3 ms·

Exactly right. The core problem with nuclear isn't so much the safety record (although this has been a problem). The issue is building Flamanville and co have

by urthor 4y ago

Exactly right. The core problem with nuclear isn't so much the safety record (although this has been a problem). The issue is building Flamanville and co have been so extraordinarily expensive. Any new nuclear plant will lose an incredible amount of money as solar energy becomes more and more cost efficient.

panick21_ 4y ago
Well we are still building with 1960s technology because the industry has been so beaten down. Are we just gone accept that nuclear is just inherently to expensive and that can never change. Are we just inherently unable to look at those project and ask, why did it happen that way. Why are we building inherently old technology and are doing it far worse then 20 years before. When in the 1970s Jimmy Carter tried to push solar and wind, but the tech clearly wasn't ready. Did we just go 'well that's it then'. No people just pushed it, demanded it, forced politicians to have national labs finance it. When it became almost viable it was subsidized in million large and tiny ways all around the world. When there was negative news about solar and wind the Germans would just double down with their strategy. And yet, a few nuclear reactors are to expensive to build, shut down the whole industry forever. Lets never try to improve or use reactor technology developed after 1960.
- danhor 4y ago
  The issue is that nuclear scales well with size, but that increases iteration time & costs for a single iteration. It also leads to much less efficiency possible compared to e.g. solar cells. So once they didn't improve and were still expensive (and getting more expensive, like all big construction projects) the potential seems limited. Same as start ups getting huge evaluations while running deficits, but no-one giving the benefit of the doubt at that scale to a failing 30-year old business with promising basic ideas. Every (big honkin') nuclear power plant is more-or-less a giant project onto itself. The hope of nuclear advocates is that with small reactors, their reduced cost & increased scale (in terms of units) will more than make up for their small size (and resulting loss of scaling in that dimension). I think that's unlikely, but some startups are trying so we'll see if it's a winning formula. My argument is: Why bother? Renewables are cheap, storage technologies[1] have a lot of viable ways of going forward and are getting better very quickly. Even if through a lot of investment nuclear energy gets (economically, build-time-wise) viable in 20 years like renewables are now, I doubt it would change much or solve pressing issues. [1]: Starting from common chemical batteries, over to hydrogen/power-to-gas, molten-sand and a variety of concepts exploiting potential height energy. The limited commercial adoption yet can be attributed to the fact that they're not necessary yet, so the added price is too high. Germany, with a very high share of renewables and planned to be growing, is only starting to dip it's toes with some very basic "stabilizer" like in Australia and nothing big-scale in the near future. If this was a pressing issue, you'd think governments would do more (Especially in germany, the cost structure strongly disincentives storage right now, needing to pay certain costs twice, while sinking and sourcing the energy).

by urthor 4y ago

panick21_ 4y ago

Well we are still building with 1960s technology because the industry has been so beaten down. Are we just gone accept that nuclear is just inherently to expensive and that can never change. Are we just inherently unable to look at those project and ask, why did it happen that way. Why are we building inherently old technology and are doing it far worse then 20 years before. When in the 1970s Jimmy Carter tried to push solar and wind, but the tech clearly wasn't ready. Did we just go 'well that's it then'. No people just pushed it, demanded it, forced politicians to have national labs finance it. When it became almost viable it was subsidized in million large and tiny ways all around the world. When there was negative news about solar and wind the Germans would just double down with their strategy. And yet, a few nuclear reactors are to expensive to build, shut down the whole industry forever. Lets never try to improve or use reactor technology developed after 1960.

danhor 4y ago
The issue is that nuclear scales well with size, but that increases iteration time & costs for a single iteration. It also leads to much less efficiency possible compared to e.g. solar cells. So once they didn't improve and were still expensive (and getting more expensive, like all big construction projects) the potential seems limited. Same as start ups getting huge evaluations while running deficits, but no-one giving the benefit of the doubt at that scale to a failing 30-year old business with promising basic ideas. Every (big honkin') nuclear power plant is more-or-less a giant project onto itself. The hope of nuclear advocates is that with small reactors, their reduced cost & increased scale (in terms of units) will more than make up for their small size (and resulting loss of scaling in that dimension). I think that's unlikely, but some startups are trying so we'll see if it's a winning formula. My argument is: Why bother? Renewables are cheap, storage technologies[1] have a lot of viable ways of going forward and are getting better very quickly. Even if through a lot of investment nuclear energy gets (economically, build-time-wise) viable in 20 years like renewables are now, I doubt it would change much or solve pressing issues. [1]: Starting from common chemical batteries, over to hydrogen/power-to-gas, molten-sand and a variety of concepts exploiting potential height energy. The limited commercial adoption yet can be attributed to the fact that they're not necessary yet, so the added price is too high. Germany, with a very high share of renewables and planned to be growing, is only starting to dip it's toes with some very basic "stabilizer" like in Australia and nothing big-scale in the near future. If this was a pressing issue, you'd think governments would do more (Especially in germany, the cost structure strongly disincentives storage right now, needing to pay certain costs twice, while sinking and sourcing the energy).