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I like nuclear and I used to think it was a silver bullet. I still believe that nuclear is very safe for life (in fact, it is even safer than solar on a per-kWh

by elil17 5y ago

I like nuclear and I used to think it was a silver bullet. I still believe that nuclear is very safe for life (in fact, it is even safer than solar on a per-kWh basis due to the high number of deaths associated with people falling off roofs while installing panels) and the enviroment, but I now understand more about some of it's disadvantages. Specifically: 1. It is very expensive. Nuclear has a levelized cost of over 10 cents per kilowatt hour, which is very high compared to solar and wind (not including energy storage). The levelized cost means that it is a cost which includes the costs of capital. 2. Load shifting can greatly reduce the need for energy storage. By shifting certain loads (e.g., some particularly energy intensive industrial processes) away from peak hours, we can greatly reduce the need for energy storage. Further, application tailored energy storage solutions (e.g., thermal energy storage for HVAC applications) can also be an effective solution. 3. While nuclear is not dangerous to humans anymore, the financial cost of accidents is huge. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, while it only killed one person, cost one trillion dollars to contain and remediate. When you add it the probability of disasters and the cost of remediating them, the levelized cost of nuclear would be much, much higher. Thus, while I don't oppose new nuclear power plants, I do think our society's resources are better spent on further research into nuclear (both fission and fusion) and lower cost energy options like wind and solar.

tuatoru 5y ago
I used to oppose nuclear, but I now think it's a worthwhile backup, or perhaps one strand in a diversified approach to getting off fossil fuels. There is, sadly, no one single technology that can replace fossil fuels for even any one major category of use (electricity, industrial, buildings, transport). We're going to end up with a massively more complicated energy supply system. In this context I think it's still worth pursuing nuclear. The cost argument has only arisen recently. As late as 2010 nuclear was competitive, or at least not obviously uncompetitive apart from its massive regulatory burden. It seems to me that a lot of nuclear's costs arise from the "as low as reasonably achievable" doctrine (ALARA), which in turn is founded in the "linear no threshold" theory (LNT) of the effects of radiation. LNT is falsified by the health statistics of the Denver population vs the coasts, and many other real-world observations. If fission had fixed, scientifically determined thresholds and performance standards to work to, and a less hostile regulatory environment (removing the veto of NIMBYs), it would really interesting to see how it competes. It can scale up to the necessary scale in 30 years. Fusion, on the other hand, can't conceivably help us with the transition in the time we have available. It'd be best to park it for 50 years and redeploy those physics Ph. D.s into material science for photovoltaics, batteries, electrolysis, and fuel synthesis.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  Nuclear didn't get more expensive, the alternatives got cheaper and proved themselves in the field. Nuclear is in the same pile as tidal turbines, cool tech but just not financially viable compared with churning out wind and pv on a global scale.

by elil17 5y ago

tuatoru 5y ago

I used to oppose nuclear, but I now think it's a worthwhile backup, or perhaps one strand in a diversified approach to getting off fossil fuels. There is, sadly, no one single technology that can replace fossil fuels for even any one major category of use (electricity, industrial, buildings, transport). We're going to end up with a massively more complicated energy supply system. In this context I think it's still worth pursuing nuclear. The cost argument has only arisen recently. As late as 2010 nuclear was competitive, or at least not obviously uncompetitive apart from its massive regulatory burden. It seems to me that a lot of nuclear's costs arise from the "as low as reasonably achievable" doctrine (ALARA), which in turn is founded in the "linear no threshold" theory (LNT) of the effects of radiation. LNT is falsified by the health statistics of the Denver population vs the coasts, and many other real-world observations. If fission had fixed, scientifically determined thresholds and performance standards to work to, and a less hostile regulatory environment (removing the veto of NIMBYs), it would really interesting to see how it competes. It can scale up to the necessary scale in 30 years. Fusion, on the other hand, can't conceivably help us with the transition in the time we have available. It'd be best to park it for 50 years and redeploy those physics Ph. D.s into material science for photovoltaics, batteries, electrolysis, and fuel synthesis.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Nuclear didn't get more expensive, the alternatives got cheaper and proved themselves in the field. Nuclear is in the same pile as tidal turbines, cool tech but just not financially viable compared with churning out wind and pv on a global scale.