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> As far as scale, we should consider that it may take ten years to build a nuclear plant Unlike the solar panel factories, battery factories, and replacement

> As far as scale, we should consider that it may take ten years to build a nuclear plant Unlike the solar panel factories, battery factories, and replacement distribution network required to replace the entire US electrical grid, which can be online tomorrow morning at the snap of someone's fingers?

Dylan16807 4y ago
Please read the rest of the paragraph.
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  Where it says “a while?” This has the distinctive ring of Kentucky windage to me, are there any actual studies on how long it would take to do this? What’s the shape of the curve? If it’s a while on a logarithmic curve that’s very different than if it’s linear or exponential. The impression that I’ve gotten is that there isn’t a huge amount of slack panel production capacity sitting idle. If we’ve learned anything the last two years, hopefully it’s that supply chain problems can take a while to sort out.
  - tuatoru 4y ago
    Well, on the one hand, Chinese manufacturers (90% of the market) have announced expansions for 2022-2025 of 645 GWe annual production, over and above 2021's total annual manufacturing capacity of 220 GWe. On the other hand, likely all of that will be needed to meet Xi's 2030 target for PV power generation in China. (12,000 GWe capacity, up from 800 now? Something like that.) So near exponential but not much slack for others to use, probably.
    - Turing_Machine 4y ago
      I'm not quite sure I believe anything the Chinese government says. China hasn't stopped building nukes, you'll notice. Edit: See: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-02/china-climate-goals-hinge-on-440-billion-nuclear-power-plan-to-rival-u-s?leadSource=uverify%20wall https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-02/china-cli...
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        I think they're doing a much better job of controlling costs on nuclear plant construction, so that wouldn't invalidate the claim about what you can do with 20 billion dollars.

Dylan16807 4y ago

Please read the rest of the paragraph.

Godel_unicode 4y ago
Where it says “a while?” This has the distinctive ring of Kentucky windage to me, are there any actual studies on how long it would take to do this? What’s the shape of the curve? If it’s a while on a logarithmic curve that’s very different than if it’s linear or exponential. The impression that I’ve gotten is that there isn’t a huge amount of slack panel production capacity sitting idle. If we’ve learned anything the last two years, hopefully it’s that supply chain problems can take a while to sort out.
- tuatoru 4y ago
  Well, on the one hand, Chinese manufacturers (90% of the market) have announced expansions for 2022-2025 of 645 GWe annual production, over and above 2021's total annual manufacturing capacity of 220 GWe. On the other hand, likely all of that will be needed to meet Xi's 2030 target for PV power generation in China. (12,000 GWe capacity, up from 800 now? Something like that.) So near exponential but not much slack for others to use, probably.
  - Turing_Machine 4y ago
    I'm not quite sure I believe anything the Chinese government says. China hasn't stopped building nukes, you'll notice. Edit: See: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-02/china-climate-goals-hinge-on-440-billion-nuclear-power-plan-to-rival-u-s?leadSource=uverify%20wall https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-02/china-cli...
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      I think they're doing a much better job of controlling costs on nuclear plant construction, so that wouldn't invalidate the claim about what you can do with 20 billion dollars.