4 ms·

Both France, Japan and the US have proven that nuclear scale up perfectly well.

antupis 5y ago
Yeah it can currently nuclear has pretty bad technological and regulatory problem. 4/10 most expensive buildings are regular nuclear plants https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_buildings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_build...
- tester756 5y ago
  it's good or bad?
Gwypaas 5y ago
So well that the french one even had a negative learning curve. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...
fsh 5y ago
In the US and Japan the fraction of primary energy supplied by nuclear power is almost negligible (8% [1] and 3% [2]). Even the famously large French nuclear industry only manages 39% [3]. Nuclear power would have to be scaled up by orders of magnitude worldwide in order to make any difference to the global CO2 budget. [1] https://www.eia.gov/international/data/country/USA/total-energy/total-energy-consumption https://www.eia.gov/international/data/country/USA/total-ene... [2] https://www.eia.gov/international/data/country/jpn/total-energy/total-energy-consumption https://www.eia.gov/international/data/country/jpn/total-ene... [3] https://www.eia.gov/international/data/country/FRA/total-energy/total-energy-consumption https://www.eia.gov/international/data/country/FRA/total-ene...
- enkid 5y ago
  I mean, wouldn't it be an order of magnitude in the US? Going from 8% to 80% is a matter of resource allocation, not technology breakthrough.
- Nouser76 5y ago
  I don't know if I'd use proportion of national energy use when a reactor offers a fixed output while each nation's consumption (and area for alternative renewables) can drastically differ. In 2019, the 93 nuclear reactors in the US produced 809.41 terawatt-hours of electricity[0]. Each reactor, as an average, produced about 8.7 terawatt-hours of electricity per year. Using a list with the power consumption per country[1], it seems like everything beneath rank roughly 100[2] would have their entire power needs met by a single reactor performing at the avg return of a US reactor (assuming peaks can be met as well). To me, that seems promising and exciting. Smaller (by landmass) countries may not have the same ability to deploy renewables across wide swaths of land. A nuclear power plant can offset some of the necessity for land to scale energy use in a green-powered world without relying on importing energy. I'm not sure that this is a good enough argument on its own to develop nuclear, especially given some of the lifetime costs, but I think it's a reasonable concern to want domestic power stability. [0] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici... [2] Ranking is not representing total energy consumption per year, it seems, since sometimes the energy consumption goes up as rank decreases. Roughly though, everything in the bottom half of countries is within the reaches of at most 1 reactor. Edit: Edited for formatting on sources
- fuoqi 5y ago
  It's somewhat disingenuous to use "primary energy" stats in this discussion. IIUC it includes stuff like gasoline used for transportation and natural gas used for heating and cooking. In France they produce 70-80% of their electricity from nuclear plants. Installing more renewables will not solve migration to EV and heat pumps, it's a whole another discussion barely relevant here.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    >IIUC it includes stuff like gasoline used for transportation and natural gas used for heating and cooking. As it should, as those are the things we should be replacing with environmental friendly sources and consumers (e.g. EVs). So if nuclear can't cover energy uses of 'stuff' currently using gasoline and nature gas, it's no real good...
    - fuoqi 5y ago
      What? Of course, the existing nuclear capacity is not enough to cover full migration to EV. The same applies to the existing capacity of renewables. You can not have 150% of nuclear (or any other kind of) generation relative to your current electricity consumption in anticipation of future migration to EV. The point is that it was demonstrated in practice that high (~80%) nuclear ratio of electricity generation works well and results in stable and affordable long-term electricity prices, so you can scale it following mass migration to EV (it's a multi-decade process, so quite enough time to build new reactors). Meanwhile, we can see that grid starts to struggle when renewables get to 30-40% of generation capacity and you have to rely on fossil fuels to back them up during unfavorable conditions. Yes, in theory it could be solved, but those solutions have not been demonstrated in practice on large scale and long time frame.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > In the US and Japan the fraction of primary energy supplied by nuclear power is almost negligible (8% [1] and 3% [2]). Even the famously large French nuclear industry only manages 39% [3]. See the province of Ontario where 50-70% of power is from nuclear generation ("Supply" tab): * https://www.ieso.ca/power-data https://www.ieso.ca/power-data A steady 10,000 MW. Hydro tends to supply another 3000 MW for baseload. As wind fluctuates, gas turbines can brought online as needed. We could use another 3000MW of nuclear capacity IMHO. (I live 50km from one of the nuke plants.)

Yeah it can currently nuclear has pretty bad technological and regulatory problem. 4/10 most expensive buildings are regular nuclear plants https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_buildings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_build...

tester756 5y ago
it's good or bad?

Gwypaas 5y ago

So well that the french one even had a negative learning curve. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...

fsh 5y ago

In the US and Japan the fraction of primary energy supplied by nuclear power is almost negligible (8% [1] and 3% [2]). Even the famously large French nuclear industry only manages 39% [3]. Nuclear power would have to be scaled up by orders of magnitude worldwide in order to make any difference to the global CO2 budget. [1] https://www.eia.gov/international/data/country/USA/total-energy/total-energy-consumption https://www.eia.gov/international/data/country/USA/total-ene... [2] https://www.eia.gov/international/data/country/jpn/total-energy/total-energy-consumption https://www.eia.gov/international/data/country/jpn/total-ene... [3] https://www.eia.gov/international/data/country/FRA/total-energy/total-energy-consumption https://www.eia.gov/international/data/country/FRA/total-ene...

enkid 5y ago
I mean, wouldn't it be an order of magnitude in the US? Going from 8% to 80% is a matter of resource allocation, not technology breakthrough.
Nouser76 5y ago
I don't know if I'd use proportion of national energy use when a reactor offers a fixed output while each nation's consumption (and area for alternative renewables) can drastically differ. In 2019, the 93 nuclear reactors in the US produced 809.41 terawatt-hours of electricity[0]. Each reactor, as an average, produced about 8.7 terawatt-hours of electricity per year. Using a list with the power consumption per country[1], it seems like everything beneath rank roughly 100[2] would have their entire power needs met by a single reactor performing at the avg return of a US reactor (assuming peaks can be met as well). To me, that seems promising and exciting. Smaller (by landmass) countries may not have the same ability to deploy renewables across wide swaths of land. A nuclear power plant can offset some of the necessity for land to scale energy use in a green-powered world without relying on importing energy. I'm not sure that this is a good enough argument on its own to develop nuclear, especially given some of the lifetime costs, but I think it's a reasonable concern to want domestic power stability. [0] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici... [2] Ranking is not representing total energy consumption per year, it seems, since sometimes the energy consumption goes up as rank decreases. Roughly though, everything in the bottom half of countries is within the reaches of at most 1 reactor. Edit: Edited for formatting on sources
fuoqi 5y ago
It's somewhat disingenuous to use "primary energy" stats in this discussion. IIUC it includes stuff like gasoline used for transportation and natural gas used for heating and cooking. In France they produce 70-80% of their electricity from nuclear plants. Installing more renewables will not solve migration to EV and heat pumps, it's a whole another discussion barely relevant here.
- coldtea 5y ago
  >IIUC it includes stuff like gasoline used for transportation and natural gas used for heating and cooking. As it should, as those are the things we should be replacing with environmental friendly sources and consumers (e.g. EVs). So if nuclear can't cover energy uses of 'stuff' currently using gasoline and nature gas, it's no real good...
  - fuoqi 5y ago
    What? Of course, the existing nuclear capacity is not enough to cover full migration to EV. The same applies to the existing capacity of renewables. You can not have 150% of nuclear (or any other kind of) generation relative to your current electricity consumption in anticipation of future migration to EV. The point is that it was demonstrated in practice that high (~80%) nuclear ratio of electricity generation works well and results in stable and affordable long-term electricity prices, so you can scale it following mass migration to EV (it's a multi-decade process, so quite enough time to build new reactors). Meanwhile, we can see that grid starts to struggle when renewables get to 30-40% of generation capacity and you have to rely on fossil fuels to back them up during unfavorable conditions. Yes, in theory it could be solved, but those solutions have not been demonstrated in practice on large scale and long time frame.
throw0101a 5y ago
> In the US and Japan the fraction of primary energy supplied by nuclear power is almost negligible (8% [1] and 3% [2]). Even the famously large French nuclear industry only manages 39% [3]. See the province of Ontario where 50-70% of power is from nuclear generation ("Supply" tab): * https://www.ieso.ca/power-data https://www.ieso.ca/power-data A steady 10,000 MW. Hydro tends to supply another 3000 MW for baseload. As wind fluctuates, gas turbines can brought online as needed. We could use another 3000MW of nuclear capacity IMHO. (I live 50km from one of the nuke plants.)