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Nuclear tech hasn't had a luxury of having renewables-like subsidies though. Who knows what the prices could have been had nuclear got the same level of subsid

by donny2018 3y ago

Nuclear tech hasn't had a luxury of having renewables-like subsidies though. Who knows what the prices could have been had nuclear got the same level of subsidies. Nuclear energy (especially fast neutron tech that can use the abundant U-238 and nuclear waste from existing NPPs) isn't getting attention it deserves. Only Russia, China and India are investing in it, but it's neglected in the West because there is no immediate profit to gain from this.

kragen 3y ago
nuclear tech had the biggeet subsidies program in human history in the 01940s and 50s, continuing to a significant extent into the 80s, which is how the humans got it in the first place some historians argue that subsidizing nuclear tech too heavily was a major factor in the collapse of the ussr
- CRConrad 3y ago
  > 01940s Numbers just aren't written that way. I don't know if you realise it, but that silly affectation is offputting enough to hinder your cause more than help it.
- donny2018 3y ago
  And after those subsidies stopped, the progress of nuclear power also stopped, naturally. If the subsidies continued, we could have had scalable, sustainable and affordable nuclear. I believe that Renewables should be subsidized, and current progress is great, but total decarbonization is easier to realistically achieve together with nuclear energy. If you support renewables, you don’t have to be anti-nuclear at all.
  - kragen 3y ago
    agreed about being anti-nuclear. probably it is not in the interest of life forms made of atoms to be anti-nuclear it's plausible that further subsidies could have made nuclear power cheap. the long pole in the tent seems to be the cost of the steam turbine generator, though, which isn't cost-competitive with pv even if the heat to make the steam is free. this is after a century of improvements, and the steam turbine is the main electric power source of every rich economy in the world and most of the poor ones. so i'm not sure a few trillion dollars more in subsidies would change that
    - donny2018 3y ago
      >the long pole in the tent seems to be the cost of the steam turbine generator And yet some "renewables-only" people want to rely on gas turbines for the times of unfavorable weather conditions. And, the turbines are still more efficient (46% efficiency with modern Siemens turbines), and the heat that isn't going into the turbine steam can still be used elsewhere, like for district heating or for industrial purposes, which makes the overall system very high yield. In comparison, photovoltaics is currently at 20% efficiency. Wind is at 60% but it's quite intermittent and unpredictable.
      - kragen 3y ago
        agreed a couple of quibbles, tho the efficiency of photovoltaics and wind is only relevant here if you're powering them from stored energy, such as white-hot graphite blocks, rather than from the sun. or in the far future when human energy consumption has grown by two orders of magnitude gas turbines are only 'renewables-only' if you make the gas from renewable energy
        donny2018 3y ago
        >gas turbines are only 'renewables-only' if you make the gas from renewable energy There are ways to make hydrocarbons from atmospheric carbon (using any energy, including renewable) but that is nightmarishly inefficient. Anti-nuclear people's plan though is to use good ol' fossil gas for the times when the weather is unsuitable for renewables. >the efficiency of photovoltaics and wind is only relevant here if Agreed, you can disregard its efficiency if the source energy is free. Fission energy is so high yield that it's also basically free, just like the Sun or wind, with the difference of being able to increase/decrease production on demand. It's the infrastructure to extract that energy that costs money, and those costs could be improved with proper R&D, investments, subsidies and economies of scale, just like with renewables. I do believe nuclear is the part of the Solution together with renewables. At least we will need nuclear before solar extraction and storage are so advanced that they can power the grid all the time by themselves. Yes, that future is certainly is not very far away, but we can't afford much time to start decarbonizing.
jillesvangurp 3y ago
Nonsense; it's getting plenty of attention. And there's a lot of lobbying happening to ensure that. The nuclear industry actually has been running on subsidies. Also in China and Russia. It would not survive long without them. And of course this whole industry was bootstrapped via massive defense spending. Trillions in today's money. There's no such thing as an unsubsidized profitable nuclear plant. That's why investors are pulling the plug on this thing. Because even with the (massive) subsidies, it just does not add up to anything remotely financially feasible. Unsubsidized LCOE is off by about an order of magnitude where it should be now. Never mind in a few decades. And of course the cost of securing them, dealing with the waste, or decommissioning them is typically also subsidized. To the point where that's commonly not even factored into the projected cost for nuclear because that is depressing enough without that. Somebody (i.e. tax payers) should take care of all that. Not their problem. Most current nuclear waste is stored in temporary locations while people figure out how to actually pay for all that. That was the plan seventy years ago and there still is no solution. Those sites need security. Which of course costs money. And eventually "somebody" might do something about it. At great cost. All of it subsidized. By past, current, and future generations.

kragen 3y ago

nuclear tech had the biggeet subsidies program in human history in the 01940s and 50s, continuing to a significant extent into the 80s, which is how the humans got it in the first place some historians argue that subsidizing nuclear tech too heavily was a major factor in the collapse of the ussr

CRConrad 3y ago
> 01940s Numbers just aren't written that way. I don't know if you realise it, but that silly affectation is offputting enough to hinder your cause more than help it.
donny2018 3y ago
And after those subsidies stopped, the progress of nuclear power also stopped, naturally. If the subsidies continued, we could have had scalable, sustainable and affordable nuclear. I believe that Renewables should be subsidized, and current progress is great, but total decarbonization is easier to realistically achieve together with nuclear energy. If you support renewables, you don’t have to be anti-nuclear at all.
- kragen 3y ago
  agreed about being anti-nuclear. probably it is not in the interest of life forms made of atoms to be anti-nuclear it's plausible that further subsidies could have made nuclear power cheap. the long pole in the tent seems to be the cost of the steam turbine generator, though, which isn't cost-competitive with pv even if the heat to make the steam is free. this is after a century of improvements, and the steam turbine is the main electric power source of every rich economy in the world and most of the poor ones. so i'm not sure a few trillion dollars more in subsidies would change that
  - donny2018 3y ago
    >the long pole in the tent seems to be the cost of the steam turbine generator And yet some "renewables-only" people want to rely on gas turbines for the times of unfavorable weather conditions. And, the turbines are still more efficient (46% efficiency with modern Siemens turbines), and the heat that isn't going into the turbine steam can still be used elsewhere, like for district heating or for industrial purposes, which makes the overall system very high yield. In comparison, photovoltaics is currently at 20% efficiency. Wind is at 60% but it's quite intermittent and unpredictable.
    - kragen 3y ago
      agreed a couple of quibbles, tho the efficiency of photovoltaics and wind is only relevant here if you're powering them from stored energy, such as white-hot graphite blocks, rather than from the sun. or in the far future when human energy consumption has grown by two orders of magnitude gas turbines are only 'renewables-only' if you make the gas from renewable energy
      - donny2018 3y ago
        >gas turbines are only 'renewables-only' if you make the gas from renewable energy There are ways to make hydrocarbons from atmospheric carbon (using any energy, including renewable) but that is nightmarishly inefficient. Anti-nuclear people's plan though is to use good ol' fossil gas for the times when the weather is unsuitable for renewables. >the efficiency of photovoltaics and wind is only relevant here if Agreed, you can disregard its efficiency if the source energy is free. Fission energy is so high yield that it's also basically free, just like the Sun or wind, with the difference of being able to increase/decrease production on demand. It's the infrastructure to extract that energy that costs money, and those costs could be improved with proper R&D, investments, subsidies and economies of scale, just like with renewables. I do believe nuclear is the part of the Solution together with renewables. At least we will need nuclear before solar extraction and storage are so advanced that they can power the grid all the time by themselves. Yes, that future is certainly is not very far away, but we can't afford much time to start decarbonizing.

jillesvangurp 3y ago

Nonsense; it's getting plenty of attention. And there's a lot of lobbying happening to ensure that. The nuclear industry actually has been running on subsidies. Also in China and Russia. It would not survive long without them. And of course this whole industry was bootstrapped via massive defense spending. Trillions in today's money. There's no such thing as an unsubsidized profitable nuclear plant. That's why investors are pulling the plug on this thing. Because even with the (massive) subsidies, it just does not add up to anything remotely financially feasible. Unsubsidized LCOE is off by about an order of magnitude where it should be now. Never mind in a few decades. And of course the cost of securing them, dealing with the waste, or decommissioning them is typically also subsidized. To the point where that's commonly not even factored into the projected cost for nuclear because that is depressing enough without that. Somebody (i.e. tax payers) should take care of all that. Not their problem. Most current nuclear waste is stored in temporary locations while people figure out how to actually pay for all that. That was the plan seventy years ago and there still is no solution. Those sites need security. Which of course costs money. And eventually "somebody" might do something about it. At great cost. All of it subsidized. By past, current, and future generations.