5 ms·

Not to mention that a big fraction of those panels are made in china, and panels generally generate much less power after 20 or 30 years. They're also vulnerab

by jokoon 4y ago

Not to mention that a big fraction of those panels are made in china, and panels generally generate much less power after 20 or 30 years. They're also vulnerable to hail, and require a lot of copper wiring. I would buy any stock related to mini nuclear reactors. It seems like a promising solution, since it's faster and simpler to deploy, they can probably be sold to less rich countries, they're probably even safer. I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I wish there was more news about it.

Brometheus 4y ago
- benzin 4y ago
  I'm pro-everything. From my flawed knowledge of economic history, energy rules all and is the single best thing to invest in for a country or civilisation's future. [1][2][3][4][5] Any advantages individual technologies have in energy generation, transportation or storage is probably worth exploring. I hope to have more insight in this when I get around to reading Vaclav Smil, or better yet work in the energy industry as it seems to be one of the few industries I've looked at that definitely needs to exist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution [3] https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Hitler-try-to-capture-Moscow-in-1942-but-rather-move-for-Stalingrad https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Hitler-try-to-capture-Moscow... [4] https://www.history.com/news/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harbor https://www.history.com/news/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harb... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
- WHATDOESIT 4y ago
  These are real issues. Saying nuclear is too hard/too dangerous/too expensive/takes too long is the real FUD, simply because it's a wide range of significantly different technologies each with vastly different properties (whereas solar panels are all pretty similar and the problems are not with one particular kind but external - caused by how the solar panels are used). We need both/all.
  - Brometheus 4y ago
    Are they though? A big fraction of those panels are made in countries other than China. The panels generally generate still more than 70% of their original power after 20 or 30 years. They're hardend against hail, can be insured and do definitely not require a lot of copper wiring. I wouldn't buy any stock related to mini nuclear reactors. It doesn't seem like a promising solution, since none of them have been actually deployed at all, they cannot be sold to less rich countries since they prefer solar in general, and the dangers to nuclear accidents, proliferation as well as the inevitable dismantling after their lifetimes. We're good with solar, wind and hydrogen storage. I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I wish there was more news about it.
    - WHATDOESIT 4y ago
      Just yesterday my state (in Central EU) has incorporated a company that is going to deploy several SMRs here. One of the US ones got certified just few months ago (they are buying that one too) and we also have our local designs ready to certify and then build - this country is extremely pro-nuclear (over 80% support) and has significant nuclear engineering industry and world-class nuclear regulation authority. I really don't think you're right it's not happening. And talking about nuclear in general, we are building several standard big reactors too (expanding older power plants), with no sign of insurmountable problems - ever since we stopped letting the greens affect the projects with their FUD and fake "studies" it's going more than well enough, unfortunately they backtracked us for a decade before we were able to change the law otherwise we would have the new reactors running today (the local Green party went from 30% to literally 0 over this, lol).
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        The nukes will all be mothballed by 2040, as they find it impossible to compete. That is, provided global society does not collapse first. If it does, they will be mothballed as unmaintainable, instead, if they don't blow up for the same reason.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Right, it is significant that the only places shelling out for SMR are the US and Romania. Only the latter is actually planning to deploy them. (The US hands over tax money to people making them, but US utility operators don't want any.) Corruption suffices to account for both. Renewables+storage is just too obviously a better place to invest, if you care about investing wisely.
gwicks56 4y ago
People have been hyping up small modular reactors for as long as I have been alive. They make total sense. And yet, there is not a single one is operation? I don't really care what tech gets us to cheap, abundant power, but given the cost curves of solar and batteries, it's hard to see anything competing. Both are here, right now, and getting cheaper every year. Nuclear seems to be something climate skeptics points to as a way of doing nothing.
- i_am_proteus 4y ago
  It is probably more productive to talk about why certain technologies have and have not been adopted than to "take sides" in an artificial debate that, for some reason, pits nuclear against wind and solar. The first small modular civilian reactor in the United States in 2022. However, the United States has been producing small modular reactors for military use since the late 1950s. Ignore dogma and consider cases why nuclear power might be beneficial even if the dollar cost for wind and solar is globally lower: - The power output variance for nuclear is not very correlated with solar, wind, and hydro. Given the issues related to supply and demand variance, adding power sources whose variance isn't correlated with other power sources stabilizes supply and reduces risks of blackouts. - Solar, wind, and hydro are very geographically-dependent sources. To a small degree, so is nuclear— it requires cooling— but it can be built in places that aren't great choices for wind and solar. This means it's very useful for some local markets. - Nuclear has a different set of mineral requirements from batteries. In many ways, they are more complicated (e.g., enriching Uranium for light water reactors), but they are nonetheless different. Using nuclear alongside batteries reduces risk from mineral supply chains being broken. Most of these effects run in both directions. Relying entirely on one source of energy is more risky than utilizing an ensemble of sources.
  - tuatoru 4y ago
    Why? OK. The reason why nuclear has not been adopted is that society has taken against it. Politicians respond to what people want, and create rules and roadblocks. There are alternatives that can fill the same roles you envisage for nuclear. We'll get some of those instead. Don't talk to us nerds, go knocking on doors and persuade soccer moms and instagram influencers that nuclear is safest, cheapest, best for their kiddies. That's who you need to convince.
pjc50 4y ago
> since it's faster and simpler to deploy No it isn't, as demonstrated by all the solar being installed alongside the zero mini nuclear reactors. > require a lot of copper wiring Intuitively I'd expect the quantity of wiring to be roughly proportional to output power, regardless of method; how much do you need for the coils of reactor turbines, for example? > panels generally generate much less power after 20 or 30 years. Maybe? That's the expected lifetime, but the actual outcome will vary depending on how weather-beaten they are. Being entirely solid state with no moving parts larger than an electron-hole pair is quite an advantage. > can probably be sold to less rich countries We're just going to stop worrying about proliferation?
- jokoon 4y ago
  per energy output, nuclear reactors require less metal, concrete, steel, etc.
greenthrow 4y ago
Nuclear plants take too long to get up and running to help us with the climate crisis that is here now. We can meet all our needs with renewables and storage. Who cares that the panels are mostly made in China? Most of the electronics that would control your hypothetical nuclear plant would be made in China too.
pfdietz 4y ago
Why does the wiring of PV panels have to be copper? The wiring (aside from the contact wires actually on the cells themselves) is not volume constrained, so I'd expect aluminum to be used, not copper.
- jokoon 4y ago
  that's even more energy intensive and expensive, I guess
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Aluminum is cheaper per mass than copper, and has higher conductivity/density. Aluminum is orders of magnitude more adundant in the Earth's crust than copper.
_0w8t 4y ago
I used to be pro-nuclear. But the war in Ukraine stopped that. One does not need to be a president of Russia to bomb a nuclear reactor. A crazy guy at top of even small country can clearly manage to destroy reactors with modern conventional weapons releasing a lot of radioactivity. Smaller reactors increase that risk exponentially simply by having more targets closer to densely populated areas. Fusion reactors in theory can be much safer in that regard, but until they are realized and shown to work I do not see any sensible alternative for building solar or wind while keeping coal and gas power stations running.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Fusion plants according to current projected designs would not, in fact, be appreciably safer. It is academic, because they would be 10s to 1000s of times as expensive as what they would be competing with, so will not be built. D-3He reactors might someday find uses in the outer solar system, or in military rapid-deployment corps, if they turn out possible. But availability of 3He will always be a problem. Probably it will be bred by using solar power to accelerate protons.

by jokoon 4y ago

Brometheus 4y ago

benzin 4y ago
I'm pro-everything. From my flawed knowledge of economic history, energy rules all and is the single best thing to invest in for a country or civilisation's future. [1][2][3][4][5] Any advantages individual technologies have in energy generation, transportation or storage is probably worth exploring. I hope to have more insight in this when I get around to reading Vaclav Smil, or better yet work in the energy industry as it seems to be one of the few industries I've looked at that definitely needs to exist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution [3] https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Hitler-try-to-capture-Moscow-in-1942-but-rather-move-for-Stalingrad https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Hitler-try-to-capture-Moscow... [4] https://www.history.com/news/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harbor https://www.history.com/news/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harb... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
WHATDOESIT 4y ago
These are real issues. Saying nuclear is too hard/too dangerous/too expensive/takes too long is the real FUD, simply because it's a wide range of significantly different technologies each with vastly different properties (whereas solar panels are all pretty similar and the problems are not with one particular kind but external - caused by how the solar panels are used). We need both/all.
- Brometheus 4y ago
  Are they though? A big fraction of those panels are made in countries other than China. The panels generally generate still more than 70% of their original power after 20 or 30 years. They're hardend against hail, can be insured and do definitely not require a lot of copper wiring. I wouldn't buy any stock related to mini nuclear reactors. It doesn't seem like a promising solution, since none of them have been actually deployed at all, they cannot be sold to less rich countries since they prefer solar in general, and the dangers to nuclear accidents, proliferation as well as the inevitable dismantling after their lifetimes. We're good with solar, wind and hydrogen storage. I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I wish there was more news about it.
  - WHATDOESIT 4y ago
    Just yesterday my state (in Central EU) has incorporated a company that is going to deploy several SMRs here. One of the US ones got certified just few months ago (they are buying that one too) and we also have our local designs ready to certify and then build - this country is extremely pro-nuclear (over 80% support) and has significant nuclear engineering industry and world-class nuclear regulation authority. I really don't think you're right it's not happening. And talking about nuclear in general, we are building several standard big reactors too (expanding older power plants), with no sign of insurmountable problems - ever since we stopped letting the greens affect the projects with their FUD and fake "studies" it's going more than well enough, unfortunately they backtracked us for a decade before we were able to change the law otherwise we would have the new reactors running today (the local Green party went from 30% to literally 0 over this, lol).
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      The nukes will all be mothballed by 2040, as they find it impossible to compete. That is, provided global society does not collapse first. If it does, they will be mothballed as unmaintainable, instead, if they don't blow up for the same reason.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Right, it is significant that the only places shelling out for SMR are the US and Romania. Only the latter is actually planning to deploy them. (The US hands over tax money to people making them, but US utility operators don't want any.) Corruption suffices to account for both. Renewables+storage is just too obviously a better place to invest, if you care about investing wisely.

gwicks56 4y ago

People have been hyping up small modular reactors for as long as I have been alive. They make total sense. And yet, there is not a single one is operation? I don't really care what tech gets us to cheap, abundant power, but given the cost curves of solar and batteries, it's hard to see anything competing. Both are here, right now, and getting cheaper every year. Nuclear seems to be something climate skeptics points to as a way of doing nothing.

i_am_proteus 4y ago
It is probably more productive to talk about why certain technologies have and have not been adopted than to "take sides" in an artificial debate that, for some reason, pits nuclear against wind and solar. The first small modular civilian reactor in the United States in 2022. However, the United States has been producing small modular reactors for military use since the late 1950s. Ignore dogma and consider cases why nuclear power might be beneficial even if the dollar cost for wind and solar is globally lower: - The power output variance for nuclear is not very correlated with solar, wind, and hydro. Given the issues related to supply and demand variance, adding power sources whose variance isn't correlated with other power sources stabilizes supply and reduces risks of blackouts. - Solar, wind, and hydro are very geographically-dependent sources. To a small degree, so is nuclear— it requires cooling— but it can be built in places that aren't great choices for wind and solar. This means it's very useful for some local markets. - Nuclear has a different set of mineral requirements from batteries. In many ways, they are more complicated (e.g., enriching Uranium for light water reactors), but they are nonetheless different. Using nuclear alongside batteries reduces risk from mineral supply chains being broken. Most of these effects run in both directions. Relying entirely on one source of energy is more risky than utilizing an ensemble of sources.
- tuatoru 4y ago
  Why? OK. The reason why nuclear has not been adopted is that society has taken against it. Politicians respond to what people want, and create rules and roadblocks. There are alternatives that can fill the same roles you envisage for nuclear. We'll get some of those instead. Don't talk to us nerds, go knocking on doors and persuade soccer moms and instagram influencers that nuclear is safest, cheapest, best for their kiddies. That's who you need to convince.

pjc50 4y ago

> since it's faster and simpler to deploy No it isn't, as demonstrated by all the solar being installed alongside the zero mini nuclear reactors. > require a lot of copper wiring Intuitively I'd expect the quantity of wiring to be roughly proportional to output power, regardless of method; how much do you need for the coils of reactor turbines, for example? > panels generally generate much less power after 20 or 30 years. Maybe? That's the expected lifetime, but the actual outcome will vary depending on how weather-beaten they are. Being entirely solid state with no moving parts larger than an electron-hole pair is quite an advantage. > can probably be sold to less rich countries We're just going to stop worrying about proliferation?

jokoon 4y ago
per energy output, nuclear reactors require less metal, concrete, steel, etc.

greenthrow 4y ago

Nuclear plants take too long to get up and running to help us with the climate crisis that is here now. We can meet all our needs with renewables and storage. Who cares that the panels are mostly made in China? Most of the electronics that would control your hypothetical nuclear plant would be made in China too.

pfdietz 4y ago

Why does the wiring of PV panels have to be copper? The wiring (aside from the contact wires actually on the cells themselves) is not volume constrained, so I'd expect aluminum to be used, not copper.

jokoon 4y ago
that's even more energy intensive and expensive, I guess
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Aluminum is cheaper per mass than copper, and has higher conductivity/density. Aluminum is orders of magnitude more adundant in the Earth's crust than copper.

_0w8t 4y ago

I used to be pro-nuclear. But the war in Ukraine stopped that. One does not need to be a president of Russia to bomb a nuclear reactor. A crazy guy at top of even small country can clearly manage to destroy reactors with modern conventional weapons releasing a lot of radioactivity. Smaller reactors increase that risk exponentially simply by having more targets closer to densely populated areas. Fusion reactors in theory can be much safer in that regard, but until they are realized and shown to work I do not see any sensible alternative for building solar or wind while keeping coal and gas power stations running.

ncmncm 4y ago
Fusion plants according to current projected designs would not, in fact, be appreciably safer. It is academic, because they would be 10s to 1000s of times as expensive as what they would be competing with, so will not be built. D-3He reactors might someday find uses in the outer solar system, or in military rapid-deployment corps, if they turn out possible. But availability of 3He will always be a problem. Probably it will be bred by using solar power to accelerate protons.