3 ms·
If every decade we say "Welp, we can't start building nuclear plants now because they won't be done for a decade" then it'll never happen. That long startup ti
by munk-a 4y ago
If every decade we say "Welp, we can't start building nuclear plants now because they won't be done for a decade" then it'll never happen. That long startup time has been the ongoing boogieman against nuclear since the 90's and it is certainly a real cost - but we can't stop-gap our way to a solution forever. Building out more coal power today while investing in nuclear is fine - it's not fine to just accept that if we can't do it in five years it's not worth doing.
- pencilguin 4y agoMoney is fungible. Money spent building nukes is money not spent build out renewables that produce much more power for the money, and start producing immediately. The amount spent on fossil fuels over the decade or two waiting for the nuke to come online would have bought that much renewable capacity, the which would have been displacing CO2 the whole time.
- vagrantJin 4y agoIsn't a nuke a nuclear bomb? If that is the case why call a power plant a bomb?
- pencilguin 4y agoBombs are also nukes. And apparently US Navy reactor engineers are, too. No one is confused.
- vagrantJin 4y agoOr just call it a nuclear power plant to avoid confusion?
- pencilguin 4y agoNo one is confused. As I said.
- cauch 4y agoThe problem is that because we need to progress in 5 years, it means that by 10 years we will hopefully have way more renewable solutions, which is cheaper than nuclear. So, investors don't want to pay for a nuclear plant that will be built in 10 years but when up and running, will not be profitable anymore because renewable would have changed the market. It's a real problem for nuclear plants: we still need them as "baseline continuous" generators, but no-one wants to risk investing for a site when there is a large chance that this specific site will not be needed in 10 years, will be too expensive to run and not competitive, and will go bust. We made the mistake 10 years ago by not planning ahead (even France, who was going to the nuclear route, messed up by not renewing and maintaining their know-how). But now, it's just true that building an expensive power plant that will not be used is just not a good idea.
- Schroedingersat 4y agoThe choice isn't 'nuclear or not' it's '1 nuclear or 2 renewables'. If renewable investment was tripled and you could still wrest more money from the coal lobby then building nukes with that would make sense. Until then it just means burning more coal (which is precisely why it's being shilled so hard). Even then spending money on a sodium ion or iron air battery factory will probably pay off sooner.