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> How is nuclear fuel any different in this respect? Sure it's more compact, but it has other complications regarding transport. They're still going to be relia

> How is nuclear fuel any different in this respect? Sure it's more compact, but it has other complications regarding transport. They're still going to be reliant on other countries. Solar panels, even if imported, do not require the ongoing importation of fuel. Nuclear requires a tiny fraction of the material that any other generation type needs. We’re talking about a factor of one million more energy dense compared to fossil fuels! Solar and wind do not provide baseload and can therefore not replace any conventional power plant. There is a reason why Germany just returned 7.3 GW in coal-fired power units to the electricity market: > https://www.smard.de/home/rueckkehr-von-kohlekraftwerken-an-den-strommarkt-209208 https://www.smard.de/home/rueckkehr-von-kohlekraftwerken-an-...

askvictor 4y ago
Agree that nuclear fuel is a lot more dense, but still has the same geopolitical problems as any imported fuel, just fewer (and probably more specialized) ships to transport it. Also agree about the base-load issue, but that's a different argument (and there are some ways to lessen it without always resorting to conventional power-plants; see how Australia has performed over the past decade with crumbling coal infrastructure and no ability for long term planning due to policy paralysis - our base-load has been crumbling but through some clever grid manipulation there have been far fewer blackouts than anyone expected)
- simondotau 4y ago
  The size is an extremely important benefit. It means a country like Japan is able to stockpile a domestic fuel supply sufficient for multiple years of electricity generation.
bryanlarsen 4y ago
> Solar and wind do not provide baseload and can therefore not replace any conventional power plant. Think about a hospital, the ultimate baseload requirement. Would a hospital be OK with just power from a single nuclear reactor? Of course not, it would still have a generator for backup power. Nuclear power plants don't run 24/7/365, they have scheduled maintenance and unexpected downtime. Baseload power is ensured through diversity and spare dispatchable power.
- vlovich123 4y ago
  > Baseload power is ensured through diversity and spare dispatchable power. Unless I’m missing something, solar and wind are not diverse energy sources though. If one plant is generating less energy because the sun isn’t shining or wind isn’t blowing, then all the nearby plants have the same problem. If you take one nuclear plant offline, the others aren’t impacted. Seems like a completely different scenario. You can get some diversity through geographical separation but I’m not sure it’s that much, especially on a small island like Japan. Also, long distance energy transmission has proven expensive and problematic (eg HVDC is not the norm because it remains phenomenally expensive to deploy)
  - askvictor 4y ago
    Japan is quite long (North-South). It's comparable to the East coast of Australia, which has a single grid/energy market. Also, wind and solar are often (not always) complementary energy sources.
    - vlovich123 4y ago
      Is whether the sun is shining in the north sufficiently decoupled from sun shining in the south? Is the wind blowing in the north decoupled from the wind blowing in the south? I’m suggesting that the distance is not large enough for that to be the case. Which makes it a very different situation to a nuclear plant taken offline for maintenance. Not to mention that afaik they don’t take the entire plant offline. They’ll take offline one reactor and work on it and bring it back online before working on the next reactor.
      - askvictor 4y ago
        In Australia that distance is certainly enough for completely different weather. But local geo-climactic conditions in Japan might be completely different; it's probably not the distance as much as prevailing winds, geography, etc. Interestingly for any type of generation - Japan runs two different grid frequencies, which limits cross-flow from one half to the other half. They do have HVDC interconnects, but are rather limited (they're building more, in no small part as a result of Fukushima)

askvictor 4y ago

Agree that nuclear fuel is a lot more dense, but still has the same geopolitical problems as any imported fuel, just fewer (and probably more specialized) ships to transport it. Also agree about the base-load issue, but that's a different argument (and there are some ways to lessen it without always resorting to conventional power-plants; see how Australia has performed over the past decade with crumbling coal infrastructure and no ability for long term planning due to policy paralysis - our base-load has been crumbling but through some clever grid manipulation there have been far fewer blackouts than anyone expected)

simondotau 4y ago
The size is an extremely important benefit. It means a country like Japan is able to stockpile a domestic fuel supply sufficient for multiple years of electricity generation.

bryanlarsen 4y ago

> Solar and wind do not provide baseload and can therefore not replace any conventional power plant. Think about a hospital, the ultimate baseload requirement. Would a hospital be OK with just power from a single nuclear reactor? Of course not, it would still have a generator for backup power. Nuclear power plants don't run 24/7/365, they have scheduled maintenance and unexpected downtime. Baseload power is ensured through diversity and spare dispatchable power.

vlovich123 4y ago
> Baseload power is ensured through diversity and spare dispatchable power. Unless I’m missing something, solar and wind are not diverse energy sources though. If one plant is generating less energy because the sun isn’t shining or wind isn’t blowing, then all the nearby plants have the same problem. If you take one nuclear plant offline, the others aren’t impacted. Seems like a completely different scenario. You can get some diversity through geographical separation but I’m not sure it’s that much, especially on a small island like Japan. Also, long distance energy transmission has proven expensive and problematic (eg HVDC is not the norm because it remains phenomenally expensive to deploy)
- askvictor 4y ago
  Japan is quite long (North-South). It's comparable to the East coast of Australia, which has a single grid/energy market. Also, wind and solar are often (not always) complementary energy sources.
  - vlovich123 4y ago
    Is whether the sun is shining in the north sufficiently decoupled from sun shining in the south? Is the wind blowing in the north decoupled from the wind blowing in the south? I’m suggesting that the distance is not large enough for that to be the case. Which makes it a very different situation to a nuclear plant taken offline for maintenance. Not to mention that afaik they don’t take the entire plant offline. They’ll take offline one reactor and work on it and bring it back online before working on the next reactor.
    - askvictor 4y ago
      In Australia that distance is certainly enough for completely different weather. But local geo-climactic conditions in Japan might be completely different; it's probably not the distance as much as prevailing winds, geography, etc. Interestingly for any type of generation - Japan runs two different grid frequencies, which limits cross-flow from one half to the other half. They do have HVDC interconnects, but are rather limited (they're building more, in no small part as a result of Fukushima)