3 ms·

I'm pro nuclear. But the fact is right now nuclear is too expensive. It just can't compete. With the new generation of small modular reactors, it might become c

I'm pro nuclear. But the fact is right now nuclear is too expensive. It just can't compete. With the new generation of small modular reactors, it might become competitive, or it might not. We just don't know. We simply can't bet the house on nuclear. But if the private sector wants to pursue nuclear (be it fission or fusion), I'm all for it.

ryan93 5y ago
Its not expensive. The US is racking up tens of trillion in debt. nuclearizing the whole country would have cost a fraction of that
- pfdietz 5y ago
  "It's cheaper than the national debt!" is damning with faint praise.
  - ryan93 5y ago
    no its not
    - pfdietz 5y ago
      Yes, it is. It's an extremely weak statement in support of the idea. In particular, it doesn't argue that it is cheaper than alternatives. If that's the best you can come up with, the idea is unsupportable.
      - ryan93 5y ago
        It can provide an incredible amount of green base load energy. what else can?
        pfdietz 5y ago
        Renewables, when paired with storage, can also supply baseload. And they can likely do it cheaper than nuclear, without proliferation concerns, and without running out of uranium.
edelans 5y ago
It's not. In France we have cheap energy (compared to our neighbors : https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/7382280/ https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/7382280/ ), it's mainly nuclear.
- pydry 5y ago
  You've got front loaded capex. Wont stay that cheap when those plants age out (which will be soon).
  - edelans 5y ago
    Most (61%) of France nuclear plants are from the 70s : https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/54dbc4341c064fe49118e5458f60d57c https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/54dbc4341c064fe49118e54... 100% are from before 1988. Age out = you mean when they will be decommissioned ?
MertsA 5y ago
Nuclear being absurdly expensive feels a lot like rocket launches being expensive. We went from the Saturn V with a ballpark cost of 8,800 $/kg adjusted for inflation to the shuttle costing anywhere from 54,500 to 18,000 $/kg and if the SLS ever launches before it's inevitably canceled for being obsolete you could maybe get 14,300 $/kg and Delta, Atlas, Ariane, etc aren't dramatically cheaper either. It wasn't until SpaceX managed to get reusability working in a feasible way that cost to orbit dramatically fell and now you can use Falcon Heavy to get large quantities of mass to orbit for 1,410 $/kg. That lower price enables a breakthrough on the costs of satellites as well with SpaceX launching mass produced StarLink satellites that don't need the exponentially more expensive reliability, longevity, and much higher energy orbits of previous satellite communications constellations. If nuclear energy has a similar breakthrough that could be revolutionary. LFTR could make a similar change in the economics of nuclear power so long as they can make the online chemical reprocessing work reliably. If you have a reactor running at higher temperatures and low pressure you no longer need such a massively heavy, thick, obscenely expensive reactor vessel and an even more massive and expensive containment building built to withstand a continuous overpressure on par with what would be experienced close to a nuclear bomb exploding. Fun fact, the wall thickness of a minuteman missile silo is supposedly 4ft thick reinforced concrete. Some nuclear reactors use 5ft thick reinforced concrete for their containment structures. Getting rid of all that expense for a GW scale reactor could be a game changer especially if an inherently safe design allows for graceful failure of many subsystems where any component breaking isn't substantially more severe than it would be for that to happen to a coal power plant. Renewables may be cheaper than nuclear power, but renewables plus massively expanded energy storage plus nuclear power coming down in price would be an easy win for nuclear power.

ryan93 5y ago

Its not expensive. The US is racking up tens of trillion in debt. nuclearizing the whole country would have cost a fraction of that

pfdietz 5y ago
"It's cheaper than the national debt!" is damning with faint praise.
- ryan93 5y ago
  no its not
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    Yes, it is. It's an extremely weak statement in support of the idea. In particular, it doesn't argue that it is cheaper than alternatives. If that's the best you can come up with, the idea is unsupportable.
    - ryan93 5y ago
      It can provide an incredible amount of green base load energy. what else can?
      - pfdietz 5y ago
        Renewables, when paired with storage, can also supply baseload. And they can likely do it cheaper than nuclear, without proliferation concerns, and without running out of uranium.

edelans 5y ago

It's not. In France we have cheap energy (compared to our neighbors : https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/7382280/ https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/7382280/ ), it's mainly nuclear.

pydry 5y ago
You've got front loaded capex. Wont stay that cheap when those plants age out (which will be soon).
- edelans 5y ago
  Most (61%) of France nuclear plants are from the 70s : https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/54dbc4341c064fe49118e5458f60d57c https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/54dbc4341c064fe49118e54... 100% are from before 1988. Age out = you mean when they will be decommissioned ?

MertsA 5y ago

Nuclear being absurdly expensive feels a lot like rocket launches being expensive. We went from the Saturn V with a ballpark cost of 8,800 $/kg adjusted for inflation to the shuttle costing anywhere from 54,500 to 18,000 $/kg and if the SLS ever launches before it's inevitably canceled for being obsolete you could maybe get 14,300 $/kg and Delta, Atlas, Ariane, etc aren't dramatically cheaper either. It wasn't until SpaceX managed to get reusability working in a feasible way that cost to orbit dramatically fell and now you can use Falcon Heavy to get large quantities of mass to orbit for 1,410 $/kg. That lower price enables a breakthrough on the costs of satellites as well with SpaceX launching mass produced StarLink satellites that don't need the exponentially more expensive reliability, longevity, and much higher energy orbits of previous satellite communications constellations. If nuclear energy has a similar breakthrough that could be revolutionary. LFTR could make a similar change in the economics of nuclear power so long as they can make the online chemical reprocessing work reliably. If you have a reactor running at higher temperatures and low pressure you no longer need such a massively heavy, thick, obscenely expensive reactor vessel and an even more massive and expensive containment building built to withstand a continuous overpressure on par with what would be experienced close to a nuclear bomb exploding. Fun fact, the wall thickness of a minuteman missile silo is supposedly 4ft thick reinforced concrete. Some nuclear reactors use 5ft thick reinforced concrete for their containment structures. Getting rid of all that expense for a GW scale reactor could be a game changer especially if an inherently safe design allows for graceful failure of many subsystems where any component breaking isn't substantially more severe than it would be for that to happen to a coal power plant. Renewables may be cheaper than nuclear power, but renewables plus massively expanded energy storage plus nuclear power coming down in price would be an easy win for nuclear power.