort that out and talk about fusion once we’ve done it. In the meantime, getting rid of fossil fuels is a massive undertaking, and we would be stupid not to use every card in our hand.

derriz 5y ago
In what way is it not a competition? We live in a world of finite resources. When considering the significant task of decarbonizing energy, there are lots of technologies potentially available. But some deliver more value than others. Unfortunately nuclear is not _currently_ one of the options which delivers value in this regard. Flamenville 3 - the newest French reactor will cost $22B to build 1.6GW of capacity and will have taken nearly 20 years from the start of construction to deliver a watt. The same amount of money could deliver over 20GW of wind capacity which could be deployed almost instantly as it's an easily parallelizable low-risk, relatively low-tech engineering task relying on mass-production for most of the installation. None of these benefits are available to nuclear reactor construction. Even with a capacity factor of 40% for on-shore wind vs 90%+ for nuclear, nuclear just isn't close. I'm not against nuclear. If the nuclear industry can step up and deliver reactors on time and on budget which can provide power at competitive prices, then I'd be all in favour. It would be wonderful to have an alternative in the race to decarbonize energy. But all I see is a long trail of massively delayed or abandoned projects with incredible cost-overruns (Flamanville, Olkiluoto, V.C. Summer, Vogtle, etc). These failures are hard-engineering failures, nothing to do with politics. With such a litany of recent failures, the incredible capital expense, the extra security required, the slowness of delivery, it's clear why resources have been directed away from nuclear toward other technologies which are quick and easy to roll-out and have already significantly contributed to reducing the the CO2 intensity of Europe's electricity (which is now less than half of what it was 30 years ago). Btw, it isn't just nuclear that loses in this regard; bio-fuels, domestic-solar PV, green hydrogen, etc. all fail to compete in the new world of ultra-cheap solar PV and wind.
- kergonath 5y ago
  > In what way is it not a competition? Nuclear is bottlenecked by the availability of properly trained engineers (and you really need those for such projects). The need in resources would not impact installations of either wind turbines or solar panels. Nuclear+renewables is not more expensive than all renewables, particularly if you consider the fact that at the moment renewables benefit from an industry that is entirely dependent on subsidised fuel. And that nuclear reactors would be much cheaper per unit if we stopped building only a couple of each class. Also, a nuclear power plant is expensive, but so is the equivalent capacity in wind turbines plus the required storage. A nuclear baseline mitigates the issues of wind turbines, and wind turbines are a good complement to nuclear. Both are mostly mutually exclusive for political reasons. > Flamenville 3 - the newest French reactor will cost $22B to build 1.6GW of capacity and will have taken nearly 20 years from the start of construction to deliver a watt. The same amount of money could deliver over 20GW of wind capacity which could be deployed almost instantly as it's an easily parallelizable low-risk, relatively low-tech engineering task relying on mass-production for most of the installation. None of these benefits are available to nuclear reactor construction. Even with a capacity factor of 40% for on-shore wind vs 90%+ for nuclear, nuclear just isn't close. The same reactor was built on time and on budget in China, and is currently operating. Hinckley point is also going more or less as planned. Areva/Orano’s abysmal performance is more related to their mismanagement than the reactor itself. You also need to factor stuff like storage, and the fact that we have a limited shore length to use. > I see is a long trail of massively delayed or abandoned projects with incredible cost-overruns (Flamanville, Olkiluoto, V.C. Summer, Vogtle, etc). These failures are hard-engineering failures, nothing to do with politics. Olkiluoto and Flamanville are all the consequences of mismanagement coupled with politics. They re-designed Olkiluoto whilst it was being built to adapt it to changing regulations, it is obviously a recipe for disaster. Most of Flamanville delays are due to poor quality control and issues with contractors and suppliers, i.e., mismanagement. The problem with nuclear is that it requires a high initial capital investment, this is not a secret. This is also why private companies are not suited for this: they don’t price national interest and reliability of the energy supply at the scale of a continent. Nuclear programmes that do account for this (like France in the 1970s/1980s and China today) are massively successful. Look at it this way: no more fossil fuel means that you can divert a sliver of the money that’s being spent on the military to secure oil supply to large infrastructure projects. You could build nuclear power plants with the yearly increase of the US military budget. It is only a matter of strategy. > Btw, it isn't just nuclear that loses in this regard; bio-fuels, domestic-solar PV, green hydrogen, etc. all fail to compete in the new world of ultra-cheap solar PV and wind. Well, good riddance to bio-fuels (which cause soil degradation, deforestation and dangerous monocultures) and green hydrogen (which is just greenwashed fossil fuel at the moment and does not make much thermodynamical sense in most scenarios). Super-cheap wind turbines won’t be super-cheap anymore if they are the only tool we have.