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The strongest argument in favor of nuclear seems to be that it sounds futuristic and it's what we grew up believing would be the future of energy. However in p

The strongest argument in favor of nuclear seems to be that it sounds futuristic and it's what we grew up believing would be the future of energy. However in practice it has never turned out to be that great. There's little to recommend it: it requires massive amounts of labor, double checking high skill welds, documentation, and nobody in the industry seems the least bit interested in making this an efficiency process. Nuclear rockets sound cool. Nuclear electricity plants are pretty awful in practice. Batteries are about 1000x more useful on the grid than nuclear, it will greatly enhance reliability as they are super scalable and have the potential to massively increase the efficiency of grid transmission and distribution, the most expensive part of electricity for most. Nuclear has none of those benefits.

acidburnNSA 3y ago
> Batteries are about 1000x more useful on the grid than nuclear, Citation needed! Also: did you know that all existing commercial nuclear plants can ramp up and down in power at about 2-3% (~25 MWe) per minute? They often simply choose not to because the current market structure doesn't incentivize them to. Add a price to low-carbon load following and all the plants in the US will start doing it. Batteries have a big disadvantage in that they do not generate any electricity. They also have pretty miserable energy density, which correlates eventually to chemical waste. To store power in batteries for a night in the US, you'd need many thousands of skyscrapers full of batteries.
- cycomanic 3y ago
  > > Batteries are about 1000x more useful on the grid than nuclear, > Citation needed! Also: did you know that all existing commercial nuclear plants can ramp up and down in power at about 2-3% (~25 MWe) per minute? They often simply choose not to because the current market structure doesn't incentivize them to. That's a nice way of saying that nuclear power is much too expensive to not run plants at maximum capacity all the time. >Add a price to low-carbon load following and all the plants in the US will start doing it. Citation needed. Considering the price of wind or solar, investors are much mor elikley to over provision using those technologies. Nuscale just had to axe their SMR (supposedly the future of nuclear) project in Idaho, because they couldn't find subscribers and their cost of overrunning massively. > Batteries have a big disadvantage in that they do not generate any electricity. They also have pretty miserable energy density, which correlates eventually to chemical waste. To store power in batteries for a night in the US, you'd need many thousands of skyscrapers full of batteries. Except you don't need to store the power to run all of the US for a night, you're just making a strawman.
  - mpweiher 3y ago
    > That's a nice way of saying that nuclear power is much too expensive to not run plants at maximum capacity all the time. Nope. It means that the variable costs are low. The fuel costs for a nuclear plant are so low that it’s essentially free. Which is also the primary reason we throw away 95% of the fuel unused: given the low cost of fuel, recycling just isn’t viable. And again, not because recycling is so expensive, but because new fuel is so cheap.
    - cycomanic 3y ago
      Yes the variable costs are low _compared to the fixed costs_. That's the point I made. If you bought a nuclear power plant for $10 billion and your calculation to get an ROI requires that you make $100 per MWh running at 80% load factor, you will not be willing to run your plant only at 50% of the time, because it does not make economic sense. Variable costs are irrelevant in this case.
      - mpweiher 3y ago
        No. The variable costs are not low because the fixed costs are too expensive, which was what you wrote before and what you imply here. The variable costs are low because fuel is incredibly cheap for the amount of power you get out of it. So you get the ratio correct, but miss on the cause for that ratio.
    - lupusreal 3y ago
      [dead]
- ViewTrick1002 3y ago
  > Also: did you know that all existing commercial nuclear plants can ramp up and down in power at about 2-3% (~25 MWe) per minute? How often can they repeatedly ramp without getting into trouble with reactor poisoning? To load follow with nuclear France devised an entire scheme where their monopoly owner would let reactors take turns reducing their output. Then on top of that the fueling schedule is synced since the later a reactor is in the fuel lifecycle the less it can ramp. Try that on a free market.
  - troupo 3y ago
    > How often can they repeatedly ramp without getting into trouble with reactor poisoning? Every day, several times a day. That is literally the requirement for modern reactors (where modern means any reactor in the past 30 years, or more, and most retrofitted reactors from previous years) Graph and text on page 8: https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12/technical_and_economic_aspects_of_load_following_with_nuclear_power_plants.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12...
bdzr 3y ago
> The strongest argument in favor of nuclear seems to be that it sounds futuristic and it's what we grew up believing would be the future of energy. It's not that it's one of the safest energy sources in existence that works in all weather conditions?
- stephenr 3y ago
  > that works in all weather conditions? Didn't France very recently have to shut down or limit a bunch of reactors due to <checks notes> the river water being too warm. It's one of the safest when compared to coal. How exactly do you accurately calculate the "safety" of something that produces toxic waste with a lifespan in the thousands of years?
  - delroth 3y ago
    > Didn't France very recently have to shut down or limit a bunch of reactors due to <checks notes> the river water being too warm. Because of environmental limits to protect the river ecosystems, not because of any safety or operational constraints. Many of these limits were set years ago, when the water temperature in rivers was lower, and haven't been increased since - leading to very tight margins. When the grid is stretched, the plant operators usually get a temporary authorization to exceed the environmental limits. Every year this is big news for some reason, even though it amounts to a roughly 0.3% reduction of yearly electricity generation. It only impacts river cooled plants, and only those that don't also have a cooling tower.
    - stephenr 3y ago
      > Because of environmental limits to protect the river ecosystems So what you're saying is, nuke plants can operate in any weather if you give zero fucks about how they affect nature..?
      - spullara 3y ago
        Yes. If you care more about warm water over killing people, carbon emissions and pollution.
tuatoru 3y ago
It's never sounded futuristic to me. Nuclear just boils water to make steam, the same as James Watt's steam engine. (Well, actually, steam turbines, but still pretty old technology.) Boiling water to make electricity? How quaint.
- eru 3y ago
  Slight tangent: radioisotope thermoelectric generators use a different mechanism to generate electricity. Though honestly, they just heat some pieces of metal, instead of heating water. Photovoltaic heats a bunch of hydrogen ions until they glow. (But those ions are in the sun.) Wind power mostly comes from air and water being heated unevenly. Tidal power is perhaps the coolest here: no heat involved, the energy comes from the motion of the earth and the moon.
Ygg2 3y ago
Batteries also have other downsides. Poor density, chemical waste, usually limited discharge cycle. The PV/turbines are intermittent and will suffer more in extreme climate conditions (winds forcing shutdown and PV getting caught in dust storms), than nuclear (which are more vulnerable to droughts).
irjustin 3y ago
This post seems too naive. > Batteries are about 1000x more useful on the grid than nuclear Even if I agree batteries are the answer, how do you intend to charge this batteries?! Solar is great, wind is great, Hydro is great - what happens when these don't work? What will you use?
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > Solar is great, wind is great, Hydro is great - what happens when these don't work? What will you use? The chances of a simultaneous and extensive wind, solar, and hydro outage on a national grid scale is... fairly low.
  - plasmatix 3y ago
    But is it low enough? Solar drops to zero every night. For hydro, there's already seasonal variation with rain/snow melt. Beyond that, it looks like the majority of hydro in the US is on the west coast, which has been experiencing a drought for years and is projected to get worse. The west coast is big on removing dams for habitat restoration, too. Wind: Admittedly I have no idea what sort of consistency wind has. But it does seem reasonable to assume the overall reliability of wind power will decrease as installed capacity increases, assuming we started with the most productive geographies first and then move to increasingly marginal areas. In the same way that storm fronts travel through an area and bring high speed winds perhaps there is the opposite, where relatively sudden, large-scale lulls form? To minimize the likelihood of blackouts we'd need to either: 1) Build sufficient excess capacity of wind/solar/hydro to overcome variance in output. This may not be feasible, if even possible, considering the points above. 2) Maintain fossil fuel peaker plants. 3) More nuclear for base load. Having written these thoughts out I now realize your statement presumes we can ever (and always) meet 100% of electricity demand with wind/solar/hydro in the first place.
    - goodpoint 3y ago
      > But is it low enough? Yes.

acidburnNSA 3y ago

> Batteries are about 1000x more useful on the grid than nuclear, Citation needed! Also: did you know that all existing commercial nuclear plants can ramp up and down in power at about 2-3% (~25 MWe) per minute? They often simply choose not to because the current market structure doesn't incentivize them to. Add a price to low-carbon load following and all the plants in the US will start doing it. Batteries have a big disadvantage in that they do not generate any electricity. They also have pretty miserable energy density, which correlates eventually to chemical waste. To store power in batteries for a night in the US, you'd need many thousands of skyscrapers full of batteries.

cycomanic 3y ago
> > Batteries are about 1000x more useful on the grid than nuclear, > Citation needed! Also: did you know that all existing commercial nuclear plants can ramp up and down in power at about 2-3% (~25 MWe) per minute? They often simply choose not to because the current market structure doesn't incentivize them to. That's a nice way of saying that nuclear power is much too expensive to not run plants at maximum capacity all the time. >Add a price to low-carbon load following and all the plants in the US will start doing it. Citation needed. Considering the price of wind or solar, investors are much mor elikley to over provision using those technologies. Nuscale just had to axe their SMR (supposedly the future of nuclear) project in Idaho, because they couldn't find subscribers and their cost of overrunning massively. > Batteries have a big disadvantage in that they do not generate any electricity. They also have pretty miserable energy density, which correlates eventually to chemical waste. To store power in batteries for a night in the US, you'd need many thousands of skyscrapers full of batteries. Except you don't need to store the power to run all of the US for a night, you're just making a strawman.
- mpweiher 3y ago
  > That's a nice way of saying that nuclear power is much too expensive to not run plants at maximum capacity all the time. Nope. It means that the variable costs are low. The fuel costs for a nuclear plant are so low that it’s essentially free. Which is also the primary reason we throw away 95% of the fuel unused: given the low cost of fuel, recycling just isn’t viable. And again, not because recycling is so expensive, but because new fuel is so cheap.
  - cycomanic 3y ago
    Yes the variable costs are low _compared to the fixed costs_. That's the point I made. If you bought a nuclear power plant for $10 billion and your calculation to get an ROI requires that you make $100 per MWh running at 80% load factor, you will not be willing to run your plant only at 50% of the time, because it does not make economic sense. Variable costs are irrelevant in this case.
    - mpweiher 3y ago
      No. The variable costs are not low because the fixed costs are too expensive, which was what you wrote before and what you imply here. The variable costs are low because fuel is incredibly cheap for the amount of power you get out of it. So you get the ratio correct, but miss on the cause for that ratio.
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    [dead]
ViewTrick1002 3y ago
> Also: did you know that all existing commercial nuclear plants can ramp up and down in power at about 2-3% (~25 MWe) per minute? How often can they repeatedly ramp without getting into trouble with reactor poisoning? To load follow with nuclear France devised an entire scheme where their monopoly owner would let reactors take turns reducing their output. Then on top of that the fueling schedule is synced since the later a reactor is in the fuel lifecycle the less it can ramp. Try that on a free market.
- troupo 3y ago
  > How often can they repeatedly ramp without getting into trouble with reactor poisoning? Every day, several times a day. That is literally the requirement for modern reactors (where modern means any reactor in the past 30 years, or more, and most retrofitted reactors from previous years) Graph and text on page 8: https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12/technical_and_economic_aspects_of_load_following_with_nuclear_power_plants.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12...

bdzr 3y ago

> The strongest argument in favor of nuclear seems to be that it sounds futuristic and it's what we grew up believing would be the future of energy. It's not that it's one of the safest energy sources in existence that works in all weather conditions?

stephenr 3y ago
> that works in all weather conditions? Didn't France very recently have to shut down or limit a bunch of reactors due to <checks notes> the river water being too warm. It's one of the safest when compared to coal. How exactly do you accurately calculate the "safety" of something that produces toxic waste with a lifespan in the thousands of years?
- delroth 3y ago
  > Didn't France very recently have to shut down or limit a bunch of reactors due to <checks notes> the river water being too warm. Because of environmental limits to protect the river ecosystems, not because of any safety or operational constraints. Many of these limits were set years ago, when the water temperature in rivers was lower, and haven't been increased since - leading to very tight margins. When the grid is stretched, the plant operators usually get a temporary authorization to exceed the environmental limits. Every year this is big news for some reason, even though it amounts to a roughly 0.3% reduction of yearly electricity generation. It only impacts river cooled plants, and only those that don't also have a cooling tower.
  - stephenr 3y ago
    > Because of environmental limits to protect the river ecosystems So what you're saying is, nuke plants can operate in any weather if you give zero fucks about how they affect nature..?
    - spullara 3y ago
      Yes. If you care more about warm water over killing people, carbon emissions and pollution.

tuatoru 3y ago

It's never sounded futuristic to me. Nuclear just boils water to make steam, the same as James Watt's steam engine. (Well, actually, steam turbines, but still pretty old technology.) Boiling water to make electricity? How quaint.

eru 3y ago
Slight tangent: radioisotope thermoelectric generators use a different mechanism to generate electricity. Though honestly, they just heat some pieces of metal, instead of heating water. Photovoltaic heats a bunch of hydrogen ions until they glow. (But those ions are in the sun.) Wind power mostly comes from air and water being heated unevenly. Tidal power is perhaps the coolest here: no heat involved, the energy comes from the motion of the earth and the moon.

Ygg2 3y ago

Batteries also have other downsides. Poor density, chemical waste, usually limited discharge cycle. The PV/turbines are intermittent and will suffer more in extreme climate conditions (winds forcing shutdown and PV getting caught in dust storms), than nuclear (which are more vulnerable to droughts).

irjustin 3y ago

This post seems too naive. > Batteries are about 1000x more useful on the grid than nuclear Even if I agree batteries are the answer, how do you intend to charge this batteries?! Solar is great, wind is great, Hydro is great - what happens when these don't work? What will you use?

ceejayoz 3y ago
> Solar is great, wind is great, Hydro is great - what happens when these don't work? What will you use? The chances of a simultaneous and extensive wind, solar, and hydro outage on a national grid scale is... fairly low.
- plasmatix 3y ago
  But is it low enough? Solar drops to zero every night. For hydro, there's already seasonal variation with rain/snow melt. Beyond that, it looks like the majority of hydro in the US is on the west coast, which has been experiencing a drought for years and is projected to get worse. The west coast is big on removing dams for habitat restoration, too. Wind: Admittedly I have no idea what sort of consistency wind has. But it does seem reasonable to assume the overall reliability of wind power will decrease as installed capacity increases, assuming we started with the most productive geographies first and then move to increasingly marginal areas. In the same way that storm fronts travel through an area and bring high speed winds perhaps there is the opposite, where relatively sudden, large-scale lulls form? To minimize the likelihood of blackouts we'd need to either: 1) Build sufficient excess capacity of wind/solar/hydro to overcome variance in output. This may not be feasible, if even possible, considering the points above. 2) Maintain fossil fuel peaker plants. 3) More nuclear for base load. Having written these thoughts out I now realize your statement presumes we can ever (and always) meet 100% of electricity demand with wind/solar/hydro in the first place.
  - goodpoint 3y ago
    > But is it low enough? Yes.