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But last time I looked, nobody's ever built a commercial thorium reactor. Solar is here right now. Every time I hear people push nuclear I get a sense of "perf

But last time I looked, nobody's ever built a commercial thorium reactor. Solar is here right now. Every time I hear people push nuclear I get a sense of "perfect is the enemy of good". Sure, nuclear is better in some dimensions. But along the "short term deployability" dimension, it's just not in the running.

Gibbon1 4y ago
What I notice is pro nuclear people talk in superlatives. Wind and solar people talk in terms of scale and economics.
- skohan 4y ago
  Are wind and solar viable at scale? My understanding was that you would need a non-existant storage solution to accommodate inconsistent production capacity.
- vkou 4y ago
  > Wind and solar people talk in terms of scale and economics. Until you ask them about energy storage, and then they start talking in superlatives.
  - Gibbon1 4y ago
    People that claim storage is a problem don't offer numbers either.
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      [edit](Grid storage is probably not going to be a problem; I'm not sure it's not my area) - but the supply of fissile material is definitely not an issue. Literally the reason we don't look at breeder and thorium cycle is because we have more than enough uranium. If we start to run out, we have a path forward.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    The most annoying thing about anti-reneweable people pretending to be nuclear fans is that they don't realise that nuclear grids need "storage" the same as renewable grids. Here's nuclear fan David Mackay to explain it to you, in a quote from his 2008 book: > If we kick fossil fuels and go all-out for renewables, or all-out for nuclear, or a mixture of the two, we may have a problem. Most of the big renewables are not turn-off-and-onable. When the wind blows and the sun comes out, power is there for the taking; but maybe two hours later, it’s not available any more. Nuclear power stations are not usually designed to be turn-offand- onable either. They are usually on all the time, and their delivered power can be turned down and up only on a timescale of hours. This is a problem because, on an electricity network, consumption and production must be exactly equal all the time. The electricity grid can’t store energy. To have an energy plan that adds up every minute of every day, we therefore need something easily turn-off-and-onable. It’s commonly assumed that the easily turn-off-and-onable something should be a source of power that gets turned off and on to compensate for the fluctuations of supply relative to demand (for example, a fossil fuel power station!). But another equally effective way to match supply and demand would be to have an easily turn-off-and-onable demand for power – a sink of power that can be turned off and on at the drop of a hat. > Either way, the easily turn-off-and-onable something needs to be a big something because electricity demand varies a lot https://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_186.shtml https://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_186.shtml
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      The thing is, I think David Mackay is attacking a strawman - or at least it feels like you're using it that way. I don't think anyone is saying we should have solely nuclear. We know of course that nuclear is suitable for base load but not for variable load. Wind and solar are great to build on top of. And yeah, we'll still need gas peaker plants even with grid storage more than likely. Mackay does go on to hit the nail on the head at the very end - a big problem for power grids is that variable supply like peaker plants are incredibly expensive, whereas controlling demand via smart grid is significantly, significantly cheaper. The Ontario grid is basically perfect, IMO. 59% nuclear. 24% hydro. 8% wind. [1] 92% zero-carbon. 7% natural gas, what I assume is peaker capacity. Sure, that could be replaced by grid storage. But we're talking 5% improvement overall from grid storage. Incremental, not a step-change. [1] https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles-ontario.html https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr...
omginternets 4y ago
Last time I looked, people were running uranium reactors that were incredibly productive and reliable.
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  I thought we were talking about building new capacity?
  - omginternets 4y ago
    Surely the two are related?
arcticbull 4y ago
> But last time I looked, nobody's ever built a commercial thorium reactor. Solar is here right now. The CANDU design supports thorium fuel. In fact, India is looking to take advantage of this. [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor
skohan 4y ago
> Sure, nuclear is better in some dimensions. But along the "short term deployability" dimension, it's just not in the running. I've heard the exact same argument in favor of Nuclear. As I understand, the argument is that renewables need a grid-scale storage solution to be viable as a complete solution to our energy needs, since wind and the sun are not consistent and reliable everywhere. That solution doesn't exist yet, so we need to supplement renewables. If we have to do that, Nuclear is a better option than fossil fuels.

Gibbon1 4y ago

What I notice is pro nuclear people talk in superlatives. Wind and solar people talk in terms of scale and economics.

skohan 4y ago
Are wind and solar viable at scale? My understanding was that you would need a non-existant storage solution to accommodate inconsistent production capacity.
vkou 4y ago
> Wind and solar people talk in terms of scale and economics. Until you ask them about energy storage, and then they start talking in superlatives.
- Gibbon1 4y ago
  People that claim storage is a problem don't offer numbers either.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    [edit](Grid storage is probably not going to be a problem; I'm not sure it's not my area) - but the supply of fissile material is definitely not an issue. Literally the reason we don't look at breeder and thorium cycle is because we have more than enough uranium. If we start to run out, we have a path forward.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  The most annoying thing about anti-reneweable people pretending to be nuclear fans is that they don't realise that nuclear grids need "storage" the same as renewable grids. Here's nuclear fan David Mackay to explain it to you, in a quote from his 2008 book: > If we kick fossil fuels and go all-out for renewables, or all-out for nuclear, or a mixture of the two, we may have a problem. Most of the big renewables are not turn-off-and-onable. When the wind blows and the sun comes out, power is there for the taking; but maybe two hours later, it’s not available any more. Nuclear power stations are not usually designed to be turn-offand- onable either. They are usually on all the time, and their delivered power can be turned down and up only on a timescale of hours. This is a problem because, on an electricity network, consumption and production must be exactly equal all the time. The electricity grid can’t store energy. To have an energy plan that adds up every minute of every day, we therefore need something easily turn-off-and-onable. It’s commonly assumed that the easily turn-off-and-onable something should be a source of power that gets turned off and on to compensate for the fluctuations of supply relative to demand (for example, a fossil fuel power station!). But another equally effective way to match supply and demand would be to have an easily turn-off-and-onable demand for power – a sink of power that can be turned off and on at the drop of a hat. > Either way, the easily turn-off-and-onable something needs to be a big something because electricity demand varies a lot https://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_186.shtml https://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_186.shtml
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    The thing is, I think David Mackay is attacking a strawman - or at least it feels like you're using it that way. I don't think anyone is saying we should have solely nuclear. We know of course that nuclear is suitable for base load but not for variable load. Wind and solar are great to build on top of. And yeah, we'll still need gas peaker plants even with grid storage more than likely. Mackay does go on to hit the nail on the head at the very end - a big problem for power grids is that variable supply like peaker plants are incredibly expensive, whereas controlling demand via smart grid is significantly, significantly cheaper. The Ontario grid is basically perfect, IMO. 59% nuclear. 24% hydro. 8% wind. [1] 92% zero-carbon. 7% natural gas, what I assume is peaker capacity. Sure, that could be replaced by grid storage. But we're talking 5% improvement overall from grid storage. Incremental, not a step-change. [1] https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles-ontario.html https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr...

omginternets 4y ago

Last time I looked, people were running uranium reactors that were incredibly productive and reliable.

doctor_eval 4y ago
I thought we were talking about building new capacity?
- omginternets 4y ago
  Surely the two are related?

arcticbull 4y ago

> But last time I looked, nobody's ever built a commercial thorium reactor. Solar is here right now. The CANDU design supports thorium fuel. In fact, India is looking to take advantage of this. [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor

skohan 4y ago

> Sure, nuclear is better in some dimensions. But along the "short term deployability" dimension, it's just not in the running. I've heard the exact same argument in favor of Nuclear. As I understand, the argument is that renewables need a grid-scale storage solution to be viable as a complete solution to our energy needs, since wind and the sun are not consistent and reliable everywhere. That solution doesn't exist yet, so we need to supplement renewables. If we have to do that, Nuclear is a better option than fossil fuels.