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I don’t think nuclear is evil, but Rosie’s look at the financials suggests there are better options: https://youtu.be/quI_8xYSWYE https://youtu.be/quI_8xYSWYE

jchw 4y ago
Disclaimer: I did not watch the video linked. For what it's worth, I do agree, but I think we'll probably need to have (subsidized) nuclear as part of the solution anyways, especially in places where we don't have ample room for wind/solar/battery storage.
- willnonya 4y ago
  It would be irononic for the government to subsidize something that they've significantly contributed to increasing the cost of.
  - dale_glass 4y ago
    A huge amount of the cost increases are there to make it actually safe. Windscale could have been cheaper, but some jerk called Cockfort insisted on additional filters just in case -- oh wait, that "Cockfort's folly" turned what could have been a horrifying accident into a merely bad one. Chernobyl was cheap, but it didn't have a containment building. Modern nuclear is safer, but that cost more money. Nuclear needs emergency cooling to be safe, which costs more money. It needs redundancy, which costs more. And so on. So what is it exactly what you think needs cutting?
- mikeyouse 4y ago
  Honestly, given the trajectory of nuclear costs compare to battery costs - it's going to make far more sense to build power lines to places that don't have renewable potential.
  - jchw 4y ago
    I get what you're saying, but consider a place like Japan. That strategy is probably not viable everywhere.
    - mikeyouse 4y ago
      It'll be interesting to see how everything develops but Japan has an absurd amount of offshore wind potential. Their country is set up perfectly to take advantage of it given their major cities are all up and down the coast, they're also ~100 miles from mainland Korea which has plenty of wind and solar potential as well. There are geopolitical concerns to relying on your neighbors for energy transmission, but it's hard to think of any technical or financial reasons that would stop it. Given current learning rates and cost trends, utility solar will likely be under $0.01/kwh in just about every place on earth. Certainly within 15 years, likely within 10. When new-build nuclear is above $0.10/kwh and takes a decade to build, the delta buys you a ton of storage.
      - jchw 4y ago
        I agree that it'll be interesting to see. A primarily-wind Japan would be cool if it could be done, and it seems like a win/win. I wonder if it still makes sense to keep nuclear energy around in the mix as a sort of backup, though. We've already got a ton of plants that could probably last more decades with proper maintenance to my understanding, and despite making up a small number of energy production facilities they make up a huge mix of the energy in the world, so it seems like it could be a solid backup plan in a primarily wind and solar world.
        mikeyouse 4y ago
        Oh yeah, existing plants can be operated at very low cost -- if they're sited in safe locations, and certified / refurbished for extended use beyond their design life, it definitely makes sense to keep them running for as long as possible. If Japan overbuilds their wind resources while maintaining their nuclear fleet, they could send the nuclear electrons the other direction and power Korea with nuclear.
glitchc 4y ago
Her analysis is fundamentally flawed. For a stable energy source, it cannot be solar alone or wind alone. Rather it needs to be solar plus battery and wind plus battery. Let's factor in the costs of producing maintaining and environmentally disposing of those batteries and let's see how the numbers shake out, ceteris paribus of course.
- uoaei 4y ago
  Interesting point. One other very important point is what those batteries will be made of. Using lithium is really only necessary for batteries that move with the devices they power, because it's so light. For stationary energy storage, lithium is overkill and you may be able to use heavier storage solutions (sodium instead of lithium, sand batteries storing thermal energy, etc.) for installations. There's also still the real possibility that we develop suitable supercapacitors with graphene or other extremely cheap materials. I don't know what the process is for recycling graphene but considering it's pure carbon I doubt it will be much trouble. I know supercapacitors are not batteries but the advancements in one can definitely help cross-pollinate advancements in the other.
- dale_glass 4y ago
  Unfortunately nuclear doesn't appear to be a viable supplement. Suppose a grid with just nuclear and solar. Nuclear may be overall very stable, but solar is still not, and so you still need storage. The only difference is how much of it you need. But nuclear has a terrible problem: it's not really economical. Solar is much, much cheaper and therefore any economically minded person would build solar if they had a choice, and would just not enter the business space at all if they couldn't. The business model of nuclear is just broken in modern times. The idea was that nuclear is cheap but unwieldy, and can be supplemented with small amounts of more flexible but more expensive sources for when it can't adjust fast enough. But that just hasn't panned out.
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    > But nuclear has a terrible problem: it's not really economical. Against what honest option? If fossil fuel plants had to charge to cover the deaths from pollution they'd be blistering expensive. It could just as easily be said that nuclear power is the only source we can truly afford. > The business model of nuclear is just broken in modern times. Right, because it's not really a business. Power is infrastructure.

jchw 4y ago

Disclaimer: I did not watch the video linked. For what it's worth, I do agree, but I think we'll probably need to have (subsidized) nuclear as part of the solution anyways, especially in places where we don't have ample room for wind/solar/battery storage.

willnonya 4y ago
It would be irononic for the government to subsidize something that they've significantly contributed to increasing the cost of.
- dale_glass 4y ago
  A huge amount of the cost increases are there to make it actually safe. Windscale could have been cheaper, but some jerk called Cockfort insisted on additional filters just in case -- oh wait, that "Cockfort's folly" turned what could have been a horrifying accident into a merely bad one. Chernobyl was cheap, but it didn't have a containment building. Modern nuclear is safer, but that cost more money. Nuclear needs emergency cooling to be safe, which costs more money. It needs redundancy, which costs more. And so on. So what is it exactly what you think needs cutting?
mikeyouse 4y ago
Honestly, given the trajectory of nuclear costs compare to battery costs - it's going to make far more sense to build power lines to places that don't have renewable potential.
- jchw 4y ago
  I get what you're saying, but consider a place like Japan. That strategy is probably not viable everywhere.
  - mikeyouse 4y ago
    It'll be interesting to see how everything develops but Japan has an absurd amount of offshore wind potential. Their country is set up perfectly to take advantage of it given their major cities are all up and down the coast, they're also ~100 miles from mainland Korea which has plenty of wind and solar potential as well. There are geopolitical concerns to relying on your neighbors for energy transmission, but it's hard to think of any technical or financial reasons that would stop it. Given current learning rates and cost trends, utility solar will likely be under $0.01/kwh in just about every place on earth. Certainly within 15 years, likely within 10. When new-build nuclear is above $0.10/kwh and takes a decade to build, the delta buys you a ton of storage.
    - jchw 4y ago
      I agree that it'll be interesting to see. A primarily-wind Japan would be cool if it could be done, and it seems like a win/win. I wonder if it still makes sense to keep nuclear energy around in the mix as a sort of backup, though. We've already got a ton of plants that could probably last more decades with proper maintenance to my understanding, and despite making up a small number of energy production facilities they make up a huge mix of the energy in the world, so it seems like it could be a solid backup plan in a primarily wind and solar world.
      - mikeyouse 4y ago
        Oh yeah, existing plants can be operated at very low cost -- if they're sited in safe locations, and certified / refurbished for extended use beyond their design life, it definitely makes sense to keep them running for as long as possible. If Japan overbuilds their wind resources while maintaining their nuclear fleet, they could send the nuclear electrons the other direction and power Korea with nuclear.

glitchc 4y ago

Her analysis is fundamentally flawed. For a stable energy source, it cannot be solar alone or wind alone. Rather it needs to be solar plus battery and wind plus battery. Let's factor in the costs of producing maintaining and environmentally disposing of those batteries and let's see how the numbers shake out, ceteris paribus of course.

uoaei 4y ago
Interesting point. One other very important point is what those batteries will be made of. Using lithium is really only necessary for batteries that move with the devices they power, because it's so light. For stationary energy storage, lithium is overkill and you may be able to use heavier storage solutions (sodium instead of lithium, sand batteries storing thermal energy, etc.) for installations. There's also still the real possibility that we develop suitable supercapacitors with graphene or other extremely cheap materials. I don't know what the process is for recycling graphene but considering it's pure carbon I doubt it will be much trouble. I know supercapacitors are not batteries but the advancements in one can definitely help cross-pollinate advancements in the other.
dale_glass 4y ago
Unfortunately nuclear doesn't appear to be a viable supplement. Suppose a grid with just nuclear and solar. Nuclear may be overall very stable, but solar is still not, and so you still need storage. The only difference is how much of it you need. But nuclear has a terrible problem: it's not really economical. Solar is much, much cheaper and therefore any economically minded person would build solar if they had a choice, and would just not enter the business space at all if they couldn't. The business model of nuclear is just broken in modern times. The idea was that nuclear is cheap but unwieldy, and can be supplemented with small amounts of more flexible but more expensive sources for when it can't adjust fast enough. But that just hasn't panned out.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  > But nuclear has a terrible problem: it's not really economical. Against what honest option? If fossil fuel plants had to charge to cover the deaths from pollution they'd be blistering expensive. It could just as easily be said that nuclear power is the only source we can truly afford. > The business model of nuclear is just broken in modern times. Right, because it's not really a business. Power is infrastructure.