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That "nuclear renaissance" is entirely artificial - driven by lobbying, not sound economic/environmental policy, nor demand from energy grids (we don't need mor

That "nuclear renaissance" is entirely artificial - driven by lobbying, not sound economic/environmental policy, nor demand from energy grids (we don't need more base power, which is the only thing nuclear is capable of providing.) Nuclear is the most expensive form of energy generation possible despite being a supposedly "mature" technology. Wind, solar, and energy storage have plunged in cost and continue to do so. Nuclear is sold as a "green" and "carbon neutral" energy source - a claim only made possible by completely ignoring the massive carbon impact of its supply and operations chain. People love to bitch and moan about the impact of mining for batteries and magnets for Priuses - all of which can and are recycled - but point out the impact of mining the fuel (and massive quantities of high-grade metals needed for the reactor and its supporting infrastructure) and people dismiss you with a waive of the hand.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago
I agree with most of what you say, but you can find reasonable attempts to calculate the carbon impact of nuclear electricity along the whole chain. As of the latest figures around a decade ago, it was in the same ballpark as solar and wind for carbon intensity, and human health impacts. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy That source has historically been very pro-nuclear, but even more critical sources don't change the fundamental conclusion too much: > Results for the process-based, input-output, and hybrid methods range between 16.55–17.69, 18.82–35.15, and 24.61–32.74 gCO2e/kWh, respectively. These are either well above or at the upper end of the range of possibilities (5 to 22 gCO2e/kWh) stated in a report for the UK’s Committee on Climate Change, and significantly higher than the median value of 12 gCO2e/kWh presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306261921002555 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03062... Obviously wind and solar have improved massively since then and continue to improve while nuclear is stagnating but still the numbers suggest it's in a totally different league than fossil fuels on those metrics. It's primarily cost that makes modern renewables preferable.
lawn 3y ago
> nor demand from energy grids (we don't need more base power, which is the only thing nuclear is capable of providing.) This is exactly the opposite in Europe. Base power is what we need, so we can replace coal and gas. > Nuclear is the most expensive form of energy generation possible despite being a supposedly "mature" technology. Wind, solar, and energy storage have plunged in cost and continue to do so. You're wrong, replacing nuclear with storage would be much more expensive.
lazide 3y ago
You’re a bit behind. The green folks have already started reinstating reactor licenses because of shortfalls in capacity and storage - [https://www.nrc.gov/cdn/doc-collection-news/2023/23-015.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/cdn/doc-collection-news/2023/23-015.pdf] And it’s either that or fossil fuels.
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  > The green folks have already started reinstating reactor licenses because of shortfalls in capacity and storage Then it's mighty odd that in the US, installed solar only counting grid-scale projects outpaces nuclear decommissioning at a 6:1 ratio in terms of GWhrs. > And it’s either that or fossil fuels. ...aside from wind, solar, hydro, etc which are all cheaper, safer, and do not represent anywhere near the danger and risk.
  - lazide 3y ago
    Not at all - solar isn’t base load, and can never be base load. Same with wind. And hydro has already been built out in almost every location it’s useful in the US. And your cost numbers are junk because they aren’t ’cost per kWh when we actually need it’, they’re ’cost per kWh when nature cooperates’. Which is not reliable. So over provisioning and storage costs start kicking in, and which, somehow, never get included in a those numbers. Weird huh? Predictable base load is useful, as California (and other locations) has been finding out, again, now that they have to actually do the math and can’t just hand wave things away. It’s going to take awhile and a lot of churn before this all stabilizes though IMO. A lot of folks haven’t had to do the math yet.
  - sarchertech 3y ago
    Where are you getting that hydro power is safer? Hydropower accidents have killed far more people than nuclear accidents both in real numbers and normalized for energy produced. The ecological downsides to hydro are also hard to overstate.
    - akoboldfrying 3y ago
codersfocus 3y ago
In order to avert catastrophe we need to expend energy to actively fight global warming. Things like carbon capture. There is also the ongoing switch to vehicle electrification. There is massive need for multiplying our current baseline energy generation.
- _aavaa_ 3y ago
  That first part is not true. What we need is not carbon capture, but to stop burning fossil fuels. We can worry about bailing the boat after we patch the massive holes. Until then, and likely even then, carbon capture (especially direct air capture) remains “Chevron’s fig leaf” [0]. I.e., a blatant predatory delay strategy by the fossil fuel industry. [0]: https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/12/chevrons-fig-leaf-part-1-carbon-engineering-burns-natural-gas-to-capture-carbon-from-the-air/ https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/12/chevrons-fig-leaf-part-...
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    That first part is not true. What we need is not carbon capture, but to stop burning fossil fuels. A large number of people will die if you force this to happen without providing an adequate substitute.
    - _aavaa_ 3y ago
      There’s a few things worth saying. The first is that plenty of people will die and will be displaced by climate change because the world, especially the developed world, has dragged their heels and not acted in earnest for decades. Those alternatives do exist. The levelized cost of energy for renewables (especially solar) has seen a dramatic drop over the past 2 decades, and is continuing to drop. As it stands, they are already equal to or cheaper than fossil fuels. And this is before we start pytting a price on carbon that’s commensurate with the externalities it produces. The same is true for energy return on investment [0]. As for carbon capture. It is an incredibly expensive process, both energy and money wise. Implementing it on a fossil fuel plant would dramatically raise the price of the electricity it generates. Direct air capture is even more expensive. And like I said, carbon capture is extremely energy intensive. If you want that carbon capture to really do much (other than predatory delay) it needs to be powered by new renewables. We’ll you’re better off just hooking those renewables to the grid and displacing the fossil fuel plants. [0]: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/12/7098 https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/12/7098
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> driven by lobbying, not sound economic/environmental policy So just like the rest of the energy market? Britain is importing wood pellets from trees chopped down in the Amazon and burning them in Drax powerplant as 'Sustainable low-carbon energy' We import oil from India which originally came from Russia. We import natural gas from America which has higher CO2 emissions and cost than Coal, while we sit on deposits of Coal. Its illegal to build a win turbine on land because they ruin the view. Solar farms are illegal on any land that could potebtially be farmed, which is like 80% of all land. The other day solar farm has been rejected planning permission because there were hundreds of objections, especially noise complaints. The idea that energy market is a free market is a total face
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  > We import natural gas from America which has higher CO2 emissions and cost than Coal, Not true. Virtually all of the energy from coal comes from burning carbon, while a significant amount of the energy in natural gas results from burning hydrogen. In fact, burning natural gas emits only about half the carbon for a given amount of energy output.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    It could go the other way if the coal is domestic and the natural gas has to be shipped across world on a sludge-burning oil tanker. But why burn either of them?
throwaway7679 3y ago
> we don't need more base power This reads as "building nuclear is pointless because we have already have plenty of coal" I think you'll have a hard time persuading anyone of anything after dropping that turd. The only reason new power sources are even a topic of discussion is because continued use of fossil fuel is off the table. The existing base load sources need to be replaced with something, and nuclear is the only game in town.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  > In 2013, the plant achieved continuous production, operating 24 hours per day for 36 consecutive days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemasolar_Thermosolar_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemasolar_Thermosolar_Plant
  - throwaway7679 3y ago
    This is a molten salt system heated by solar. It can output power for one night, but only when there is enough latent heat from the previous day. Any number of consecutive days of operation is a lucky streak. A single day of non-ideal sunlight will shut it down.
    - lamontcg 3y ago
      Make the solar plant and the molten salt battery larger, and build more of them, they can store power for up to a week. You can also charge the battery off of excess wind (or run nat gas in some kind of power emergency).
      - throwaway7679 3y ago
        There are significant issues that limit the scalability of these systems in terms of power, capacity, and duration. Building larger heat storage capacity, for example, would be useless if it cools down before being used. Long-term storage is an area of active research. There is reason to believe[1] that the technology could improve in the future, but until that is proven to be viable the state of the art for duration is "a few hours". Speculation doesn't keep the lights on. The grid can only be powered by things that actually work in the present. [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/long-term-energy-storage-molten-salt https://spectrum.ieee.org/long-term-energy-storage-molten-sa...
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> we don't need more base power, which is the only thing nuclear is capable of providing This is wrong both ways. First, we need more base load power because most of the existing base load is fossil fuels which we have to stop using. Second, it's very difficult to have "too much" base load generation once you electrify transportation because the extra base load generation is useful to satisfy normal demand when demand would otherwise outstrip supply and useful to charge vehicle batteries when it doesn't. > Nuclear is the most expensive form of energy generation possible despite being a supposedly "mature" technology. This was done on purpose. There is nothing inherent in the technology that makes it expensive. "Generate heat to generate steam to generate electricity" is fundamentally the same for nuclear and coal or natural gas, so the only explanation for the former having a significantly higher cost is regulatory, which was intentional and could be different given a different intent. > Nuclear is sold as a "green" and "carbon neutral" energy source - a claim only made possible by completely ignoring the massive carbon impact of its supply and operations chain. Nuclear has a low carbon impact even if you include its supply and operations chain. Also, most of those things apply to any form of power generation (you also have to manufacture and transport solar panels), and most of the CO2 emissions required are from energy and transportation, so if your energy comes from non-fossil fuels you don't have to burn carbon to build power plants. > point out the impact of mining the fuel (and massive quantities of high-grade metals needed for the reactor and its supporting infrastructure) and people dismiss you with a waive of the hand. Because it isn't massive quantities. One kg of uranium has the same energy content as two thousand metric tons of oil. A 1GW nuclear power plant generates as much power in a day as ~25,000 acres of solar panels.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  > This was done on purpose. There is nothing inherent in the technology that makes it expensive. "Generate heat to generate steam to generate electricity" is fundamentally the same for nuclear and coal or natural gas, so the only explanation for the former having a significantly higher cost is regulatory, which was intentional and could be different given a different intent. Nuclear is vastly more complicated and the ultimate failure condition that everyone worries about can cost hundreds of billions to clean up. That results in a lot of engineers and administrators sitting around tables and dreaming up possible ways things could fail (particularly with humans in the loop) and dreaming up ways to mitigate them. The designs get more complicated and expensive over time because nobody wants to say 'no' to mitigating those risks. The engineering of the plant also needs to be built to exacting standards and none of the pipes or concrete are what you find slapped on buildings in your local neighborhood. Contrast that with a solar or wind plant or even a coil or nat gas plant and nobody cares that much about the engineering. If something breaks you just shut it down and fix it and maybe retrofit the design (bit more care needs to be taken in the case of a coal or nat gas plant since you don't want it blowing up but nothing out of the ordinary for any refinery or other industrial plant). With a nuclear plant you can't just pull the plug and shut it off to fix it without creating a 40-year long cleanup disaster.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

I agree with most of what you say, but you can find reasonable attempts to calculate the carbon impact of nuclear electricity along the whole chain. As of the latest figures around a decade ago, it was in the same ballpark as solar and wind for carbon intensity, and human health impacts. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy That source has historically been very pro-nuclear, but even more critical sources don't change the fundamental conclusion too much: > Results for the process-based, input-output, and hybrid methods range between 16.55–17.69, 18.82–35.15, and 24.61–32.74 gCO2e/kWh, respectively. These are either well above or at the upper end of the range of possibilities (5 to 22 gCO2e/kWh) stated in a report for the UK’s Committee on Climate Change, and significantly higher than the median value of 12 gCO2e/kWh presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306261921002555 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03062... Obviously wind and solar have improved massively since then and continue to improve while nuclear is stagnating but still the numbers suggest it's in a totally different league than fossil fuels on those metrics. It's primarily cost that makes modern renewables preferable.

lawn 3y ago

> nor demand from energy grids (we don't need more base power, which is the only thing nuclear is capable of providing.) This is exactly the opposite in Europe. Base power is what we need, so we can replace coal and gas. > Nuclear is the most expensive form of energy generation possible despite being a supposedly "mature" technology. Wind, solar, and energy storage have plunged in cost and continue to do so. You're wrong, replacing nuclear with storage would be much more expensive.

lazide 3y ago

You’re a bit behind. The green folks have already started reinstating reactor licenses because of shortfalls in capacity and storage - [https://www.nrc.gov/cdn/doc-collection-news/2023/23-015.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/cdn/doc-collection-news/2023/23-015.pdf] And it’s either that or fossil fuels.

KennyBlanken 3y ago
> The green folks have already started reinstating reactor licenses because of shortfalls in capacity and storage Then it's mighty odd that in the US, installed solar only counting grid-scale projects outpaces nuclear decommissioning at a 6:1 ratio in terms of GWhrs. > And it’s either that or fossil fuels. ...aside from wind, solar, hydro, etc which are all cheaper, safer, and do not represent anywhere near the danger and risk.
- lazide 3y ago
  Not at all - solar isn’t base load, and can never be base load. Same with wind. And hydro has already been built out in almost every location it’s useful in the US. And your cost numbers are junk because they aren’t ’cost per kWh when we actually need it’, they’re ’cost per kWh when nature cooperates’. Which is not reliable. So over provisioning and storage costs start kicking in, and which, somehow, never get included in a those numbers. Weird huh? Predictable base load is useful, as California (and other locations) has been finding out, again, now that they have to actually do the math and can’t just hand wave things away. It’s going to take awhile and a lot of churn before this all stabilizes though IMO. A lot of folks haven’t had to do the math yet.
- sarchertech 3y ago
  Where are you getting that hydro power is safer? Hydropower accidents have killed far more people than nuclear accidents both in real numbers and normalized for energy produced. The ecological downsides to hydro are also hard to overstate.
  - akoboldfrying 3y ago

codersfocus 3y ago

In order to avert catastrophe we need to expend energy to actively fight global warming. Things like carbon capture. There is also the ongoing switch to vehicle electrification. There is massive need for multiplying our current baseline energy generation.

_aavaa_ 3y ago
That first part is not true. What we need is not carbon capture, but to stop burning fossil fuels. We can worry about bailing the boat after we patch the massive holes. Until then, and likely even then, carbon capture (especially direct air capture) remains “Chevron’s fig leaf” [0]. I.e., a blatant predatory delay strategy by the fossil fuel industry. [0]: https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/12/chevrons-fig-leaf-part-1-carbon-engineering-burns-natural-gas-to-capture-carbon-from-the-air/ https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/12/chevrons-fig-leaf-part-...
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  That first part is not true. What we need is not carbon capture, but to stop burning fossil fuels. A large number of people will die if you force this to happen without providing an adequate substitute.
  - _aavaa_ 3y ago
    There’s a few things worth saying. The first is that plenty of people will die and will be displaced by climate change because the world, especially the developed world, has dragged their heels and not acted in earnest for decades. Those alternatives do exist. The levelized cost of energy for renewables (especially solar) has seen a dramatic drop over the past 2 decades, and is continuing to drop. As it stands, they are already equal to or cheaper than fossil fuels. And this is before we start pytting a price on carbon that’s commensurate with the externalities it produces. The same is true for energy return on investment [0]. As for carbon capture. It is an incredibly expensive process, both energy and money wise. Implementing it on a fossil fuel plant would dramatically raise the price of the electricity it generates. Direct air capture is even more expensive. And like I said, carbon capture is extremely energy intensive. If you want that carbon capture to really do much (other than predatory delay) it needs to be powered by new renewables. We’ll you’re better off just hooking those renewables to the grid and displacing the fossil fuel plants. [0]: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/12/7098 https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/12/7098

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

> driven by lobbying, not sound economic/environmental policy So just like the rest of the energy market? Britain is importing wood pellets from trees chopped down in the Amazon and burning them in Drax powerplant as 'Sustainable low-carbon energy' We import oil from India which originally came from Russia. We import natural gas from America which has higher CO2 emissions and cost than Coal, while we sit on deposits of Coal. Its illegal to build a win turbine on land because they ruin the view. Solar farms are illegal on any land that could potebtially be farmed, which is like 80% of all land. The other day solar farm has been rejected planning permission because there were hundreds of objections, especially noise complaints. The idea that energy market is a free market is a total face

Turing_Machine 3y ago
> We import natural gas from America which has higher CO2 emissions and cost than Coal, Not true. Virtually all of the energy from coal comes from burning carbon, while a significant amount of the energy in natural gas results from burning hydrogen. In fact, burning natural gas emits only about half the carbon for a given amount of energy output.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  It could go the other way if the coal is domestic and the natural gas has to be shipped across world on a sludge-burning oil tanker. But why burn either of them?

throwaway7679 3y ago

> we don't need more base power This reads as "building nuclear is pointless because we have already have plenty of coal" I think you'll have a hard time persuading anyone of anything after dropping that turd. The only reason new power sources are even a topic of discussion is because continued use of fossil fuel is off the table. The existing base load sources need to be replaced with something, and nuclear is the only game in town.

lamontcg 3y ago
> In 2013, the plant achieved continuous production, operating 24 hours per day for 36 consecutive days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemasolar_Thermosolar_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemasolar_Thermosolar_Plant
- throwaway7679 3y ago
  This is a molten salt system heated by solar. It can output power for one night, but only when there is enough latent heat from the previous day. Any number of consecutive days of operation is a lucky streak. A single day of non-ideal sunlight will shut it down.
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    Make the solar plant and the molten salt battery larger, and build more of them, they can store power for up to a week. You can also charge the battery off of excess wind (or run nat gas in some kind of power emergency).
    - throwaway7679 3y ago
      There are significant issues that limit the scalability of these systems in terms of power, capacity, and duration. Building larger heat storage capacity, for example, would be useless if it cools down before being used. Long-term storage is an area of active research. There is reason to believe[1] that the technology could improve in the future, but until that is proven to be viable the state of the art for duration is "a few hours". Speculation doesn't keep the lights on. The grid can only be powered by things that actually work in the present. [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/long-term-energy-storage-molten-salt https://spectrum.ieee.org/long-term-energy-storage-molten-sa...

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> we don't need more base power, which is the only thing nuclear is capable of providing This is wrong both ways. First, we need more base load power because most of the existing base load is fossil fuels which we have to stop using. Second, it's very difficult to have "too much" base load generation once you electrify transportation because the extra base load generation is useful to satisfy normal demand when demand would otherwise outstrip supply and useful to charge vehicle batteries when it doesn't. > Nuclear is the most expensive form of energy generation possible despite being a supposedly "mature" technology. This was done on purpose. There is nothing inherent in the technology that makes it expensive. "Generate heat to generate steam to generate electricity" is fundamentally the same for nuclear and coal or natural gas, so the only explanation for the former having a significantly higher cost is regulatory, which was intentional and could be different given a different intent. > Nuclear is sold as a "green" and "carbon neutral" energy source - a claim only made possible by completely ignoring the massive carbon impact of its supply and operations chain. Nuclear has a low carbon impact even if you include its supply and operations chain. Also, most of those things apply to any form of power generation (you also have to manufacture and transport solar panels), and most of the CO2 emissions required are from energy and transportation, so if your energy comes from non-fossil fuels you don't have to burn carbon to build power plants. > point out the impact of mining the fuel (and massive quantities of high-grade metals needed for the reactor and its supporting infrastructure) and people dismiss you with a waive of the hand. Because it isn't massive quantities. One kg of uranium has the same energy content as two thousand metric tons of oil. A 1GW nuclear power plant generates as much power in a day as ~25,000 acres of solar panels.

lamontcg 3y ago
> This was done on purpose. There is nothing inherent in the technology that makes it expensive. "Generate heat to generate steam to generate electricity" is fundamentally the same for nuclear and coal or natural gas, so the only explanation for the former having a significantly higher cost is regulatory, which was intentional and could be different given a different intent. Nuclear is vastly more complicated and the ultimate failure condition that everyone worries about can cost hundreds of billions to clean up. That results in a lot of engineers and administrators sitting around tables and dreaming up possible ways things could fail (particularly with humans in the loop) and dreaming up ways to mitigate them. The designs get more complicated and expensive over time because nobody wants to say 'no' to mitigating those risks. The engineering of the plant also needs to be built to exacting standards and none of the pipes or concrete are what you find slapped on buildings in your local neighborhood. Contrast that with a solar or wind plant or even a coil or nat gas plant and nobody cares that much about the engineering. If something breaks you just shut it down and fix it and maybe retrofit the design (bit more care needs to be taken in the case of a coal or nat gas plant since you don't want it blowing up but nothing out of the ordinary for any refinery or other industrial plant). With a nuclear plant you can't just pull the plug and shut it off to fix it without creating a 40-year long cleanup disaster.