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I'm totally pro-renewables but think that there's enough money out there so that it doesn't have to be an either/or scenario. Modular thorium reactors would be

I'm totally pro-renewables but think that there's enough money out there so that it doesn't have to be an either/or scenario. Modular thorium reactors would be a huge win if realized.

ncmncm 4y ago
Money is fungible. Money spent on nukes is unavailable for renewables. You need to watch some thorium debunking videos. I live near Indian Point, recently shut down. They tried thorium, early on. It cost too much. Every single thing about nukes costs too much.
- pstuart 4y ago
  But that supply of money is not a single pool. I think of it as hedging bets. I skimmed the Indian Point reactor -- it appears to be a non-LFTR reactor, and that seems to be where the excitement continues. But yeah, renewables are great and only getting better. If we had taken a trillion dollars out of the fiasco of the Gulf Wars (ostensibly for "energy security") we could have done significant things. For example, I'm enamored with the possibilities of geothermal around the Yellowstone caldera -- if we could figure out how to do that without destroying the local environment.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    There is some likelihood that geothermal can be made compatible with any locale, using new drilling tech. But geothermal is likely to remain substantially more expensive than solar and wind, whatever happens: steam turbines are expensive to maintain. It might win at latitudes above 50-60 degrees, if it can compete with ammonia imported from the tropics. But shipping is absurdly cheap.
    - pstuart 4y ago
      There's something to be said about having the energy sourced domestically, and it would make a nice baseload service. I believe that dealing with the waste water can be challenging but again, having a spectrum of energy source would be really nice. Rebuilding The Grid with HVDC would help too, as well as an ammonia economy to utilize excess power from wind. It all seems very technically doable, it's the politics and petrol people that stand between us and a carbon free energy ecosystem (well, with reasonable exceptions for aerospace and other special cases)
adrianN 4y ago
Yeah, modular thorium reactors would be awesome. But at the stage of development they're currently at, we'd better be very close to carbon neutral by the time the first one could be connected to the grid.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Thorium has had catchy promotion. The reality is less appealing. Really, anything that needs a steam turbine is going to cost too much to compete.
_ph_ 4y ago
There is certainly not enough money invested in solar and storage. It is ironically that Musk rather spends money on buying twitter than investing into more battery production at Tesla.

I'm totally pro-renewables but think that there's enough money out there so that it doesn't have to be an either/or scenario. Modular thorium reactors would be a huge win if realized.

ncmncm 4y ago

Money is fungible. Money spent on nukes is unavailable for renewables. You need to watch some thorium debunking videos. I live near Indian Point, recently shut down. They tried thorium, early on. It cost too much. Every single thing about nukes costs too much.

pstuart 4y ago
But that supply of money is not a single pool. I think of it as hedging bets. I skimmed the Indian Point reactor -- it appears to be a non-LFTR reactor, and that seems to be where the excitement continues. But yeah, renewables are great and only getting better. If we had taken a trillion dollars out of the fiasco of the Gulf Wars (ostensibly for "energy security") we could have done significant things. For example, I'm enamored with the possibilities of geothermal around the Yellowstone caldera -- if we could figure out how to do that without destroying the local environment.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  There is some likelihood that geothermal can be made compatible with any locale, using new drilling tech. But geothermal is likely to remain substantially more expensive than solar and wind, whatever happens: steam turbines are expensive to maintain. It might win at latitudes above 50-60 degrees, if it can compete with ammonia imported from the tropics. But shipping is absurdly cheap.
  - pstuart 4y ago
    There's something to be said about having the energy sourced domestically, and it would make a nice baseload service. I believe that dealing with the waste water can be challenging but again, having a spectrum of energy source would be really nice. Rebuilding The Grid with HVDC would help too, as well as an ammonia economy to utilize excess power from wind. It all seems very technically doable, it's the politics and petrol people that stand between us and a carbon free energy ecosystem (well, with reasonable exceptions for aerospace and other special cases)

adrianN 4y ago

Yeah, modular thorium reactors would be awesome. But at the stage of development they're currently at, we'd better be very close to carbon neutral by the time the first one could be connected to the grid.

ncmncm 4y ago
Thorium has had catchy promotion. The reality is less appealing. Really, anything that needs a steam turbine is going to cost too much to compete.

_ph_ 4y ago

There is certainly not enough money invested in solar and storage. It is ironically that Musk rather spends money on buying twitter than investing into more battery production at Tesla.