3 ms·

IPCC 2018 report list solar PV with 48g eqCO2/kwh (median): https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_annex-iii.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site

by Kuinox 4y ago

IPCC 2018 report list solar PV with 48g eqCO2/kwh (median): https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_annex-iii.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5... Nuclear is 12g eqCO2/kwh (median) The levelized cost of electricity is also listed as cheaper for nuclear.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
A cost based on high yield mines that are almost empty and 8 year old PV tech that hasn't been used in any new project since 2017 is worthless. As is comparing electricity that costs $100/MWh after publicly guaranteed loans and after the public takes on any accident liability in excess of the cost of a quarter of one reactor to unsubsidized electricity actually sold for $15/MWh Oh look. The more up to date version of that report: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_Chapter_06.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6... Which doesn't include mining from ores that are 1/10th concentration that would be required to expand nuclear enough to solve the problem. But it does show you intentionally picking out of date information to lie about LCOE. When proponents of the nuclear consistently lie about everything, it makes it very hard to believe the industry hasn't done things like forge the paperwork on essential safety parts. Luckily people like you are most likely just lying to prolong the transition from fossil fuels, and aren't part of the industry.
- Kuinox 4y ago
  You need a backup a little your claims if you deny IPCC numbers, IPCC is considered very serious, and I said to another commenter, I have way more trust in IPCC numbers and planning than random internet commenters. You are saying "with CO2 taxes it will be profitable" The thing is, nuclear don't need CO2 taxes to be profitable, and is low carbon, if your solution was that cheap and safe, it would be more invested than nuclear is.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    Then use the 2022 IPCC numbers I linked rather than the 2018 ones. > You are saying "with CO2 taxes it will be profitable" Nowhere did I say this. There are entirely private PV installations that sell their energy for under $15/MWh, less than a tenth of recent nuclear plants like Vogtle even including massive subsidy
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Nuclear absolutely does need CO2 taxes to be profitable in the US vs. fossil fuels. Quite large ones, considerably larger than the "cost of carbon" in the IRA, otherwise fracked gas and combined cycle power plants blow it out of the water. A CC power plant costs maybe $1/W; a nuclear plant costs 10x that. With cheap gas and no CO2 charges nuclear doesn't have a prayer of a chance to compete with that. This is why the so-called "nuclear renaissance" in the US collapsed even before renewables got cheap.
pfdietz 4y ago
The claim that solar produces more CO2 than nuclear is quite dishonest. It may produce more right now, with the existing supply chain for materials. But in a fossil-fuel free economy, there is no CO2 from fossil fuel combustion. Where are the CO2 emissions coming from? They could only be from manufacture of cement for concrete (calcination of limestone to calcium oxide and CO2.) PV doesn't have to use any concrete -- it can be mounted to the ground with steel earth anchors. Nuclear uses a lot of concrete. The near term emissions of CO2 in construction of solar or nuclear are irrelevant, since they are swamped by the CO2 emission avoided as fossil fuels are displaced. Here, what matters is how rapidly the non-fossil alternatives can be rolled out, not what dribble of CO2 they produce directly. As for levelized cost, the table lists the min/median/max cost of installed utility scale PV as 1700/3200/4300 $/kW. But the cost of utility scale PV in the US is already well below that minimum number. The footnotes give their sources as no later than 2013. PV prices have fallen greatly since that time (module prices per W down by about a factor of 4 in constant dollars.) The min value for nuclear given is also absurd vs. actual experience with recent nuclear builds. The footnote says the data was from no later than 2013, before the EPR and APR1400 efforts went so disastrously wrong, when the "nuclear renaissance" had not fallen so flatly on its face. It also says (about nuclear): "Limited recent data and/or original data are available in the published literature. More recent, (grey literature) sources provide investment cost and LCOE estimates that are considerably higher than the ones shown here (Brandão et al., 2012)."
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  > It may produce more right now, with the existing supply chain for materials. This hasn't been true for some time. There's simply not enough money. The solar module in a good location costs 0.7 cents per kWh installed. Although that can buy you a couple hundred grams of coal, doing literally anything with it uses up all the money. A 450W monocrystalline panel is under a kg of silicon, 50g of copper an a gram or so of silver. The neat thing about solar panel factories is they have a bunch of solar panels, and so tend to produce 30-90% of their own electricity, so the carbon footprint is almost entirely racking, shipping 20kg, and the 11kg or so per panel from the raw silicon (which uses 70% of the money). Meanwhile Uranium ore concentration is decreasing slightly faster than mining is getting more efficient.

by Kuinox 4y ago

Schroedingersat 4y ago

A cost based on high yield mines that are almost empty and 8 year old PV tech that hasn't been used in any new project since 2017 is worthless. As is comparing electricity that costs $100/MWh after publicly guaranteed loans and after the public takes on any accident liability in excess of the cost of a quarter of one reactor to unsubsidized electricity actually sold for $15/MWh Oh look. The more up to date version of that report: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_Chapter_06.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6... Which doesn't include mining from ores that are 1/10th concentration that would be required to expand nuclear enough to solve the problem. But it does show you intentionally picking out of date information to lie about LCOE. When proponents of the nuclear consistently lie about everything, it makes it very hard to believe the industry hasn't done things like forge the paperwork on essential safety parts. Luckily people like you are most likely just lying to prolong the transition from fossil fuels, and aren't part of the industry.

Kuinox 4y ago
You need a backup a little your claims if you deny IPCC numbers, IPCC is considered very serious, and I said to another commenter, I have way more trust in IPCC numbers and planning than random internet commenters. You are saying "with CO2 taxes it will be profitable" The thing is, nuclear don't need CO2 taxes to be profitable, and is low carbon, if your solution was that cheap and safe, it would be more invested than nuclear is.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Then use the 2022 IPCC numbers I linked rather than the 2018 ones. > You are saying "with CO2 taxes it will be profitable" Nowhere did I say this. There are entirely private PV installations that sell their energy for under $15/MWh, less than a tenth of recent nuclear plants like Vogtle even including massive subsidy
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Nuclear absolutely does need CO2 taxes to be profitable in the US vs. fossil fuels. Quite large ones, considerably larger than the "cost of carbon" in the IRA, otherwise fracked gas and combined cycle power plants blow it out of the water. A CC power plant costs maybe $1/W; a nuclear plant costs 10x that. With cheap gas and no CO2 charges nuclear doesn't have a prayer of a chance to compete with that. This is why the so-called "nuclear renaissance" in the US collapsed even before renewables got cheap.

pfdietz 4y ago

The claim that solar produces more CO2 than nuclear is quite dishonest. It may produce more right now, with the existing supply chain for materials. But in a fossil-fuel free economy, there is no CO2 from fossil fuel combustion. Where are the CO2 emissions coming from? They could only be from manufacture of cement for concrete (calcination of limestone to calcium oxide and CO2.) PV doesn't have to use any concrete -- it can be mounted to the ground with steel earth anchors. Nuclear uses a lot of concrete. The near term emissions of CO2 in construction of solar or nuclear are irrelevant, since they are swamped by the CO2 emission avoided as fossil fuels are displaced. Here, what matters is how rapidly the non-fossil alternatives can be rolled out, not what dribble of CO2 they produce directly. As for levelized cost, the table lists the min/median/max cost of installed utility scale PV as 1700/3200/4300 $/kW. But the cost of utility scale PV in the US is already well below that minimum number. The footnotes give their sources as no later than 2013. PV prices have fallen greatly since that time (module prices per W down by about a factor of 4 in constant dollars.) The min value for nuclear given is also absurd vs. actual experience with recent nuclear builds. The footnote says the data was from no later than 2013, before the EPR and APR1400 efforts went so disastrously wrong, when the "nuclear renaissance" had not fallen so flatly on its face. It also says (about nuclear): "Limited recent data and/or original data are available in the published literature. More recent, (grey literature) sources provide investment cost and LCOE estimates that are considerably higher than the ones shown here (Brandão et al., 2012)."

Schroedingersat 4y ago
> It may produce more right now, with the existing supply chain for materials. This hasn't been true for some time. There's simply not enough money. The solar module in a good location costs 0.7 cents per kWh installed. Although that can buy you a couple hundred grams of coal, doing literally anything with it uses up all the money. A 450W monocrystalline panel is under a kg of silicon, 50g of copper an a gram or so of silver. The neat thing about solar panel factories is they have a bunch of solar panels, and so tend to produce 30-90% of their own electricity, so the carbon footprint is almost entirely racking, shipping 20kg, and the 11kg or so per panel from the raw silicon (which uses 70% of the money). Meanwhile Uranium ore concentration is decreasing slightly faster than mining is getting more efficient.