4 ms·

With the current advances of PV and, amazingly at the same time, wind energy, we certainly don't need more nuclear fission plants. It is pretty obvious by now t

With the current advances of PV and, amazingly at the same time, wind energy, we certainly don't need more nuclear fission plants. It is pretty obvious by now that building a PV factory and a battery factory instead of a NPP is the economic solution. At the same time, we're well on a way to global energy abundance even though we're in a local crisis right now. The only thing I am worried about is that PV capacity is currently way too concentrated in a single state.

anovikov 4y ago
RepowerEU plan is precisely what it takes to completely switch away from fossil fuels in less than one generation while still supporting healthy economic growth. Granted, it's not like we are starting from zero - in 2021, renewables amounted to 22% of all total final consumption of all kinds of energy in EU (not just electricity, that is), up from 8.5% in 2005. It only puts forward already existing plans, accelerating development through 2030 (45% renewables) and 2050 (75% renewables), while increasing energy consumption and yes, electrifying everything. And no it doesn't require any terrible effort or funding amounts anyone will even notice. It doesn't require any batteries. Panic is simply not justified. U.S. shouldn't worry because it has more than plenty of fossil fuels for the next 50-70 years even with no technology improvements, and by then, renewables will be so cheap they will fill in the market by themselves, Europe will go through RepowerEU, and China, well, the worse for them, the better for us (although with their level of industrial capacity and skill of doing things on scale, i'm sure they will be fine too).
- wiz21c 4y ago
  According to the EU website's : "REPowerEU is the European Commission’s plan to make Europe independent from Russian fossil fuels well before 2030, in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine." and "In the short-term, we need alternative supplies of gas, oil and coal as quickly as possible"... So it's about a third of the EU consumption and it may include just changing supplier, not reducing oil...
  - ben_w 4y ago
    I think that's implicit with the quoted timelines: > 2030 (45% renewables) and 2050 (75% renewables)
    - dispat0r 4y ago
      It's not going to happen, the production costs alone don't permit that.
      - anovikov 4y ago
        Main cost driver is the price of green hydrogen. It is already cheaper than the natural gas prices we are paying now (equivalent of about $1700 per 1000cm of natural gas equivalent vs about $2500 we pay), by 2030 it should be down to $500 per 1000cm natural gas equivalent and that's about 2019 price.
      - ben_w 4y ago
        Production costs are easily low enough to go further and faster than that. Logistics and economics may slow things down, but it’s not a cost problem right now.
        anovikov 4y ago
        Yes and no. For raw energy production, it is dirt cheap. Storage and transformation is a bitch though, and so far costs are quite high there although they are getting better. Given that we will need to increase green hydrogen production by 400x in 9 years and further 4x in next 20 years, prices will of course drop.
        ben_w 4y ago
        Hydrogen is the easy one. If you want battery storage I agree we need to get it cheaper (the effective cost of battery storage was close to nuclear last I checked, which isn't cheap enough, though my numbers may be out of date), but hydrogen is something I first made when I was single-digit years old.
ben_w 4y ago
The cost of batteries is still reducing so my numbers may be out of date, but last I checked it was close to the same for a nuclear plant and a sufficiently large battery pack (the PV to recharge the batteries is so cheap it's essentially a rounding error in this comparison). I'm optimistic about future cost reductions to both batteries and PV. I'm pessimistic about the possibility of any future cost reductions to nuclear. Despite this, I still think there's a place for nuclear — diversity (and not just of power supplies) is inherently a good thing because it de-correlates risks.
- choeger 4y ago
  Don't forget that right now, a PV or battery plant will be producing after a couple of years, while your NPP is still in planning or, ignoring any legal battles, in construction. The renewables will produce power for years when that NPP finally goes online. Changing this state of affairs is certainly possible but would also take several years.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Sure. I didn't make it clear in the other comment, but the slow process of building reactors is part of my world model — remember, the benefit I see from them is about preventing correlated failures, and those can happen any time not just tomorrow.
- dispat0r 4y ago
  At least for now, the cost reduction stopped.
xgbi 4y ago
I just did a quick calculation: PV produces ~150W/m^2 for a very optimistic solar input of 1000W/m^2. PV produces this output only 50% of time (when sun is up, very very optimistic), so 75W averaged on 1 day France Nuclear production is 61370MW [1] To replace all the nuclear power plants, we would need 818 million square meters of PV panels, which amounts to a square grid of 30km. Obviously you'd have to spread this along the longitude so that eastbound PVs would still be alight when the westbound have fallen out of the terminator. It doesn't look like much actually. But I'm not counting the batteries to compensate for the night fallout, and I'm assuming 100% sun input all the time. --- [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France

anovikov 4y ago

RepowerEU plan is precisely what it takes to completely switch away from fossil fuels in less than one generation while still supporting healthy economic growth. Granted, it's not like we are starting from zero - in 2021, renewables amounted to 22% of all total final consumption of all kinds of energy in EU (not just electricity, that is), up from 8.5% in 2005. It only puts forward already existing plans, accelerating development through 2030 (45% renewables) and 2050 (75% renewables), while increasing energy consumption and yes, electrifying everything. And no it doesn't require any terrible effort or funding amounts anyone will even notice. It doesn't require any batteries. Panic is simply not justified. U.S. shouldn't worry because it has more than plenty of fossil fuels for the next 50-70 years even with no technology improvements, and by then, renewables will be so cheap they will fill in the market by themselves, Europe will go through RepowerEU, and China, well, the worse for them, the better for us (although with their level of industrial capacity and skill of doing things on scale, i'm sure they will be fine too).

wiz21c 4y ago
According to the EU website's : "REPowerEU is the European Commission’s plan to make Europe independent from Russian fossil fuels well before 2030, in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine." and "In the short-term, we need alternative supplies of gas, oil and coal as quickly as possible"... So it's about a third of the EU consumption and it may include just changing supplier, not reducing oil...
- ben_w 4y ago
  I think that's implicit with the quoted timelines: > 2030 (45% renewables) and 2050 (75% renewables)
  - dispat0r 4y ago
    It's not going to happen, the production costs alone don't permit that.
    - anovikov 4y ago
      Main cost driver is the price of green hydrogen. It is already cheaper than the natural gas prices we are paying now (equivalent of about $1700 per 1000cm of natural gas equivalent vs about $2500 we pay), by 2030 it should be down to $500 per 1000cm natural gas equivalent and that's about 2019 price.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      Production costs are easily low enough to go further and faster than that. Logistics and economics may slow things down, but it’s not a cost problem right now.
      - anovikov 4y ago
        Yes and no. For raw energy production, it is dirt cheap. Storage and transformation is a bitch though, and so far costs are quite high there although they are getting better. Given that we will need to increase green hydrogen production by 400x in 9 years and further 4x in next 20 years, prices will of course drop.
        ben_w 4y ago
        Hydrogen is the easy one. If you want battery storage I agree we need to get it cheaper (the effective cost of battery storage was close to nuclear last I checked, which isn't cheap enough, though my numbers may be out of date), but hydrogen is something I first made when I was single-digit years old.

ben_w 4y ago

The cost of batteries is still reducing so my numbers may be out of date, but last I checked it was close to the same for a nuclear plant and a sufficiently large battery pack (the PV to recharge the batteries is so cheap it's essentially a rounding error in this comparison). I'm optimistic about future cost reductions to both batteries and PV. I'm pessimistic about the possibility of any future cost reductions to nuclear. Despite this, I still think there's a place for nuclear — diversity (and not just of power supplies) is inherently a good thing because it de-correlates risks.

choeger 4y ago
Don't forget that right now, a PV or battery plant will be producing after a couple of years, while your NPP is still in planning or, ignoring any legal battles, in construction. The renewables will produce power for years when that NPP finally goes online. Changing this state of affairs is certainly possible but would also take several years.
- ben_w 4y ago
  Sure. I didn't make it clear in the other comment, but the slow process of building reactors is part of my world model — remember, the benefit I see from them is about preventing correlated failures, and those can happen any time not just tomorrow.
dispat0r 4y ago
At least for now, the cost reduction stopped.

xgbi 4y ago

I just did a quick calculation: PV produces ~150W/m^2 for a very optimistic solar input of 1000W/m^2. PV produces this output only 50% of time (when sun is up, very very optimistic), so 75W averaged on 1 day France Nuclear production is 61370MW [1] To replace all the nuclear power plants, we would need 818 million square meters of PV panels, which amounts to a square grid of 30km. Obviously you'd have to spread this along the longitude so that eastbound PVs would still be alight when the westbound have fallen out of the terminator. It doesn't look like much actually. But I'm not counting the batteries to compensate for the night fallout, and I'm assuming 100% sun input all the time. --- [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France