4 ms·

Unless someone can demonstrate that nuclear projects are preventing solar and wind deployments, why not do both?

by Joeri 5y ago

ncmncm 5y ago
Money is fungible. Each dollar spent on clean generation displaces some rate of CO2 exhaust. A dollar spent on renewables displaces much more than the same dollar spent on nukes. You cannot spend the same dollar on both. Thus, a dollar spent on nukes instead of renewables brings climate catastrophe nearer.
- NumberWangMan 5y ago
  I think I take issue with both of your assertions: A dollar spent on renewables displaces much more than the same dollar spent on nukes -- this project is going to provide CO2-free power at 3 cents / kWh. It's in the same ballpark, but also, nuclear's main competition is coal and gas, as they all provide baseline power. Solar with storage can do that, but adding storage drives the cost up. And you cannot spend the same dollar on both -- while this is true, I think the fallacy is that spending a dollar on nuclear power necessarily takes a dollar away from renewables. It's possible that this will sometimes be the case, but it also will clearly be taking a lot of dollars away from coal in places where practically speaking, the choice isn't coal vs renewable, it's coal vs nothing, so if you don't spend the dollar on nuclear, it WILL be spent on coal.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    "is going to provide" is a bold statement given that molten salt reactors are still not ready.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Capital markets compete on a level field.
    - imtringued 5y ago
      The vast majority of nuclear power plants weren't funded privately.
      - ncmncm 5y ago
        True, but that means money spent on them was coerced out of the public economy and spent where it would not have been. So, they still compete for spending, but unfairly.
- vkou 5y ago
  > Money is fungible. Which is why wasting it in trying to shoehorn solar or wind which are completely unacceptable as baseload power sources is doomed to failure. If you think batteries[1] are a solution, you should go buy some batteries, and try to take advantage of wholesale energy price arbitrage between daily oversupply (when energy is ~free) and undersupply (when energy is very, very expensive). You'll quickly discover why nobody has managed to make a profitable business out of it. The economics of battery storage, compressed air storage, etc, etc are horrible. [1] Pumped hydro is okay, cost-wise. Unfortunately, the capacity isn't there to meet our energy needs.
  - pydry 5y ago
    >Pumped hydro is okay, cost-wise. Unfortunately, the capacity isn't there to meet our energy needs. We can build plenty of pumped hydro before running out of space.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    You are alluding to low "capacity factor", what we call duty cycle elsewhere: something called for in only part of a day or month, where you only get to charge for it during the time it is used, so has its fixed costs amortized over just that limited usage time. Batteries can fare badly, here, because their cost scales with total storage capacity, though storing or delivering the power is free and round trip efficiency is high. They do well at leveling peaks, where they can respond faster than other media, and the total energy they must deliver is small. (Cf. Australia's Tesla system.) Others, like pumped hydro, synthetic chemicals, liquified air, and compressed air, can fare better because tankage is cheap, and the pumps, catalyzers, and furnaces cost according to the rate that energy is to be banked or drawn down, not the total stored energy. Storage as an independent business would rely on transmission lines to be able to deliver power to utilities in the whole region and stay busy, and draw on the grid's excess to refill. Pumped hydro and compressed air have good round-trip efficiency. Chemical systems, much less; that matters surprisingly little. Transmission lines cost according to maximum power and distance, but are called for only when energy must be moved. Actually moving the energy is free; all the costs are independent of usage. But a public utility that manages its own storage is not constrained by a storage business model: it builds as much generating capacity and storage as it needs to meet its needs almost all the time, and fills periods that exceed the sum of its momentary generating capacity and storage drawdown rate (until it is empty) buying power from the regional grid at spot price, refilling its storage when it can or price is low. Capacity needs to be built out, and hasn't been, yet, because it takes time to do, hasn't been needed yet in most places, and its costs are still in free fall. Building out later gets you more for your money, and generating capacity is more immediately useful. Synthetic chemical storage has the advantage that tankage is both cheap and portable, so you can work the catalyzers at all times except when storage is actually being drawn down, either filling local tankage or filling shippable tanks for sale. The market for it will never saturate. A wrinkle for many storage media is that the equipment to bank and to draw down energy is not the same, is sized and costs by the power capacity in one direction, and one costs more than the other. For example, the catalyzer to produce hydrogen or ammonia is completely separate from the furnace or fuel cells needed to deliver power. Another wrinkle is that startup time and fixed cost to start up, in either direction, may be very different. Running a grid with completely independent generation, storage, transmission, and delivery makes bad incentives, so needs regulation. But a public utility district can manage all of this internally, and mostly just sell power to end users and excess to the grid. Everything works much better when there is plenty extra of intermittent generating capacity, so it is good that is very cheap.

Unless someone can demonstrate that nuclear projects are preventing solar and wind deployments, why not do both?

by Joeri 5y ago

Unless someone can demonstrate that nuclear projects are preventing solar and wind deployments, why not do both?

Money is fungible. Each dollar spent on clean generation displaces some rate of CO2 exhaust. A dollar spent on renewables displaces much more than the same dollar spent on nukes. You cannot spend the same dollar on both. Thus, a dollar spent on nukes instead of renewables brings climate catastrophe nearer.

NumberWangMan 5y ago
I think I take issue with both of your assertions: A dollar spent on renewables displaces much more than the same dollar spent on nukes -- this project is going to provide CO2-free power at 3 cents / kWh. It's in the same ballpark, but also, nuclear's main competition is coal and gas, as they all provide baseline power. Solar with storage can do that, but adding storage drives the cost up. And you cannot spend the same dollar on both -- while this is true, I think the fallacy is that spending a dollar on nuclear power necessarily takes a dollar away from renewables. It's possible that this will sometimes be the case, but it also will clearly be taking a lot of dollars away from coal in places where practically speaking, the choice isn't coal vs renewable, it's coal vs nothing, so if you don't spend the dollar on nuclear, it WILL be spent on coal.
- adrianN 5y ago
  "is going to provide" is a bold statement given that molten salt reactors are still not ready.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Capital markets compete on a level field.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    The vast majority of nuclear power plants weren't funded privately.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      True, but that means money spent on them was coerced out of the public economy and spent where it would not have been. So, they still compete for spending, but unfairly.
vkou 5y ago
> Money is fungible. Which is why wasting it in trying to shoehorn solar or wind which are completely unacceptable as baseload power sources is doomed to failure. If you think batteries[1] are a solution, you should go buy some batteries, and try to take advantage of wholesale energy price arbitrage between daily oversupply (when energy is ~free) and undersupply (when energy is very, very expensive). You'll quickly discover why nobody has managed to make a profitable business out of it. The economics of battery storage, compressed air storage, etc, etc are horrible. [1] Pumped hydro is okay, cost-wise. Unfortunately, the capacity isn't there to meet our energy needs.
- pydry 5y ago
  >Pumped hydro is okay, cost-wise. Unfortunately, the capacity isn't there to meet our energy needs. We can build plenty of pumped hydro before running out of space.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  You are alluding to low "capacity factor", what we call duty cycle elsewhere: something called for in only part of a day or month, where you only get to charge for it during the time it is used, so has its fixed costs amortized over just that limited usage time. Batteries can fare badly, here, because their cost scales with total storage capacity, though storing or delivering the power is free and round trip efficiency is high. They do well at leveling peaks, where they can respond faster than other media, and the total energy they must deliver is small. (Cf. Australia's Tesla system.) Others, like pumped hydro, synthetic chemicals, liquified air, and compressed air, can fare better because tankage is cheap, and the pumps, catalyzers, and furnaces cost according to the rate that energy is to be banked or drawn down, not the total stored energy. Storage as an independent business would rely on transmission lines to be able to deliver power to utilities in the whole region and stay busy, and draw on the grid's excess to refill. Pumped hydro and compressed air have good round-trip efficiency. Chemical systems, much less; that matters surprisingly little. Transmission lines cost according to maximum power and distance, but are called for only when energy must be moved. Actually moving the energy is free; all the costs are independent of usage. But a public utility that manages its own storage is not constrained by a storage business model: it builds as much generating capacity and storage as it needs to meet its needs almost all the time, and fills periods that exceed the sum of its momentary generating capacity and storage drawdown rate (until it is empty) buying power from the regional grid at spot price, refilling its storage when it can or price is low. Capacity needs to be built out, and hasn't been, yet, because it takes time to do, hasn't been needed yet in most places, and its costs are still in free fall. Building out later gets you more for your money, and generating capacity is more immediately useful. Synthetic chemical storage has the advantage that tankage is both cheap and portable, so you can work the catalyzers at all times except when storage is actually being drawn down, either filling local tankage or filling shippable tanks for sale. The market for it will never saturate. A wrinkle for many storage media is that the equipment to bank and to draw down energy is not the same, is sized and costs by the power capacity in one direction, and one costs more than the other. For example, the catalyzer to produce hydrogen or ammonia is completely separate from the furnace or fuel cells needed to deliver power. Another wrinkle is that startup time and fixed cost to start up, in either direction, may be very different. Running a grid with completely independent generation, storage, transmission, and delivery makes bad incentives, so needs regulation. But a public utility district can manage all of this internally, and mostly just sell power to end users and excess to the grid. Everything works much better when there is plenty extra of intermittent generating capacity, so it is good that is very cheap.