3 ms·

> You are seriously acting as if money in politics solves everything and as if in most of the world energy supply was not driven fundamentally by state policy.

> You are seriously acting as if money in politics solves everything and as if in most of the world energy supply was not driven fundamentally by state policy. Certainly not! But money helps, a lot. > So to act as if wind and solar just happened to be cheap and profitable and nuclear just happened to be expensive is simply a misreading of history. Nuclear is inherently expensive, when done well. You don't exactly find a company making nuclear reactor vessels in your local neighborhood. Yeah, you can do it "on the cheap" without say, a containment building, but that turns out not to be a great idea. So got to make one of those, at a considerable expense renewables get to miss on. Plus a few other safety technologies. Solar and wind aren't inherently expensive. They're both made of common components and are extremely amenable to mass manufacturing. Long term, nuclear was always sure to lose. Even the USSR-style, dangerous designs aren't cheap enough.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
Pebble bed reactors with no containment building retrofitted on existing thermal plants might compete if we're willing to accept the gradually growing continuous stream of fission products that will start leaking when it turns out silicon carbide isn't actually invincible.
- dale_glass 4y ago
  How? Wind is a generator with some blades attached, on a stick. Nuclear is a generator with a nuclear reactor feeding it. Exactly how do you expect "nuclear reactor" to be cheaper than "blades + stick"?
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    The wind turbine is some very large blades on a very large stick turning a generator that is under much higher loads in the wrong direction sitting on top of a big slab or buoy of concrete or steel. A pebble bed reactor is basically just a ball pit full of very expensive balls that will "get cheaper with scale bro we swear" that gets hot and needs stirring from time to time. The steam generator part, even if you're not using one that already exists, is about the same cost and upkeep as a wind turbine as the added maintenance from the temperature and steam is roughly offset by the smaller size. So it comes down to whether the ball pit once it gets all the indirect and hidden subsidies that nuclear gets can be about the same price again, then the slightly higher load factor makes up the difference. My money is on we get a few shoved down our throats whether we like it or not at prices about comparable with wind (lower up front but more expensive once it's obvious that O&M is 5x the estimate), then the IAEA and NRC will be all shocked pikachu when they start dispersing a not-immediately-provably-fatal amount of fission products as if it's a surprise and not inevitable. Then the limits will be raised during some energy crisis pointing to the failure of wind after a large storm knocks out a bunch of power lines and one wind turbine.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Not sure why you are mention Pebble bed reactors. They are just one of many potential reactor types. And there are also a whole lot of different potential designs for a pebble bed reactor. Not building a containment building would never happen, and if you have small high power density reactor, the containment building is not actually the expensive part. This is an example of a modern pebble bed reactor: https://kairospower.com/technology/ https://kairospower.com/technology/ Building containment about a reactor like that isn't expensive. Containment is expensive if you have to build it around a gigantic PWR reactor with steam heat exchangers.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    You mean the people pushing HTGR pebble bed SMRs as drop in replacements for a coal boiler with no construction are being unrealistic? Say it ain't so. Also I'll believe the inexpensive molten salt cooled reactor when I see one.
panick21_ 4y ago
The nuclear part isn't the expensive part, and building a plant 'cheaply' isn't gone save you that much money. > Solar and wind aren't inherently expensive. Wind requires a gigantic amount of resources. A single super large wind power plant that produces 4MW at low utilization and has to be replaced every 30 years requires as many resources as a comparative 200MWe nuclear reactor. If you go from first principle, and you really look, at what goes into these things, fission nuclear is clearly the cheapest. This goes for land use, general resource use and for the environment. > Even the USSR-style, dangerous designs aren't cheap enough. In fact making safer nuclear plants is CHEAPER not more expensive. Building inherently safe air cooled plants makes it massively cheaper.

Schroedingersat 4y ago

Pebble bed reactors with no containment building retrofitted on existing thermal plants might compete if we're willing to accept the gradually growing continuous stream of fission products that will start leaking when it turns out silicon carbide isn't actually invincible.

dale_glass 4y ago
How? Wind is a generator with some blades attached, on a stick. Nuclear is a generator with a nuclear reactor feeding it. Exactly how do you expect "nuclear reactor" to be cheaper than "blades + stick"?
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  The wind turbine is some very large blades on a very large stick turning a generator that is under much higher loads in the wrong direction sitting on top of a big slab or buoy of concrete or steel. A pebble bed reactor is basically just a ball pit full of very expensive balls that will "get cheaper with scale bro we swear" that gets hot and needs stirring from time to time. The steam generator part, even if you're not using one that already exists, is about the same cost and upkeep as a wind turbine as the added maintenance from the temperature and steam is roughly offset by the smaller size. So it comes down to whether the ball pit once it gets all the indirect and hidden subsidies that nuclear gets can be about the same price again, then the slightly higher load factor makes up the difference. My money is on we get a few shoved down our throats whether we like it or not at prices about comparable with wind (lower up front but more expensive once it's obvious that O&M is 5x the estimate), then the IAEA and NRC will be all shocked pikachu when they start dispersing a not-immediately-provably-fatal amount of fission products as if it's a surprise and not inevitable. Then the limits will be raised during some energy crisis pointing to the failure of wind after a large storm knocks out a bunch of power lines and one wind turbine.
panick21_ 4y ago
Not sure why you are mention Pebble bed reactors. They are just one of many potential reactor types. And there are also a whole lot of different potential designs for a pebble bed reactor. Not building a containment building would never happen, and if you have small high power density reactor, the containment building is not actually the expensive part. This is an example of a modern pebble bed reactor: https://kairospower.com/technology/ https://kairospower.com/technology/ Building containment about a reactor like that isn't expensive. Containment is expensive if you have to build it around a gigantic PWR reactor with steam heat exchangers.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  You mean the people pushing HTGR pebble bed SMRs as drop in replacements for a coal boiler with no construction are being unrealistic? Say it ain't so. Also I'll believe the inexpensive molten salt cooled reactor when I see one.

panick21_ 4y ago

The nuclear part isn't the expensive part, and building a plant 'cheaply' isn't gone save you that much money. > Solar and wind aren't inherently expensive. Wind requires a gigantic amount of resources. A single super large wind power plant that produces 4MW at low utilization and has to be replaced every 30 years requires as many resources as a comparative 200MWe nuclear reactor. If you go from first principle, and you really look, at what goes into these things, fission nuclear is clearly the cheapest. This goes for land use, general resource use and for the environment. > Even the USSR-style, dangerous designs aren't cheap enough. In fact making safer nuclear plants is CHEAPER not more expensive. Building inherently safe air cooled plants makes it massively cheaper.