6 ms·

I'm certainly not an expert on nuclear vs solar energy, although I do have some background knowledge. As with many things, I make up for my lack of expertise b

by bhuber 4y ago

I'm certainly not an expert on nuclear vs solar energy, although I do have some background knowledge. As with many things, I make up for my lack of expertise by seeking the analyses and opinions of real experts. No offense, but I trust them over a rando on HN who built a solar array in his backyard :) . A simple google search of "nuclear vs solar cost" strongly suggests that you are very wrong - nuclear is far more expensive than solar, and the gap is growing as solar gets cheaper. Of the first four results[1][2][3][4], only one argued that nuclear was even remotely competitive[3], and it's 6 years out of date and the most convincing data it cites is from 2005. I found [4] to be the most straightforward and pithy explanation. Basically, nuclear wins on capacity factor, but solar makes up for it by a) still being cheaper even when you have to build 4-6 times more capacity, and b) it takes 10 years to build a nuclear plant vs 1 for solar, so you get to start using your electricity and paying off capex (and reducing CO2 emissions) much sooner. Now it's possible all these sources are so deeply flawed that they came to the completely wrong conclusion, but the onus is on you to present evidence of your assertion and provide a convincing argument. Saying (and I'm obviously paraphrasing here), "the calculations are simple and you all are idiot sheep" doesn't cut it. 1. https://www.literoflightusa.org/solar-vs-nuclear/ https://www.literoflightusa.org/solar-vs-nuclear/ 2. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nuclear-energy-too-slow-too-expensive-to-save-climate-report-idUSKBN1W909J https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nucle... 3. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/the-problem-with-comparing-learning-rates-across-energy-technologies https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/the-problem-wit... 4. https://earth911.com/business-policy/solar-vs-nuclear-best-carbon-free-power/ https://earth911.com/business-policy/solar-vs-nuclear-best-c...

Gibbon1 4y ago
> No offense, but I trust them over a rando on HN who built a solar array in his backyard :) . That same rando built one in his backyard isn't nothing burger.
- bhuber 4y ago
  Agreed, it's actually fairly impressive. Beware the false equivalence fallacy however - there's little overlap in the expertise needed to design and install a home solar array, and that needed to analyze the economics of complex industrial technologies. Based on my links above, I think op is a far better electrician than economist. Also, I doubt op ever built a nuclear reactor in his backyard :D
  - robomartin 4y ago
    > analyze the economics of complex industrial technologies. Except I have been responsible for the design, construction, installation and operation of large complex industrial installations. That is what I did 40 years ago. Not solar, of course, but beyond a certain scale a project is a project, whether you are building a bridge, road or chemical processing installation. Of course, the private sector has different dynamics when compared to government projects. Also, as I mentioned in my other reply to you, I never made financial claims about solar. This is a branch introduced by someone who could not argue against what I was saying and chose to divert the conversation. My claim was simple: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 "if you want the equivalent of a 1 GW nuclear power plant, the minimum size of your solar array is at least 7 GW peak" So, please, don't charge me with something I did not enter into the argument.
robomartin 4y ago
> A simple google search of "nuclear vs solar cost" strongly suggests that you are very wrong Kindly show me where I was making a cost comparison between nuclear and solar in my original comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 You see, what happened here is that @ncmncm masterfully diverted the conversation into cost and project failures. A typical political argument form when you can't discuss the actual subject. You spent a lot of time researching and composing an argument against something I didn't even touch in my comment, at all. I can definitely get into relative cost discussions. I am not in the habit of making comments unless I devote a serious amount of time to understanding what I am talking about. In this case my research into this was triggered by trying to understand the realities of converting our entire ground transportation fleet (US, 300 million vehicles) to electrics. That led to creating a series of mid-sophistication models to try to arrive at parameters, from technical to financial. For example, my power requirement model, done about five years ago, predicted we would need between 900 GW and 1400 GW of new, additional power generation. I other words, we would have to double what we have now. That's what led me to try to understand how we could go about doing something like that. Solar isn't going to do it. It can be a part of it, but solar and wind are not what people seem to think these technologies are in real life. So, my claim was simple: In order to build a solar system that delivers power equivalent to that of a nuclear power plant you need a system with at least 7 times the peak generation rating. This is a matter of physics and it requires understanding how real-world solar systems work, not imaginary pink unicorn systems. My favorite saying, by Mark Twain: "A man holding a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way". A corollary to this is to listen to someone who has before believing it's easy.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  If you do not compare cost, you promote irrelevancies. If you do not take into account real-world circumstances, your conclusions are meaningless. In this case, we need not rely on a single solar farm of a size to match your nuke plant, sited where the nuke plant would be. Instead, we have many solar farms scattered widely, thus not all affected by the same weather, connected by long-distance transmission lines and augmented by similarly widely distributed wind farms, and hydro power. In the near future, we will be able to import synthetic ammonia from tropical solar farms to fill in shortfalls. So, whether your straw-man installation would need 7x peak capacity is irrelevant; nobody deploys that way. You don't need all the sources to add up to 7x equivalent; the industry figure is closer to 2x, although there will be good economic and practical reasons not to stop building at that level.

by bhuber 4y ago

Gibbon1 4y ago

> No offense, but I trust them over a rando on HN who built a solar array in his backyard :) . That same rando built one in his backyard isn't nothing burger.

bhuber 4y ago
Agreed, it's actually fairly impressive. Beware the false equivalence fallacy however - there's little overlap in the expertise needed to design and install a home solar array, and that needed to analyze the economics of complex industrial technologies. Based on my links above, I think op is a far better electrician than economist. Also, I doubt op ever built a nuclear reactor in his backyard :D
- robomartin 4y ago
  > analyze the economics of complex industrial technologies. Except I have been responsible for the design, construction, installation and operation of large complex industrial installations. That is what I did 40 years ago. Not solar, of course, but beyond a certain scale a project is a project, whether you are building a bridge, road or chemical processing installation. Of course, the private sector has different dynamics when compared to government projects. Also, as I mentioned in my other reply to you, I never made financial claims about solar. This is a branch introduced by someone who could not argue against what I was saying and chose to divert the conversation. My claim was simple: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 "if you want the equivalent of a 1 GW nuclear power plant, the minimum size of your solar array is at least 7 GW peak" So, please, don't charge me with something I did not enter into the argument.

robomartin 4y ago

> A simple google search of "nuclear vs solar cost" strongly suggests that you are very wrong Kindly show me where I was making a cost comparison between nuclear and solar in my original comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 You see, what happened here is that @ncmncm masterfully diverted the conversation into cost and project failures. A typical political argument form when you can't discuss the actual subject. You spent a lot of time researching and composing an argument against something I didn't even touch in my comment, at all. I can definitely get into relative cost discussions. I am not in the habit of making comments unless I devote a serious amount of time to understanding what I am talking about. In this case my research into this was triggered by trying to understand the realities of converting our entire ground transportation fleet (US, 300 million vehicles) to electrics. That led to creating a series of mid-sophistication models to try to arrive at parameters, from technical to financial. For example, my power requirement model, done about five years ago, predicted we would need between 900 GW and 1400 GW of new, additional power generation. I other words, we would have to double what we have now. That's what led me to try to understand how we could go about doing something like that. Solar isn't going to do it. It can be a part of it, but solar and wind are not what people seem to think these technologies are in real life. So, my claim was simple: In order to build a solar system that delivers power equivalent to that of a nuclear power plant you need a system with at least 7 times the peak generation rating. This is a matter of physics and it requires understanding how real-world solar systems work, not imaginary pink unicorn systems. My favorite saying, by Mark Twain: "A man holding a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way". A corollary to this is to listen to someone who has before believing it's easy.

ncmncm 4y ago
If you do not compare cost, you promote irrelevancies. If you do not take into account real-world circumstances, your conclusions are meaningless. In this case, we need not rely on a single solar farm of a size to match your nuke plant, sited where the nuke plant would be. Instead, we have many solar farms scattered widely, thus not all affected by the same weather, connected by long-distance transmission lines and augmented by similarly widely distributed wind farms, and hydro power. In the near future, we will be able to import synthetic ammonia from tropical solar farms to fill in shortfalls. So, whether your straw-man installation would need 7x peak capacity is irrelevant; nobody deploys that way. You don't need all the sources to add up to 7x equivalent; the industry figure is closer to 2x, although there will be good economic and practical reasons not to stop building at that level.