27 ms·

Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

396 points by mdp2021 4y ago

rullelito 4y ago
To every windpower fanatic in the comments. What is the plan for days when there is little wind? I guess coal?
- lispm 4y ago
  Import electricity, for example. We have here a 1.4 GW line to Norway for hydro power. Generally Germany is surrounded by many countries which share electricity. There are many wind farms in and around the North Sea. Yes, Germany is a large net exporter of electricity.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- retrac 4y ago
  Wind goes well with gas turbine generators, since they can match their output to demand and the supply of wind. Every watt-hour of wind energy you capture, is a watt-hour of gas you don't burn. Worst case scenario is no wind and you're burning gas -- which is already a main electric source. Taken too far you would get into this weird situation of over-spending for capacity, and having surplus wind energy when it's windy, while still burning gas when it's not. But as a moderate contribution to a grid, 10 - 30% of supply perhaps, especially where gas is a primary source already, it makes a lot of sense, in some places. I hope no one expects to actually run everything on 100% wind power.
  - WheatMillington 4y ago
    Hanging your hat on fossil fuel base load generation seems unwise.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      Yeah, though it's not crazy for a short term while building up storage, which we need anyway for transport (be that batteries or whichever cute name is now used for hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water). Or Sabatier process methane, depending on if Mars is the real point of Starship or merely an excuse for Starship.
- ben_w 4y ago
  1. There's a lot of ways to store energy 2. There's a few ways to transport power 3. Wind isn't the only renewable, though it can be really cheap At this point, I'm having to remind myself of the xkcd lucky 10,000, because it feels disingenuous to even need to ask. And I'm saying that as someone who really hopes the new fusion companies succeed, and that nuclear should have been used to move the world away from coal (and ship fuel) in the 60s onwards, and lament the risks and accidents were handled so poorly by the politicians. But now? Meh.
- epistasis 4y ago
  Battery storage, solar, stored hydrogen, demand response, long distance HVDC, advanced geothermal. The answer is tech from the 2000s, not 1900s tech. Power industry folks are used to a field where tech hasn't changed for decades. It's time to get over that and use the new things that have been developed that will reduce the cost of energy, increase energy abundance, and advance society. We need to let go of the obsolete.
illiarian 4y ago
Relevant: "Germany's 66.5 GW of installed wind is only producing as much as the 3 reactors that turned off last night used to produce." https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396 https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396
- Krasnol 4y ago
  Wind alone produces ~20% of the recent years electricity in Germany. Nuclear produced only half of that in recent years. The whole renewable energy production covers ~40% of all the energy produced. Despite 16 years of almost full stop of expansion. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energie/Erzeugung/Tabellen/bruttostromerzeugung.html https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energ...
  - stuff4ben 4y ago
    Soon you're going to run out of land for your renewables. Plus renewables are extremely intermittent power sources. Nuclear solves both the land-use and consistency problems. Plus, from the article: "...to build enough wind turbines and solar panels to supply at least half the electricity needed for global consumption 'would require two billions tons of coal to produce the concrete and steel, along with two billion barrels of oil to make the composite blades. [And] more than 90% of the world’s solar panels are built in Asia on coal-heavy electrical grids.'" https://www.manhattan-institute.org/if-you-want-renewable-energy-get-ready-to-dig https://www.manhattan-institute.org/if-you-want-renewable-en...
    - schleck8 4y ago
      > Soon you're going to run out of land for your renewables. I'm from Northern Germany where all the wind turbines are and you are wrong
    - Krasnol 4y ago
      No we won't. There are plenty of studies on the topic. Those areas are there and already identified. Wind alone would just double to manage the Energiewende by 2050: https://www.naturschutz-energiewende.de/aktuelles/flaechenverfuegbarkeit-fuer-die-energiewende/ https://www.naturschutz-energiewende.de/aktuelles/flaechenve... I don't get your other argument. If you push for renewables instead of wasting money on over due and over budget nuclear reactors, you can create an industry at home. Create massive amounts of jobs and improve on the technology. It's already happening and those improvements are way faster than everything we've seen with nuclear in the recent decades.
option 4y ago
and is a way to significantly reduce dependence on fundamentally authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, etc. One of the reasons France is like 75% nuclear generation was response to arab oil crisis in 70ies
- mdp2021 4y ago
  It seems Uranium has varied sources: Kazakhstan (dominantly), then Namibia, Canada, Australia, Uzbekistan, Russia, Niger, China, India. The USA also have it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Uranium_Mining_Production_2021.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Uranium_Mining_Prod... I am not sure what other "consumables" are involved.
- lispm 4y ago
  Europe has a large dependence on Russia for nuclear technology. There are also Russian reactors in Europe. The countries who currently lead the deployment of nuclear technology are China and Russia, two authoritarian countries. https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-just-cant-quit-russia-for-nuclear-power/ https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-just-cant-quit-russia...
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    > Europe has a large dependence on Russia for nuclear technology. There are also Russian reactors in Europe That seems to be a legacy, not a necessary constraint.
    - lispm 4y ago
      That authoritarian countries are the main deployers and providers of nuclear is no surprise. The central government decides and there is no opposition. In most democratic countries nuclear is not competitive in the market anymore. For a country like Russia it's much easier to sell nuclear cheap into the market: they want to make European countries dependent on their energy delivery. Western countries have much higher technology standards and with market prices they are not competitive.
Krasnol 4y ago
The authors profile is even more hilarious than the article: https://nationalinterest.org/profile/todd-royal https://nationalinterest.org/profile/todd-royal
- speakfreely 4y ago
  It looks like he keeps writing the same article over and over again.
  - speed_spread 4y ago
    It looks like he has someone's agenda and is getting paid to push it.
- stuff4ben 4y ago
  Nuclear power is the way. If you have something to refute from the article, please do so. Otherwise I'll just lump you in with the rest of the green-party fanatics who think solar and wind will solve our energy needs.
  - Krasnol 4y ago
    It is the way of wasting money while facing the reality of cheap and truly clean alternatives. It's the way backwards. https://www.forbes.com/sites/amorylovins/2019/11/18/does-nuclear-power-slow-or-speed-climate-change/?sh=3303919e506b https://www.forbes.com/sites/amorylovins/2019/11/18/does-nuc... And I'm sorry I hurt your feelings by pointing the obvious bias of the author. This was not intended.
    - stuff4ben 4y ago
      LOL, no hurt feelings here. I support nuclear power along with renewables which have their niche places to contribute. But to completely ignore nuclear in favor of just wind and solar is idiotic and misguided.
- runarberg 4y ago
Fauntleroy 4y ago
It would be, it not for the realities of dealing with human politicking.
- tanyajenkins1 4y ago
  [flagged]
bitwize 4y ago
Renewables are cheap and far less risk-prone. Not going all in on renewables is a footgun for industrial societies.
- stuff4ben 4y ago
  renewables are not cheap when you factor in decommissioning which nuclear power does. FTFA: "The International Renewable Energy Agency calculates that old solar panel disposal to meet 2050 Paris Accords 'will more than double the tonnage of all of today’s global plastic waste.'"
  - Krasnol 4y ago
    Nuclear only factors in decommissioning in the way that it gives the responsibility away to future generations...
    - stuff4ben 4y ago
      what does that even mean? Nuclear factors in decommissioning to the cost of running it. Wind and solar have even more limited lifespans than nuclear plus there's the millions of tonnes of waste generated when you decommission them.
    - illiarian 4y ago
      Nuclear waste decommissioned from nuclear plants is very compact, almost completely safe at our current levels of handling it, and a lot of bruhaha around it is strictly political.
      - Krasnol 4y ago
        I don't know "compact" makes anything better about it. Germany has been searching for a hole safe and deep enough for it for years. It costs taxpayer money and they still haven't found one. Meanwhile, the stuff is stored near the plants. Which is not safe. Also stuff which has been considered "safely stored" years ago needs to be dug out again. Which again costs taxpayer money.
eric-burel 4y ago
As a French not expert in the matter but living near nuclear plants: - one of the plant regularly leaks radioactive material - rivers are getting too hot to cool down nuclear plants correctly - nuclear plants are very unreliable, we almost got out of power this winter and next winter will be equally tough (only an abnormally hot winter avoid cuts...) - the government wants to simplify control organism and laws around building new plants (References are easy to find if you want confirmation) I am not against nuclear power, but it has to be done properly and safely, which is certainly not the case around here. Edit: it seems the fusion (no pun) of regulation organisms has been rejected by the senate. Still annoying to see this law discreetly pass, with no parliament debate outside of the senate, during a political crisis
- kvgr 4y ago
  How can it leaks? Do you have any source? Well you had some of them turned off for maintanance, that happens.
  - eric-burel 4y ago
    Look for the Tricastin plant I don't know enough to answer precisely but it has leaked recently and a few years ago. Of course it doesn't leak uranium, but other byproducts, which not a sign of a well managed plant. Some were stopped not just maintenance but the discovery of micro-breaches caused by maintenance decades ago. That's actually a sign of proper management, but a counter-argument to reliability.
    - illiarian 4y ago
      - "one of the plant regularly leaks radioactive material" - "Look for the Tricastin plant I don't know enough to answer precisely but it has leaked recently and a few years ago. Of course it doesn't leak uranium" So, your original statement was an untruth. Or "alternative facts" > of micro-breaches caused by maintenance decades ago. That's actually a sign of proper management, but a counter-argument to reliability. So you mean microbreaches were made decades ago, the plant has operated for decades with no issues, and you call that unreliable?
option 4y ago
please lets avoid binary discussions 100% nuclear vs 100% renewables. I think all reasonable people agree that it should be a mix with multi-faceted goals of zero emissions, reliability, low cost, stability, etc.
tanyajenkins1 4y ago
[flagged]
RandomLensman 4y ago
Fusion - yes, fission - no. Edit: the cost evolution of fission already points against it, any nuclear bet should therefore be on fusion, not fission.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  Fusion is perpetually 50 years away. We don't have that long to wait when we're already crossing points of no return.
  - willis936 4y ago
    Does the world end in 50 years?
    - CatWChainsaw 4y ago
      No, it ends in 30.
- barney54 4y ago
  We should bet on the technology that always 20 years in the future?
cinntaile 4y ago
> Solar power requires even more metals, cement, steel, and glass. Why do they always use the same outdated data sources? Cement? Yes 35 years ago they thought you needed to put a slab of cement under your panels to support them, but we moved on from that. Please update to newer, more relevant data sources.
cschwarm 4y ago
Question(s) to the nuclear supporters here: 1. Are you talking about global electricity? Or just the West? 2. How much nuclear power do you want? 20%, 50%, 70%, or 100%? Or something else? 3. What nuclear technology? Traditional, Molten Salt, SMRs, or something else? 4. What institutional setting do you image for your nuclear power plants? Private ownership, or nationalized plants like in France? Just curious...
- brucethemoose2 4y ago
  1. Yes! 2. Just some more than we have now. 3. Yes! 4. Yes! Seriously though, I just want some reactor construction to spin up with non ancient reactor designs, to replace some fossil fuel plants. PBR[1] sounds good to me... but what do I know? There are experts who can decide this. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble-bed_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble-bed_reactor
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    In the US we're replacing nuclear plants with renewables at a 6:1 ratio. The only people who think we need more nuclear power plants is the nuclear power industry and the politicians they're heavily lobbying to stay relevant.
    - Matticus_Rex 4y ago
      > The only people who think we need more nuclear power plants is the nuclear power industry and the politicians they're heavily lobbying to stay relevant. And also quite a few energy experts and the people who listen to them. The US nuclear industry's major players are bloated cronies satisfied with ALARA and other idiotic policies that keep them alive by preventing competition. If ALARA weren't in place, nuclear would be thriving and competitive (and still safe!).
    - andbberger 4y ago
      CAISO penned a series of increasingly urgent press releases on how catastrophic closing diablo canyon would be for grid stability when it's closure was imminent.
Lacerda69 4y ago
Cue the atomic fanatics vs the renewable cult discussion. Has been discussed a thousand times on HN recently and it always seems both are just shouting how the other side can not see the obvious superiority of their fav energy source. why cant we have a bit of both? renewable seems very good long term and nuclear is also nice for transition. but I wouldnt want to live next to one of those crappy leaky french reactors.
- pydry 4y ago
  Isnt this "argument to moderation"?
- Kuinox 4y ago
  > but I wouldnt want to live next to one of those crappy leaky french reactors. Well both side complain about truth and disinformation, and this affirmation is far from reality.
- tstrimple 4y ago
  Because our for-profit energy sector has decided not to invest in nuclear, even with government subsidies. This is basic business. Are you as the CEO of an energy company going to invest tens of billions of dollars into a plant that won't be operational for decades or are you just going to stand up more wind farms where you can start realizing a profit the next year? If you want nuclear, you simply cannot have an energy grid dependent on companies who's goal is profit. This is why all of the talk about how great nuclear is simply doesn't matter. The market doesn't support it and we're ruled by the markets.
- dale_glass 4y ago
  > why cant we have a bit of both? Because they're economically incompatible. Nuclear is very expensive to build, and wants to run 24/7 to offset costs. They also want to run continuously. The problem is that renewables are cheap, but intermittent. So take an economically rational marketplace. I can either buy the same amount of power for $1, or for $2, what do you think I'd choose? $1 of course. Power is power, I don't want to pay more than I must. So any time I can buy renewables for $1, nuclear makes no revenue. This pushes off its payoff into the future. This isn't a good situation to be in. Time goes by, components get older, people get impatient, more renewables keep getting built. Now you're a bank considering a loan for nuclear you think might be paid off in 20 years. Or if renewables keep growing, maybe in 40. Or if they really take off, maybe never. Risking billions that way doesn't sound enticing, now does it? If nuclear made money we wouldn't be seeing these blog posts show up over and over. Money solves many problems and greases many palms. If nuclear was profitable, every other problem would be solvable. Not enough safety? Money can buy that. Too close to people? Money can put a plant further away. Legal problems? Money pays for lawyers. The logical end state of all this seems to be that renewables kill off the profitability of nuclear badly enough that nobody builds it (relatively speaking). Eventually the grid destabilizes and this forces urgent measures to shore things up. The final state I imagine is a very renewable-heavy grid, after a period of chaos in the middle.
jhp123 4y ago
the article mentions that 2 billion tons of coal would be needed to manufacture solar panels to meet half of today's global energy needs with renewables. That is about 3 months of global coal consumption at current rates. If we decide to go all in on nuclear instead, we can turn off the coal plants in a mere 15 years or so.
- bottlepalm 4y ago
  Think of all the new disasters we'll get to experience with thousands of new nuclear power plants.
  - llsf 4y ago
    France has been using nuclear power plants for more than 50 years, producing up to 75% of all electricity and exporting to other countries, and did not suffer any disaster. There has been natural nuclear power plants that has been running for few hundred thousand years (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklo_Mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklo_Mine)... so nature did it before us, and nature did not really care and left all the waste on the site. We have found more efficient ways to produce, reuse the waste and properly dispose it.
themagician 4y ago
My 2¢: We live in a world where all work goes to the lowest bidder and people will always cut corners if they believe the liability won't fall on them. The entire world could be safely powered off nuclear energy if it wasn't for pesky humans that will always lie, cheat, and steal from each other. Given that human greed is unavoidable and a nuclear accident can pollute an area for 10,000 years it's probably best to recognize our own flaws as we consider what to do with it. I mean, here in the US we have a hard time operating trains without catastrophic failure.
- rullelito 4y ago
  An alternative to emotional arguments is to look at the statistics.
  - themagician 4y ago
    When you actually look at the statistics around large infrastructure projects the results are not comforting. Corners are always cut. Maintenance delayed. Just the "cost of doing business". Trust in both governments and large corporations is not exactly at an all time high. People know that companies will throw radioactive waste and scrap materials into the rivers if they can get away with it. Conversely, the emotional argument is the only one that brings nuclear power back. You must convince people that these projects can be done safely. You must convince people that, "This time will be different." Look at what just happened in Germany. Or don't.
    - Matticus_Rex 4y ago
      Or, you can simply educate people -- this time doesn't need to be very different (though it certainly can be), because already-existing nuclear is very safe. Liability prevents companies dumping radioactive material, and radioactive material is very cheap to store! There's no benefit from dumping it. Yes, mildly irradiated water sometimes gets into rivers, and if you look at the amounts and risks it turns out to be quite reasonable relative even to solar and wind. What happened in Germany was not rational, and it was not by any means good for the environment, or a net positive for German health and well-being.
fuzzy2 4y ago
I mean, certainly. Well, maybe not the answer, but whatever. However, are we actually capable of building new reactors and managing their operation in the private sector? I’m not talking about possibly maybe here. Are we actually ready, today, to build a new reactor within reasonable time at reasonable cost? I don’t know, but my gut feeling says no. We cannot even build roads like that. Furthermore, is operating these reactors economical? Current reactors are not. They externalize lots of cost factors.
- illiarian 4y ago
  Current renewables also externalise a lot of factors. Any production at scale externalises a lot of factors. Unfortunately, the discussion is so emotionally and politically charged, that I'm afraid no one is actually properly calculating all the costs, and risks etc.
- Tade0 4y ago
  China can. Russia as well. It appears that the secret ingredient is totalitarianism.
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    Chernobyl happened largely because plant admins wanted to please (or were afraid of) their higher-ups. Russia has had numerous secretive incidents in their southern military nuclear production sites, and more recently? Mysterious things like "high winds"... https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/russia-suspected-nuclear-explosion-radiation-chernobyl.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/russia-suspected... In China? Taishan has been plagued with problems.
  - HDThoreaun 4y ago
    No, China can not build nuclear economically. That's why they're drastically reducing their nuclear goal while they continue to scale up coal and solar.
    - dirtyid 4y ago
orbit7 4y ago
This would be a game changer for global energy and transport if it got in front of the right people https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2020021219 https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO20...
krunck 4y ago
The article doesn't even mention words fusion or fission. Like all nuclear power is the same. Be assured the author is a shill for the trad fission industry. We don't need that.
- WheatMillington 4y ago
  The author is a shill for not discussing a technology which is still speculative and has no realistic commercial roadmap?
- NineStarPoint 4y ago
  Fission plants are the only plants we have that are actually useable at this point in time, so of course there’s no reason to clarify. While we should definitely be putting more money into fusion research, if you’re worried about an environmental catastrophe you don’t have time to hope fusion actually works sometime in the next 50 years. You have to make plans based on what technology you know functions, not a moonshot.
haweemwho 4y ago
> Only nuclear power is carbon-free [...] You can stop reading right there as this immediately identifies this piece as disingenuous at best, more likely though propaganda. The whole process is definitely not "carbon-free". Uranium extraction, transport and processing produce emissions. Building the plants and maintaining them does. Eventually demolishing does. Transporting the used fuel as well as building and maintaining storage facilities does. All those factors are usually brought up in detail for things like solar and wind plants. It's just disingenuous not to count them for nuclear power.
- nazgulnarsil 4y ago
  Uranium extraction can be electrified. You're the one spreading an obviously mistaken view.
- runarberg 4y ago
  Google the author, who he works for, and some of the stuff he has written in the past, I think describing this a propaganda is actually giving this an easy way out.
  - colordrops 4y ago
    Right, conflict of interest is more like it.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  All of that can be true and yet still trivial in comparison to the emissions that would be eliminated by replacing all fossil-fuel electrical generation with nuclear. Nuclear works at night and in locations that aren't good for solar or wind generation. Nuclear with a relatively small number of generating sites feeding a large distributiion network fits in with our existing electricial infrastrucure better than the widely dispersed generation that solar and wind provide. We need leadership that will just clear the way for liquid metal, fast neutron reactors that don't need refined fuel and produce less waste. If you believe that carbon emissions are an existential threat to human survival, it's time to stop fretting about nuclear proliferation and waste disposal. The challenges of those issues are tiny compared to global climate change.
runarberg 4y ago
It is generally not cool to call something astroturfing here on HN. But googling the author of this article Todd Royal you can see he is a consultant for a lobby group called E4 Carolinas which is heavily funded by big energy companies who have big investments in the fossil fuel industry. In the past he has written articles with titles such as “Why Climate Panic Is Unfounded Hysteria” where he accuses advocates for renewables of astroturfing, while advocating for the continued use of fossil fuels: > What the entire climate change, global warming, renewables over fossil fuels and electrify society movement is really about is one thing—money—clean energy is now worth trillions of taxpayer dollars. Government-sponsored science and economic growth at its worst picking clean energy over fossil fuels and internal combustion engine vehicles. These are disastrous energy policies. > The existential threat narrative of global warming only solved by destroying global economies by switching to intermittent, expensive renewables over reliable fossil fuels is foolish according to Dr. Steve Koonin, a physicist who served as Undersecretary for Energy during President Barack Obama’s first term. All the while pushing a conspiracy narrative and climate change denial: > It’s particularly painful because climate doomsday scenarios are all historically wrong. Climate panic is simply unfounded hysteria. The weather and climate are dynamic and ever-changing. Seemingly, it’s a giant ploy to deprive people of their freedom and liberty. > Blackouts are the future for the United States, European Union, Great Britain, and Australia if they continue on this clean energy transition.
- iisan7 4y ago
  thank you. I as well was interested to read something new interesting on the energy future. This, however, was not it. The author is "working on a three-year grant for the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration focusing on a value chain study for the advanced nuclear technology sector"? Seems like a waste of money if this is the kind of output we're seeing.
mistersquid 4y ago
Nuclear reactors are desirable targets for hostile forces, like Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant which was targeted by Russia. [0] [0] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-ukraine-shells-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-tass-2022-11-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-ukraine-she...
- wyager 4y ago
  Any electrical infrastructure is a strategic target. If it's not a power plant, it's a substation.
  - haweemwho 4y ago
    If you have solar on every domestic rooftop, you can't bomb all of them. I mean, you can try, but then energy shortage is not on top of the list of problems that the population has.
    - wyager 4y ago
      If you have solar on every domestic rooftop, that also doesn't actually let you address realistic power consumption patterns. If we're talking about not-yet-extant technology that would allow solar to meet 24/7 demand at grid scale (like power storage that costs 1% as much as it does now), we might as well be talking about small-scale-fusion power, which is also resistant to being bombed and is generally better than solar+batteries for other reasons.
      - haweemwho 4y ago
        No? How many ovens, washing machines and dryers usually run at 2am when it's dark? Sure people don't charge their Tesla at noon when solar production peaks, but saving that until the evening when the 15 miles use of the car battery need to refill is not a significant engineering challenge. Running a nuclear power plant is magnitudes harder.
  - bottlepalm 4y ago
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
The author's previous article is slightly less guarded in his support for fossil fuels: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/joe-bidens-little-known-dangerous-plan-fossil-fuels-165506 https://nationalinterest.org/feature/joe-bidens-little-known... > The United States under a Biden administration, similar to the British, would move towards an unsustainable, and national security risk by eliminating fossil fuels, and killing people who need electricity and global security the West provides. And weirdly, for someone so excited about nuclear power, he has no idea where we could generate the electricity needed by EVs, so we should just stick to fossil fuels there too. Does anyone else begin to see a pattern emerge?
jltsiren 4y ago
Nuclear power can be an answer, but it's not flexible enough to be the answer. The demand for power is variable, and the difference between base demand and peak demand can be 2x or even 2.5x. While nuclear power can be viable for satisfying the base demand, it's viability for the variable part is another question. Then there are cheap renewables. If you don't constrain the market artificially, it tends to build solar and wind until nobody knows what to do with the excess electricity. That makes power cheap on the average but potentially very expensive when the demand is high and the generation is low. Nuclear power, with its high capital costs but low operating costs, does not seem to be the right answer to this variable demand / variable generation problem.
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  There are many, many industries that could benefit from electricity being “too cheap to meter” that could suck up the excess production. Maybe they train GPT-25 only when the demand is low enough the power producers basically give it away?
  - jltsiren 4y ago
    That is already happening. One particularly promising scheme is using electricity to make hydrogen and then using that hydrogen in steel production. But those industries also have other expenses. Even if you assume that energy is free, the investment may not be viable.
  - Brusco_RF 4y ago
    I heard the other day that many Saudi's leave their AC running when they leave SA for the summer months. Power is THAT cheap.
  - epistasis 4y ago
    That only makes sense if the idle capital of GPUs is cheaper than the energy powering them. There are very few applications like this, and even fewer that are easily distributed to that you don't have to use expensive transmission lines to power them. For example, most new hydrogen electrolysis facilities are planning to build direct-connected solar without even connecting to the grid, and using the energy directly, because letting electrolyzes sit idle for a week is not cost effective. And the grid cost would be expensive too. So building utility-scale solar without a grid connection makes the most financial sense.
andrewstuart 4y ago
Renewable energy is the answer, on a scale large enough to solve the energy requirements. The other part of the equation completely ignored by everyone is energy saving. There's really no systematic effort at all to reduce the amount of energy society consumes.
- andruby 4y ago
  Of course there is. Incandescent lights have been banned for years in most European countries to speed up the adoption of led-lighting. Street lights are being replaces by leds. Tax cuts and subsidies are given for energy efficient housing.
  - andrewstuart 4y ago
    I knew someone would say "but light globes!". Yes of course all appliances are now energy rated etc. In some countries inefficient lightglobes are banned. But I'm not talking about that - I'm talking about systematic change in behaviour of homes and business to try to use less energy, perhaps encouraged through tax or other incentives.
    - andruby 4y ago
      What you describe seems exactly that to me. When building a new home and it’s energy neutral or very efficient, you get a large tax benefit. All home builders I know off take this into account. Do you have an example or idea of what you are thinking about? Plenty of homes are now switching to heat pumps and they’ve added solar in the last decade so more and more homes have become “energy-neutral” to a degree. Add in electric vehicles and residential batteries and we should start seeing some families be self-sufficient It’s probably too little and maybe too late, but there are plenty of changes
robomartin 4y ago
I've had an evolution in thinking over the last few years. I did a deep dive on both atmospheric CO2 reduction and energy requirements for full electrification of transportation, homes and industry. At the time (5 to 10 years ago) it seemed like a very large deployment of nuclear power generation had to be a significant part of the solution. That isn't at all what I think in today's context. At grid scale, today, I think wind plus storage seems to be the most logical answer at many levels: Energy production per installed GW: Solar: 1.33 TWh/GW (solar is reliably off half the time) Wind: 3.07 TWh/GW Land use per GW: Solar: 3,900 acres/GW Wind: 750 acres/GW Land use to provide all Tesla Master Plan solar + wind: Solar: 12 Hawaii's Wind: 1 Hawaii (area of all islands) or, Solar: 30% of California Wind: 2.5% of California Annual Operations and Maintenance costs : Solar: 1.33 times wind O&M Wind: 1.00 Initial investment in factories: Solar: $ 11 billion Wind: $212 billion Storage required for 95% reliability: Solar: >12 hours Wind: 3 hours Wind requires 4x less batteries, with all the cost, recycling and ecological advantages this delivers. Build supply chain origin: Solar: Heavy reliance on China Wind: Diverse Long term supply chain (maintenance, parts, etc.) origin: Solar: Heavy reliance on China (forever) Wind: Diverse The above numbers come from parsing through Tesla's Master Plan Part 3 (MPP3) and several of their references. Of course, this is US-centric, yet, I think it scales well to other parts of the globe. It isn't a case that combining solar and wind can't provide a good solution. It's that idea that wind has enough advantages that it can provide reliable clean power generation all by itself (with storage). In other words, grid-scale solar would not be necessary at the kind of scale proposed by MPP3. I need to emphasize the above because there's a tendency to point out that the combination of wind and solar works very well. And, yes, it does. However, that misses the point entirely. The point is that geographically distributed grid-scale wind with storage does not need any solar to reach 95% reliability (power availability) [0] Table 2. In short, it seems wind would have lower land utilization, operation and maintenance costs, startup investment, 1/4 the storage requirement, ecological impact (based on only needing 1/4 of the batteries) and, finally, the potential for a more favorable supply chain, both for construction and long-term maintenance. Home-scale solar and storage has nothing to do with my comment (after all, we are talking about nuclear power). I am only referring to grid scale. Home-scale solar makes sense on many fronts. NOTE: This is the only document outside of MPP3 I used to generate some of the above: [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z
leashless 4y ago
Nuclear proliferation is the big unsolved issue with nuclear. My preference is to have US DoD set up plants all around the world on its airbases and sell subsidised electricity to the national grid of the host country. DoD needs something to do.
vesche 4y ago
It's clear that nuclear power is superior to gas, coal, wind, solar, etc. However... nuclear power plants are expensive build, they take a very long time to build, and many countries are in the process of retiring their infrastructure [0]. The vast majority of active nuclear power plants in the USA were built in the late 60s to late 70s and typically took 10 years from the initial construction before they became operational [1]. Which means that almost all of our nuclear power infrastructure in the United States is ~35 to 50 years old. Optimistically, we can only hope that most of these plants will operate until ~2040. Given how long it takes to build a nuclear power plant we really should have been building them all throughout the 80s, 90s, and 2000s- but we stopped building them in the late 70s. The only nuclear power plant that I'm aware that's been built since 1978 is Plant Vogtle which started in 2013 and is expected to be finished sometime this year. Still, there is some hope for nuclear energy into the future with the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) [2] and the recent advancements in fusion power [3]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States#Nuclear_power_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St... [2] https://www.cfppllc.com/ https://www.cfppllc.com/ [3] https://twitter.com/ENERGY/status/1602679966163906561 https://twitter.com/ENERGY/status/1602679966163906561
- bottlepalm 4y ago
  A power generation system that can't lose power itself without resulting in a major disaster is far from 'superior'. What I mean is the spent nuclear fuel must be kept cool at all costs, backups are finite. There's already been a few accidents and many close calls, none as bad as they could of been. Scale up nuclear to find how to bad it can get. The NRC said so itself - https://www.science.org/content/article/spent-fuel-fire-us-soil-could-dwarf-impact-fukushima https://www.science.org/content/article/spent-fuel-fire-us-s...
  - vesche 4y ago
    I think fear-mongering about nuclear power risks is really unfortunate. The rewards far outweigh the risks. Sure, we could live in a world where we could tell everyone to stop using so much damn energy- but that's not our reality. There's some really good data and charts here (especially the "What is the safest and cleanest source of energy?" diagram at the top) - https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth In the USA we've poured an incredible amount of money into wind energy and it simply hasn't been very effective relative to the cost.
Julesman 4y ago
This is objectively false and I always have a hard time believing that this is an organic opinion free of industry influence. Nuclear power is the power industry's answer to "clean" energy because it preserves the centralized delivery system in place. It does not disrupt the current distribution model. No matter what you think of the safety of nuclear power, what I said is a fact and the industry spends billions on PR, lobbying, and even online trolls, trying to get people to agree. Nuclear power is objectively not safe, with the one caveat that we are talking about long term. In the long term even one accident is absolutely devastating to entire regions of the planet. This risk is simply NOT acceptible. In other words, even if wind and solar are more expensive or less profitable, they are simply better alternatives from the standpoint of humanity's continued existence on the planet. There is no effective argument about this. I always get hit with the safety argument when I say this, but it's just all fully false. There is no safety argument because even an outlying and unlikely scenario is too devastating. And these scenarios, given enough time, simply will occur.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  > Nuclear power is the power industry's answer to "clean" energy because it preserves the centralized delivery system in place. It does not disrupt the current distribution model. Which is a good thing. Energy demand is centralized in big population centers, so centralized production is easier to deploy. One of the big issues with renewables is that due to the low energy density and geographic variations in power output, they often need to be built far away from where energy is in demand. This puts more strain on transmission networks: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/11/30/17868620/renewable-energy-power-grid-architecture https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/11/30/178686... > Nuclear power is objectively not safe, with the one caveat that we are talking about long term. In the long term even one accident is absolutely devastating to entire regions of the planet. This risk is simply NOT acceptible. Incorrect. People seem to forget that we detonated hundreds of nuclear warheads in the atmosphere. Chernobyl was exposed to the atmosphere and burned for weeks. Chernobyl really was the worst-case scenario: an explosive meltdown in a reactor with no secondary storage. It really doesn't get any worse than that. We already have good data on the adverse impact of nuclear incidents, and while bad they're not nearly as devastating as you make them out to be.
jbverschoor 4y ago
Biggest problem is that people don't understand. It's black magic, with "radiation". While in reality, it's basically just a big steam turbine generator. Unknown things are scary. Turn on the light.
- epistasis 4y ago
  I think this is the least of the problems that nuclear has. The problem isn't convincing J Random Person off the street, the problem is convincing somebody who has control of billions of dollars that there's any chance the investment will make financial sense. Until there's a halfway compelling financial argument, until there's a way to reliably build a reactor on a realistic timeline, nuclear is a pipe dream. Once there is a way that nuclear can be built and makes financial sense, there are tons of locations that would welcome a new large source of employment nearby. For example, nearly all of the current nuclear reactors that are aging out across the US are in cities that don't want to lose the jobs and don't mind having nuclear nearby.
teekert 4y ago
This feels like a balanced piece: https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/04/is-nuclear-power-green.html?m=1 https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/04/is-nuclear-power-g... Spoiler: It depends.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Except in the real world where wind + solar account for the vast majority of GW added. Nuclear just doesn't matter. It's 2023, there's an energy crisis on. Where are the new nuclear plants in Europe? Where are the GW of power saving us from rolling blackouts in Europe? Nuclear is a no show. It didn't happen. Not even a little bit. It didn't matter. Too little (well barely anything at all), too late. There's this pesky thing called cost that nuclear proponents just refuse to address. They are all scientific about how nuclear works. How great it is. Etc. But when it comes to cost, they suddenly check out, go hand wavy, and generally refuse to talk numbers. You could do this, you could do that. But nobody really likes being put on the spot about what exactly to do for how much. Not a single dollar sign in this article nor the string "dollar". Or other common currency such as "Euro". There's nothing else to be said about this article. It just completely ignores cost. It's all hand wavy and devoid of facts about cost. Very typical. Must be deeply embarrassing to read such drivel for an actual nuclear physicist with a clue. Guilty by association and it's not a good look. If these are your biggest fans, you are royally screwed. The whole argument for nuclear evaporates as soon as you bring up cost. Then it's suddenly about such pesky things as $/mwh and delays, budget overruns, etc. And the fact that there are things you can buy and install that have very well known $/mwh cost that work as advertised.
- throw_pm23 4y ago
  Cost is not independent of the perception around nuclear though, and its influence on regulatory burdens, insurance, legislation, nimbyism, etc. So it kind of makes sense to focus on other factors. Changing the perception could bring down the cost as well.
- k8wk1 4y ago
  Wind and solar are only possible because they use the rest of the grid as effectively a giant battery. When the sun shines and/or the wind blows, someone else needs to reduce the electricity generation. The end result will be that during good weather the price of electricity is zero, and during any other time the price of electricity is high to pay for unused capacity and additional wear and tear on the equipment due to additional power cycling. We are already seeing this in Germany[1], where electricity prices are also becoming zero[2] during parts of the day. The problem with renewables will become apparent only once the reserves of easily dispatchable electricity generation is used up across Europe to balance renewable generation. [1] - https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/en/Market-data1/Dayahead/Area-Prices/de-lu/hourly/?view=table https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/en/Market-data1/Dayahead/Area-...
Always42 4y ago
The comment quality in this thread is comparable to the average reddit thread. My lack of faith in humanity is restored.
- throw-4e451c8 4y ago
  I really thought HN was smarter than that french anti-nuclear college kid trying so very hard to appear super vague/undecided... but still clearly anti. Guess not.
  - cyanydeez 4y ago
    Or the pro nuclear egos who knows nothing about the poor state of almost every nuclear waste disposal plan
    - admax88qqq 4y ago
      What is the problem with current disposal plans? My understanding is that there's rough consensus around just encasing and burying it as being safe enough.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  If having any faith in humanity was justified we wouldn't be in this climate mess in the first place.
emsign 4y ago
The National Interest had a Russian spy write for it. Go figure.
hindsightbias 4y ago
Whether astroturfers or free thinkers, I think the baseline requirement for any pro discussion should be prefaced with a redlined doc of the NRC reactor construction code citing all the oppressive regulations whose deletion will lead to our nuclear utopia. Stop factifantisizing and show us all the ways to move fast and break all things nuclear.
grb423 4y ago
[dead]
anandvc 4y ago
What about geothermal?

396 points by mdp2021 4y ago

rullelito 4y ago

To every windpower fanatic in the comments. What is the plan for days when there is little wind? I guess coal?

lispm 4y ago
Import electricity, for example. We have here a 1.4 GW line to Norway for hydro power. Generally Germany is surrounded by many countries which share electricity. There are many wind farms in and around the North Sea. Yes, Germany is a large net exporter of electricity.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
retrac 4y ago
Wind goes well with gas turbine generators, since they can match their output to demand and the supply of wind. Every watt-hour of wind energy you capture, is a watt-hour of gas you don't burn. Worst case scenario is no wind and you're burning gas -- which is already a main electric source. Taken too far you would get into this weird situation of over-spending for capacity, and having surplus wind energy when it's windy, while still burning gas when it's not. But as a moderate contribution to a grid, 10 - 30% of supply perhaps, especially where gas is a primary source already, it makes a lot of sense, in some places. I hope no one expects to actually run everything on 100% wind power.
- WheatMillington 4y ago
  Hanging your hat on fossil fuel base load generation seems unwise.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Yeah, though it's not crazy for a short term while building up storage, which we need anyway for transport (be that batteries or whichever cute name is now used for hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water). Or Sabatier process methane, depending on if Mars is the real point of Starship or merely an excuse for Starship.
ben_w 4y ago
1. There's a lot of ways to store energy 2. There's a few ways to transport power 3. Wind isn't the only renewable, though it can be really cheap At this point, I'm having to remind myself of the xkcd lucky 10,000, because it feels disingenuous to even need to ask. And I'm saying that as someone who really hopes the new fusion companies succeed, and that nuclear should have been used to move the world away from coal (and ship fuel) in the 60s onwards, and lament the risks and accidents were handled so poorly by the politicians. But now? Meh.
epistasis 4y ago
Battery storage, solar, stored hydrogen, demand response, long distance HVDC, advanced geothermal. The answer is tech from the 2000s, not 1900s tech. Power industry folks are used to a field where tech hasn't changed for decades. It's time to get over that and use the new things that have been developed that will reduce the cost of energy, increase energy abundance, and advance society. We need to let go of the obsolete.

illiarian 4y ago

Relevant: "Germany's 66.5 GW of installed wind is only producing as much as the 3 reactors that turned off last night used to produce." https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396 https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396

Krasnol 4y ago
Wind alone produces ~20% of the recent years electricity in Germany. Nuclear produced only half of that in recent years. The whole renewable energy production covers ~40% of all the energy produced. Despite 16 years of almost full stop of expansion. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energie/Erzeugung/Tabellen/bruttostromerzeugung.html https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energ...
- stuff4ben 4y ago
  Soon you're going to run out of land for your renewables. Plus renewables are extremely intermittent power sources. Nuclear solves both the land-use and consistency problems. Plus, from the article: "...to build enough wind turbines and solar panels to supply at least half the electricity needed for global consumption 'would require two billions tons of coal to produce the concrete and steel, along with two billion barrels of oil to make the composite blades. [And] more than 90% of the world’s solar panels are built in Asia on coal-heavy electrical grids.'" https://www.manhattan-institute.org/if-you-want-renewable-energy-get-ready-to-dig https://www.manhattan-institute.org/if-you-want-renewable-en...
  - schleck8 4y ago
    > Soon you're going to run out of land for your renewables. I'm from Northern Germany where all the wind turbines are and you are wrong
  - Krasnol 4y ago
    No we won't. There are plenty of studies on the topic. Those areas are there and already identified. Wind alone would just double to manage the Energiewende by 2050: https://www.naturschutz-energiewende.de/aktuelles/flaechenverfuegbarkeit-fuer-die-energiewende/ https://www.naturschutz-energiewende.de/aktuelles/flaechenve... I don't get your other argument. If you push for renewables instead of wasting money on over due and over budget nuclear reactors, you can create an industry at home. Create massive amounts of jobs and improve on the technology. It's already happening and those improvements are way faster than everything we've seen with nuclear in the recent decades.

option 4y ago

and is a way to significantly reduce dependence on fundamentally authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, etc. One of the reasons France is like 75% nuclear generation was response to arab oil crisis in 70ies

mdp2021 4y ago
It seems Uranium has varied sources: Kazakhstan (dominantly), then Namibia, Canada, Australia, Uzbekistan, Russia, Niger, China, India. The USA also have it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Uranium_Mining_Production_2021.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Uranium_Mining_Prod... I am not sure what other "consumables" are involved.
lispm 4y ago
Europe has a large dependence on Russia for nuclear technology. There are also Russian reactors in Europe. The countries who currently lead the deployment of nuclear technology are China and Russia, two authoritarian countries. https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-just-cant-quit-russia-for-nuclear-power/ https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-just-cant-quit-russia...
- mdp2021 4y ago
  > Europe has a large dependence on Russia for nuclear technology. There are also Russian reactors in Europe That seems to be a legacy, not a necessary constraint.
  - lispm 4y ago
    That authoritarian countries are the main deployers and providers of nuclear is no surprise. The central government decides and there is no opposition. In most democratic countries nuclear is not competitive in the market anymore. For a country like Russia it's much easier to sell nuclear cheap into the market: they want to make European countries dependent on their energy delivery. Western countries have much higher technology standards and with market prices they are not competitive.

Krasnol 4y ago

The authors profile is even more hilarious than the article: https://nationalinterest.org/profile/todd-royal https://nationalinterest.org/profile/todd-royal

speakfreely 4y ago
It looks like he keeps writing the same article over and over again.
- speed_spread 4y ago
  It looks like he has someone's agenda and is getting paid to push it.
stuff4ben 4y ago
Nuclear power is the way. If you have something to refute from the article, please do so. Otherwise I'll just lump you in with the rest of the green-party fanatics who think solar and wind will solve our energy needs.
- Krasnol 4y ago
  It is the way of wasting money while facing the reality of cheap and truly clean alternatives. It's the way backwards. https://www.forbes.com/sites/amorylovins/2019/11/18/does-nuclear-power-slow-or-speed-climate-change/?sh=3303919e506b https://www.forbes.com/sites/amorylovins/2019/11/18/does-nuc... And I'm sorry I hurt your feelings by pointing the obvious bias of the author. This was not intended.
  - stuff4ben 4y ago
    LOL, no hurt feelings here. I support nuclear power along with renewables which have their niche places to contribute. But to completely ignore nuclear in favor of just wind and solar is idiotic and misguided.
runarberg 4y ago

Fauntleroy 4y ago

It would be, it not for the realities of dealing with human politicking.

tanyajenkins1 4y ago
[flagged]

bitwize 4y ago

Renewables are cheap and far less risk-prone. Not going all in on renewables is a footgun for industrial societies.

stuff4ben 4y ago
renewables are not cheap when you factor in decommissioning which nuclear power does. FTFA: "The International Renewable Energy Agency calculates that old solar panel disposal to meet 2050 Paris Accords 'will more than double the tonnage of all of today’s global plastic waste.'"
- Krasnol 4y ago
  Nuclear only factors in decommissioning in the way that it gives the responsibility away to future generations...
  - stuff4ben 4y ago
    what does that even mean? Nuclear factors in decommissioning to the cost of running it. Wind and solar have even more limited lifespans than nuclear plus there's the millions of tonnes of waste generated when you decommission them.
  - illiarian 4y ago
    Nuclear waste decommissioned from nuclear plants is very compact, almost completely safe at our current levels of handling it, and a lot of bruhaha around it is strictly political.
    - Krasnol 4y ago
      I don't know "compact" makes anything better about it. Germany has been searching for a hole safe and deep enough for it for years. It costs taxpayer money and they still haven't found one. Meanwhile, the stuff is stored near the plants. Which is not safe. Also stuff which has been considered "safely stored" years ago needs to be dug out again. Which again costs taxpayer money.

eric-burel 4y ago

As a French not expert in the matter but living near nuclear plants: - one of the plant regularly leaks radioactive material - rivers are getting too hot to cool down nuclear plants correctly - nuclear plants are very unreliable, we almost got out of power this winter and next winter will be equally tough (only an abnormally hot winter avoid cuts...) - the government wants to simplify control organism and laws around building new plants (References are easy to find if you want confirmation) I am not against nuclear power, but it has to be done properly and safely, which is certainly not the case around here. Edit: it seems the fusion (no pun) of regulation organisms has been rejected by the senate. Still annoying to see this law discreetly pass, with no parliament debate outside of the senate, during a political crisis

kvgr 4y ago
How can it leaks? Do you have any source? Well you had some of them turned off for maintanance, that happens.
- eric-burel 4y ago
  Look for the Tricastin plant I don't know enough to answer precisely but it has leaked recently and a few years ago. Of course it doesn't leak uranium, but other byproducts, which not a sign of a well managed plant. Some were stopped not just maintenance but the discovery of micro-breaches caused by maintenance decades ago. That's actually a sign of proper management, but a counter-argument to reliability.
  - illiarian 4y ago
    - "one of the plant regularly leaks radioactive material" - "Look for the Tricastin plant I don't know enough to answer precisely but it has leaked recently and a few years ago. Of course it doesn't leak uranium" So, your original statement was an untruth. Or "alternative facts" > of micro-breaches caused by maintenance decades ago. That's actually a sign of proper management, but a counter-argument to reliability. So you mean microbreaches were made decades ago, the plant has operated for decades with no issues, and you call that unreliable?

option 4y ago

please lets avoid binary discussions 100% nuclear vs 100% renewables. I think all reasonable people agree that it should be a mix with multi-faceted goals of zero emissions, reliability, low cost, stability, etc.

tanyajenkins1 4y ago

[flagged]

RandomLensman 4y ago

Fusion - yes, fission - no. Edit: the cost evolution of fission already points against it, any nuclear bet should therefore be on fusion, not fission.

yellowapple 4y ago
Fusion is perpetually 50 years away. We don't have that long to wait when we're already crossing points of no return.
- willis936 4y ago
  Does the world end in 50 years?
  - CatWChainsaw 4y ago
    No, it ends in 30.
barney54 4y ago
We should bet on the technology that always 20 years in the future?

cinntaile 4y ago

> Solar power requires even more metals, cement, steel, and glass. Why do they always use the same outdated data sources? Cement? Yes 35 years ago they thought you needed to put a slab of cement under your panels to support them, but we moved on from that. Please update to newer, more relevant data sources.

cschwarm 4y ago

Question(s) to the nuclear supporters here: 1. Are you talking about global electricity? Or just the West? 2. How much nuclear power do you want? 20%, 50%, 70%, or 100%? Or something else? 3. What nuclear technology? Traditional, Molten Salt, SMRs, or something else? 4. What institutional setting do you image for your nuclear power plants? Private ownership, or nationalized plants like in France? Just curious...

brucethemoose2 4y ago
1. Yes! 2. Just some more than we have now. 3. Yes! 4. Yes! Seriously though, I just want some reactor construction to spin up with non ancient reactor designs, to replace some fossil fuel plants. PBR[1] sounds good to me... but what do I know? There are experts who can decide this. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble-bed_reactor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble-bed_reactor
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  In the US we're replacing nuclear plants with renewables at a 6:1 ratio. The only people who think we need more nuclear power plants is the nuclear power industry and the politicians they're heavily lobbying to stay relevant.
  - Matticus_Rex 4y ago
    > The only people who think we need more nuclear power plants is the nuclear power industry and the politicians they're heavily lobbying to stay relevant. And also quite a few energy experts and the people who listen to them. The US nuclear industry's major players are bloated cronies satisfied with ALARA and other idiotic policies that keep them alive by preventing competition. If ALARA weren't in place, nuclear would be thriving and competitive (and still safe!).
  - andbberger 4y ago
    CAISO penned a series of increasingly urgent press releases on how catastrophic closing diablo canyon would be for grid stability when it's closure was imminent.

Lacerda69 4y ago

Cue the atomic fanatics vs the renewable cult discussion. Has been discussed a thousand times on HN recently and it always seems both are just shouting how the other side can not see the obvious superiority of their fav energy source. why cant we have a bit of both? renewable seems very good long term and nuclear is also nice for transition. but I wouldnt want to live next to one of those crappy leaky french reactors.

pydry 4y ago
Isnt this "argument to moderation"?
Kuinox 4y ago
> but I wouldnt want to live next to one of those crappy leaky french reactors. Well both side complain about truth and disinformation, and this affirmation is far from reality.
tstrimple 4y ago
Because our for-profit energy sector has decided not to invest in nuclear, even with government subsidies. This is basic business. Are you as the CEO of an energy company going to invest tens of billions of dollars into a plant that won't be operational for decades or are you just going to stand up more wind farms where you can start realizing a profit the next year? If you want nuclear, you simply cannot have an energy grid dependent on companies who's goal is profit. This is why all of the talk about how great nuclear is simply doesn't matter. The market doesn't support it and we're ruled by the markets.
dale_glass 4y ago
> why cant we have a bit of both? Because they're economically incompatible. Nuclear is very expensive to build, and wants to run 24/7 to offset costs. They also want to run continuously. The problem is that renewables are cheap, but intermittent. So take an economically rational marketplace. I can either buy the same amount of power for $1, or for $2, what do you think I'd choose? $1 of course. Power is power, I don't want to pay more than I must. So any time I can buy renewables for $1, nuclear makes no revenue. This pushes off its payoff into the future. This isn't a good situation to be in. Time goes by, components get older, people get impatient, more renewables keep getting built. Now you're a bank considering a loan for nuclear you think might be paid off in 20 years. Or if renewables keep growing, maybe in 40. Or if they really take off, maybe never. Risking billions that way doesn't sound enticing, now does it? If nuclear made money we wouldn't be seeing these blog posts show up over and over. Money solves many problems and greases many palms. If nuclear was profitable, every other problem would be solvable. Not enough safety? Money can buy that. Too close to people? Money can put a plant further away. Legal problems? Money pays for lawyers. The logical end state of all this seems to be that renewables kill off the profitability of nuclear badly enough that nobody builds it (relatively speaking). Eventually the grid destabilizes and this forces urgent measures to shore things up. The final state I imagine is a very renewable-heavy grid, after a period of chaos in the middle.

jhp123 4y ago

the article mentions that 2 billion tons of coal would be needed to manufacture solar panels to meet half of today's global energy needs with renewables. That is about 3 months of global coal consumption at current rates. If we decide to go all in on nuclear instead, we can turn off the coal plants in a mere 15 years or so.

bottlepalm 4y ago
Think of all the new disasters we'll get to experience with thousands of new nuclear power plants.
- llsf 4y ago
  France has been using nuclear power plants for more than 50 years, producing up to 75% of all electricity and exporting to other countries, and did not suffer any disaster. There has been natural nuclear power plants that has been running for few hundred thousand years (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklo_Mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklo_Mine)... so nature did it before us, and nature did not really care and left all the waste on the site. We have found more efficient ways to produce, reuse the waste and properly dispose it.

themagician 4y ago

My 2¢: We live in a world where all work goes to the lowest bidder and people will always cut corners if they believe the liability won't fall on them. The entire world could be safely powered off nuclear energy if it wasn't for pesky humans that will always lie, cheat, and steal from each other. Given that human greed is unavoidable and a nuclear accident can pollute an area for 10,000 years it's probably best to recognize our own flaws as we consider what to do with it. I mean, here in the US we have a hard time operating trains without catastrophic failure.

rullelito 4y ago
An alternative to emotional arguments is to look at the statistics.
- themagician 4y ago
  When you actually look at the statistics around large infrastructure projects the results are not comforting. Corners are always cut. Maintenance delayed. Just the "cost of doing business". Trust in both governments and large corporations is not exactly at an all time high. People know that companies will throw radioactive waste and scrap materials into the rivers if they can get away with it. Conversely, the emotional argument is the only one that brings nuclear power back. You must convince people that these projects can be done safely. You must convince people that, "This time will be different." Look at what just happened in Germany. Or don't.
  - Matticus_Rex 4y ago
    Or, you can simply educate people -- this time doesn't need to be very different (though it certainly can be), because already-existing nuclear is very safe. Liability prevents companies dumping radioactive material, and radioactive material is very cheap to store! There's no benefit from dumping it. Yes, mildly irradiated water sometimes gets into rivers, and if you look at the amounts and risks it turns out to be quite reasonable relative even to solar and wind. What happened in Germany was not rational, and it was not by any means good for the environment, or a net positive for German health and well-being.

fuzzy2 4y ago

I mean, certainly. Well, maybe not the answer, but whatever. However, are we actually capable of building new reactors and managing their operation in the private sector? I’m not talking about possibly maybe here. Are we actually ready, today, to build a new reactor within reasonable time at reasonable cost? I don’t know, but my gut feeling says no. We cannot even build roads like that. Furthermore, is operating these reactors economical? Current reactors are not. They externalize lots of cost factors.

illiarian 4y ago
Current renewables also externalise a lot of factors. Any production at scale externalises a lot of factors. Unfortunately, the discussion is so emotionally and politically charged, that I'm afraid no one is actually properly calculating all the costs, and risks etc.
Tade0 4y ago
China can. Russia as well. It appears that the secret ingredient is totalitarianism.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  Chernobyl happened largely because plant admins wanted to please (or were afraid of) their higher-ups. Russia has had numerous secretive incidents in their southern military nuclear production sites, and more recently? Mysterious things like "high winds"... https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/russia-suspected-nuclear-explosion-radiation-chernobyl.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/russia-suspected... In China? Taishan has been plagued with problems.
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  No, China can not build nuclear economically. That's why they're drastically reducing their nuclear goal while they continue to scale up coal and solar.
  - dirtyid 4y ago

orbit7 4y ago

This would be a game changer for global energy and transport if it got in front of the right people https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2020021219 https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO20...

krunck 4y ago

The article doesn't even mention words fusion or fission. Like all nuclear power is the same. Be assured the author is a shill for the trad fission industry. We don't need that.

WheatMillington 4y ago
The author is a shill for not discussing a technology which is still speculative and has no realistic commercial roadmap?
NineStarPoint 4y ago
Fission plants are the only plants we have that are actually useable at this point in time, so of course there’s no reason to clarify. While we should definitely be putting more money into fusion research, if you’re worried about an environmental catastrophe you don’t have time to hope fusion actually works sometime in the next 50 years. You have to make plans based on what technology you know functions, not a moonshot.

haweemwho 4y ago

> Only nuclear power is carbon-free [...] You can stop reading right there as this immediately identifies this piece as disingenuous at best, more likely though propaganda. The whole process is definitely not "carbon-free". Uranium extraction, transport and processing produce emissions. Building the plants and maintaining them does. Eventually demolishing does. Transporting the used fuel as well as building and maintaining storage facilities does. All those factors are usually brought up in detail for things like solar and wind plants. It's just disingenuous not to count them for nuclear power.

nazgulnarsil 4y ago
Uranium extraction can be electrified. You're the one spreading an obviously mistaken view.
runarberg 4y ago
Google the author, who he works for, and some of the stuff he has written in the past, I think describing this a propaganda is actually giving this an easy way out.
- colordrops 4y ago
  Right, conflict of interest is more like it.
SoftTalker 4y ago
All of that can be true and yet still trivial in comparison to the emissions that would be eliminated by replacing all fossil-fuel electrical generation with nuclear. Nuclear works at night and in locations that aren't good for solar or wind generation. Nuclear with a relatively small number of generating sites feeding a large distributiion network fits in with our existing electricial infrastrucure better than the widely dispersed generation that solar and wind provide. We need leadership that will just clear the way for liquid metal, fast neutron reactors that don't need refined fuel and produce less waste. If you believe that carbon emissions are an existential threat to human survival, it's time to stop fretting about nuclear proliferation and waste disposal. The challenges of those issues are tiny compared to global climate change.

runarberg 4y ago

It is generally not cool to call something astroturfing here on HN. But googling the author of this article Todd Royal you can see he is a consultant for a lobby group called E4 Carolinas which is heavily funded by big energy companies who have big investments in the fossil fuel industry. In the past he has written articles with titles such as “Why Climate Panic Is Unfounded Hysteria” where he accuses advocates for renewables of astroturfing, while advocating for the continued use of fossil fuels: > What the entire climate change, global warming, renewables over fossil fuels and electrify society movement is really about is one thing—money—clean energy is now worth trillions of taxpayer dollars. Government-sponsored science and economic growth at its worst picking clean energy over fossil fuels and internal combustion engine vehicles. These are disastrous energy policies. > The existential threat narrative of global warming only solved by destroying global economies by switching to intermittent, expensive renewables over reliable fossil fuels is foolish according to Dr. Steve Koonin, a physicist who served as Undersecretary for Energy during President Barack Obama’s first term. All the while pushing a conspiracy narrative and climate change denial: > It’s particularly painful because climate doomsday scenarios are all historically wrong. Climate panic is simply unfounded hysteria. The weather and climate are dynamic and ever-changing. Seemingly, it’s a giant ploy to deprive people of their freedom and liberty. > Blackouts are the future for the United States, European Union, Great Britain, and Australia if they continue on this clean energy transition.

iisan7 4y ago
thank you. I as well was interested to read something new interesting on the energy future. This, however, was not it. The author is "working on a three-year grant for the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration focusing on a value chain study for the advanced nuclear technology sector"? Seems like a waste of money if this is the kind of output we're seeing.

mistersquid 4y ago

Nuclear reactors are desirable targets for hostile forces, like Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant which was targeted by Russia. [0] [0] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-ukraine-shells-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-tass-2022-11-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-ukraine-she...

wyager 4y ago
Any electrical infrastructure is a strategic target. If it's not a power plant, it's a substation.
- haweemwho 4y ago
  If you have solar on every domestic rooftop, you can't bomb all of them. I mean, you can try, but then energy shortage is not on top of the list of problems that the population has.
  - wyager 4y ago
    If you have solar on every domestic rooftop, that also doesn't actually let you address realistic power consumption patterns. If we're talking about not-yet-extant technology that would allow solar to meet 24/7 demand at grid scale (like power storage that costs 1% as much as it does now), we might as well be talking about small-scale-fusion power, which is also resistant to being bombed and is generally better than solar+batteries for other reasons.
    - haweemwho 4y ago
      No? How many ovens, washing machines and dryers usually run at 2am when it's dark? Sure people don't charge their Tesla at noon when solar production peaks, but saving that until the evening when the 15 miles use of the car battery need to refill is not a significant engineering challenge. Running a nuclear power plant is magnitudes harder.
- bottlepalm 4y ago

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

The author's previous article is slightly less guarded in his support for fossil fuels: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/joe-bidens-little-known-dangerous-plan-fossil-fuels-165506 https://nationalinterest.org/feature/joe-bidens-little-known... > The United States under a Biden administration, similar to the British, would move towards an unsustainable, and national security risk by eliminating fossil fuels, and killing people who need electricity and global security the West provides. And weirdly, for someone so excited about nuclear power, he has no idea where we could generate the electricity needed by EVs, so we should just stick to fossil fuels there too. Does anyone else begin to see a pattern emerge?

jltsiren 4y ago

Nuclear power can be an answer, but it's not flexible enough to be the answer. The demand for power is variable, and the difference between base demand and peak demand can be 2x or even 2.5x. While nuclear power can be viable for satisfying the base demand, it's viability for the variable part is another question. Then there are cheap renewables. If you don't constrain the market artificially, it tends to build solar and wind until nobody knows what to do with the excess electricity. That makes power cheap on the average but potentially very expensive when the demand is high and the generation is low. Nuclear power, with its high capital costs but low operating costs, does not seem to be the right answer to this variable demand / variable generation problem.

UncleEntity 4y ago
There are many, many industries that could benefit from electricity being “too cheap to meter” that could suck up the excess production. Maybe they train GPT-25 only when the demand is low enough the power producers basically give it away?
- jltsiren 4y ago
  That is already happening. One particularly promising scheme is using electricity to make hydrogen and then using that hydrogen in steel production. But those industries also have other expenses. Even if you assume that energy is free, the investment may not be viable.
- Brusco_RF 4y ago
  I heard the other day that many Saudi's leave their AC running when they leave SA for the summer months. Power is THAT cheap.
- epistasis 4y ago
  That only makes sense if the idle capital of GPUs is cheaper than the energy powering them. There are very few applications like this, and even fewer that are easily distributed to that you don't have to use expensive transmission lines to power them. For example, most new hydrogen electrolysis facilities are planning to build direct-connected solar without even connecting to the grid, and using the energy directly, because letting electrolyzes sit idle for a week is not cost effective. And the grid cost would be expensive too. So building utility-scale solar without a grid connection makes the most financial sense.

andrewstuart 4y ago

Renewable energy is the answer, on a scale large enough to solve the energy requirements. The other part of the equation completely ignored by everyone is energy saving. There's really no systematic effort at all to reduce the amount of energy society consumes.

andruby 4y ago
Of course there is. Incandescent lights have been banned for years in most European countries to speed up the adoption of led-lighting. Street lights are being replaces by leds. Tax cuts and subsidies are given for energy efficient housing.
- andrewstuart 4y ago
  I knew someone would say "but light globes!". Yes of course all appliances are now energy rated etc. In some countries inefficient lightglobes are banned. But I'm not talking about that - I'm talking about systematic change in behaviour of homes and business to try to use less energy, perhaps encouraged through tax or other incentives.
  - andruby 4y ago
    What you describe seems exactly that to me. When building a new home and it’s energy neutral or very efficient, you get a large tax benefit. All home builders I know off take this into account. Do you have an example or idea of what you are thinking about? Plenty of homes are now switching to heat pumps and they’ve added solar in the last decade so more and more homes have become “energy-neutral” to a degree. Add in electric vehicles and residential batteries and we should start seeing some families be self-sufficient It’s probably too little and maybe too late, but there are plenty of changes

robomartin 4y ago

I've had an evolution in thinking over the last few years. I did a deep dive on both atmospheric CO2 reduction and energy requirements for full electrification of transportation, homes and industry. At the time (5 to 10 years ago) it seemed like a very large deployment of nuclear power generation had to be a significant part of the solution. That isn't at all what I think in today's context. At grid scale, today, I think wind plus storage seems to be the most logical answer at many levels: Energy production per installed GW: Solar: 1.33 TWh/GW (solar is reliably off half the time) Wind: 3.07 TWh/GW Land use per GW: Solar: 3,900 acres/GW Wind: 750 acres/GW Land use to provide all Tesla Master Plan solar + wind: Solar: 12 Hawaii's Wind: 1 Hawaii (area of all islands) or, Solar: 30% of California Wind: 2.5% of California Annual Operations and Maintenance costs : Solar: 1.33 times wind O&M Wind: 1.00 Initial investment in factories: Solar: $ 11 billion Wind: $212 billion Storage required for 95% reliability: Solar: >12 hours Wind: 3 hours Wind requires 4x less batteries, with all the cost, recycling and ecological advantages this delivers. Build supply chain origin: Solar: Heavy reliance on China Wind: Diverse Long term supply chain (maintenance, parts, etc.) origin: Solar: Heavy reliance on China (forever) Wind: Diverse The above numbers come from parsing through Tesla's Master Plan Part 3 (MPP3) and several of their references. Of course, this is US-centric, yet, I think it scales well to other parts of the globe. It isn't a case that combining solar and wind can't provide a good solution. It's that idea that wind has enough advantages that it can provide reliable clean power generation all by itself (with storage). In other words, grid-scale solar would not be necessary at the kind of scale proposed by MPP3. I need to emphasize the above because there's a tendency to point out that the combination of wind and solar works very well. And, yes, it does. However, that misses the point entirely. The point is that geographically distributed grid-scale wind with storage does not need any solar to reach 95% reliability (power availability) [0] Table 2. In short, it seems wind would have lower land utilization, operation and maintenance costs, startup investment, 1/4 the storage requirement, ecological impact (based on only needing 1/4 of the batteries) and, finally, the potential for a more favorable supply chain, both for construction and long-term maintenance. Home-scale solar and storage has nothing to do with my comment (after all, we are talking about nuclear power). I am only referring to grid scale. Home-scale solar makes sense on many fronts. NOTE: This is the only document outside of MPP3 I used to generate some of the above: [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z

leashless 4y ago

Nuclear proliferation is the big unsolved issue with nuclear. My preference is to have US DoD set up plants all around the world on its airbases and sell subsidised electricity to the national grid of the host country. DoD needs something to do.

vesche 4y ago

It's clear that nuclear power is superior to gas, coal, wind, solar, etc. However... nuclear power plants are expensive build, they take a very long time to build, and many countries are in the process of retiring their infrastructure [0]. The vast majority of active nuclear power plants in the USA were built in the late 60s to late 70s and typically took 10 years from the initial construction before they became operational [1]. Which means that almost all of our nuclear power infrastructure in the United States is ~35 to 50 years old. Optimistically, we can only hope that most of these plants will operate until ~2040. Given how long it takes to build a nuclear power plant we really should have been building them all throughout the 80s, 90s, and 2000s- but we stopped building them in the late 70s. The only nuclear power plant that I'm aware that's been built since 1978 is Plant Vogtle which started in 2013 and is expected to be finished sometime this year. Still, there is some hope for nuclear energy into the future with the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) [2] and the recent advancements in fusion power [3]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States#Nuclear_power_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St... [2] https://www.cfppllc.com/ https://www.cfppllc.com/ [3] https://twitter.com/ENERGY/status/1602679966163906561 https://twitter.com/ENERGY/status/1602679966163906561

bottlepalm 4y ago
A power generation system that can't lose power itself without resulting in a major disaster is far from 'superior'. What I mean is the spent nuclear fuel must be kept cool at all costs, backups are finite. There's already been a few accidents and many close calls, none as bad as they could of been. Scale up nuclear to find how to bad it can get. The NRC said so itself - https://www.science.org/content/article/spent-fuel-fire-us-soil-could-dwarf-impact-fukushima https://www.science.org/content/article/spent-fuel-fire-us-s...
- vesche 4y ago
  I think fear-mongering about nuclear power risks is really unfortunate. The rewards far outweigh the risks. Sure, we could live in a world where we could tell everyone to stop using so much damn energy- but that's not our reality. There's some really good data and charts here (especially the "What is the safest and cleanest source of energy?" diagram at the top) - https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth In the USA we've poured an incredible amount of money into wind energy and it simply hasn't been very effective relative to the cost.

Julesman 4y ago

This is objectively false and I always have a hard time believing that this is an organic opinion free of industry influence. Nuclear power is the power industry's answer to "clean" energy because it preserves the centralized delivery system in place. It does not disrupt the current distribution model. No matter what you think of the safety of nuclear power, what I said is a fact and the industry spends billions on PR, lobbying, and even online trolls, trying to get people to agree. Nuclear power is objectively not safe, with the one caveat that we are talking about long term. In the long term even one accident is absolutely devastating to entire regions of the planet. This risk is simply NOT acceptible. In other words, even if wind and solar are more expensive or less profitable, they are simply better alternatives from the standpoint of humanity's continued existence on the planet. There is no effective argument about this. I always get hit with the safety argument when I say this, but it's just all fully false. There is no safety argument because even an outlying and unlikely scenario is too devastating. And these scenarios, given enough time, simply will occur.

Manuel_D 4y ago
> Nuclear power is the power industry's answer to "clean" energy because it preserves the centralized delivery system in place. It does not disrupt the current distribution model. Which is a good thing. Energy demand is centralized in big population centers, so centralized production is easier to deploy. One of the big issues with renewables is that due to the low energy density and geographic variations in power output, they often need to be built far away from where energy is in demand. This puts more strain on transmission networks: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/11/30/17868620/renewable-energy-power-grid-architecture https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/11/30/178686... > Nuclear power is objectively not safe, with the one caveat that we are talking about long term. In the long term even one accident is absolutely devastating to entire regions of the planet. This risk is simply NOT acceptible. Incorrect. People seem to forget that we detonated hundreds of nuclear warheads in the atmosphere. Chernobyl was exposed to the atmosphere and burned for weeks. Chernobyl really was the worst-case scenario: an explosive meltdown in a reactor with no secondary storage. It really doesn't get any worse than that. We already have good data on the adverse impact of nuclear incidents, and while bad they're not nearly as devastating as you make them out to be.

jbverschoor 4y ago

Biggest problem is that people don't understand. It's black magic, with "radiation". While in reality, it's basically just a big steam turbine generator. Unknown things are scary. Turn on the light.

epistasis 4y ago
I think this is the least of the problems that nuclear has. The problem isn't convincing J Random Person off the street, the problem is convincing somebody who has control of billions of dollars that there's any chance the investment will make financial sense. Until there's a halfway compelling financial argument, until there's a way to reliably build a reactor on a realistic timeline, nuclear is a pipe dream. Once there is a way that nuclear can be built and makes financial sense, there are tons of locations that would welcome a new large source of employment nearby. For example, nearly all of the current nuclear reactors that are aging out across the US are in cities that don't want to lose the jobs and don't mind having nuclear nearby.

teekert 4y ago

This feels like a balanced piece: https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/04/is-nuclear-power-green.html?m=1 https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/04/is-nuclear-power-g... Spoiler: It depends.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

Except in the real world where wind + solar account for the vast majority of GW added. Nuclear just doesn't matter. It's 2023, there's an energy crisis on. Where are the new nuclear plants in Europe? Where are the GW of power saving us from rolling blackouts in Europe? Nuclear is a no show. It didn't happen. Not even a little bit. It didn't matter. Too little (well barely anything at all), too late. There's this pesky thing called cost that nuclear proponents just refuse to address. They are all scientific about how nuclear works. How great it is. Etc. But when it comes to cost, they suddenly check out, go hand wavy, and generally refuse to talk numbers. You could do this, you could do that. But nobody really likes being put on the spot about what exactly to do for how much. Not a single dollar sign in this article nor the string "dollar". Or other common currency such as "Euro". There's nothing else to be said about this article. It just completely ignores cost. It's all hand wavy and devoid of facts about cost. Very typical. Must be deeply embarrassing to read such drivel for an actual nuclear physicist with a clue. Guilty by association and it's not a good look. If these are your biggest fans, you are royally screwed. The whole argument for nuclear evaporates as soon as you bring up cost. Then it's suddenly about such pesky things as $/mwh and delays, budget overruns, etc. And the fact that there are things you can buy and install that have very well known $/mwh cost that work as advertised.

throw_pm23 4y ago
Cost is not independent of the perception around nuclear though, and its influence on regulatory burdens, insurance, legislation, nimbyism, etc. So it kind of makes sense to focus on other factors. Changing the perception could bring down the cost as well.
k8wk1 4y ago
Wind and solar are only possible because they use the rest of the grid as effectively a giant battery. When the sun shines and/or the wind blows, someone else needs to reduce the electricity generation. The end result will be that during good weather the price of electricity is zero, and during any other time the price of electricity is high to pay for unused capacity and additional wear and tear on the equipment due to additional power cycling. We are already seeing this in Germany[1], where electricity prices are also becoming zero[2] during parts of the day. The problem with renewables will become apparent only once the reserves of easily dispatchable electricity generation is used up across Europe to balance renewable generation. [1] - https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/en/Market-data1/Dayahead/Area-Prices/de-lu/hourly/?view=table https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/en/Market-data1/Dayahead/Area-...

Always42 4y ago

The comment quality in this thread is comparable to the average reddit thread. My lack of faith in humanity is restored.

throw-4e451c8 4y ago
I really thought HN was smarter than that french anti-nuclear college kid trying so very hard to appear super vague/undecided... but still clearly anti. Guess not.
- cyanydeez 4y ago
  Or the pro nuclear egos who knows nothing about the poor state of almost every nuclear waste disposal plan
  - admax88qqq 4y ago
    What is the problem with current disposal plans? My understanding is that there's rough consensus around just encasing and burying it as being safe enough.
moffkalast 4y ago
If having any faith in humanity was justified we wouldn't be in this climate mess in the first place.

emsign 4y ago

The National Interest had a Russian spy write for it. Go figure.

hindsightbias 4y ago

Whether astroturfers or free thinkers, I think the baseline requirement for any pro discussion should be prefaced with a redlined doc of the NRC reactor construction code citing all the oppressive regulations whose deletion will lead to our nuclear utopia. Stop factifantisizing and show us all the ways to move fast and break all things nuclear.

grb423 4y ago

[dead]

anandvc 4y ago

What about geothermal?