28 ms·

> For new developments, that's a risk inherent to every construction project. Yes but I would argue that the level of risk involved is different between differ

> For new developments, that's a risk inherent to every construction project. Yes but I would argue that the level of risk involved is different between different energy options. $20B worth of solar and wind plus energy storage (including subsidies for home solar/storage and EVs with V2G capability) would carry less risk for this scenario than a single nuclear power plant. I still think based on my back of the napkin calculations that solar + wind + storage (with the above mentioned subsidies) can be a compelling alternative to nuclear. It can be built faster, avoids the risk of a single large terrorist attack target, provides more energy independence for those who receive the subsidy for their own solar and storage, diversifies the grid, and avoids the need for a powerful government to control risky nuclear production facilities. You can do a quick calculation and see that $10B of solar and $10B of storage will produce similar continuous base load power as the $20B Vogtle system.

kelnos 4y ago
And in addition, there are tons of companies who could likely take over maintenance and repair for any particular solar grid if the original company went out of business. The tech is not particularly different when going from manufacturer to manufacturer for panels, inverters, etc., and many parts can be swapped out for new versions, made by a different manufacturer, if they break down and can't be repaired. In contrast, there is exactly one company that fully understands a particular nuclear reactor design. If that company disappears, it will take a lot of specialized knowledge transfer (likely requiring the continued employment of many of the original designers and builders) to allow another company or the government to take on that maintenance burden. Still, I'm not convinced solar + wind + storage will come along soon enough at scale to eliminate enough fossil-fuel burning in order to dig us out of our climate change hole without things getting so much worse first. Then again, if it takes 16 years from permit application time to get a nuclear plant project completed in the US, maybe we're screwed either way.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  Yeah it’s the long production time for nuclear that makes a big difference. Solar/wind/storage can roll out today and start producing energy tomorrow. We’d have 16 years to match the scale required which I think would only be a challenge for storage (wind and solar seem relatively simple to scale). In that time we can immediately begin producing clean power at least during the day, supplementing clean power for dirty at night for 5-10 years until more storage is available. This seems better than continuing with dirty power for 16 years until nuclear comes online. We are, generally, pretty screwed though yes.
  - k__ 4y ago
    "Solar/wind/storage can roll out today and start ... producing clean power at least during the day" Why only during the day?
    - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
      I meant worst case, if sufficient scale for batteries is not immediately available, you’re still going to get lots of green power most days. Of course with wind you’d prob get power at night too. Either way the immediacy of this roll out is better than waiting 10-15 years for a nuclear plant to come online, even if storage takes a few years to fully meet demand.
      - k__ 4y ago
        Ah, okay. Yes, I always had the impression nuclear proponents vastly underestimate the time and work such a plant takes.
      - pencilguin 4y ago
        It is foolish to build storage before there is renewable generating capacity to charge it from. So, everybody builds generating capacity first. Storage cost is falling even faster than renewable generation did.
  - zbrozek 4y ago
    Permitting is a huge problem for everything, including solar and wind. The transmission lines cross a bunch of jurisdictions and get NIMBY-ed to death. The generating facilities themselves also take a long time to get through the NIMBY process.
    - nine_k 4y ago
      Unless a solar plant is built in a completely uninhabited place, could existing allocations / permits for local power distribution be reused to build a larger power line? I mean, there should already be a power distribution grid there, maybe just not powerful enough.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> can do a quick calculation and see that $10B of solar and $10B of storage will produce similar continuous base load power as the $20B Vogtle system Does it? And does this math scale?
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  I think it does, but someone independently verify my claim. As far as scale, we should consider that it may take ten years to build a nuclear plant, so worst case we can compare projected storage production in that time frame rather than solely what is produced today. A benefit to my scheme is that roll out can begin immediately, even if reaching full scale takes a little while.
  - briffle 4y ago
    Keep in mind this was the first AP1000 gen III+ reactor built in the US, and one of a handful in the world. The process should get smoother and faster as more are completed, and the process gets optimized.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    Base load is a myth. You're right; you can break ground today with renewables and start pushing fossil fuels out of the mix during daylight and windy periods, with batteries slowly consuming more of fossil generation as their costs decline. https://energypost.eu/dispelling-nuclear-baseload-myth-nothing-renewables-cant-better/ https://energypost.eu/dispelling-nuclear-baseload-myth-nothi... There is ~1TW of renewables in US grid queues, and ~427GW of storage. While many of these projects might not get built, the velocity should be noted. ~95GW of nuclear generation capacity remains. It takes 10 years and billions of dollars to build a single nuclear generator. https://www.pv-tech.org/nearly-1tw-of-renewables-in-us-interconnection-queues-as-wait-times-continue-to-grow/ https://www.pv-tech.org/nearly-1tw-of-renewables-in-us-inter... https://www.energy-storage.news/estimated-427gw-of-energy-storage-in-us-interconnection-queues-alongside-nearly-1tw-of-renewables/ https://www.energy-storage.news/estimated-427gw-of-energy-st...
    - 4y ago
Gwypaas 4y ago
The research agrees with you. Mind that fossil fuels are cheaper than nuclear. > *B. Dealing With Variability and Stability* > Much of the resistance towards 100% Renewable Energy (RE) systems in the literature seems to come from the a-priori assumption that an energy system based on solar and wind is impossible since these energy sources are variable. Critics of 100% RE systems like to contrast solar and wind with ’firm’ energy sources like nuclear and fossil fuels (often combined with CCS) that bring their own storage. This is the key point made in some already mentioned reactions, such as those by Clack et al. [225], Trainer [226], Heard et al. [227] Jenkins et al. [228], and Caldeira et al. [275], [276]. > However, while it is true that keeping a system with variable sources stable is more complex, a range of strategies can be employed that are often ignored or underutilized in critical studies: oversizing solar and wind capacities; strengthening interconnections [68], [82], [132], [143], [277], [278]; demand response [279], [172], e.g. smart electric vehicles charging using delayed charging or delivering energy back to the electricity grid via vehicle-to-grid [181], [280]–[282]; storage (battery, compressed air, pumped hydro)[40]–[43], [46], [83], [140], [142], such as stationary batteries; sector coupling [16], [39], [90]–[92], [97], [132], [216], e.g. optimizing the interaction between electricity, heat, transport, and industry; power-to-X [39], [106], [134], [176], e.g. producing hydrogen at moments when there is abundant energy; et cetera. Using all these strategies effectively to mitigate variability is where much of the cutting-edge development of 100% RE scenarios takes place. > With every iteration in the research and with every technological breakthrough in these areas, 100% RE systems become increasingly viable. Even former critics must admit that adding e-fuels through PtX makes 100% RE possible at costs similar to fossil fuels. These critics are still questioning whether 100% RE is the cheapest solution but no longer claim it would be unfeasible or prohibitively expensive. Variability, especially short term, has many mitigation options, and energy system studies are increasingly capturing these in their 100% RE scenarios. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910
- arcticbull 4y ago
  Fossil fuel energy isn't cheaper than nuclear, the deaths they cause aren't priced in. Coal kills 25 people per TWh, and the NRC uses an actuarial cost of $9M per death. That means coal should be $0.35/kWh.
HyperSane 4y ago
"plus energy storage" Grid scale energy storage doesn't exist.
- maxerickson 4y ago
  What's the definition of grid scale energy storage in that statement?
  - HyperSane 4y ago
    Lets say 24 hours of the US's electrical demand.
    - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
      I heard recently of a study that found 2-4 hours is sufficient along with an interconnected grid.
      - HyperSane 4y ago
        I wouldn't be willing to bet my economy on that.
      - lazide 4y ago
        That’s BS. For several reasons. 1) grid connections fail sometimes. Do you want people freezing to death in NY when the Texas interconnect goes down for a day or two, or vice versa? 2) regional storms (Florida hurricanes, NY ice storms, etc), periodically take out large swathes of grid and would take out grid interconnections too. Currently, the scope of the impact of these things is quite limited because everyone also has regional capacity. But if you’re in a giant storm, you’d be super screwed and the whole region would be blacked out for awhile, because renewables also are impacted by these storms - far more than a gas turbine, for instance. And that’s not even counting demand spikes and the like due to weather issues (longer than usual hot or cold, etc.)
        4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ensignavenger 4y ago
Did you include real estate costs in your quick calculations? Also, consider that the second Vogtle class reactor will cost less and be faster to build, and the third even less and even faster... if they bought 50 of them, the cost per reactor would be pretty reasonable. Solar power also benefits from economies of scale, but solar has already gotten much of the up front scale cost reduction, whereas modern nuclear hasn't even started yet.
- wumpus 4y ago
  Modern nuclear has flunked every economic test.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    If by this you mean that it hasn’t gotten cheaper over time, that’s only true in countries where there hasn’t been multiple waves of plants built over time to allow the construction crews to learn and then apply that knowledge. In Japan cost scaling did indeed happen more or less exactly as economics predicts. This is, I assume, the point that gp is making. We’re about to learn whether the same cost reductions from repetition that happened in Japan will happen in Georgia.
    - wumpus 4y ago
      Sure, let's summarize: Solar cells have an awesome reduction in cost over time Wind has an awesome reduction in cost over time Nuclear is a clown show
      - bigfudge 4y ago
        I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic or not, but nuclear has been somewhat of a clown shown because it requires a small number of politically connected firms to function. This has engendered graft and incompetence in many different countries. Renewables suffer less from this because there are many more competitors and all are replaceable.

kelnos 4y ago

And in addition, there are tons of companies who could likely take over maintenance and repair for any particular solar grid if the original company went out of business. The tech is not particularly different when going from manufacturer to manufacturer for panels, inverters, etc., and many parts can be swapped out for new versions, made by a different manufacturer, if they break down and can't be repaired. In contrast, there is exactly one company that fully understands a particular nuclear reactor design. If that company disappears, it will take a lot of specialized knowledge transfer (likely requiring the continued employment of many of the original designers and builders) to allow another company or the government to take on that maintenance burden. Still, I'm not convinced solar + wind + storage will come along soon enough at scale to eliminate enough fossil-fuel burning in order to dig us out of our climate change hole without things getting so much worse first. Then again, if it takes 16 years from permit application time to get a nuclear plant project completed in the US, maybe we're screwed either way.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago
Yeah it’s the long production time for nuclear that makes a big difference. Solar/wind/storage can roll out today and start producing energy tomorrow. We’d have 16 years to match the scale required which I think would only be a challenge for storage (wind and solar seem relatively simple to scale). In that time we can immediately begin producing clean power at least during the day, supplementing clean power for dirty at night for 5-10 years until more storage is available. This seems better than continuing with dirty power for 16 years until nuclear comes online. We are, generally, pretty screwed though yes.
- k__ 4y ago
  "Solar/wind/storage can roll out today and start ... producing clean power at least during the day" Why only during the day?
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    I meant worst case, if sufficient scale for batteries is not immediately available, you’re still going to get lots of green power most days. Of course with wind you’d prob get power at night too. Either way the immediacy of this roll out is better than waiting 10-15 years for a nuclear plant to come online, even if storage takes a few years to fully meet demand.
    - k__ 4y ago
      Ah, okay. Yes, I always had the impression nuclear proponents vastly underestimate the time and work such a plant takes.
    - pencilguin 4y ago
      It is foolish to build storage before there is renewable generating capacity to charge it from. So, everybody builds generating capacity first. Storage cost is falling even faster than renewable generation did.
- zbrozek 4y ago
  Permitting is a huge problem for everything, including solar and wind. The transmission lines cross a bunch of jurisdictions and get NIMBY-ed to death. The generating facilities themselves also take a long time to get through the NIMBY process.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    Unless a solar plant is built in a completely uninhabited place, could existing allocations / permits for local power distribution be reused to build a larger power line? I mean, there should already be a power distribution grid there, maybe just not powerful enough.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> can do a quick calculation and see that $10B of solar and $10B of storage will produce similar continuous base load power as the $20B Vogtle system Does it? And does this math scale?

TaylorAlexander 4y ago
I think it does, but someone independently verify my claim. As far as scale, we should consider that it may take ten years to build a nuclear plant, so worst case we can compare projected storage production in that time frame rather than solely what is produced today. A benefit to my scheme is that roll out can begin immediately, even if reaching full scale takes a little while.
- briffle 4y ago
  Keep in mind this was the first AP1000 gen III+ reactor built in the US, and one of a handful in the world. The process should get smoother and faster as more are completed, and the process gets optimized.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Base load is a myth. You're right; you can break ground today with renewables and start pushing fossil fuels out of the mix during daylight and windy periods, with batteries slowly consuming more of fossil generation as their costs decline. https://energypost.eu/dispelling-nuclear-baseload-myth-nothing-renewables-cant-better/ https://energypost.eu/dispelling-nuclear-baseload-myth-nothi... There is ~1TW of renewables in US grid queues, and ~427GW of storage. While many of these projects might not get built, the velocity should be noted. ~95GW of nuclear generation capacity remains. It takes 10 years and billions of dollars to build a single nuclear generator. https://www.pv-tech.org/nearly-1tw-of-renewables-in-us-interconnection-queues-as-wait-times-continue-to-grow/ https://www.pv-tech.org/nearly-1tw-of-renewables-in-us-inter... https://www.energy-storage.news/estimated-427gw-of-energy-storage-in-us-interconnection-queues-alongside-nearly-1tw-of-renewables/ https://www.energy-storage.news/estimated-427gw-of-energy-st...
  - 4y ago

Gwypaas 4y ago

The research agrees with you. Mind that fossil fuels are cheaper than nuclear. > *B. Dealing With Variability and Stability* > Much of the resistance towards 100% Renewable Energy (RE) systems in the literature seems to come from the a-priori assumption that an energy system based on solar and wind is impossible since these energy sources are variable. Critics of 100% RE systems like to contrast solar and wind with ’firm’ energy sources like nuclear and fossil fuels (often combined with CCS) that bring their own storage. This is the key point made in some already mentioned reactions, such as those by Clack et al. [225], Trainer [226], Heard et al. [227] Jenkins et al. [228], and Caldeira et al. [275], [276]. > However, while it is true that keeping a system with variable sources stable is more complex, a range of strategies can be employed that are often ignored or underutilized in critical studies: oversizing solar and wind capacities; strengthening interconnections [68], [82], [132], [143], [277], [278]; demand response [279], [172], e.g. smart electric vehicles charging using delayed charging or delivering energy back to the electricity grid via vehicle-to-grid [181], [280]–[282]; storage (battery, compressed air, pumped hydro)[40]–[43], [46], [83], [140], [142], such as stationary batteries; sector coupling [16], [39], [90]–[92], [97], [132], [216], e.g. optimizing the interaction between electricity, heat, transport, and industry; power-to-X [39], [106], [134], [176], e.g. producing hydrogen at moments when there is abundant energy; et cetera. Using all these strategies effectively to mitigate variability is where much of the cutting-edge development of 100% RE scenarios takes place. > With every iteration in the research and with every technological breakthrough in these areas, 100% RE systems become increasingly viable. Even former critics must admit that adding e-fuels through PtX makes 100% RE possible at costs similar to fossil fuels. These critics are still questioning whether 100% RE is the cheapest solution but no longer claim it would be unfeasible or prohibitively expensive. Variability, especially short term, has many mitigation options, and energy system studies are increasingly capturing these in their 100% RE scenarios. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910

arcticbull 4y ago
Fossil fuel energy isn't cheaper than nuclear, the deaths they cause aren't priced in. Coal kills 25 people per TWh, and the NRC uses an actuarial cost of $9M per death. That means coal should be $0.35/kWh.

HyperSane 4y ago

"plus energy storage" Grid scale energy storage doesn't exist.

maxerickson 4y ago
What's the definition of grid scale energy storage in that statement?
- HyperSane 4y ago
  Lets say 24 hours of the US's electrical demand.
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    I heard recently of a study that found 2-4 hours is sufficient along with an interconnected grid.
    - HyperSane 4y ago
      I wouldn't be willing to bet my economy on that.
    - lazide 4y ago
      That’s BS. For several reasons. 1) grid connections fail sometimes. Do you want people freezing to death in NY when the Texas interconnect goes down for a day or two, or vice versa? 2) regional storms (Florida hurricanes, NY ice storms, etc), periodically take out large swathes of grid and would take out grid interconnections too. Currently, the scope of the impact of these things is quite limited because everyone also has regional capacity. But if you’re in a giant storm, you’d be super screwed and the whole region would be blacked out for awhile, because renewables also are impacted by these storms - far more than a gas turbine, for instance. And that’s not even counting demand spikes and the like due to weather issues (longer than usual hot or cold, etc.)
      - 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ensignavenger 4y ago

Did you include real estate costs in your quick calculations? Also, consider that the second Vogtle class reactor will cost less and be faster to build, and the third even less and even faster... if they bought 50 of them, the cost per reactor would be pretty reasonable. Solar power also benefits from economies of scale, but solar has already gotten much of the up front scale cost reduction, whereas modern nuclear hasn't even started yet.

wumpus 4y ago
Modern nuclear has flunked every economic test.
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  If by this you mean that it hasn’t gotten cheaper over time, that’s only true in countries where there hasn’t been multiple waves of plants built over time to allow the construction crews to learn and then apply that knowledge. In Japan cost scaling did indeed happen more or less exactly as economics predicts. This is, I assume, the point that gp is making. We’re about to learn whether the same cost reductions from repetition that happened in Japan will happen in Georgia.
  - wumpus 4y ago
    Sure, let's summarize: Solar cells have an awesome reduction in cost over time Wind has an awesome reduction in cost over time Nuclear is a clown show
    - bigfudge 4y ago
      I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic or not, but nuclear has been somewhat of a clown shown because it requires a small number of politically connected firms to function. This has engendered graft and incompetence in many different countries. Renewables suffer less from this because there are many more competitors and all are replaceable.