5 ms·

> It also didn't make sense that Japan talked about hydorgen in terms of energy independence. But they did. In a world where net energy is as easy as throwing

> It also didn't make sense that Japan talked about hydorgen in terms of energy independence. But they did. In a world where net energy is as easy as throwing up a solar panel, energy reserves are energy independence. Nuclear doesn't help here at all because Japan is not allowed to make fuel. Nuclear is dependence on one of the handful of countries who are. Also it doesn't solve portability at all -- my money is on something like sodium ion, but a cheap compact hydrogen canister solves the problem too if it doesn't use exotic materials. > If you actually invested in enough nuclear and build modern plants that can load follow way better then this isn't big problem. > It would only make sense if building storage over added capacity was way, way cheaper, and I not sure it actually is once you are pumping out lots of nuclear. Nuclear capacity is the most expensive thing you can build. Building it to not use it is even stupider than building it to use it. Cheap long term storage is the only thing keeping niches that aren't solar + wind from disappearing entirely -- even with fossil fuels and nuclear being massively subsidized. Renewables are at the point now where building a heat exchanger and steam turbine is a commensurable cost even if the input heat came from fairy farts. This is why fossil fuel plants that don't have a primary turbine need subsidies to stay alive even if they were to get fuel for free. > In addition modern nuclear plants can be air cooled and should be way less sensitive. So making the thing that is limited by being too expensive and unable to run in hot weather more expensive and less efficient in hot weather is a step up?

panick21_ 4y ago
> Nuclear doesn't help here at all because Japan is not allowed to make fuel. Allowed to make fuel? Who is gone stop them? > Nuclear is dependence on one of the handful of countries who are. I'm sorry but that's nonsense. > Also it doesn't solve portability at all -- my money is on something like sodium ion, but a cheap compact hydrogen canister solves the problem too if it doesn't use exotic materials. Portability. Energy generation is best done mostly locally. For portability you have simply connect each local area with the one next to it and you dynamically shift north or south in Japan. But for the most part demand is predictable enough for this not to be needed, and beyond that you can use price mechanisms and other things as well. Just put 1 reactor down for each X people and its totally fine. > Nuclear capacity is the most expensive thing you can build. Given that there is very, very little storage on the global grid and lots of nuclear its not clear this is true. And you assume that nuclear must always cost some huge amount, but if you are a country that is mass producing nuclear reactors (specially modern ones) at large scale, its not actually true. Marginal cost per reactors goes down quite a bit even with PWR and if you would build modern GenIV reactor its even less true. > Cheap long term storage is the only thing keeping niches that aren't solar + wind from disappearing entirely The reliance on the grid to balance out solar + wind unreliability was always a hidden subsidy in most countries. And you act as if 'cheap long term storage' and 'only' should be in the same sentence. Not sure what you mean with 'long term' here, do you mean 6hours or 6 month? If its less then a few month, I wouldn't want to live with it. A single major even such as a volcano could have a major impact when you relay on a storage. > So making the thing that is limited by being too expensive and unable to run in hot weather more expensive and less efficient in hot weather is a step up? You clearly don't understand how air cooled nuclear works.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  The nuclear non proliferation treaty limits uranium refinement capabilities to a handful of corporations and state actors. Moreover the overwhelming majority of available uranium is in a handful of countries which are firmly under the control of one of a few countries. > Portability. Energy generation is best done mostly locally. For portability you have simply connect each local area with the one next to it and you dynamically shift north or south in Japan. Let's just put nuclear reactors on trucks, planes and and boats then shall we? Also dense fuels can be shipped which allows trading energy with anyone with a port (which doesn't include hydrogen currently, but advances in storage would solve this). > Just put 1 reactor down for each X people and its totally fine. So you're proposing that instead of paying $100/MWh for nuclear plants used at full capacity, we instead the same price per capacity but run them half to a third of the time thus increasing the cost to about 100x that of solar? Existing green ammonia and hydrogen tech costs less, doesn't take decades to come online, is dropping in cost by double digit percentage per year and is nowhere near as susceptible to earthquakes. > You clearly don't understand how air cooled nuclear works. You have a heat engine. It has a hot side and a cold side. The lower the thermal capacity and mass of the cold side, the bigger and hotter it is. The hotter the cold side, the less efficient it is and the lower the energy throughput. If your cold side is mid-heatwave summer air you're going to have the exact same trouble france and china are nowc Dumping gigawatts into 30-40 degree air when the sun is already shining isn't a strategy for increasing energy density over solar (especially when you're competing against 20-year-from-now solar which will likely be on the order of 40% efficient). It just costs more. Your heat exchanger is going to wind up looking like a solar farm but with the side benefit of needing incredibly complex plumbing and killing anything within a few km.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Japan is follow allow under international law to build everything required for civil nuclear. And Japan has enough nuclear material in Japan. There are breeder reactors, you don't need to mine or buy much U-235. You can literally easily create a repository with thorium/uranium for the next 100 years. Not to mention the existing fuel. > Let's just put nuclear reactors on trucks, planes and and boats then shall we? Now you are just trolling. But I guess if you don't have actual argument. You should really learn about high temperature reactors.

panick21_ 4y ago

> Nuclear doesn't help here at all because Japan is not allowed to make fuel. Allowed to make fuel? Who is gone stop them? > Nuclear is dependence on one of the handful of countries who are. I'm sorry but that's nonsense. > Also it doesn't solve portability at all -- my money is on something like sodium ion, but a cheap compact hydrogen canister solves the problem too if it doesn't use exotic materials. Portability. Energy generation is best done mostly locally. For portability you have simply connect each local area with the one next to it and you dynamically shift north or south in Japan. But for the most part demand is predictable enough for this not to be needed, and beyond that you can use price mechanisms and other things as well. Just put 1 reactor down for each X people and its totally fine. > Nuclear capacity is the most expensive thing you can build. Given that there is very, very little storage on the global grid and lots of nuclear its not clear this is true. And you assume that nuclear must always cost some huge amount, but if you are a country that is mass producing nuclear reactors (specially modern ones) at large scale, its not actually true. Marginal cost per reactors goes down quite a bit even with PWR and if you would build modern GenIV reactor its even less true. > Cheap long term storage is the only thing keeping niches that aren't solar + wind from disappearing entirely The reliance on the grid to balance out solar + wind unreliability was always a hidden subsidy in most countries. And you act as if 'cheap long term storage' and 'only' should be in the same sentence. Not sure what you mean with 'long term' here, do you mean 6hours or 6 month? If its less then a few month, I wouldn't want to live with it. A single major even such as a volcano could have a major impact when you relay on a storage. > So making the thing that is limited by being too expensive and unable to run in hot weather more expensive and less efficient in hot weather is a step up? You clearly don't understand how air cooled nuclear works.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
The nuclear non proliferation treaty limits uranium refinement capabilities to a handful of corporations and state actors. Moreover the overwhelming majority of available uranium is in a handful of countries which are firmly under the control of one of a few countries. > Portability. Energy generation is best done mostly locally. For portability you have simply connect each local area with the one next to it and you dynamically shift north or south in Japan. Let's just put nuclear reactors on trucks, planes and and boats then shall we? Also dense fuels can be shipped which allows trading energy with anyone with a port (which doesn't include hydrogen currently, but advances in storage would solve this). > Just put 1 reactor down for each X people and its totally fine. So you're proposing that instead of paying $100/MWh for nuclear plants used at full capacity, we instead the same price per capacity but run them half to a third of the time thus increasing the cost to about 100x that of solar? Existing green ammonia and hydrogen tech costs less, doesn't take decades to come online, is dropping in cost by double digit percentage per year and is nowhere near as susceptible to earthquakes. > You clearly don't understand how air cooled nuclear works. You have a heat engine. It has a hot side and a cold side. The lower the thermal capacity and mass of the cold side, the bigger and hotter it is. The hotter the cold side, the less efficient it is and the lower the energy throughput. If your cold side is mid-heatwave summer air you're going to have the exact same trouble france and china are nowc Dumping gigawatts into 30-40 degree air when the sun is already shining isn't a strategy for increasing energy density over solar (especially when you're competing against 20-year-from-now solar which will likely be on the order of 40% efficient). It just costs more. Your heat exchanger is going to wind up looking like a solar farm but with the side benefit of needing incredibly complex plumbing and killing anything within a few km.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Japan is follow allow under international law to build everything required for civil nuclear. And Japan has enough nuclear material in Japan. There are breeder reactors, you don't need to mine or buy much U-235. You can literally easily create a repository with thorium/uranium for the next 100 years. Not to mention the existing fuel. > Let's just put nuclear reactors on trucks, planes and and boats then shall we? Now you are just trolling. But I guess if you don't have actual argument. You should really learn about high temperature reactors.