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Let's talk about this directly: what do you do when the nuclear reactor goes down because it's time to refuel, or because it's heating up the river too much in

Let's talk about this directly: what do you do when the nuclear reactor goes down because it's time to refuel, or because it's heating up the river too much in a heat wave (eg in France), or because some sensor valve froze shut in an decade-frequent cold snap (Texas)? You get the power from some other generator on the grid at a different geographic location. We can easily get to 80%-90% renewables that way, with current lithium ion storage, and no price decreases. With price decreases, and the huge panopoly of other storage chemistries that are close to shipping, and maybe even competing economically (iron, maybe vanadium flow, maybe zinc air), then we have clear paths to 100%. But even in France, nuclear never beat this 80%-90% mark, and it would absolutely bonkers insane and unrealistic to consider keeping the US's nuclear percentage at its current 20% of generation, because we can't build and we need to replace ~100 reactors very very very soon. We will be lucky if the nuclear industry could even deliver 10% of electricity needs in the future, because they simply can not build and deliver on their promises. Especially with electrification expanding energy consumed as electricity versus fossil fuels in the coming decades. Pumped hydro is also very expensive compared to lots of lithium batteries. We will soon be producing many TWh/year of lithium ion, getting to tens of TWh/year by the early 2030s. We can accelerate that curve, or decelerate it based on investments and regulatory structures. Nuclear is too far behind on tech to catch up. We simply can not grow the workforce or the supply chains of reactors quickly enough to sustain past construction levels at this pace. It would be foolish capital allocation.

dahfizz 4y ago
> what do you do when the nuclear reactor goes down because it's time to refuel, or because it's heating up the river too much in a heat wave (eg in France), or because some sensor valve froze shut in an decade-frequent cold snap (Texas)? > You get the power from some other generator on the grid at a different geographic location. Nuclear has a much better uptime then current renewable tech. In the winter, there is zero sunshine in North America for 10+ hours a day. And it just so happens that we hit peak energy usage while the sun is down. For nuclear, you only need storage "peaker plants" to smooth out demand. To go all in on renewalable and solar, you actually need to be able to service 100% of demand, for many hours, from storage. It won't be feasible for decades. I think your estimate for tens of TWh/year by mid 2030s is reasonable. But most of that is for EVs. Tesla has the largest currently running and the largest in-the-pipeline lithium ion battery factories, but all those batteries are going straight into an EV. Even if we dedicated 100% of batteries we can produce to be grid storage, we wouldn't have enough until ~2040. And, by the way, they all need to be replaced by 2050 because the cells all degrade and become dangerous. In reality, the spare production capacity we can dedicate to grid storage will always be small. I'm not convinced it can even catch up with our growing energy usage in our lifetime.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  > Nuclear has a much better uptime then current renewable tech. In the winter, there is zero sunshine in North America for 10+ hours a day. And it just so happens that we hit peak energy usage while the sun is down. A renewable energy grid would be anti-fragile. We would know we could handle an outage because we'd encounter them regularly. Unlike nuclear, which goes down so infrequently that outages cause real problems. We don't hit peak energy usage when the sun goes down. We hit peak energy usage when solar power is about 30% off peak and wind energy is at peak. > For nuclear, you only need storage "peaker plants" to smooth out demand. To go all in on renewalable and solar, you actually need to be able to service 100% of demand, for many hours, from storage. It won't be feasible for decades. It's feasible today. These guys are doing it: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/inside-8minute-solar-energy-the-developer-nabbing-numerous-records https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/inside-8minute-... > I think your estimate for tens of TWh/year by mid 2030s is reasonable. But most of that is for EVs. Tesla has the largest currently running and the largest in-the-pipeline lithium ion battery factories, but all those batteries are going straight into an EV. Tesla barely makes the top ten even if you count the Nevada factory as theirs. You shouldn't, because Panasonic makes the batteries in the Nevada gigafactory. CATL is by far the biggest battery manufacturer. > Even if we dedicated 100% of batteries we can produce to be grid storage, we wouldn't have enough until ~2040. And, by the way, they all need to be replaced by 2050 because the cells all degrade and become dangerous. You don't put 10 year batteries into storage facilities. LiFePo4 batteries are cheaper, last a lot longer and degrade a lot more safely. They're heavier so aren't commonly used in cars outside of China, but storage uses don't care about weight.

dahfizz 4y ago

> what do you do when the nuclear reactor goes down because it's time to refuel, or because it's heating up the river too much in a heat wave (eg in France), or because some sensor valve froze shut in an decade-frequent cold snap (Texas)? > You get the power from some other generator on the grid at a different geographic location. Nuclear has a much better uptime then current renewable tech. In the winter, there is zero sunshine in North America for 10+ hours a day. And it just so happens that we hit peak energy usage while the sun is down. For nuclear, you only need storage "peaker plants" to smooth out demand. To go all in on renewalable and solar, you actually need to be able to service 100% of demand, for many hours, from storage. It won't be feasible for decades. I think your estimate for tens of TWh/year by mid 2030s is reasonable. But most of that is for EVs. Tesla has the largest currently running and the largest in-the-pipeline lithium ion battery factories, but all those batteries are going straight into an EV. Even if we dedicated 100% of batteries we can produce to be grid storage, we wouldn't have enough until ~2040. And, by the way, they all need to be replaced by 2050 because the cells all degrade and become dangerous. In reality, the spare production capacity we can dedicate to grid storage will always be small. I'm not convinced it can even catch up with our growing energy usage in our lifetime.

bryanlarsen 4y ago
> Nuclear has a much better uptime then current renewable tech. In the winter, there is zero sunshine in North America for 10+ hours a day. And it just so happens that we hit peak energy usage while the sun is down. A renewable energy grid would be anti-fragile. We would know we could handle an outage because we'd encounter them regularly. Unlike nuclear, which goes down so infrequently that outages cause real problems. We don't hit peak energy usage when the sun goes down. We hit peak energy usage when solar power is about 30% off peak and wind energy is at peak. > For nuclear, you only need storage "peaker plants" to smooth out demand. To go all in on renewalable and solar, you actually need to be able to service 100% of demand, for many hours, from storage. It won't be feasible for decades. It's feasible today. These guys are doing it: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/inside-8minute-solar-energy-the-developer-nabbing-numerous-records https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/inside-8minute-... > I think your estimate for tens of TWh/year by mid 2030s is reasonable. But most of that is for EVs. Tesla has the largest currently running and the largest in-the-pipeline lithium ion battery factories, but all those batteries are going straight into an EV. Tesla barely makes the top ten even if you count the Nevada factory as theirs. You shouldn't, because Panasonic makes the batteries in the Nevada gigafactory. CATL is by far the biggest battery manufacturer. > Even if we dedicated 100% of batteries we can produce to be grid storage, we wouldn't have enough until ~2040. And, by the way, they all need to be replaced by 2050 because the cells all degrade and become dangerous. You don't put 10 year batteries into storage facilities. LiFePo4 batteries are cheaper, last a lot longer and degrade a lot more safely. They're heavier so aren't commonly used in cars outside of China, but storage uses don't care about weight.