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Build a FUCKTON of nuclear plants and never worry about a fucking electricity bill ever again. Want to keep the Air conditioning on while you're not even home?

Build a FUCKTON of nuclear plants and never worry about a fucking electricity bill ever again. Want to keep the Air conditioning on while you're not even home? Yup, No one cares. Want to run an audacious amount of carbon capture devices near dense population centers? Yep, absolutely. Want to desalinate the waters of the pacific and have it ready to pump inland during large scale drought? OF COURSE!!! The trouble with Nuclear is that it invalidates all the reasons for "Green" politicians to impose excessively wasteful and stupid ideas that dont work, but serve as a slush fund. If we wanted to solve this great pressing carbon emissions problem, we would be building a large nuclear base. For anyone who's reading this comment and thinking "Wow, AC all day?? What a wasteful way to live!" Congratulations. You are immune to the audacity of using science to solve problems that previous generations considered impossible. An infinite amount of energy represents the greatest opportunity for humanity for a thousand years. We should have invested and take a giant leap in our quality of life half a century ago.

generalizations 4y ago
Uncouth way of putting it, but I think you hit the nail on the head. A massive increase in the available energy supply would allow us to do things we can barely dream of these days. To me, it almost feels like energy availability corresponds to how advanced the society is, and from that perspective it's weird to me that there's such a push for actually reducing our energy usage and output.
TheDudeMan 4y ago
Want a ton of cheap hydrogen for all your clean non-battery vehicles/rockets? You got it.
sergiotapia 4y ago
In the US what political party is the "Nuclear Party"? This is one of the major things I'm going to be looking for come voting season.
- jgwil2 4y ago
  None. We have a "Fossil Fuels Party" and a "Renewables Party."
  - rcxdude 4y ago
    Yup, because nuclear power requires humongous government investment, so the party of small government is never going to go for it, while nuclear has a bad reputation both from a cost efficiency, lead time, and a safety point of view, so a progressive party is not likely to go for it when renewables are a much more attractive looking solution.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    I thought you have a "fossil fuels are cool and manly" party and a "fossil fuels are important for corporate interests" party. But that's just my impression as an outsider.
    - jgwil2 4y ago
      I would have said "Renewables (but really mostly just fossil fuels) Party" but recent legislation makes it seem like the Democrats may be getting more serious on renewables.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Nuclear is a political loser. Making it affordable requires massive deregulation which will absolutely end up costing votes, and it'll only show benefits after a decade, so no politician will support it.
jodrellblank 4y ago
We're building one nuclear reactor in the UK and it's so expensive it has been dubbed "the most expensive electricity on the planet" and has almost bankrupted the French energy company which is constructing it. It's also taking many years longer than planned to finish it. If your plan happened, "cheap energy from an expensive source" means low profit and low return for the investors of the power plant. USA is not faring much better in the 'showing it can still build public nuclear power plants' stakes, or in the building large public construction projects quickly and cheaply stakes. See my previous large comments with details on pricing, build times, cost increases in nuclear power, before dismissing this as a throwaway comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28892582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28892582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28890546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28890546 tangential: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30636890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30636890 A FUCKTON of nuclear plants are not coming soon enough to save us.
- lucb1e 4y ago
  One-off projects are usually incredibly expensive because you have to make everything custom. I don't think this argument "scaling up must be expensive because our one-off project is expensive" goes. Doesn't one usually expect to pay 5-10× as much to have something made custom as opposed to a common product? There's on the order of 500 of them in the world if I remember wikipedia correctly. I wonder if any country built enough shortly after reach other / in parallel / same company building in multiple countries at the same time to see an effect of scaling (materials, knowledge, experience, navigating the legislation, ...). Furthermore, energy being X% more expensive for the next hundred years might just be the reality we have to live with in order to reach net zero realistically. (Looks like this is happening due to gas prices right now anyway, so we might as well have gone nuclear... ten years ago it was obvious that we would want to stop burning gas some time soon, but not that solar panels would become so cheap so fast, so it would have made sense, and yet...) The alternative to spending a bit extra on your energy bill is spending way more on climate adaptation, from growing food to relocating people to building sea walls in many if not most countries.
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
adrianN 4y ago
Nuclear power is among the most expensive forms of energy available to us. "Too cheap to meter" never materialized. A "FUCKTON" of nuclear plants will also take decades to build and produce zero power while under construction.
- helf 4y ago
  You know why? Because of fearmongering, redtape, and utter bullshit detractors every step of the way. Nuclear power could be cheap and pervasive and safe and clean. But noooooo. We have had decades of bullshit from people who barely got through 5th grade science making policies or voting in people making policies. People piss themselves when you mention "nuclear" and other energy companies played it up.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    That might or might not be the true cause for the high price of nuclear. But in any case the chances of us getting rid of the regulations in the next five years are essentially zero. So any hopes to have abundant, cheap nuclear power this decade, or even the next, are pipedreams.
Markoff 4y ago
> Want to keep the Air conditioning on while you're not even home? Yup, No one cares. Switching off AC for 8 hours (1/3 of day) when you are not at home doesn't save even 10% of energy, you will just burn the "saved" energy trying to cool down the house when you will switch it on again. There was study published just last week about it. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/does-turning-the-air-conditioning-off-when-youre-not-home-save-energy/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/does-turning-the-air... EDIT: once again downvoted for providing hard facts because some can't accept even quoted studies
- lucb1e 4y ago
  > you will just burn the "saved" energy trying to cool down the house Did you read the article you linked? It says: > What we found was that even when the A/C temporarily spikes to recover from the higher indoor temperatures, the overall energy consumption in the setback cases is still less than when maintaining a constant temperature throughout the day. Even if you ignore the whole thing (as I should have, I was validating their method because the conclusion you cited sounded wrong... but then it turns out the conclusion isn't what you claim) and just read the concluding two sentences of the post, you'd have read: "An eight-hour setback on weekdays provides savings regardless of the system type" It's a convenient myth that not turning off the heating when you're not home saves energy because the heater would otherwise have to work extra hard when you come home / wake up and consume more energy. I've heard it told by people that usually have sensible opinions. I guess it's the inverse myth in the hot places of this world. It is indeed very nice to walk into a climate-controlled place, so I can see why people love to believe it. It makes no sense. Think about it: in the scenario where you let the AC run all day long (or leave the heater on overnight), the temperature differential between inside and outside is larger. More heat enters/leaves the house when the differential is greater, so it makes sense to let this grow smaller when you're not there anyway and only increase the differential when you're (almost) coming home or coming out from under the blankets.
  - rcxdude 4y ago
    Did you read the sentence after the one you quoted? It then says >On an annual scale with a conventional central A/C, this could result in energy savings of up to 11 percent. That's basically what the poster above was claiming (though they seemed to be under-estimating the effect a little). Obviously turning the AC off will reduce the amount of heat leaving the house, but the point is the gains are not super large, even with an inefficient AC and a poorly insulated house. If you have an efficient AC and a well insulated house then the difference could be even smaller (it's even possible that the trend could reverse at some point, if the efficiency of the AC goes down when it is pumping more heat to cool down faster as opposed to consistent low-power heating: you can actually see this in the charts if you look at the mini-split system: it actually uses less energy to turn run the system all the time than to have it off for 4 hours a day, though 8 hours off time is still more efficient). Add in the effects discussed elsewhere in this thread where not all energy consumption is equal from the point of view of the grid and it may even make sense to do the opposite: run the A/C hard during the day while you're not home but green electricity is cheap so you can have it off when you get home and elecriticy demand spikes and solar power is falling off, flattening out the dreaded 'duck curve'.

generalizations 4y ago

Uncouth way of putting it, but I think you hit the nail on the head. A massive increase in the available energy supply would allow us to do things we can barely dream of these days. To me, it almost feels like energy availability corresponds to how advanced the society is, and from that perspective it's weird to me that there's such a push for actually reducing our energy usage and output.

TheDudeMan 4y ago

Want a ton of cheap hydrogen for all your clean non-battery vehicles/rockets? You got it.

sergiotapia 4y ago

In the US what political party is the "Nuclear Party"? This is one of the major things I'm going to be looking for come voting season.

jgwil2 4y ago
None. We have a "Fossil Fuels Party" and a "Renewables Party."
- rcxdude 4y ago
  Yup, because nuclear power requires humongous government investment, so the party of small government is never going to go for it, while nuclear has a bad reputation both from a cost efficiency, lead time, and a safety point of view, so a progressive party is not likely to go for it when renewables are a much more attractive looking solution.
- adrianN 4y ago
  I thought you have a "fossil fuels are cool and manly" party and a "fossil fuels are important for corporate interests" party. But that's just my impression as an outsider.
  - jgwil2 4y ago
    I would have said "Renewables (but really mostly just fossil fuels) Party" but recent legislation makes it seem like the Democrats may be getting more serious on renewables.
colinmhayes 4y ago
Nuclear is a political loser. Making it affordable requires massive deregulation which will absolutely end up costing votes, and it'll only show benefits after a decade, so no politician will support it.

jodrellblank 4y ago

We're building one nuclear reactor in the UK and it's so expensive it has been dubbed "the most expensive electricity on the planet" and has almost bankrupted the French energy company which is constructing it. It's also taking many years longer than planned to finish it. If your plan happened, "cheap energy from an expensive source" means low profit and low return for the investors of the power plant. USA is not faring much better in the 'showing it can still build public nuclear power plants' stakes, or in the building large public construction projects quickly and cheaply stakes. See my previous large comments with details on pricing, build times, cost increases in nuclear power, before dismissing this as a throwaway comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28892582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28892582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28890546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28890546 tangential: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30636890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30636890 A FUCKTON of nuclear plants are not coming soon enough to save us.

lucb1e 4y ago
One-off projects are usually incredibly expensive because you have to make everything custom. I don't think this argument "scaling up must be expensive because our one-off project is expensive" goes. Doesn't one usually expect to pay 5-10× as much to have something made custom as opposed to a common product? There's on the order of 500 of them in the world if I remember wikipedia correctly. I wonder if any country built enough shortly after reach other / in parallel / same company building in multiple countries at the same time to see an effect of scaling (materials, knowledge, experience, navigating the legislation, ...). Furthermore, energy being X% more expensive for the next hundred years might just be the reality we have to live with in order to reach net zero realistically. (Looks like this is happening due to gas prices right now anyway, so we might as well have gone nuclear... ten years ago it was obvious that we would want to stop burning gas some time soon, but not that solar panels would become so cheap so fast, so it would have made sense, and yet...) The alternative to spending a bit extra on your energy bill is spending way more on climate adaptation, from growing food to relocating people to building sea walls in many if not most countries.
- colinmhayes 4y ago

adrianN 4y ago

Nuclear power is among the most expensive forms of energy available to us. "Too cheap to meter" never materialized. A "FUCKTON" of nuclear plants will also take decades to build and produce zero power while under construction.

helf 4y ago
You know why? Because of fearmongering, redtape, and utter bullshit detractors every step of the way. Nuclear power could be cheap and pervasive and safe and clean. But noooooo. We have had decades of bullshit from people who barely got through 5th grade science making policies or voting in people making policies. People piss themselves when you mention "nuclear" and other energy companies played it up.
- adrianN 4y ago
  That might or might not be the true cause for the high price of nuclear. But in any case the chances of us getting rid of the regulations in the next five years are essentially zero. So any hopes to have abundant, cheap nuclear power this decade, or even the next, are pipedreams.

Markoff 4y ago

> Want to keep the Air conditioning on while you're not even home? Yup, No one cares. Switching off AC for 8 hours (1/3 of day) when you are not at home doesn't save even 10% of energy, you will just burn the "saved" energy trying to cool down the house when you will switch it on again. There was study published just last week about it. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/does-turning-the-air-conditioning-off-when-youre-not-home-save-energy/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/does-turning-the-air... EDIT: once again downvoted for providing hard facts because some can't accept even quoted studies

lucb1e 4y ago
> you will just burn the "saved" energy trying to cool down the house Did you read the article you linked? It says: > What we found was that even when the A/C temporarily spikes to recover from the higher indoor temperatures, the overall energy consumption in the setback cases is still less than when maintaining a constant temperature throughout the day. Even if you ignore the whole thing (as I should have, I was validating their method because the conclusion you cited sounded wrong... but then it turns out the conclusion isn't what you claim) and just read the concluding two sentences of the post, you'd have read: "An eight-hour setback on weekdays provides savings regardless of the system type" It's a convenient myth that not turning off the heating when you're not home saves energy because the heater would otherwise have to work extra hard when you come home / wake up and consume more energy. I've heard it told by people that usually have sensible opinions. I guess it's the inverse myth in the hot places of this world. It is indeed very nice to walk into a climate-controlled place, so I can see why people love to believe it. It makes no sense. Think about it: in the scenario where you let the AC run all day long (or leave the heater on overnight), the temperature differential between inside and outside is larger. More heat enters/leaves the house when the differential is greater, so it makes sense to let this grow smaller when you're not there anyway and only increase the differential when you're (almost) coming home or coming out from under the blankets.
- rcxdude 4y ago
  Did you read the sentence after the one you quoted? It then says >On an annual scale with a conventional central A/C, this could result in energy savings of up to 11 percent. That's basically what the poster above was claiming (though they seemed to be under-estimating the effect a little). Obviously turning the AC off will reduce the amount of heat leaving the house, but the point is the gains are not super large, even with an inefficient AC and a poorly insulated house. If you have an efficient AC and a well insulated house then the difference could be even smaller (it's even possible that the trend could reverse at some point, if the efficiency of the AC goes down when it is pumping more heat to cool down faster as opposed to consistent low-power heating: you can actually see this in the charts if you look at the mini-split system: it actually uses less energy to turn run the system all the time than to have it off for 4 hours a day, though 8 hours off time is still more efficient). Add in the effects discussed elsewhere in this thread where not all energy consumption is equal from the point of view of the grid and it may even make sense to do the opposite: run the A/C hard during the day while you're not home but green electricity is cheap so you can have it off when you get home and elecriticy demand spikes and solar power is falling off, flattening out the dreaded 'duck curve'.