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Solar power is intermittent. This make it far more expensive for practical, real world applications in large scale. Nuclear is the only thing that can realisti

• ncmncm 4y ago
  That is of course wholly false. It is why solar farms are going up all over the world, counted in thousands, while nukes are not. Storage is cheap. We have myriad alternatives, according to local requirements. Efficiency used to be a worry, but solar has got so cheap, you just add panels to make up the difference.
  • mcronce 4y ago
    > Storage is cheap. And yet it's solar being built all over the world, not storage.
    • vidarh 4y ago
      Storage is also being built. But storage will lag in volume until intermittent sources like solar produces enough in any given region that there are significant periods of excess that aren't better to deal with by bringing other plants offline.
      • ncmncm 4y ago
        Right, it would be stupid to spend big on storage that cannot be charged up from renewables that exist. First you build enough renewables, to displace fossil fuel (and opex), then build storage when you cannot displace much fossil fuel, any more. All this is easy for an operator to figure out, daily: add solar, fuel cost falls in exact proportion. When you have to turn off enough banks of panels enough of the time, you start building stuff to absorb that energy for later. But not until building more panels cuts your fuel cost less than building storage cuts your night-time fuel cost. (Wind input makes this calculation less deterministic.)
        • vidarh 4y ago
          Exactly. There is some benefit to building some storage before then to reduce the need for peaker plants, and that is largely what happens today when storage gets built. E.g. Tesla's battery project in Australia a few years back for example.
          • BizarroLand 4y ago
            Plus, if this catalysis system works, then excess electricity can power the process to convert methane into methanol as a chemical battery store. That, combined with the ability to extract CO2 from the atmosphere and convert that into Methane would result in carbon neutral (or even negative, if any of the converted CO2 carbon breaks away from the O2 in the burning process as soot) any time power delivery. Yes, you would be burning the methanol in an engine to turn a turbine but if the carbon for that process came from the atmosphere to begin with then who would be upset by that?
            • ncmncm 4y ago
              You could be using the excess power to actually sequester the carbon you extracted, and help fend off looming climate catastrophe. But selling it let you pocket a few bucks, so the choice was obvious. They should tax half the carbon you extract as if it were mined, unless you sequester it instead.
              • BizarroLand 4y ago
                Burning hydrocarbons extracted from the atmosphere is carbon neutral assuming the electricity required for the conversion is solar/wind supplied.
• nothis 4y ago
  Re-check your sources. A lot of pro-nuclear material out there is pure advertising from nuclear lobbies. Nuclear is a hugely expensive and high-maintenance way of generating energy. There's risks that don't show up in neat, averaged numbers, think Russia shelling a nuclear plant in 2022, that was on none of the yay-nuclear bingo cards.
  • JohnHaugeland 4y ago
    GP poster is correct. Instead of talking about propaganda, you should go check the sources you're telling other people to check. South Korean energy does cost circles around subsidized wind and solar, and doesn't need ridiculous battery infrastructure. Gen-3 PWR nuclear is, in reality, by far the cheapest form of power on Earth, and you'll never find any hard evidence from respectable sources saying otherwise. (Probably that's why you're poisoning the water with claims of lobbies and bingo cards.) . > There's risks that don't show up in neat, averaged numbers No, there aren't. Nuclear has killed fewer people all of in history than any other form of power generation in its worst month. Almost no industry in human history, power generating or otherwise, has a human death safety record anywhere near as good as nuclear power's. (I can't think of a single specific counter-example. Can you?) The worst nuclear disaster in history, Kyshtym, which most people have never even heard of, didn't kill as many people as a bad bus accident. Please bring hard evidence with your next set of claims. No, I don't mean estimates from the 80s by non-doctors that never panned out. . > think Russia shelling a nuclear plant in 2022 Zero deaths. You wouldn't expect that from other forms of power plant being shelled. Your examples work against you. There's a reason why when we talk about deaths from other forms of power we talk about actual deaths, but when we talk about deaths from nuclear power, we talk about risk that hasn't occurred and what might maybe happen someday If you look at the numbers, and say "yes, but in my imagination," then you're doing the wrong thing You say "check your sources" but you haven't actually done that yourself, yet You talk about "advertising from nuclear lobbies" but nuclear fans' sources tend to be the government