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Best vs Worst? That doesn't feel like the right way to look at things. Nuclear is probably an appropriate medium term solution for some locations until batter

Best vs Worst? That doesn't feel like the right way to look at things. Nuclear is probably an appropriate medium term solution for some locations until battery storage is better and more affordable at mass scale. Being a pragmatic minimalist I believe all options should be on the table and grab what option suits your geographic location and load requirements best, factoring in initial costs, time to deploy, cost to support, cost to tear down, environmental impact, local politics, operational longevity... all of these things being complicated topics on their own that vary wildly by location.

ch4s3 5y ago
A lot of those costs come from over cautiousness on the part of regulators. Requiring that radiation exposure on site all the way to the fence line must be not more than 15mrem per year is just silly. You get more than that walking into a granite building or taking the subway. Remediation requirements also bizarrely require remediation to far below background levels. Former uranium mines in NV have the lowest measurable radiation levels in the whole state.
- cannaceo 5y ago
  Funny how that can work. We can’t use natural fruit puree for cannabis edibles because they won’t pass pesticide testing.
  - ch4s3 5y ago
    Yeah, it’s really wild. You get more mrems per year living down wind of a coal plant than you would living in a nuclear plant’s control room. You get more from eating bananas.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
Battery storage is already sufficient and inexpensive enough for deployment today at costs less than nuclear. A 3x overbuild of solar+wind in an optimal mix, along with a continental grid and 3 hours worth of batteries is all you need for 99.99% reliability: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/electrify https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/electrify
- ch4s3 5y ago
  You need lots of transmission lines for that to work, and high voltage transmission is expensive to build, eats up land, and is opposed by every community it passes through. I’m 100% in favor of lots of renewable use, but it’s not always a great use of land, prevents rewilding (with solar), and in the case of solar uses a ton of water. The latter being a major concern in arid regions. A lot of nuclear’s cost comes from shifting/overly tight regulation, legal prohibition of reprocessing, legal prohibition for long term storage, and graft. The latter will be a problem with large scale renewables once they’re large enough.
  - kwhitefoot 5y ago
    We have a lot of the transmission lines already although of course we need more. The major missing part is interconnects between countries, or regions of large countries like the US. Germany has an over supply of renewable energy on occasion but is unable to export the energy so it simply drives the price negative in Germany while prices are high elsewhere.
    - p_l 5y ago
      Germany pays neighbours to stop their own wind farms to sell power from their own, because they can't ship the energy from wind-rich north southwards due to lack of necessary interconnects. It's not that simple. And the overbuilding necessary is usually more in range of 10x assuming favourable storage conditions (which aren't necessarily available).
      - pfdietz 5y ago
        When I look at "Germany, 2011 weather data, 2030 cost assumptions" in https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ I get an optimized solution (for synthetic baseload production) that has PV and wind curtailment at 4.6% and 12.3%, respectively. This solution includes batteries and hydrogen; generally when hydrogen is included curtailment is limited (because you can make hydrogen when the sources would have been curtailed, up to some point of sufficiently rare curtailment that the extra electrolysers don't make sense.)
actually_a_dog 5y ago
Sure, in the medium term, nuclear probably is the best solution. But, nuclear is not going to save us from 1.5°C (nothing can, in fact)[0], and it isn't going to do anything for us for 20-30 years. That's how long it takes to build a nuclear plant in the US. We can't let nuclear distract us from the goal, which is preventing more serious warming. --- [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/09/humans-have-caused-unprecedented-and-irreversible-change-to-climate-scientists-warn https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/09/humans-have-...
- p_l 5y ago
  Building extra LNG plants is going to help us even less, and that's what it currently takes to keep grid operational with renewables, so...
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    Who said anything about LNG? Why the straw man? I said nuclear won't save us, full stop. Please do not put words in my mouth.
    - p_l 5y ago
      Well, the "it's not going to do anything right now so let's forget about it, maybe there will be magic battery tech in that time" is also a straw man. Meanwhile the best we have from renewable grids, even in huge interconnected systems that ostensibly should be able to shift renewable power around is... LNG build up to cover for instability of renewables, and reduced pressure on shutdown (or even extensions) to coal power plants. Also, USA might take 30 years, but then USA is infamous for having trouble building any infrastructure these days. Global warming and energy scarcity is a global problem.
      - actually_a_dog 5y ago
        > Well, the "it's not going to do anything right now so let's forget about it, maybe there will be magic battery tech in that time" is also a straw man. Yes, and I also didn't say that. Again, do not put words in my mouth. I'm getting really tired of your disingenuous, bad faith non-arguments.
pfdietz 5y ago
Medium term the best solution is massive rollout of renewables, with some storage, and gas to fill in the gaps. This will more rapidly reduce grid CO2 emissions, and for much lower cost, than a nuclear rollout.

ch4s3 5y ago

A lot of those costs come from over cautiousness on the part of regulators. Requiring that radiation exposure on site all the way to the fence line must be not more than 15mrem per year is just silly. You get more than that walking into a granite building or taking the subway. Remediation requirements also bizarrely require remediation to far below background levels. Former uranium mines in NV have the lowest measurable radiation levels in the whole state.

cannaceo 5y ago
Funny how that can work. We can’t use natural fruit puree for cannabis edibles because they won’t pass pesticide testing.
- ch4s3 5y ago
  Yeah, it’s really wild. You get more mrems per year living down wind of a coal plant than you would living in a nuclear plant’s control room. You get more from eating bananas.

bryanlarsen 5y ago

Battery storage is already sufficient and inexpensive enough for deployment today at costs less than nuclear. A 3x overbuild of solar+wind in an optimal mix, along with a continental grid and 3 hours worth of batteries is all you need for 99.99% reliability: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/electrify https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/electrify

ch4s3 5y ago
You need lots of transmission lines for that to work, and high voltage transmission is expensive to build, eats up land, and is opposed by every community it passes through. I’m 100% in favor of lots of renewable use, but it’s not always a great use of land, prevents rewilding (with solar), and in the case of solar uses a ton of water. The latter being a major concern in arid regions. A lot of nuclear’s cost comes from shifting/overly tight regulation, legal prohibition of reprocessing, legal prohibition for long term storage, and graft. The latter will be a problem with large scale renewables once they’re large enough.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  We have a lot of the transmission lines already although of course we need more. The major missing part is interconnects between countries, or regions of large countries like the US. Germany has an over supply of renewable energy on occasion but is unable to export the energy so it simply drives the price negative in Germany while prices are high elsewhere.
  - p_l 5y ago
    Germany pays neighbours to stop their own wind farms to sell power from their own, because they can't ship the energy from wind-rich north southwards due to lack of necessary interconnects. It's not that simple. And the overbuilding necessary is usually more in range of 10x assuming favourable storage conditions (which aren't necessarily available).
    - pfdietz 5y ago
      When I look at "Germany, 2011 weather data, 2030 cost assumptions" in https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ I get an optimized solution (for synthetic baseload production) that has PV and wind curtailment at 4.6% and 12.3%, respectively. This solution includes batteries and hydrogen; generally when hydrogen is included curtailment is limited (because you can make hydrogen when the sources would have been curtailed, up to some point of sufficiently rare curtailment that the extra electrolysers don't make sense.)

actually_a_dog 5y ago

Sure, in the medium term, nuclear probably is the best solution. But, nuclear is not going to save us from 1.5°C (nothing can, in fact)[0], and it isn't going to do anything for us for 20-30 years. That's how long it takes to build a nuclear plant in the US. We can't let nuclear distract us from the goal, which is preventing more serious warming. --- [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/09/humans-have-caused-unprecedented-and-irreversible-change-to-climate-scientists-warn https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/09/humans-have-...

p_l 5y ago
Building extra LNG plants is going to help us even less, and that's what it currently takes to keep grid operational with renewables, so...
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  Who said anything about LNG? Why the straw man? I said nuclear won't save us, full stop. Please do not put words in my mouth.
  - p_l 5y ago
    Well, the "it's not going to do anything right now so let's forget about it, maybe there will be magic battery tech in that time" is also a straw man. Meanwhile the best we have from renewable grids, even in huge interconnected systems that ostensibly should be able to shift renewable power around is... LNG build up to cover for instability of renewables, and reduced pressure on shutdown (or even extensions) to coal power plants. Also, USA might take 30 years, but then USA is infamous for having trouble building any infrastructure these days. Global warming and energy scarcity is a global problem.
    - actually_a_dog 5y ago
      > Well, the "it's not going to do anything right now so let's forget about it, maybe there will be magic battery tech in that time" is also a straw man. Yes, and I also didn't say that. Again, do not put words in my mouth. I'm getting really tired of your disingenuous, bad faith non-arguments.

pfdietz 5y ago

Medium term the best solution is massive rollout of renewables, with some storage, and gas to fill in the gaps. This will more rapidly reduce grid CO2 emissions, and for much lower cost, than a nuclear rollout.