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I’m not a fan of nuclear power. I do work in an investment bank that’s currently on the top 10 of organisations for building the most solar plants in Europe, so

by devjab 3y ago

I’m not a fan of nuclear power. I do work in an investment bank that’s currently on the top 10 of organisations for building the most solar plants in Europe, so there is that disclaimer. That’s not why I’m against nuclear power though, I’m against it because of the risk, but I’m not sure that is an issue in a country as large as the US. Depending of course on where you build the plants. If we build one in Denmark, and it went wrong, then our entire country could end up uninhabitable. And I know the plants are very safe, but look at what’s going on in the Ukraine, or how Russia blew up the gas lines recently. Again something that is probably less of an issue within the USA. So I think countries like the US should probably do a nuclear renaissance, while other countries should stick with renewables. I wouldn’t worry so much about the storage issue. We currently build and deploy batteries that are inside shipping containers, effectively solving our storage issues. It should be noted that “our” storage issues aren’t the same as the grids issues, ours is intended to be able to store excess power. Basically you cannot sell power when the grid is full, and currently that means solar plants dump it into nothing. The batteries allow us to store it for months. Of course we also use it to sell power at better prices, but I did say we were an investment bank. Battery tech is only going to improve. It’s sort of ironic that Tesla was so early with some of the storage solutions that other companies actually build today, but sometimes it’s not a good idea to be a first mover I guess? The big push is largely funded by countries like Germany going for full renewables of course, and Tesla didn’t have that at the time.

Incipient 3y ago
>I wouldn’t worry so much about the storage issue. We currently build and deploy batteries that are inside shipping containers, effectively solving our storage issues. Sorry but that conclusion is incorrect. Batteries, in their current lithium form, are absolutely not suitable for gridscale storage. They're far too expensive. In Australia a $100 million battery, if it could discharge at an infinite rate, could only meet the demand of a city of 2 million people for about 48 seconds. Lithium batteries are for grid stabilisation - the absorb short term spikes in demand and generation.
bboygravity 3y ago
> The big push is largely funded by countries like Germany going for full renewables. Funny that you quote the country with the worse energy policy in the world as a good example to follow. Germany has some of the highest CO2 emissions per capita in the EU, has the highest kWh production price in the EU, imports tons of cheap clean nuclear energy from France to meet depend (exactly because they have renewables and there is no proper affordable storage technology that exists in the real world). They have a chancelor who was/is openly in bed with Putin (Schroder if you want more info) who basically helped the Russians by making Germany dependent on their gas by making Germany switch to non-continuous energy sources (wind / solar, gas falls in for "the battery" that doesnt exist). All on purpose: got a nice "job" at Gazprom afterwards as a reward. Now that the gas lines to Russia are gone Germany is importing natural gas in ships from the US. Very green! To fill in the other gaps they reopened their coal mines and started burning more coal once more. They closed their last nuclear power plant in the past year as well, so there will only be more of that. And that's your good example to follow? I would not invest at your investment bank needless to say.
- haizhung 3y ago
  Germany is not the country with the highest co2/person in the EU. [1] Where did you get this information from? Further, comparing electricity prices in Germany to France is a moot point, because France has a fixed consumer price and pays the rest using taxes. More further, France is importing more electricity from Germany than Germany is from France. Ironically, because their nuclear reactors are failing. [2] So most of your points are probably false. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_... [2] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/even-crisis-germany-extends-power-exports-neighbours-2023-01-05/#:~:text=Due%20to%20the%20technical%20problems,of%20national%20usage%20by%201%25 https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/even-crisis-germany-....
  - se0 3y ago
    > More further, France is importing more electricity from Germany than Germany is from France. Ironically, because their nuclear reactors are failing. Absolutely not. It happened only in 2022 for a very particular reason, maintenance for a defect now resolved. As of right now, France is exporting almost 3GW to Germany ;)
bee_rider 3y ago
Surely somewhere in the EU there’s a sparsely populated country that wouldn’t mind selling energy to everyone?
XorNot 3y ago
The worst nuclear disaster in history (Chernobyl) a disaster which took a specific reactor class, driven into a specifically unstable configuration, and built without specific safeguards, didn't make an area the size of Denmark uninhabitable in Ukraine.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Yes, any specific accident has specific circumstances. The next nuclear accident will too. Powering the world with nuclear will require breeder reactors. A Chernobyl-like prompt criticality accident in a fast reactor could be an actual honest-to-god nuclear explosion, not a piddly pathetic steam explosion like at Chernobyl.
lrem 3y ago
Another way to long at what’s happening in Ukraine: Russians have been destroying whatever power plants they could, except nuclear. With that one large dam they sabotaged 6000kmsq of farmland and rendered 600kmsq of land unusable/uninhabitable without major effort. Nuclear power plants are such bunkers you can’t do anything to them with a deniable “incident” and there’s been too much threats of retaliation if they destroy it purposely to risk it.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by devjab 3y ago

Incipient 3y ago

>I wouldn’t worry so much about the storage issue. We currently build and deploy batteries that are inside shipping containers, effectively solving our storage issues. Sorry but that conclusion is incorrect. Batteries, in their current lithium form, are absolutely not suitable for gridscale storage. They're far too expensive. In Australia a $100 million battery, if it could discharge at an infinite rate, could only meet the demand of a city of 2 million people for about 48 seconds. Lithium batteries are for grid stabilisation - the absorb short term spikes in demand and generation.

bboygravity 3y ago

> The big push is largely funded by countries like Germany going for full renewables. Funny that you quote the country with the worse energy policy in the world as a good example to follow. Germany has some of the highest CO2 emissions per capita in the EU, has the highest kWh production price in the EU, imports tons of cheap clean nuclear energy from France to meet depend (exactly because they have renewables and there is no proper affordable storage technology that exists in the real world). They have a chancelor who was/is openly in bed with Putin (Schroder if you want more info) who basically helped the Russians by making Germany dependent on their gas by making Germany switch to non-continuous energy sources (wind / solar, gas falls in for "the battery" that doesnt exist). All on purpose: got a nice "job" at Gazprom afterwards as a reward. Now that the gas lines to Russia are gone Germany is importing natural gas in ships from the US. Very green! To fill in the other gaps they reopened their coal mines and started burning more coal once more. They closed their last nuclear power plant in the past year as well, so there will only be more of that. And that's your good example to follow? I would not invest at your investment bank needless to say.

haizhung 3y ago
Germany is not the country with the highest co2/person in the EU. [1] Where did you get this information from? Further, comparing electricity prices in Germany to France is a moot point, because France has a fixed consumer price and pays the rest using taxes. More further, France is importing more electricity from Germany than Germany is from France. Ironically, because their nuclear reactors are failing. [2] So most of your points are probably false. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_... [2] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/even-crisis-germany-extends-power-exports-neighbours-2023-01-05/#:~:text=Due%20to%20the%20technical%20problems,of%20national%20usage%20by%201%25 https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/even-crisis-germany-....
- se0 3y ago
  > More further, France is importing more electricity from Germany than Germany is from France. Ironically, because their nuclear reactors are failing. Absolutely not. It happened only in 2022 for a very particular reason, maintenance for a defect now resolved. As of right now, France is exporting almost 3GW to Germany ;)

bee_rider 3y ago

Surely somewhere in the EU there’s a sparsely populated country that wouldn’t mind selling energy to everyone?

XorNot 3y ago

The worst nuclear disaster in history (Chernobyl) a disaster which took a specific reactor class, driven into a specifically unstable configuration, and built without specific safeguards, didn't make an area the size of Denmark uninhabitable in Ukraine.

pfdietz 3y ago
Yes, any specific accident has specific circumstances. The next nuclear accident will too. Powering the world with nuclear will require breeder reactors. A Chernobyl-like prompt criticality accident in a fast reactor could be an actual honest-to-god nuclear explosion, not a piddly pathetic steam explosion like at Chernobyl.

lrem 3y ago

Another way to long at what’s happening in Ukraine: Russians have been destroying whatever power plants they could, except nuclear. With that one large dam they sabotaged 6000kmsq of farmland and rendered 600kmsq of land unusable/uninhabitable without major effort. Nuclear power plants are such bunkers you can’t do anything to them with a deniable “incident” and there’s been too much threats of retaliation if they destroy it purposely to risk it.

deleted 3y ago

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