4 ms·

>I don't understand the reasoning for phasing out nuclear power 1) It's ridiculously expensive. LCOE is 5x the cost of solar and wind: https://www.institutefor

by pydry 4y ago

>I don't understand the reasoning for phasing out nuclear power 1) It's ridiculously expensive. LCOE is 5x the cost of solar and wind: https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/wind/study-wind-solar-5x-costly-existing-coal-nuclear/ https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/wind/st... 2) Yes, still a lot more expensive once you take storage into account. Even for the most inefficient forms of storage: https://theecologist.org/2016/feb/17/wind-power-windgas-cheaper-and-greener-hinkley-point-c-nuclear-plant https://theecologist.org/2016/feb/17/wind-power-windgas-chea... 3) It takes about 12-20 years to build new plants. Solar/wind is 1-4 years. 4) 5x is an understatement. It's even more expensive if you properly account for insurance. Dealing with Fukushima cost $800 billion. This is unaccounted for in LCOE and taxpayers will be fully on the hook for whatever the next Fukushima. 5) New power plants aren't being built because it's too expensive. So, old ones are having their lives extended (the latest law in congress was about this). Older plants = more danger. Fukushima happened in large part because it was old. 6) Despite this many countries still build nuclear power. Why? Two reasons: 1) it shares nuclear military costs 2) it lets you build a bomb quickly.

chucknthem 4y ago
It's expensive because no investment has been made to scale it up and make cheaper & safer, whereas a ton of subsidies and investment went into scaling up solar and making that cheaper over the past 2 decades. China will probably make it cheap given the pace they're going building out nuclear plants.
- natmaka 4y ago
  China is way more active deploying renewables than nuclear. https://www.colorado.edu/cas/2022/04/12/even-china-cannot-rescue-nuclear-power-its-woes https://www.colorado.edu/cas/2022/04/12/even-china-cannot-re...
  - chucknthem 4y ago
    Yep, they have massive energy demand and going full steam ahead in all energy sources.
belorn 4y ago
Nations that want to invest into solar, wind and storage should do so and illustrate to other countries that such investment will out compete those who would invest in nuclear. This would be a good thing. What nations who currently invest into solar and wind are doing is to also invest in a lot of fossil fuel reserve energy, like natural gas. This is the official strategy of Germany, and is also the primary strategy of UK. In combination this is what caused the insane energy prices that Europe suffered this winter. This is why I want a EU ban against building new fossil fuel capacity, especially natural gas. Solar and wind is great, but not if they are combined with natural gas, oil or coal. I loose a lot of trust in politics when green party politicians are advocating to maintain programs to subsidizes fossil fueled power plants while at the same time advocating to shut down nuclear power plants. In term of insurance for accidents, here I would also advocate for a law that is technology independent. Any damaged suffered to third-parties because of a commercially operated power plant should be covered by insurance. Hydroelectric plants, nuclear power and all plants emitting green house gases would be impossible to cover but the symbolic gesture of such law would be interesting.
- pydry 4y ago
  The fact that Germany decarbonised so much, so fast and so cheaply and without nuclear power appears to have made a lot of people very angry. Unlike Poland, who quietly powers itself with 80% coal and attracts very little flak because 1) it didn't make the nuclear industry look unnecessary 2) it preferred to burn coal over gas from America's main geopolitical rival.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > The fact that Germany decarbonised so much, so fast and so cheaply and without nuclear power appears to have made a lot of people very angry. Decarbonised? They still have the worst CO2/KWh in Western Europe, and among the worst in Europe: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electricity?region=Europe https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electric... After literally decades of massive renewables investments and subsidies.
    - 4y ago
35208654 4y ago
A new plant costs like $10B. We could build 8 of them if we got back what was stolen from the Paycheck Protection Program.
felixlechat 4y ago
For point 2, the number are from a Greenpeace study in german. They say they can generate 25TWh per year with 11.2GW of land wind power (so about 3000 wind turbines) taking into account the storage lost (they assume 42.6% round trip efficiency, more than wikipedia figures). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas
lucb1e 4y ago
> taxpayers will be fully on the hook for whatever the next Fukushima. That's actually an interesting point. Japan etc. can raise that magnitude of funds, but the whole world benefits from countries that run on nuclear instead of coal and gas. Should we not all pay for that? For already-built reactors that's a bit late, but: If there were a global standard for new reactors (which would obviously have to meet the minimum requirements of the most stringent participating country), multinationals could build to that spec without a lot of reinventing the wheel per regulatory environment as we do today, everyone would agree it's safe enough (presuming a safe environment; I don't know if a place like Afghanistan can provide that today), and everyone is equally (by GDP or so? TBD) on the hook for helping out if one of them has an incident. Based on Fukshima being the only INES level >=5 incident in the past 30 years, and one of four since nuclear energy tech became somewhat established in the 1950s, on the hundreds of nuclear power plants that are still in service around the world (I don't know how many have been cumulatively, probably around 1-2k?), that would be stupidly cheap insurance per kWh produced.
Georgelemental 4y ago
It's expensive because the regulation is insane. In times and places with sane regulation, the upfront costs are still high but it soon pays for itself.

by pydry 4y ago

chucknthem 4y ago

It's expensive because no investment has been made to scale it up and make cheaper & safer, whereas a ton of subsidies and investment went into scaling up solar and making that cheaper over the past 2 decades. China will probably make it cheap given the pace they're going building out nuclear plants.

natmaka 4y ago
China is way more active deploying renewables than nuclear. https://www.colorado.edu/cas/2022/04/12/even-china-cannot-rescue-nuclear-power-its-woes https://www.colorado.edu/cas/2022/04/12/even-china-cannot-re...
- chucknthem 4y ago
  Yep, they have massive energy demand and going full steam ahead in all energy sources.

belorn 4y ago

Nations that want to invest into solar, wind and storage should do so and illustrate to other countries that such investment will out compete those who would invest in nuclear. This would be a good thing. What nations who currently invest into solar and wind are doing is to also invest in a lot of fossil fuel reserve energy, like natural gas. This is the official strategy of Germany, and is also the primary strategy of UK. In combination this is what caused the insane energy prices that Europe suffered this winter. This is why I want a EU ban against building new fossil fuel capacity, especially natural gas. Solar and wind is great, but not if they are combined with natural gas, oil or coal. I loose a lot of trust in politics when green party politicians are advocating to maintain programs to subsidizes fossil fueled power plants while at the same time advocating to shut down nuclear power plants. In term of insurance for accidents, here I would also advocate for a law that is technology independent. Any damaged suffered to third-parties because of a commercially operated power plant should be covered by insurance. Hydroelectric plants, nuclear power and all plants emitting green house gases would be impossible to cover but the symbolic gesture of such law would be interesting.

pydry 4y ago
The fact that Germany decarbonised so much, so fast and so cheaply and without nuclear power appears to have made a lot of people very angry. Unlike Poland, who quietly powers itself with 80% coal and attracts very little flak because 1) it didn't make the nuclear industry look unnecessary 2) it preferred to burn coal over gas from America's main geopolitical rival.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > The fact that Germany decarbonised so much, so fast and so cheaply and without nuclear power appears to have made a lot of people very angry. Decarbonised? They still have the worst CO2/KWh in Western Europe, and among the worst in Europe: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electricity?region=Europe https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electric... After literally decades of massive renewables investments and subsidies.
  - 4y ago

35208654 4y ago

A new plant costs like $10B. We could build 8 of them if we got back what was stolen from the Paycheck Protection Program.

felixlechat 4y ago

For point 2, the number are from a Greenpeace study in german. They say they can generate 25TWh per year with 11.2GW of land wind power (so about 3000 wind turbines) taking into account the storage lost (they assume 42.6% round trip efficiency, more than wikipedia figures). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas

lucb1e 4y ago

> taxpayers will be fully on the hook for whatever the next Fukushima. That's actually an interesting point. Japan etc. can raise that magnitude of funds, but the whole world benefits from countries that run on nuclear instead of coal and gas. Should we not all pay for that? For already-built reactors that's a bit late, but: If there were a global standard for new reactors (which would obviously have to meet the minimum requirements of the most stringent participating country), multinationals could build to that spec without a lot of reinventing the wheel per regulatory environment as we do today, everyone would agree it's safe enough (presuming a safe environment; I don't know if a place like Afghanistan can provide that today), and everyone is equally (by GDP or so? TBD) on the hook for helping out if one of them has an incident. Based on Fukshima being the only INES level >=5 incident in the past 30 years, and one of four since nuclear energy tech became somewhat established in the 1950s, on the hundreds of nuclear power plants that are still in service around the world (I don't know how many have been cumulatively, probably around 1-2k?), that would be stupidly cheap insurance per kWh produced.

Georgelemental 4y ago

It's expensive because the regulation is insane. In times and places with sane regulation, the upfront costs are still high but it soon pays for itself.