4 ms·

The newer breed of reactors should win out... For example MSR's can operate at very high temperatures, can recycle nuclear waste, don't use fuel-rod's and can

by pookha 3y ago

The newer breed of reactors should win out... For example MSR's can operate at very high temperatures, can recycle nuclear waste, don't use fuel-rod's and can be made to be smaller and more economical than the older pressurized water reactors that you're referring too. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/spotlight-on-innovation-molten-salt-reactors-for-a-sustainable-clean-energy-transition https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/spotlight-on-innovation...

myrmidon 3y ago
That reads like a fluff piece to me, which seems unsurprising considering the source; my understanding is that all we have right now are research reactors, i.e. the things are not really suitable for commercial use even if they could already be built/deployed quickly and at scale (which they can't). And that makes the economics just wishful thinking-- to back them up, we would need first a finalized, commercial design, then to actually build it in some numbers, and verify cost effectiveness. And this is a point that renewables already reached a decade ago, while still getting cheaper... Nuclear power in general also suffers from the big problem that it becomes even less attractive the more cheap intermittent power is available, because all the costs are fixed; just turning these on when there is no wind/sun makes the already bad cost efficiency even worse...
- pookha 3y ago
  This wind-and-solar religious argument isn't necessary and I'm guessing it's based in European poltics. I'm OK with wind and solar but not at the scale where it's the only option... And that's because it doesn't work at scale... As Germany found out you can't meet peek demand with just wind and solar: https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-failure-on-the-road-to-a-renewable-future-a-1266586.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-failure-... They have "dark doldrums" and have to revert to natural gas and diesel power plants (which is why BP and American energy companies push wind and solar). On top of that you can't just cover the entire countryside in massive wind turbines or solar panels. You've got protected species and you've got NIMBY. Why push the endless political pissing matches when you could easily develop nuclear power too? Do both. Let nuclear power handle the doldrums.
  - myrmidon 3y ago
    The article you linked is full of opinionated pessimistic whining, but since its over 3 years old its easy to compare its negative outlook on renewable focused policy with actual results: According to https://energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm https://energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm, current german electricity mix is ~50% renewable since beginning of the year. Used to be 35% in 2018. So the "unreachable" target of 80% in 2050 seems completely trivial; just keep doing things at a similar rate and that target is in reach within a single decade (!!). Intermittency of renewable sources is a problem that has multiple perfectly viable solutions, namely overprovisioning, storage, grid connectivity and peaker plants. Finding the most cost effective mix of those (and adjusting it over time as technology evolves) is a problem that the free market is perfectly equipped to solve. Area consumption is not a big issue, neither for solar nor for wind, because roofs and agriculture (and the off-shore option in the case of wind). Nuclear power is a bad mix with renewables because it's already too expensive and building it for peak loads makes that drastically worse since it's all fixed cost basically. Gas powered plants are super attractive with renewables because of the very same dynamics (cheap installation costs and variable costs that largely depend on actual utilization). In the extremely unlikely case that battery technology fails completely it would always be possible to use hydrogen as energy storage in combination with refitted gas peaker plants. But that scenario appears unlikely to me. Also note that renewables have already overtaken nuclear power in the US, too; given recent experiences with the nuclear industry it seems EXTREMELY unlikely to me that this trend would ever reverse.
    - _hypx 3y ago
      > In the extremely unlikely case that battery technology fails completely it would always be possible to use hydrogen as energy storage in combination with refitted gas peaker plants. But that scenario appears unlikely to me. That is not "extremely unlikely" it is 100%ly inevitable. Luckily hydrogen as energy storage is already happening now.
      - myrmidon 3y ago
        How is battery tech failure inevitable? Batteries that buffer about a week of household electricity (100kwh) are already affordable enough to be installed in cars, and the whole sector is still improving rapidly.

by pookha 3y ago

myrmidon 3y ago

That reads like a fluff piece to me, which seems unsurprising considering the source; my understanding is that all we have right now are research reactors, i.e. the things are not really suitable for commercial use even if they could already be built/deployed quickly and at scale (which they can't). And that makes the economics just wishful thinking-- to back them up, we would need first a finalized, commercial design, then to actually build it in some numbers, and verify cost effectiveness. And this is a point that renewables already reached a decade ago, while still getting cheaper... Nuclear power in general also suffers from the big problem that it becomes even less attractive the more cheap intermittent power is available, because all the costs are fixed; just turning these on when there is no wind/sun makes the already bad cost efficiency even worse...

pookha 3y ago
This wind-and-solar religious argument isn't necessary and I'm guessing it's based in European poltics. I'm OK with wind and solar but not at the scale where it's the only option... And that's because it doesn't work at scale... As Germany found out you can't meet peek demand with just wind and solar: https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-failure-on-the-road-to-a-renewable-future-a-1266586.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-failure-... They have "dark doldrums" and have to revert to natural gas and diesel power plants (which is why BP and American energy companies push wind and solar). On top of that you can't just cover the entire countryside in massive wind turbines or solar panels. You've got protected species and you've got NIMBY. Why push the endless political pissing matches when you could easily develop nuclear power too? Do both. Let nuclear power handle the doldrums.
- myrmidon 3y ago
  The article you linked is full of opinionated pessimistic whining, but since its over 3 years old its easy to compare its negative outlook on renewable focused policy with actual results: According to https://energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm https://energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm, current german electricity mix is ~50% renewable since beginning of the year. Used to be 35% in 2018. So the "unreachable" target of 80% in 2050 seems completely trivial; just keep doing things at a similar rate and that target is in reach within a single decade (!!). Intermittency of renewable sources is a problem that has multiple perfectly viable solutions, namely overprovisioning, storage, grid connectivity and peaker plants. Finding the most cost effective mix of those (and adjusting it over time as technology evolves) is a problem that the free market is perfectly equipped to solve. Area consumption is not a big issue, neither for solar nor for wind, because roofs and agriculture (and the off-shore option in the case of wind). Nuclear power is a bad mix with renewables because it's already too expensive and building it for peak loads makes that drastically worse since it's all fixed cost basically. Gas powered plants are super attractive with renewables because of the very same dynamics (cheap installation costs and variable costs that largely depend on actual utilization). In the extremely unlikely case that battery technology fails completely it would always be possible to use hydrogen as energy storage in combination with refitted gas peaker plants. But that scenario appears unlikely to me. Also note that renewables have already overtaken nuclear power in the US, too; given recent experiences with the nuclear industry it seems EXTREMELY unlikely to me that this trend would ever reverse.
  - _hypx 3y ago
    > In the extremely unlikely case that battery technology fails completely it would always be possible to use hydrogen as energy storage in combination with refitted gas peaker plants. But that scenario appears unlikely to me. That is not "extremely unlikely" it is 100%ly inevitable. Luckily hydrogen as energy storage is already happening now.
    - myrmidon 3y ago
      How is battery tech failure inevitable? Batteries that buffer about a week of household electricity (100kwh) are already affordable enough to be installed in cars, and the whole sector is still improving rapidly.