4 ms·

Of course it matters. Money and people available to do the work is not infinite. Or do you disagree? Therefore we have to optimize for the most impact possible

Of course it matters. Money and people available to do the work is not infinite. Or do you disagree? Therefore we have to optimize for the most impact possible. Is spending 3x as much as off-shore wind and 6x as much as on-shore optimizing for impact? Can straight up honestly claim that?

samwillis 4y ago
My issue is really the lack of progress with and utilisation of Nuclear over the last 40-50 years. In my opinion the anti nuclear movement resulted in extending the time we continued to burn coal. Quite right, at the moment the larger impact would be with renewables. However my original comment was not only in reference to decisions we are making now but also those of the last 50 years. If we had concentrated on using Nuclear, and not succumbed to the fear about it, we would be in a much stronger position now than we are.
- Gwypaas 4y ago
  It is simply economics. The anti-nuclear movement is insignificant but a very handy scapegoat. If nuclear made sense on a cost basis it would have pushed through somewhere globally. It's quite telling that not even authoritarian states, or very centrally controlled like France have managed that. I agree that nuclear would have been preferable to fossil energy. But today renewables is way cheaper than either alternative.
bradlys 4y ago
You're using very poor arguments. A lot of whataboutism. A meteor is coming to destroy the entire world. Do you sit around and wonder, "Is spending money on this really in the best interest of our shareholders for this quarter?"
- Gwypaas 4y ago
  Consider your example. You have two options proven to work by prior knowledge. Either renewables or nuclear at 3-6x the cost. What do you pick? There's a statement in the previous paragraph doing most of the heavy lifting: "proven to work". This means no risk, why double invest? We've already diverted meteors using both renewables and nuclear. Both work. Choose the cheaper option since it's not an one off event, it's an incremental change. Every nuclear plant or wind turbine is negligible in itself. But the effect is quantifiable and known.
  - liketochill 4y ago
    A robust electricity grid needs a variety of energy sources, wind and solar are great until it isn’t windy or sunny for a week. Are week long outages acceptable to you? Not to me. It is not inconceivable that a weather system results in calm weather with clouds for an extended period of time. So other energy sources are necessary. Nuclear is another practical low carbon energy source and it is worth considering as part of the energy mix. There are many nuclear plants operating and under construction in the world. That they are uneconomic in some countries speaks more to those countries than to nuclear.
    - Gwypaas 4y ago
      1. Geographical decoupling. HVDC connections are barely even newsworthy anymore. 2. Smart consumers. Electrified transports are perfect where you can shift the charging to any point in time it's not actively driven. This without having to pay the round trip efficiency loss since charging the battery is valuable work. 3. Better utilize hydro to compensate for the last bits of intermittency left. We're so far from a grid where large scale storage would be necessary that dwelling over it and putting forth nuclear as the only solution is ridiculous. You could make hydrogen from your renewable energy and then later burn it and still come out ahead of nuclear. That's how uncompetetive nuclear is.
      - liketochill 4y ago
        Permitting new power lines is difficult. Here [0] is an example of a project stalled due to opposition. It is unrealistic to think that someone is going to pay for transmission lines to get built with excess capacity most of the time in case we need to send power from one coast to another. Building power lines is expensive, battery storage is also expensive, so if you want to promote intermittent generation sources far from loads simply add those to the cost when comparing to other sources to make a fair comparison. People will mostly all charge their vehicles at night, so it won’t be from solar power. Unless the solar has battery storage, in which case we are charging batteries from batteries, which is inefficient. I’m not sure why you think there is a lot of flexibility in the existing hydro power, there isn’t that much of it and it is often constrained by having to keep rivers flowing or saving water for peaks. My point about nuclear is that it is competitive in other countries, the problem is that North America can’t competitively build it any more not due to technological problems but political and managerial issues. Imagine global warming could have been avoided by getting really good at building nuclear plants. Look at how much imaginary money has been printed for less catastrophic problems. We could have done it, we still can. Nuclear is uncompetitive because we have somehow made it so here. a robust grid needs a variety of energy sources, Arguing against any low carbon source is counter productive to me. There is always going to be a need for generation with a characteristic like nuclear power. Edit: I should also add hydro projects in Canada such as muskrat falls and site C are costing 10-20 billion which I believe is similar to nuclear and also taking a decade to finish. 0: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/maine-supreme-court-hydro-quebec-transmission-line-1.6445554 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/maine-supreme-court-...

samwillis 4y ago

My issue is really the lack of progress with and utilisation of Nuclear over the last 40-50 years. In my opinion the anti nuclear movement resulted in extending the time we continued to burn coal. Quite right, at the moment the larger impact would be with renewables. However my original comment was not only in reference to decisions we are making now but also those of the last 50 years. If we had concentrated on using Nuclear, and not succumbed to the fear about it, we would be in a much stronger position now than we are.

Gwypaas 4y ago
It is simply economics. The anti-nuclear movement is insignificant but a very handy scapegoat. If nuclear made sense on a cost basis it would have pushed through somewhere globally. It's quite telling that not even authoritarian states, or very centrally controlled like France have managed that. I agree that nuclear would have been preferable to fossil energy. But today renewables is way cheaper than either alternative.

bradlys 4y ago

You're using very poor arguments. A lot of whataboutism. A meteor is coming to destroy the entire world. Do you sit around and wonder, "Is spending money on this really in the best interest of our shareholders for this quarter?"

Gwypaas 4y ago
Consider your example. You have two options proven to work by prior knowledge. Either renewables or nuclear at 3-6x the cost. What do you pick? There's a statement in the previous paragraph doing most of the heavy lifting: "proven to work". This means no risk, why double invest? We've already diverted meteors using both renewables and nuclear. Both work. Choose the cheaper option since it's not an one off event, it's an incremental change. Every nuclear plant or wind turbine is negligible in itself. But the effect is quantifiable and known.
- liketochill 4y ago
  A robust electricity grid needs a variety of energy sources, wind and solar are great until it isn’t windy or sunny for a week. Are week long outages acceptable to you? Not to me. It is not inconceivable that a weather system results in calm weather with clouds for an extended period of time. So other energy sources are necessary. Nuclear is another practical low carbon energy source and it is worth considering as part of the energy mix. There are many nuclear plants operating and under construction in the world. That they are uneconomic in some countries speaks more to those countries than to nuclear.
  - Gwypaas 4y ago
    1. Geographical decoupling. HVDC connections are barely even newsworthy anymore. 2. Smart consumers. Electrified transports are perfect where you can shift the charging to any point in time it's not actively driven. This without having to pay the round trip efficiency loss since charging the battery is valuable work. 3. Better utilize hydro to compensate for the last bits of intermittency left. We're so far from a grid where large scale storage would be necessary that dwelling over it and putting forth nuclear as the only solution is ridiculous. You could make hydrogen from your renewable energy and then later burn it and still come out ahead of nuclear. That's how uncompetetive nuclear is.
    - liketochill 4y ago
      Permitting new power lines is difficult. Here [0] is an example of a project stalled due to opposition. It is unrealistic to think that someone is going to pay for transmission lines to get built with excess capacity most of the time in case we need to send power from one coast to another. Building power lines is expensive, battery storage is also expensive, so if you want to promote intermittent generation sources far from loads simply add those to the cost when comparing to other sources to make a fair comparison. People will mostly all charge their vehicles at night, so it won’t be from solar power. Unless the solar has battery storage, in which case we are charging batteries from batteries, which is inefficient. I’m not sure why you think there is a lot of flexibility in the existing hydro power, there isn’t that much of it and it is often constrained by having to keep rivers flowing or saving water for peaks. My point about nuclear is that it is competitive in other countries, the problem is that North America can’t competitively build it any more not due to technological problems but political and managerial issues. Imagine global warming could have been avoided by getting really good at building nuclear plants. Look at how much imaginary money has been printed for less catastrophic problems. We could have done it, we still can. Nuclear is uncompetitive because we have somehow made it so here. a robust grid needs a variety of energy sources, Arguing against any low carbon source is counter productive to me. There is always going to be a need for generation with a characteristic like nuclear power. Edit: I should also add hydro projects in Canada such as muskrat falls and site C are costing 10-20 billion which I believe is similar to nuclear and also taking a decade to finish. 0: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/maine-supreme-court-hydro-quebec-transmission-line-1.6445554 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/maine-supreme-court-...