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Lots of people in this thread talking about how nuclear is not necessary given the rise of renewable sources. But one thing that is not mentioned is x-axis... t

by anonu 3y ago

Lots of people in this thread talking about how nuclear is not necessary given the rise of renewable sources. But one thing that is not mentioned is x-axis... time. Nuclear is the only clean option we have today to drop our dependance on fossil fuels in the big way necessary to avoid 1.5 or 2 degree average global temperature increases.

epistasis 3y ago
Once your consider the x-axis of time, I think it's clear that nuclear will not help us decarbonise, or at best will be a bit player. If nuclear becomes useful, it will likely be after we have already solved carbon-free energy systems, and come into play only because it has somehow become cheaper than other terrestrial methods of electricity generation, storage, and distribution.
- andrewinardeer 3y ago
  The cost of building reactors is far dwarfed by the cost on the environment and economies over time.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    I don't think there's a super large environmental cost from nuclear reactors... it is an awful lot of steel and concrete. But amortized over typical lifecycles it's not much emissions, even if we don't yet have ways to zero out those steel and carbon emissions. As for "economies" I can't quite understand what you mean by that.
jillesvangurp 3y ago
Except we don't have that nuclear capability and it takes decades to build lots of new nuclear capability during which current projections indicate we'll instead deploy lots of wind, solar, and storage, outstripping any new nuclear capability by an order of magnitude or so. The reality is that most projections (even the pessimistic ones) get us to net zero around 2050-2060. Most of that is driven by renewables. I'm actually hopeful that more optimistic scenarios are possible because of continued improvements in cost of renewables and storage which would enable faster rollout for less investment than currently projected. If people find a way to drop the cost of nuclear by an order of magnitude to finally deliver on its potential, I'm all for it. Great stuff otherwise but it's just too expensive currently. In short, I don't see that happening any time soon. We might actually get fusion before that happens. And we shouldn't be betting on that either. It might happen, it might not happen. Either way, we need to get rid of fossil fuels. Right now wind, solar, and batteries are looking pretty good in terms of mass production and deployment of new capability. There's a gap with nuclear and it's widening rapidly. Most of that is cost driven. It's just a lot cheaper/faster/better/less risky/etc.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  Renewables do not solve the demand problem because the demand curve is not static. It is useless to have 100% of energy needs met when it is 200% during the day and 0% at night.
  - jillesvangurp 3y ago
    Storage does that. And potentially a lot cheaper than nuclear can. We'll have a few decades to figure that out as current legacy production seems to be more than enough to deal with grid instability. There's probably more battery being added to grids than nuclear pretty soon.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - XorNot 3y ago
      Batteries are being added to grids because they have a very fast response rate - close to instant. This is good for grid stability, which depends on keeping frequency and voltage stable. This is necessary because solar and wind are intermittent and will slew their output very quickly due to ambient conditions. It's also helpful if a plant has to throw its breakers offline. It's only viable because if you have a good monitoring system, you can target the wholesale market at moments the demand curve spikes and you can service the spike faster then anyone else can come online. This makes you money, and makes the electrical infrastructure require less over-build and over-production because it means online generators have time to increase their output. It doesn't somehow make batteries viable as long term storage, because there's a big difference between servicing partial grid load for an hour, and servicing the entire grid load for 16 hours. If the grid actually fails - goes right down into a black start condition - it's potentially a multi-week exercise to bring it back up. And it takes everything else with it. So the question is, how much storage do you need? What level of overbuild do you need to accommodate for when you no longer have reliable generators (currently fossil fuels) on the grid? The sun shines every day and the wind always blows, but does it blow enough? How much battery capacity do you need to ensure there's functionally never a chance of prolonged under-production from driving you into rolling blackouts? I would suggest it's instructive to look at just how much water cities actually store, compared to their daily usage, and how low they're willing to let those resources get before they declare emergency measures - <80% is considered serious, <70% critical. Electricity is every bit as important - not least of which is because without it, there is no water delivery. EDIT: Keeping the cost of overbuild in mind, for example, it costs about AUD$0.08/kWh to deliver electricity from the cheapest LiFePO4's I can find on the market as a consumer. And that's being very generous about their cycle life.
marssaxman 3y ago
> Nuclear is the only clean option we have today We don't have the option of nuclear today; we have the option of nuclear 10-20 years from now. By that time the 1.5°-2° question will already be settled, one way or another. Meanwhile we also have the option of wind and solar, which come on line ten times faster than nuclear at half the price with far less risk. Seems pretty clear where the investment money will go.

by anonu 3y ago

epistasis 3y ago

Once your consider the x-axis of time, I think it's clear that nuclear will not help us decarbonise, or at best will be a bit player. If nuclear becomes useful, it will likely be after we have already solved carbon-free energy systems, and come into play only because it has somehow become cheaper than other terrestrial methods of electricity generation, storage, and distribution.

andrewinardeer 3y ago
The cost of building reactors is far dwarfed by the cost on the environment and economies over time.
- epistasis 3y ago
  I don't think there's a super large environmental cost from nuclear reactors... it is an awful lot of steel and concrete. But amortized over typical lifecycles it's not much emissions, even if we don't yet have ways to zero out those steel and carbon emissions. As for "economies" I can't quite understand what you mean by that.

jillesvangurp 3y ago

Except we don't have that nuclear capability and it takes decades to build lots of new nuclear capability during which current projections indicate we'll instead deploy lots of wind, solar, and storage, outstripping any new nuclear capability by an order of magnitude or so. The reality is that most projections (even the pessimistic ones) get us to net zero around 2050-2060. Most of that is driven by renewables. I'm actually hopeful that more optimistic scenarios are possible because of continued improvements in cost of renewables and storage which would enable faster rollout for less investment than currently projected. If people find a way to drop the cost of nuclear by an order of magnitude to finally deliver on its potential, I'm all for it. Great stuff otherwise but it's just too expensive currently. In short, I don't see that happening any time soon. We might actually get fusion before that happens. And we shouldn't be betting on that either. It might happen, it might not happen. Either way, we need to get rid of fossil fuels. Right now wind, solar, and batteries are looking pretty good in terms of mass production and deployment of new capability. There's a gap with nuclear and it's widening rapidly. Most of that is cost driven. It's just a lot cheaper/faster/better/less risky/etc.

Eisenstein 3y ago
Renewables do not solve the demand problem because the demand curve is not static. It is useless to have 100% of energy needs met when it is 200% during the day and 0% at night.
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  Storage does that. And potentially a lot cheaper than nuclear can. We'll have a few decades to figure that out as current legacy production seems to be more than enough to deal with grid instability. There's probably more battery being added to grids than nuclear pretty soon.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - XorNot 3y ago
    Batteries are being added to grids because they have a very fast response rate - close to instant. This is good for grid stability, which depends on keeping frequency and voltage stable. This is necessary because solar and wind are intermittent and will slew their output very quickly due to ambient conditions. It's also helpful if a plant has to throw its breakers offline. It's only viable because if you have a good monitoring system, you can target the wholesale market at moments the demand curve spikes and you can service the spike faster then anyone else can come online. This makes you money, and makes the electrical infrastructure require less over-build and over-production because it means online generators have time to increase their output. It doesn't somehow make batteries viable as long term storage, because there's a big difference between servicing partial grid load for an hour, and servicing the entire grid load for 16 hours. If the grid actually fails - goes right down into a black start condition - it's potentially a multi-week exercise to bring it back up. And it takes everything else with it. So the question is, how much storage do you need? What level of overbuild do you need to accommodate for when you no longer have reliable generators (currently fossil fuels) on the grid? The sun shines every day and the wind always blows, but does it blow enough? How much battery capacity do you need to ensure there's functionally never a chance of prolonged under-production from driving you into rolling blackouts? I would suggest it's instructive to look at just how much water cities actually store, compared to their daily usage, and how low they're willing to let those resources get before they declare emergency measures - <80% is considered serious, <70% critical. Electricity is every bit as important - not least of which is because without it, there is no water delivery. EDIT: Keeping the cost of overbuild in mind, for example, it costs about AUD$0.08/kWh to deliver electricity from the cheapest LiFePO4's I can find on the market as a consumer. And that's being very generous about their cycle life.

marssaxman 3y ago

> Nuclear is the only clean option we have today We don't have the option of nuclear today; we have the option of nuclear 10-20 years from now. By that time the 1.5°-2° question will already be settled, one way or another. Meanwhile we also have the option of wind and solar, which come on line ten times faster than nuclear at half the price with far less risk. Seems pretty clear where the investment money will go.