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Probably for the same reason we don't see massively expanding horse carriage industry. Nuclear is on the way out despite enormous government subsidies. Just fun
by missedthecue 4y ago
Probably for the same reason we don't see massively expanding horse carriage industry. Nuclear is on the way out despite enormous government subsidies. Just fundamentally too burdensome, expensive, and outcompeted by modern tech.
- sto_hristo 4y agoActually that "modern tech" of yours is the subsidized one. President Obama was basically trumpeting how many new and awesome futuristic jobs those solar parks will create when the government unleashes the cash flood. Nothing competes with nuclear. It's just pure physics - atom is the biggest source of energy on this planet according to current physics. Whoever can't agree with that reality fact should see a psychiatrist. Despite all the obstacles, nuclear constantly develops and will continue to do so, because market. Industries can't run on calculator batteries. Sorry.
- matthewdgreen 4y agoI think you would benefit from reading TFA. It looks at the actual operating costs of current designs and the dropping price of renewables and points out that the fundamental economics of the nuclear industry are not great right now. It also points out that most of the high-priced daytime usage is about to be scooped up by renewables. This may or may not be fatal to the nuclear industry, but it points to the need for substantial innovation or subsidies.
- sto_hristo 4y agoSorry. Largest power density is still in the atom. Can't work your magic around this. The only reasonable and sane strategy is to R&D around nuclear. Whoever gets it right will rule, the others will be ruled. Not single bubble kept its integrity; renewables will burst as well.
- ncmncm 4y agoWishing doesn't work.
- lovemenot 4y agoYou are right about power density, If only we had an absolutely massive fusion reactor that could passively manage its own containment. It would be so powerful that one such nuclear reactor would produce millions of times more power than we could ever consume. The reactor could be designed to run indefinitely. No fuel or decommissioning costs incurred. We could site the reactor at a large enough distance from population centers that we would not need to deal with its waste. We could decouple the reactor from power generation. Just use safe EM radiation to freely distribute power wherever it would be needed. The reactor itself, perhaps funded by some benevolent quadrillionaire, having no operating costs would be literally "too cheap to meter".
- kogok89 4y agoI see what you did there.
- pfdietz 4y agoWhy are you choosing a meaningless metric to decide on the technology? Utilities or consumers don't care about energy density of fuels, they care about cost.
- acidburnNSA 4y agoHigh energy density can in principle matter, a lot, from a societal point of view. If you only need a tiny amount of fuel to make the world's energy, then the overall impact on land, minerals, ecosystems, wildlife, etc. can potentially be very small, assuming you deliver the rest of the fuel cycle and reactors with reasonably small footprints as well. The fact that current markets don't yet value these things is more a issue with the current markets than a critique of energy density.
- pfdietz 4y ago
- ncmncm 4y agoRunning only at night makes each kWh twice as costly, because a nuke costs almost the same, producing or not. Same is true of renewables, but the cost is enormously lower.
- missedthecue 4y agoNot sure what you mean by "nothing competes with them". There are fewer nuclear power stations in the world than there were five years ago, and there will be fewer in five years than there are today. Hardly anyone wants to build them anymore. They just don't make sense.
- sto_hristo 4y agoThat is just politics speaking. Massively subsidizing renewables and smack talking nuclear is an easy pass to a political career. But reality is immutable - nuclear energy is without competition. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... Check the above. Denmark is 100% nuclear free (runs on mostly renewables but it imports), Germany i think runs on about 10% nuclear. France runs in 70% nuclear. The cost speaks for itself.
- neonsunset 4y ago"Modern tech" is still vastly inferior to nuclear power. Think of it as humanity scoring a roll of the dice to discover 22nd century technology in the 20th.
- missedthecue 4y agoDepends what you mean by "inferior". A horse-drawn carriage has less carbon emissions than an automobile, doesn't it? However, that's not the sole criteria.
- neonsunset 4y agoIt seems the "horse-drawn carriage" argument is being repeated across multitude of comments posted by your account. What makes this comparison with nuclear energy even remotely viable?
- missedthecue 4y agoMuch like carriages, more modern alternatives have rendered it obsolete despite the loud voices that continually refuse to accept its eventual extinction.
- neonsunset 4y agoThe only superior potential more modern source of energy we're aware of that can match energy density, resource efficiency and carbon-free characteristics of nuclear fission is nuclear fusion. Other alternatives lose on one or more parameters, especially when it comes to environmental costs.
- missedthecue 4y agoMaximum possible energy density and resource efficiency are not really considered when designing grids.
- deepsun 4y ago