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Genuine question: why nuclear over mass solar? Panels on every house, decentralized, etc. I was having a discussion with a friend recently about this and he wa

Genuine question: why nuclear over mass solar? Panels on every house, decentralized, etc. I was having a discussion with a friend recently about this and he was very much pro-solar and thought nuclear wasn't the right way to go from a cost/centralization perspective. Figured smart people here might be able to color this a bit better. -edit- Ty to everyone who responded here. It's enjoying to read these different perspectives.

zurn 5y ago
We're so far behind in replacing fossils and fighting off global warming disaster, that we should do both. Nuclear has worse bang for the buck though and decades long lead times. But as long as it can be financed without displacing more capital efficient renewables we should still build nuclear as well.
xyzzyz 5y ago
It is extremely expensive to get significant amount of energy from roof mounted solar. Solar doesn’t shine all of the time. Storage is extremely hard. Japan does not have a lot of wastelands to spare on mass solar power farms. Nuclear, on the other hand, just works, 24/7.
- ericmay 5y ago
  Is storage becoming less hard with battery backup systems? And from a cost perspective won't these come down, and from a total social spending amount couldn't rooftop solar eventually be cheaper than nuclear plants, scientists, infrastructure, etc. that has to go into it? Just to note I've been coming from the perspective that nuclear + "renewables" is the right approach, but wanted to learn a little more.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    > And from a cost perspective won't these come down No. Even discounting the explosion of prices of lithium, nickel and other materials needed in batteries due to wars and what not, there's already significant demand for batteries ( mostly to convert vehicles to EVs), which far outstrips supply. That's unlikely to change in the foreseeable future ( like a decade), so no, batteries won't continue to get cheaper.
    - ericmay 5y ago
      Doesn't it take around a decade to build a new reactor? Just wondering if by the time new reactors are built, they're overtaken by cheaper battery storage and solar rooftops.
      - poutine 5y ago
        The US Navy has built hundreds of nuclear reactors in much shorter timeframes. There's nothing intrinsic about nuclear that demands such long builds. It'd need to be done at a societal level with some sort of standardization and mass industrial process. The French more or less did this for their nukes for instance.
        forum_ghost 5y ago
        The reason for long duration is regulations and inspections. Navy has a lot fewer constraints in that aspect.
        poutine 5y ago
        And yet the Navy has a pretty good safety record.
        ncmncm 5y ago
        As far as we know.
      - sofixa 5y ago
        Battery storage is still hugely impractical on the scale required to keep a grid stable, even if we assume ( huge assumptions) that battery building capacity can keep up and be affordable. Also, batteries need to be changed due do depletion much more frequently than a nuclear reactor.
        ericmay 5y ago
jwagenet 5y ago
Nuclear doesn't require batteries for overnight power. It's an energy dense, clean process, where the primary externality is some nuclear waste.
wodenokoto 5y ago
The witty answer is: "nuclear works in the dark". For most renewable energies, you need a baseline power plant that can stand in when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining. Often that is coal or gas. Nuclear is cheap and has low emission, so it is a great candidate for such a role. Distributed solar needs a huge rework of the electrical grid, if you want the panels to be able to give back power. The current power grid is setup to handle large power plants.
kube-system 5y ago
We need both. Solar is great but it’s hard to beat the capacity of nuclear.
AlexandrB 5y ago
I'm not an expert, but solar has to be augmented by something else or combined with extensive energy storage. Otherwise, where do you get power at night?
sofixa 5y ago
Because mass solar doesn't work reliably on a grid scale without massive storage, which is impossible/impractical/extremely expensive, especially in countries with seasons.
- markvdb 5y ago
  Green hydrogen and derived hydrocarbons from areas with sufficient insolation are expected to be very much cost competitive within 3-5 years. [0] Locally produced green hydrogen in areas with less optimal insolation is projected to stay more expensive. [0] Please do a web search for green hydrogen cost forecast .
  - sofixa 5y ago
    I also think that hydrogen is going to be a big part of the future energy mix ( I've even bought stock in companies around that space). However, today it's expensive, impractical and it would require non insignificant infrastructure investments to be brought up to "grid scale storage to cover in case of multiple days no wind and no sun" capacity. So it won't happen anytime soon ( which doesn't mean we shouldn't invest in it to being it about sooner).
  - poutine 5y ago
    The neat thing about hydrogen is that in the short term you can supplement natural gas with hydrogen using the same or similar generation plants. In the long term deploying hydrogen infrastructure is pretty similar to managing natural gas which we already do at scale. Solar + hydrogen storage probably is the only long term mass scale alternative to nuclear short of fusion.
    - forum_ghost 5y ago
      >In the long term deploying hydrogen infrastructure is pretty similar to managing natural gas which we already do at scale. 100%. absolutely. wrong. Hydrogen destroys metal pipes, makes them brittle. It leaks thru solid metal steel walls. Hydrogen fires are invisible. Explosions can launch you into the orbit. It's nothing like methane at scale, and will most likely simply be converted to some hydrocarbons.
zamadatix 5y ago
For nuclear you can generate as much power as you want wherever you want whenever you want. The downsides are it's highly centralized, extremely high up front investment, and generates nuclear waste and failure concerns. For solar generating power itself doesn't generate waste and you can do it centralized, distributed, or a mix. The downsides are you either need to pay for backup systems that can take full load or enormous energy storage facilities. If a mixed model is at play then you need specialized equipment at each distributed location and you lose economies of scale in implementation/maintenance cost as a tradeoff for flexibility but still rely on a transmission infrastructure for when the sun doesn't shine. In a full distributed model the same applies but you lose economies of scale on generation/storage and margins thereof as well at the gain of not having transmission infrastructure. In all cases it's not an option for extreme latitudes. Also panels and storage technology do not last forever resulting in waste. Depending on technologies involved that can be anything from materials in the panel to whatever chemicals are in the old batteries. A lot of the complexity and limitation in the solar option is inherent to all renewables of today not necessarily something with solar itself. In all moving to any solution that isn't burning coal or gas is probably a net improvement though. If I were to pick a magic solution that checks every box reasonably well compared to alternatives I'd have to pick a future tech like fusion or similar that doesn't actually exist as there isn't a single answer today that has no downsides in the generation of power.
poutine 5y ago
With solar you need to store for use when there's no sun. Relatively doable for overnight with batteries. Outside of niche solutions like pumped hydro it's practically impossible for longer periods such as during the winter or just a string of overcast days. Green hydrogen has some promise, we'll see over then next decade or so.
VintageCool 5y ago
If you made up your mind on this issue ten or fifteen years ago then it is probably wrong now, because things have changed. The cost of PV solar farms dropped by 90% from 2010 to 2020. The cost of lithium ion batteries also dropped 89% in a decade. The cost of wind has also fallen (though not as spectacularly, something like 30%) and new wind turbines produce electricity much more reliably and consistently than they used to because the new turbines are taller and access steadier winds. Meanwhile the cost of building new nuclear has doubled in the past decade (at least in the West, for plants like Vogtle 3&4 and Flamanville and Olkiluoto). The result is that, although imho it makes sense from a "minimize atmospheric CO2" perspective to continue using existing nuclear power plants (or to restart ones that have recently been shut down like in Japan or Germany), the quickest and most cost-effective path to decarbonization now runs through wind and solar. That is why the US built 17 GW of wind capacity last year and is building 21 GW of solar capacity this year, along with 5 GW of battery storage capacity. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46416 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46416
vlovich123 5y ago
The one others haven't mentioned is that Solar/Wind can't generate enough heat to power many industrial use-cases. If you truly want to completely decarbonize, nuclear is the only option (well, and geothermal, but that's not necessarily always available). France vs Germany is a good example of the decarbonization each has been able to attain. France is near 0 in terms of energy production whereas Germany has struggled despite having (one of?) the largest Solar and Wind installations. Solar can sometimes reach the high temperatures needed but it's not reliable and batteries can't backfill this ever (it's not solar panels - there's concentrated mirrors to generate the heat). Nuclear reactor designs are also being explored where the waste heat from the reactor is directly used for industrial purposes. That will significantly cut down on the heavy water required to cool the reactors and make things more efficient, but that's an optimization on top of what solar already can't deliver.
fomine3 5y ago
Context: East Japanese encountered to power shortage in this March due to stopped thermal power plants (due to bigger earthquake), very few solar worked due to cloudy weather or snow, and increase of heating usage. https://japantoday.com/category/national/Gov't-issues-warning-over-tight-energy-supply-in-Tokyo-other-areas https://japantoday.com/category/national/Gov't-issues-warnin... . Solar itself is not much worth for the case.

zurn 5y ago

We're so far behind in replacing fossils and fighting off global warming disaster, that we should do both. Nuclear has worse bang for the buck though and decades long lead times. But as long as it can be financed without displacing more capital efficient renewables we should still build nuclear as well.

xyzzyz 5y ago

It is extremely expensive to get significant amount of energy from roof mounted solar. Solar doesn’t shine all of the time. Storage is extremely hard. Japan does not have a lot of wastelands to spare on mass solar power farms. Nuclear, on the other hand, just works, 24/7.

ericmay 5y ago
Is storage becoming less hard with battery backup systems? And from a cost perspective won't these come down, and from a total social spending amount couldn't rooftop solar eventually be cheaper than nuclear plants, scientists, infrastructure, etc. that has to go into it? Just to note I've been coming from the perspective that nuclear + "renewables" is the right approach, but wanted to learn a little more.
- sofixa 5y ago
  > And from a cost perspective won't these come down No. Even discounting the explosion of prices of lithium, nickel and other materials needed in batteries due to wars and what not, there's already significant demand for batteries ( mostly to convert vehicles to EVs), which far outstrips supply. That's unlikely to change in the foreseeable future ( like a decade), so no, batteries won't continue to get cheaper.
  - ericmay 5y ago
    Doesn't it take around a decade to build a new reactor? Just wondering if by the time new reactors are built, they're overtaken by cheaper battery storage and solar rooftops.
    - poutine 5y ago
      The US Navy has built hundreds of nuclear reactors in much shorter timeframes. There's nothing intrinsic about nuclear that demands such long builds. It'd need to be done at a societal level with some sort of standardization and mass industrial process. The French more or less did this for their nukes for instance.
      - forum_ghost 5y ago
        The reason for long duration is regulations and inspections. Navy has a lot fewer constraints in that aspect.
        poutine 5y ago
        And yet the Navy has a pretty good safety record.
        ncmncm 5y ago
        As far as we know.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      Battery storage is still hugely impractical on the scale required to keep a grid stable, even if we assume ( huge assumptions) that battery building capacity can keep up and be affordable. Also, batteries need to be changed due do depletion much more frequently than a nuclear reactor.
      - ericmay 5y ago

jwagenet 5y ago

Nuclear doesn't require batteries for overnight power. It's an energy dense, clean process, where the primary externality is some nuclear waste.

wodenokoto 5y ago

The witty answer is: "nuclear works in the dark". For most renewable energies, you need a baseline power plant that can stand in when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining. Often that is coal or gas. Nuclear is cheap and has low emission, so it is a great candidate for such a role. Distributed solar needs a huge rework of the electrical grid, if you want the panels to be able to give back power. The current power grid is setup to handle large power plants.

kube-system 5y ago

We need both. Solar is great but it’s hard to beat the capacity of nuclear.

AlexandrB 5y ago

I'm not an expert, but solar has to be augmented by something else or combined with extensive energy storage. Otherwise, where do you get power at night?

sofixa 5y ago

Because mass solar doesn't work reliably on a grid scale without massive storage, which is impossible/impractical/extremely expensive, especially in countries with seasons.

markvdb 5y ago
Green hydrogen and derived hydrocarbons from areas with sufficient insolation are expected to be very much cost competitive within 3-5 years. [0] Locally produced green hydrogen in areas with less optimal insolation is projected to stay more expensive. [0] Please do a web search for green hydrogen cost forecast .
- sofixa 5y ago
  I also think that hydrogen is going to be a big part of the future energy mix ( I've even bought stock in companies around that space). However, today it's expensive, impractical and it would require non insignificant infrastructure investments to be brought up to "grid scale storage to cover in case of multiple days no wind and no sun" capacity. So it won't happen anytime soon ( which doesn't mean we shouldn't invest in it to being it about sooner).
- poutine 5y ago
  The neat thing about hydrogen is that in the short term you can supplement natural gas with hydrogen using the same or similar generation plants. In the long term deploying hydrogen infrastructure is pretty similar to managing natural gas which we already do at scale. Solar + hydrogen storage probably is the only long term mass scale alternative to nuclear short of fusion.
  - forum_ghost 5y ago
    >In the long term deploying hydrogen infrastructure is pretty similar to managing natural gas which we already do at scale. 100%. absolutely. wrong. Hydrogen destroys metal pipes, makes them brittle. It leaks thru solid metal steel walls. Hydrogen fires are invisible. Explosions can launch you into the orbit. It's nothing like methane at scale, and will most likely simply be converted to some hydrocarbons.

zamadatix 5y ago

For nuclear you can generate as much power as you want wherever you want whenever you want. The downsides are it's highly centralized, extremely high up front investment, and generates nuclear waste and failure concerns. For solar generating power itself doesn't generate waste and you can do it centralized, distributed, or a mix. The downsides are you either need to pay for backup systems that can take full load or enormous energy storage facilities. If a mixed model is at play then you need specialized equipment at each distributed location and you lose economies of scale in implementation/maintenance cost as a tradeoff for flexibility but still rely on a transmission infrastructure for when the sun doesn't shine. In a full distributed model the same applies but you lose economies of scale on generation/storage and margins thereof as well at the gain of not having transmission infrastructure. In all cases it's not an option for extreme latitudes. Also panels and storage technology do not last forever resulting in waste. Depending on technologies involved that can be anything from materials in the panel to whatever chemicals are in the old batteries. A lot of the complexity and limitation in the solar option is inherent to all renewables of today not necessarily something with solar itself. In all moving to any solution that isn't burning coal or gas is probably a net improvement though. If I were to pick a magic solution that checks every box reasonably well compared to alternatives I'd have to pick a future tech like fusion or similar that doesn't actually exist as there isn't a single answer today that has no downsides in the generation of power.

poutine 5y ago

With solar you need to store for use when there's no sun. Relatively doable for overnight with batteries. Outside of niche solutions like pumped hydro it's practically impossible for longer periods such as during the winter or just a string of overcast days. Green hydrogen has some promise, we'll see over then next decade or so.

VintageCool 5y ago

If you made up your mind on this issue ten or fifteen years ago then it is probably wrong now, because things have changed. The cost of PV solar farms dropped by 90% from 2010 to 2020. The cost of lithium ion batteries also dropped 89% in a decade. The cost of wind has also fallen (though not as spectacularly, something like 30%) and new wind turbines produce electricity much more reliably and consistently than they used to because the new turbines are taller and access steadier winds. Meanwhile the cost of building new nuclear has doubled in the past decade (at least in the West, for plants like Vogtle 3&4 and Flamanville and Olkiluoto). The result is that, although imho it makes sense from a "minimize atmospheric CO2" perspective to continue using existing nuclear power plants (or to restart ones that have recently been shut down like in Japan or Germany), the quickest and most cost-effective path to decarbonization now runs through wind and solar. That is why the US built 17 GW of wind capacity last year and is building 21 GW of solar capacity this year, along with 5 GW of battery storage capacity. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46416 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46416

vlovich123 5y ago

The one others haven't mentioned is that Solar/Wind can't generate enough heat to power many industrial use-cases. If you truly want to completely decarbonize, nuclear is the only option (well, and geothermal, but that's not necessarily always available). France vs Germany is a good example of the decarbonization each has been able to attain. France is near 0 in terms of energy production whereas Germany has struggled despite having (one of?) the largest Solar and Wind installations. Solar can sometimes reach the high temperatures needed but it's not reliable and batteries can't backfill this ever (it's not solar panels - there's concentrated mirrors to generate the heat). Nuclear reactor designs are also being explored where the waste heat from the reactor is directly used for industrial purposes. That will significantly cut down on the heavy water required to cool the reactors and make things more efficient, but that's an optimization on top of what solar already can't deliver.

fomine3 5y ago

Context: East Japanese encountered to power shortage in this March due to stopped thermal power plants (due to bigger earthquake), very few solar worked due to cloudy weather or snow, and increase of heating usage. https://japantoday.com/category/national/Gov't-issues-warning-over-tight-energy-supply-in-Tokyo-other-areas https://japantoday.com/category/national/Gov't-issues-warnin... . Solar itself is not much worth for the case.