5 ms·

If we had started a serious decarbonization 20 yeats ago, sure, but solar is now so cheap and easy that it will be harder for large scale nuclear to ramp up in

If we had started a serious decarbonization 20 yeats ago, sure, but solar is now so cheap and easy that it will be harder for large scale nuclear to ramp up in time to matter. Maybe those container nuclear plants and maybe the last 20% of base capacit by 2040. But slowing solar in deference to nuclear would prolong the era of high atmospheric carbon.

nomel 4y ago
> so cheap and easy I think this is a little misleading, unless there' a good story for storage and long distance power transmission, which I haven't seen yet.
- dools 4y ago
  China’s doing amazing work on long distance transmission using high voltage DC: https://youtu.be/rThkjp-bp8M https://youtu.be/rThkjp-bp8M
Aloha 4y ago
I think we could build 100 plants in under a decade - it takes us being willing to build them assembly line like, meaning no more 'designed for the site' plants.
- philipkglass 4y ago
  The EPR and AP1000 reactor designs were supposed to be the end of "designed for the site" reactors, and they were. The same designs get built at different geographic locations. The problem is that they're no better at meeting cost and schedule targets than older reactor designs. They're still late and over budget. Can small modular reactors like those designed by NuScale do better? Maybe. But we're not going to find out sooner than 2030, which is when NuScale plans to have its first plant operational: https://www.nuscalepower.com/en/about https://www.nuscalepower.com/en/about
jabl 4y ago
How about we stop this ridiculous nuclear vs. renewables culture war, while fossil fuels are laughing all the way to the bank? Yes, we should build more solar (and even as a 'nuke bro', seeing solar prices drop at the rate they have is one of the genuinely positive news in the otherwise pretty dystopic climate change discourse), we should build more nuclear, we should build wind, we should build more hydro (though not that much potential left), we should build transmission, we should build storage.
tonyarkles 4y ago
> but solar is now so cheap and easy that it will be harder for large scale nuclear to ramp up in time to matter There's still the storage and base load problem. But I am 100% with you that we shouldn't slow solar in deference to nuclear; what we should be doing is mapping out what we want our next generation energy mix to look like (solar, wind, pumped storage, nuclear, geothermal, etc) on a regional basis, stop fucking around and arguing about it, and just get on with building it. I live in an area (Canadian prairies) where max energy consumption lines up with with minimum solar and wind production (-40C in December on a calm night). Even during the day, those calm bitterly cold days only have about 8 hours of sunlight from a sun that barely comes over the horizon. We're starting to build solar, we've had wind for a while, but even though we've committed to building SMR Nuclear, we're still in a situation where we've got coal and natural gas plants that are approaching EOL and they'll likely be replaced/retrofitted to burn more fossil fuels because we won't have any sufficiently reliable baseload ready.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  The Canadian prairies have fabulous solar production, even in the winter time. They also have a good amount of wind. And BC has tons of hydro. So build out enough renewables to supply BC when the sun is shining, maybe even enough to pump some water uphill, and then have BC hydro supply the prairies at other times.
  - tonyarkles 4y ago
    So I’m looking at this from the perspective of completely eliminating fossil fuels from my home. Not just electricity, but heating as well. I want solar to win, but here’s the numbers I get from looking at December/January this year (my bills don’t quite line up cleanly on month boundaries): 863 m^3 of natural gas -> ~9100 kWh of heating energy Assuming (generously) that I can get a COP of 3, even though that’s unrealistic at the miserable temperatures we had over the last few months, that’s ~3000 kWh for electric heat pump heat. Electricity was about 745kWh for the month, so 3750kWh total between heat pump heating and electricity. https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/market-snapshots/2018/market-snapshot-which-cities-have-highest-solar-potential-in-canada.html https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/ma... shows 3.5kWh/mo/m^2 for December and 4.4kWh/mo/m^2 for January. Let’s go with January to be generous. 3750kWh/mo / 4.4kWh/mo/m^2 = 852 m^2 = 9170 sq.ft. of solar required to cover both my electricity and heating needs. If I look at just electricity it’s a lot easier. 745 / 4.4 = 169m^2 = 1800 sq.ft. which is essentially the same footprint as the house. Heating completely kills it though and is, I suspect for most people, an even larger source of carbon than their electricity use. At least looking at those two bills, there’s an $88 carbon tax charge on the natural gas bill and only $8 on the electrical bill.
munk-a 4y ago
Both certainly have their place and the balance has definitely shifted from where it was thirty years ago - renewables are much more competitive now but I think Nuclear has a pretty critical role to play when it comes to surge capacity.

nomel 4y ago

> so cheap and easy I think this is a little misleading, unless there' a good story for storage and long distance power transmission, which I haven't seen yet.

dools 4y ago
China’s doing amazing work on long distance transmission using high voltage DC: https://youtu.be/rThkjp-bp8M https://youtu.be/rThkjp-bp8M

Aloha 4y ago

I think we could build 100 plants in under a decade - it takes us being willing to build them assembly line like, meaning no more 'designed for the site' plants.

philipkglass 4y ago
The EPR and AP1000 reactor designs were supposed to be the end of "designed for the site" reactors, and they were. The same designs get built at different geographic locations. The problem is that they're no better at meeting cost and schedule targets than older reactor designs. They're still late and over budget. Can small modular reactors like those designed by NuScale do better? Maybe. But we're not going to find out sooner than 2030, which is when NuScale plans to have its first plant operational: https://www.nuscalepower.com/en/about https://www.nuscalepower.com/en/about

jabl 4y ago

How about we stop this ridiculous nuclear vs. renewables culture war, while fossil fuels are laughing all the way to the bank? Yes, we should build more solar (and even as a 'nuke bro', seeing solar prices drop at the rate they have is one of the genuinely positive news in the otherwise pretty dystopic climate change discourse), we should build more nuclear, we should build wind, we should build more hydro (though not that much potential left), we should build transmission, we should build storage.

tonyarkles 4y ago

> but solar is now so cheap and easy that it will be harder for large scale nuclear to ramp up in time to matter There's still the storage and base load problem. But I am 100% with you that we shouldn't slow solar in deference to nuclear; what we should be doing is mapping out what we want our next generation energy mix to look like (solar, wind, pumped storage, nuclear, geothermal, etc) on a regional basis, stop fucking around and arguing about it, and just get on with building it. I live in an area (Canadian prairies) where max energy consumption lines up with with minimum solar and wind production (-40C in December on a calm night). Even during the day, those calm bitterly cold days only have about 8 hours of sunlight from a sun that barely comes over the horizon. We're starting to build solar, we've had wind for a while, but even though we've committed to building SMR Nuclear, we're still in a situation where we've got coal and natural gas plants that are approaching EOL and they'll likely be replaced/retrofitted to burn more fossil fuels because we won't have any sufficiently reliable baseload ready.

bryanlarsen 4y ago
The Canadian prairies have fabulous solar production, even in the winter time. They also have a good amount of wind. And BC has tons of hydro. So build out enough renewables to supply BC when the sun is shining, maybe even enough to pump some water uphill, and then have BC hydro supply the prairies at other times.
- tonyarkles 4y ago
  So I’m looking at this from the perspective of completely eliminating fossil fuels from my home. Not just electricity, but heating as well. I want solar to win, but here’s the numbers I get from looking at December/January this year (my bills don’t quite line up cleanly on month boundaries): 863 m^3 of natural gas -> ~9100 kWh of heating energy Assuming (generously) that I can get a COP of 3, even though that’s unrealistic at the miserable temperatures we had over the last few months, that’s ~3000 kWh for electric heat pump heat. Electricity was about 745kWh for the month, so 3750kWh total between heat pump heating and electricity. https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/market-snapshots/2018/market-snapshot-which-cities-have-highest-solar-potential-in-canada.html https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/ma... shows 3.5kWh/mo/m^2 for December and 4.4kWh/mo/m^2 for January. Let’s go with January to be generous. 3750kWh/mo / 4.4kWh/mo/m^2 = 852 m^2 = 9170 sq.ft. of solar required to cover both my electricity and heating needs. If I look at just electricity it’s a lot easier. 745 / 4.4 = 169m^2 = 1800 sq.ft. which is essentially the same footprint as the house. Heating completely kills it though and is, I suspect for most people, an even larger source of carbon than their electricity use. At least looking at those two bills, there’s an $88 carbon tax charge on the natural gas bill and only $8 on the electrical bill.

munk-a 4y ago

Both certainly have their place and the balance has definitely shifted from where it was thirty years ago - renewables are much more competitive now but I think Nuclear has a pretty critical role to play when it comes to surge capacity.