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> paired with just about all viable forms of green large scale storage (hydrogen, batteries, pumped storage). I'm skeptical that these can actually scale to th

> paired with just about all viable forms of green large scale storage (hydrogen, batteries, pumped storage). I'm skeptical that these can actually scale to the required level to provide baseload when renewables are unavailable. Don't forget to include EVs and electric heating, which we don't have in massive quantities today but will need to have in short order. (To be ultra-clear: I would never argue against more renewable deployments. Yes, more renewables, always more. But I think not building nuclear, right now, is a big mistake.)

pfdietz 3y ago
Why are you skeptical? A blanket statement without an argument to back it up is not addressable or useful.
- coldpie 3y ago
  Because they've never been deployed at the scale we're talking about. They're unproven. Hydrogen is inefficient to make and hard to store safely; current battery tech isn't efficient enough and has resource limitations; pumped hydro requires certain relatively rare combinations of geographic properties. Are those solvable problems? Probably, hopefully, some day. Meanwhile, nuclear works right now and is well understood.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Those are vague, nebulous, handwavy arguments. Some (like the inefficiency of hydrogen) are dog whistles that fall apart on close examination of the applications for which hydrogen would be suitable. The geography for OFF RIVER pumped hydro is not rare at all; it's present basically anywhere there is sufficient vertical relief (feasible even in deserts), in enormous amounts. The generic problem with "it can't be done" arguments is you are claiming all possible ways of solving a problem don't work. This is a very strong claim, and is not backed up by such vague arguments.
    - coldpie 3y ago
      Woah, ease up, friend! We're on the same side! I agree these storage solutions are all worth investing in. They're going to be great solutions for many areas. I just think nuclear is a great and proven solution for many areas too. I absolutely don't think "it can't be done," I just think we should hedge our bets a bit and rely on the fantastic, proven solution we already have, in case the other solutions don't pan out.
      - pfdietz 3y ago
        Nuclear is not a great and proven solution. It's a terrible solution, because it costs too much. All sorts of terrible solutions are available if we discard cost consideration. Cost is an inescapable part of engineering. Nuclear has the disadvantage that they've been trying for longer than either of us have been alive to make it cheap, and it hasn't worked. This real world evidence can't be easily dismissed, especially when competing technologies have crashed in cost by orders of magnitude over that time. Note that my position here would be revised completely if nuclear were, unexpectedly, to become much cheaper. But at this point I can't take mere promises of cost reduction as anything other than sales talk of that kind that has proven false too many times in the past, too many times to accept the facile excuses that it's always someone else's fault.
        coldpie 3y ago
        > It's a terrible solution, because it costs too much. That's a reasonable position, and I think reasonable people can disagree here. I disagree for two reasons: 1) I think (could be wrong) the cost is largely regulatory. I suspect (could be wrong) that we could streamline that without sacrificing real safety and dramatically lower the cost. 2) Even still, the cost is absolute peanuts compared to the cost of climate change. Even the famous $30B Georgia plant cost less than the world's richest individual spent so he could smash a social media network against the wall like a toddler with a Tonka truck. The US Military gets about 100 of those plants in funding every single year. It's really not that much money in the grand scheme of things, when you're talking hundreds of trillions of dollars in damage about to smash us in the face. IMO we need to stop counting pennies here and really actually tackle this problem. But yes, absolutely agreed it is relatively expensive compared to other solutions, and it should be a priority to get that cost down. I just don't think it's so expensive that it's disqualifying. And, again, I think reasonable people can disagree here.

pfdietz 3y ago

Why are you skeptical? A blanket statement without an argument to back it up is not addressable or useful.

coldpie 3y ago
Because they've never been deployed at the scale we're talking about. They're unproven. Hydrogen is inefficient to make and hard to store safely; current battery tech isn't efficient enough and has resource limitations; pumped hydro requires certain relatively rare combinations of geographic properties. Are those solvable problems? Probably, hopefully, some day. Meanwhile, nuclear works right now and is well understood.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Those are vague, nebulous, handwavy arguments. Some (like the inefficiency of hydrogen) are dog whistles that fall apart on close examination of the applications for which hydrogen would be suitable. The geography for OFF RIVER pumped hydro is not rare at all; it's present basically anywhere there is sufficient vertical relief (feasible even in deserts), in enormous amounts. The generic problem with "it can't be done" arguments is you are claiming all possible ways of solving a problem don't work. This is a very strong claim, and is not backed up by such vague arguments.
  - coldpie 3y ago
    Woah, ease up, friend! We're on the same side! I agree these storage solutions are all worth investing in. They're going to be great solutions for many areas. I just think nuclear is a great and proven solution for many areas too. I absolutely don't think "it can't be done," I just think we should hedge our bets a bit and rely on the fantastic, proven solution we already have, in case the other solutions don't pan out.
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      Nuclear is not a great and proven solution. It's a terrible solution, because it costs too much. All sorts of terrible solutions are available if we discard cost consideration. Cost is an inescapable part of engineering. Nuclear has the disadvantage that they've been trying for longer than either of us have been alive to make it cheap, and it hasn't worked. This real world evidence can't be easily dismissed, especially when competing technologies have crashed in cost by orders of magnitude over that time. Note that my position here would be revised completely if nuclear were, unexpectedly, to become much cheaper. But at this point I can't take mere promises of cost reduction as anything other than sales talk of that kind that has proven false too many times in the past, too many times to accept the facile excuses that it's always someone else's fault.
      - coldpie 3y ago
        > It's a terrible solution, because it costs too much. That's a reasonable position, and I think reasonable people can disagree here. I disagree for two reasons: 1) I think (could be wrong) the cost is largely regulatory. I suspect (could be wrong) that we could streamline that without sacrificing real safety and dramatically lower the cost. 2) Even still, the cost is absolute peanuts compared to the cost of climate change. Even the famous $30B Georgia plant cost less than the world's richest individual spent so he could smash a social media network against the wall like a toddler with a Tonka truck. The US Military gets about 100 of those plants in funding every single year. It's really not that much money in the grand scheme of things, when you're talking hundreds of trillions of dollars in damage about to smash us in the face. IMO we need to stop counting pennies here and really actually tackle this problem. But yes, absolutely agreed it is relatively expensive compared to other solutions, and it should be a priority to get that cost down. I just don't think it's so expensive that it's disqualifying. And, again, I think reasonable people can disagree here.