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Nuclear should compete with fossil fuels - not renewables. Nuclear power provides 50% of the US's clean energy. https://www.e-education.psu.edu/ebf301/node/45

Nuclear should compete with fossil fuels - not renewables. Nuclear power provides 50% of the US's clean energy. https://www.e-education.psu.edu/ebf301/node/457 https://www.e-education.psu.edu/ebf301/node/457 We need to replace natural gas with nuke plants. Fossil fuel extraction is the worlds largest source of nuclear waste, not nuclear energy. No one worries about the tons of radon released from fracking. They call it "natural". https://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-04-14/fracking-increases-radon-gas-hazard-us-study-finds/ https://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-04-14/fracking-incre... I'm all for renewable - don't stop it. But there are many places in the world where a nuke plant would be the right choice. It would be great if we got this amount of resistance to new hydrocarbon vehicles or plants.

_ph_ 5y ago
The huge problem with nuclear vs. natural gas is, that nuclear power plants have only a limited range, in which the power output can be regulated and they are not too quick in that either. So you need something else you can power switch quickly to maintain grid integrity. Natural gas is great for that, as the plants are very quick in response and can be regulated between 0 and 100% and back. Nuclear is great to replace coal, but you still need the same amount of e.g. storage to complement changing net load and production (renewables).
- milesward 5y ago
  No, you just build extra for the peaks and use the low-demand period to drive capture of carbon.
  - ianai 5y ago
    I think the real problem there is carbon capture is very new and often still on the drawing board. But definitely one way to get carbon capture working is to start with whatever we’ve got.
- ianai 5y ago
  It’s not really that huge of a problem to have more energy than needed. It just takes additional engineering to put the excess to use. Having a national grid it can be moved around. Or used for energy intensive uses that can be useful elsewhere. Kind of like the flare gas oil rigs burn when those gasses aren’t economic. I’d like to see us have that excess power pull useful gasses out of the atmosphere or sea water, for instance. Done right it could act as a hydrogen source for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, for instance. Or power a national water grid. Tons of uses for more power than needed.
  - zardo 5y ago
    It's not a huge engineering problem. But it is a huge problem, lower the rates when you have excess power and we will have more uses for the energy. But if the rates are low the revenue is low. (This would not be so significant a problem if the capital costs weren't so high)
- DennisP 5y ago
  Small modular reactors may improve on that. Molten salt reactors in particular are supposed to be able to adjust to demand within a minute or so. Another possibility, for any sort of high-temperature reactor, is to use molten salt as energy storage. Heat the storage salt directly from the reactor, and put the turbine after that, so you don't have conversion losses before storage. Terrapower is working on this with their Natrium project.
  - ortusdux 5y ago
    I've seen non-photovoltaic solar collectors that heat molten salt and then store it for off-peak use. I wonder if they could be hybridized with small modular MSRs.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      Those are no longer cost competitive with PV and batteries.
      - DennisP 5y ago
        But a lot of that is the cost of concentrated solar. On the PV side, batteries are not known for being especially cheap. Lazard puts the wholesale cost of PV plus four hours storage at 8 to 14 cents/kWh, as of 2020: https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen-2020/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-... And four hours storage is just what you need to shift peak daytime sun to peak evening demand. You need more to get through a windless night. To cover reduced supply on cloudy winter days you need some combination of overcapacity and long-duration storage, which typically involves some kind of turbine.
        ncmncm 5y ago
        Batteries are the most expensive storage. Storage cost is plummeting even faster than solar or wind ever did.
  - 5y ago
- rdtwo 5y ago
  Just need Bitcoin miner’s next door to regulate output
- gwbas1c 5y ago
  That's handled by grid-scale storage: Batteries, pumped storage, compressed air. Renewable energy has the same need. BTW, when I was a teenager I got to go deep inside of a mountain to tour a pumped storage facility built to pair with some early 1970s nuclear power plants. The nuclear plants are long-decommissioned, but the pumped storage is happily running with renewables.
- amluto 5y ago
  Nuclear fuel is cheap enough that it could be economical to simply [0] discard the unneeded production. [0] It’s not that simple, but dump loads exist, as do mechanisms to intentionally waste power inside a plant without producing electricity. For example: https://www.thermal-engineering.org/what-is-turbine-bypass-system-turbine-steam-dump-system-definition/ https://www.thermal-engineering.org/what-is-turbine-bypass-s...
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    The other capital and operational costs stay the same even if you just discard the production you don't need, so just focusing on fuel costs is not very helpful to determine if it's economical to do that.
    - bfdm 5y ago
      Financial profitability is not a requirement for infrastructure projects. If it is the best way to supply power in the most sustainable way, it should be subsidized by governments to make it happen. If you want to pretend it balances on paper add eco taxes elsewhere, but again thats not necessary.
      - cinntaile 5y ago
        It is not that easy, we have privatised the energy markets so there are rules that need to be followed. Ignoring cost is not something governments can or should do, there are many more factors that need to be taken into account and this combination is what should be optimized for instead of just one factor. The most sustainable way to supply power is to reduce the need to supply it in the first place, insulation and other energy saving measures are usually subsidized already.
    - amluto 5y ago
      My point is that, once you’ve paid the capital cost for, say, 1GW of nuclear, the marginal cost of energy produced is low and you can adjust the production on fairly short timescales. I’m not saying you should, but the calculation is different from a natural gas or coal plant in which the marginal cost of energy is much higher.
- belorn 5y ago
  The general preferred choice for energy that can quickly turn on and off (in terms of weather changes that cause low production in wind/solar) is hydro. As long you don't deplete the water reserves it can be turn on and off fairly fast, through there can be considerations downstream. Nuclear can help in keeping those reserves high by reducing demand and letting hydro deal with the peaks. Using natural gas is non-viable. It funds war as has been fairly obvious lately, and it puts a dependence between those that has the natural resource and those that don't. The climate can also not continue to take the continuous damage that burning/leaking natural gas causes. The choices that we have is either nuclear, renewables, and batteries. The natural gas plants need to be replaced and so one can either choose nuclear, renewables or batteries.
- i_am_proteus 5y ago
  This is not true. Modern nuclear plants can load follow. The reason they usually don't is because fuel is such a small portion of the cost of operating a nuclear plant. It's comparatively more efficient to run nuclear at 100% and idle fossil plants. But nuclear can absolutely load follow if there's a reason to, such as load sharing with renewables. You will find further information on this web site: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load-following_power_plant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load-following_power_plant
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    If they load follow, their cost per joule produced becomes even worse than it already is. Anyway there will be no need to load follow, because load producing H2 and NH3, and pumping hydro and compressed air, can follow price, instead.
  - _ph_ 5y ago
    Only in a very limited way. As we move forward, we are quickly reaching the point where for more and more time, renewables can carry the whole grid load alone. Nuclear power plants would have to be switched off in those times. And while they can follow the load over a large part of their power output, they can't be swithed off and on again. So as the transition to renewables progresses, nuclear power plants are less and less a good counterpart. Gas plants however are. They are very quick and switching them off is possible and saves precious fuel. As the transition progresses, they should use less and less fuel as they are used more rareley and the fuel could be switched to renewable sources (bio, power2gas). The pre-war plans of the current German government included extending the gas infrastructure but with a clear ability for new installations to be also able to use H2 as it becomes available.
- goldenshale 5y ago
  Seems like a perfect pairing for direct air carbon capture systems, which are primarily energy limited.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
As far as I can tell, the people who are excited about nuclear are mostly people who have fallen for the anti-renewable propaganda. If they actually wanted nuclear and believed it was better then they'd be in broad agreement with renewables people. Agreeing timetables to phase out fossil fuels? Check. Removing fossil subsidies? Check. Carbon fees? Check. Pricing in pollution? Check. Electrifying transport, heating, industry? Check. Demand response? Check. Battery storage for short term time shifting? Check. Efficiency and insulation? Check. Green hydrogen? Check. All these things are being done by renewable groups and they are the biggest thing helping keep nuclear plants running. Does anyone pushing nuclear on HN ever mention any of those things? Do they mention how renewables don't work, cost too much, it's all the Environmentalists fault, how amazing fossil fuels are? Yes, they can't see to help themselves for some reason even though it makes their argument for nuclear totally transparent.
- EricE 5y ago
  Why isn't nuclear considered a renewable source of energy?
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    I assume for the same reasons that oil is not.
    - EricE 5y ago
      Yup, nuclear fission and burning oil are EXACTLY the same processes. /s Your response would be hilarious if it wasn't so utterly tragic. Our civilization exists because of cheap, abundant energy - and there is no more cheap or abundant or RENEWABLE energy (ever hear of breeder reactors? Might want to do some reading) then nuclear - if we can ever separate the politics and emotion from this "debate".
      - missedthecue 5y ago
        I mean from the perspective that both oil and extractable uranium are practically finite. The sun and the wind and gravity are not. Therefore, if it consumes a finite resource, I would say it isn't renewable.
SllX 5y ago
> Nuclear should compete with fossil fuels - not renewables. Nuclear power provides 50% of the US's clean energy. No, it should compete with both on market terms. If a nuclear plant is built instead of a hydroelectric plant, a wind farm or a gas-fired plant, I’ll be able to sleep just as easily about it so long as it wasn’t built for political reasons.
- ouid 5y ago
  The market does not price in externalities. That's why they call them that. Nuclear has significantly cheaper externalities than fossil fuels. You should prefer it, and subsidize it in kind.
  - SllX 5y ago
    Subsidizing nuclear is entirely theoretical for me, unless I’m subsidizing it in other States which I wouldn’t be happy to do if it won’t benefit me directly (not indirectly: directly). California presently has a flat prohibition on new nuclear construction. I would rather keep my dollars for my own utility bill, unless Nevada would like to play host to a nuclear plant built to serve the Bay Area.
    - aiisjustanif 5y ago
      I guess the states aren’t so united. Federal Texas are for federal uses which can include state ones.
      - SllX 5y ago
        You’re not wrong but that’s exactly my problem: this isn’t something for the Feds to subsidize. They need to get out of the business of subsidizing industry.
        ouid 5y ago
        Anything that is capable of negotiating on behalf of society in the case of a transaction that produces externalities is going to be indistinguishable from a government. If you're arguing that no one should advocate for society's interests in these transactions, then you should make that position explicit.
datavirtue 5y ago
Maybe we should rebrand away from "nuke plant?" Fission steam boiler sounds better.

_ph_ 5y ago

The huge problem with nuclear vs. natural gas is, that nuclear power plants have only a limited range, in which the power output can be regulated and they are not too quick in that either. So you need something else you can power switch quickly to maintain grid integrity. Natural gas is great for that, as the plants are very quick in response and can be regulated between 0 and 100% and back. Nuclear is great to replace coal, but you still need the same amount of e.g. storage to complement changing net load and production (renewables).

milesward 5y ago
No, you just build extra for the peaks and use the low-demand period to drive capture of carbon.
- ianai 5y ago
  I think the real problem there is carbon capture is very new and often still on the drawing board. But definitely one way to get carbon capture working is to start with whatever we’ve got.
ianai 5y ago
It’s not really that huge of a problem to have more energy than needed. It just takes additional engineering to put the excess to use. Having a national grid it can be moved around. Or used for energy intensive uses that can be useful elsewhere. Kind of like the flare gas oil rigs burn when those gasses aren’t economic. I’d like to see us have that excess power pull useful gasses out of the atmosphere or sea water, for instance. Done right it could act as a hydrogen source for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, for instance. Or power a national water grid. Tons of uses for more power than needed.
- zardo 5y ago
  It's not a huge engineering problem. But it is a huge problem, lower the rates when you have excess power and we will have more uses for the energy. But if the rates are low the revenue is low. (This would not be so significant a problem if the capital costs weren't so high)
DennisP 5y ago
Small modular reactors may improve on that. Molten salt reactors in particular are supposed to be able to adjust to demand within a minute or so. Another possibility, for any sort of high-temperature reactor, is to use molten salt as energy storage. Heat the storage salt directly from the reactor, and put the turbine after that, so you don't have conversion losses before storage. Terrapower is working on this with their Natrium project.
- ortusdux 5y ago
  I've seen non-photovoltaic solar collectors that heat molten salt and then store it for off-peak use. I wonder if they could be hybridized with small modular MSRs.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    Those are no longer cost competitive with PV and batteries.
    - DennisP 5y ago
      But a lot of that is the cost of concentrated solar. On the PV side, batteries are not known for being especially cheap. Lazard puts the wholesale cost of PV plus four hours storage at 8 to 14 cents/kWh, as of 2020: https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen-2020/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-... And four hours storage is just what you need to shift peak daytime sun to peak evening demand. You need more to get through a windless night. To cover reduced supply on cloudy winter days you need some combination of overcapacity and long-duration storage, which typically involves some kind of turbine.
      - ncmncm 5y ago
        Batteries are the most expensive storage. Storage cost is plummeting even faster than solar or wind ever did.
- 5y ago
rdtwo 5y ago
Just need Bitcoin miner’s next door to regulate output
gwbas1c 5y ago
That's handled by grid-scale storage: Batteries, pumped storage, compressed air. Renewable energy has the same need. BTW, when I was a teenager I got to go deep inside of a mountain to tour a pumped storage facility built to pair with some early 1970s nuclear power plants. The nuclear plants are long-decommissioned, but the pumped storage is happily running with renewables.
amluto 5y ago
Nuclear fuel is cheap enough that it could be economical to simply [0] discard the unneeded production. [0] It’s not that simple, but dump loads exist, as do mechanisms to intentionally waste power inside a plant without producing electricity. For example: https://www.thermal-engineering.org/what-is-turbine-bypass-system-turbine-steam-dump-system-definition/ https://www.thermal-engineering.org/what-is-turbine-bypass-s...
- cinntaile 5y ago
  The other capital and operational costs stay the same even if you just discard the production you don't need, so just focusing on fuel costs is not very helpful to determine if it's economical to do that.
  - bfdm 5y ago
    Financial profitability is not a requirement for infrastructure projects. If it is the best way to supply power in the most sustainable way, it should be subsidized by governments to make it happen. If you want to pretend it balances on paper add eco taxes elsewhere, but again thats not necessary.
    - cinntaile 5y ago
      It is not that easy, we have privatised the energy markets so there are rules that need to be followed. Ignoring cost is not something governments can or should do, there are many more factors that need to be taken into account and this combination is what should be optimized for instead of just one factor. The most sustainable way to supply power is to reduce the need to supply it in the first place, insulation and other energy saving measures are usually subsidized already.
  - amluto 5y ago
    My point is that, once you’ve paid the capital cost for, say, 1GW of nuclear, the marginal cost of energy produced is low and you can adjust the production on fairly short timescales. I’m not saying you should, but the calculation is different from a natural gas or coal plant in which the marginal cost of energy is much higher.
belorn 5y ago
The general preferred choice for energy that can quickly turn on and off (in terms of weather changes that cause low production in wind/solar) is hydro. As long you don't deplete the water reserves it can be turn on and off fairly fast, through there can be considerations downstream. Nuclear can help in keeping those reserves high by reducing demand and letting hydro deal with the peaks. Using natural gas is non-viable. It funds war as has been fairly obvious lately, and it puts a dependence between those that has the natural resource and those that don't. The climate can also not continue to take the continuous damage that burning/leaking natural gas causes. The choices that we have is either nuclear, renewables, and batteries. The natural gas plants need to be replaced and so one can either choose nuclear, renewables or batteries.
i_am_proteus 5y ago
This is not true. Modern nuclear plants can load follow. The reason they usually don't is because fuel is such a small portion of the cost of operating a nuclear plant. It's comparatively more efficient to run nuclear at 100% and idle fossil plants. But nuclear can absolutely load follow if there's a reason to, such as load sharing with renewables. You will find further information on this web site: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load-following_power_plant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load-following_power_plant
- ncmncm 5y ago
  If they load follow, their cost per joule produced becomes even worse than it already is. Anyway there will be no need to load follow, because load producing H2 and NH3, and pumping hydro and compressed air, can follow price, instead.
- _ph_ 5y ago
  Only in a very limited way. As we move forward, we are quickly reaching the point where for more and more time, renewables can carry the whole grid load alone. Nuclear power plants would have to be switched off in those times. And while they can follow the load over a large part of their power output, they can't be swithed off and on again. So as the transition to renewables progresses, nuclear power plants are less and less a good counterpart. Gas plants however are. They are very quick and switching them off is possible and saves precious fuel. As the transition progresses, they should use less and less fuel as they are used more rareley and the fuel could be switched to renewable sources (bio, power2gas). The pre-war plans of the current German government included extending the gas infrastructure but with a clear ability for new installations to be also able to use H2 as it becomes available.
goldenshale 5y ago
Seems like a perfect pairing for direct air carbon capture systems, which are primarily energy limited.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

As far as I can tell, the people who are excited about nuclear are mostly people who have fallen for the anti-renewable propaganda. If they actually wanted nuclear and believed it was better then they'd be in broad agreement with renewables people. Agreeing timetables to phase out fossil fuels? Check. Removing fossil subsidies? Check. Carbon fees? Check. Pricing in pollution? Check. Electrifying transport, heating, industry? Check. Demand response? Check. Battery storage for short term time shifting? Check. Efficiency and insulation? Check. Green hydrogen? Check. All these things are being done by renewable groups and they are the biggest thing helping keep nuclear plants running. Does anyone pushing nuclear on HN ever mention any of those things? Do they mention how renewables don't work, cost too much, it's all the Environmentalists fault, how amazing fossil fuels are? Yes, they can't see to help themselves for some reason even though it makes their argument for nuclear totally transparent.

EricE 5y ago
Why isn't nuclear considered a renewable source of energy?
- missedthecue 5y ago
  I assume for the same reasons that oil is not.
  - EricE 5y ago
    Yup, nuclear fission and burning oil are EXACTLY the same processes. /s Your response would be hilarious if it wasn't so utterly tragic. Our civilization exists because of cheap, abundant energy - and there is no more cheap or abundant or RENEWABLE energy (ever hear of breeder reactors? Might want to do some reading) then nuclear - if we can ever separate the politics and emotion from this "debate".
    - missedthecue 5y ago
      I mean from the perspective that both oil and extractable uranium are practically finite. The sun and the wind and gravity are not. Therefore, if it consumes a finite resource, I would say it isn't renewable.

SllX 5y ago

> Nuclear should compete with fossil fuels - not renewables. Nuclear power provides 50% of the US's clean energy. No, it should compete with both on market terms. If a nuclear plant is built instead of a hydroelectric plant, a wind farm or a gas-fired plant, I’ll be able to sleep just as easily about it so long as it wasn’t built for political reasons.

ouid 5y ago
The market does not price in externalities. That's why they call them that. Nuclear has significantly cheaper externalities than fossil fuels. You should prefer it, and subsidize it in kind.
- SllX 5y ago
  Subsidizing nuclear is entirely theoretical for me, unless I’m subsidizing it in other States which I wouldn’t be happy to do if it won’t benefit me directly (not indirectly: directly). California presently has a flat prohibition on new nuclear construction. I would rather keep my dollars for my own utility bill, unless Nevada would like to play host to a nuclear plant built to serve the Bay Area.
  - aiisjustanif 5y ago
    I guess the states aren’t so united. Federal Texas are for federal uses which can include state ones.
    - SllX 5y ago
      You’re not wrong but that’s exactly my problem: this isn’t something for the Feds to subsidize. They need to get out of the business of subsidizing industry.
      - ouid 5y ago
        Anything that is capable of negotiating on behalf of society in the case of a transaction that produces externalities is going to be indistinguishable from a government. If you're arguing that no one should advocate for society's interests in these transactions, then you should make that position explicit.

datavirtue 5y ago

Maybe we should rebrand away from "nuke plant?" Fission steam boiler sounds better.