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> building a fission reactor takes one or two decades > and its kWh is costlier than alternatives > It didn't and doesn't need to be that way. Obvious

> building a fission reactor takes one or two decades > and its kWh is costlier than alternatives > It didn't and doesn't need to be that way. Obviously we need strong regulatory oversight over nuclear power, but a big part of the cost is the need to satisfy incredibly hostile regulations imposed by politicians who are (a) pandering to public fear (b) heavily influence by the fossil fuel industry. That is not true, there was an HN submission which broke down the cost of nuclear construction (am on mobile and can't easily find it right now) and cost is largely dominated by construction cost, which to a large degree (>50%) are the same as a regular thermal power plant. Regarding regulations, the nuclear lobby is actually very strong, they even managed to reduce regulations for the steam-generating cycle compared to other power plants (I think this was in the US). > Also, talking about kWh cost in the short term is... missing a large portion of the point. Burning fossil fuels is only "cheap" if all the long term damage is ignored. Let's talk about how cheap it is once we start truly paying the price for climate change to the tune of billions of lives and many quadrillions of dollars. But the comparison is not to fossil fuels, the comparison is to renewables. If renewables are cheaper and faster (which is the case) they will enable us to move of fossil sources faster than nuclear, so the overall emitted CO2 is less.

just_boost_it 4y ago
Fuel diversification is important too. That's something Germany seems to have forgotten when they went all in on natural gas.
samatman 4y ago
Not only are the costs comparable to a carbon thermal plant, the generating equipment is identical, and the cooling needs are also identical. Solution: build nuclear cores as close to existing coal plants as possible, shut the coal plant down, and move everything from the steam boiler to the wires to the nuclear plant. Repeat until no coal.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  The cooling needs on a LWR are actually a bit higher, per unit of electrical power output, because the steam temperature is lower than that of a coal plant. The discrepancy is much larger for combined cycle plants.

just_boost_it 4y ago

Fuel diversification is important too. That's something Germany seems to have forgotten when they went all in on natural gas.

samatman 4y ago

Not only are the costs comparable to a carbon thermal plant, the generating equipment is identical, and the cooling needs are also identical. Solution: build nuclear cores as close to existing coal plants as possible, shut the coal plant down, and move everything from the steam boiler to the wires to the nuclear plant. Repeat until no coal.

pfdietz 4y ago
The cooling needs on a LWR are actually a bit higher, per unit of electrical power output, because the steam temperature is lower than that of a coal plant. The discrepancy is much larger for combined cycle plants.