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Nuclear isn't profitable. Renewables have plummeted in cost making nuclear cost prohibitive, and let's face it, if they're ever built it'll probably be too litt

Nuclear isn't profitable. Renewables have plummeted in cost making nuclear cost prohibitive, and let's face it, if they're ever built it'll probably be too little too late.

eigenspace 3y ago
First of all, nuclear is very expensive, but most of that cost is in the original construction, of the reactor. In the wake of Fukushima, Germany decomissioned many already built, mature reactors that could have continued to safely and cheaply operate for decades. Shutting down pre-existing reactors and justifying it with "well, building new reactors is expensive" is at best stupid. Second of all, renewables are incredibly cheap when they're a minority of the grid. The problem is that if there's a shortfall of electricity, things get real expensive real fast. To make realistic grid-scale comparisons between renewables and nuclear power, you need to compare the cost of renewables-plus-storage against the cost of nuclear, and at that point things get a lot more nuanced and hard to compare. For instance, solar PV is the cheapest electricity you can get, but in places with a lot of preexisting solar installation it's also some of the lowest value electricity. During the middle of a sunny summer day in Germany, electricity spot prices can go negative because so much solar is being produced, but then that same night, prices shoot up because suddenly all those PVs stop producing any electricity at all. It's a bit of a race to the bottom if you don't have storage to offset those swings. ____________________________ All that said, I'm of course a big fan of renewables and I'm glad Germany is investing in them, and I think there's a bright future ahead with them. But using the low cost of solar modules and wind turbines as an argument against keeping nuclear power stations online is silly -- especially when there's still coal plants operating in Germany.
hollowturtle 3y ago
I agree nuclear initial investment is high but it’s cheaper to maintain in the long run than renewables. The making of solar panels, wind turbines and hydroelectric power stations release more carbon in the athmosphere than nuclear sites. Making of this stuff, especially batteries for stocking, produce more poisonous material than any nuclear site will, and must be stocked underground with high risks. Exaust fission materials produced by humanity so far is so little that stocking isn’t a problem and in some kind of reactors can even be recycled! Renewables don’t guarantee power continuity, nuclear fission does. I can go on the whole day, renewables alone can’t power the ever increasing world need. A mix of nuclear reactors, even small, and renewables could
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Nuclear isn't profitable. Renewables have plummeted in cost We haven’t bothered with economies of scale with nuclear for decades.
- ViewTrick1002 3y ago
  Economics of scale never worked out for nuclear. How many more hundreds of billions in of subsidies do you want to add to the fire to try "one more time"? Because this time it surely is different! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > Economics of scale never worked out for nuclear Source? Because they sure as hell pan out in the American military and Chinese civil fleets. > How many more hundreds of billions in of subsidies do you want to add Zero. Instead, make permitting—particularly for new, safer plant types—faster. Not less rigorous. Faster.
    - epistasis 3y ago
      Nuclear economies of scale, in the very best cases, have been very low. See for example: > The costs of the French nuclear scale-up: A case of negative learning by doing > Drawing on largely unknown public records, the paper reveals for the first time both absolute as well as yearly and specific reactor costs and their evolution over time. Its most significant finding is that even this most successful nuclear scale-up was characterized by a substantial escalation of real-term construction costs. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014... There's a more exhaustive paper (by Lovering, maybe?) where it finds a few cases of economies of scale, e.g. South Korea, but the savings are really tiny compared to a tech with a real learning curve, like battery storage. If you have any numbers showing that US military reactors have economies of scale, I would love to see it. Not that we could use HEU in civilian reactors, but the construction lessons might be useful. I have never found a fan of US military reactors that could cite the cost numbers, and I have not been successful finding them either. As for China, I don't know anybody that trusts their cost numbers. I prefer to look at where they are actually spending their money, and their planned nuclear build is absolutely a tiny tiny fraction of what their solar and wind numbers. And the plans for wind and solar are increasing year after year, whereas nuclear plans are staying steady.
gedy 3y ago
> Nuclear isn't profitable. Neither are things like public transportation and healthcare either?
- firebot 3y ago
  That's an interesting non-sequitur. Rather a whataboutism. I hope you get the healthcare and transit you need.
- eigenspace 3y ago
  Funny how back when renewables were expensive, these people said that the cost doesn't matter, but now that public investment has made them cheap, suddenly they're against any energy source that isn't profitable on it's own, even if it has useful properties for decarbonization. This sort of cynical, tribal behaviour among people who claim to just want to stop climate change is pretty disappointing.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    Back when renewables weren't cheap, I was cheering on nuclear, back in the 2000s. I was cheering on renewables to get cheaper, but I didn't think we should deploy a ton of renewables if nuclear could achieve the same carbon neutrality cheaper. Now, in the year 2023, when batteries plus solar are cheaper than new nuclear, IMHO the only same thing to do is to deploy massive amounts of solar wind and batteries, and cheer on nuclear trying to get cheaper. Demanding that we deploy a ton of expensive nuclear when we can't even reliably complete construction in the US is a fool's game. We don't have time to waste on nuclear, today. Which is to say, there is definitely some tribalism, but nuclear advocates are the most tribal people I encounter in energy discussions. There doesn't even seem to be much understanding of current and past projects among nuclear's advocates.
    - eigenspace 3y ago
      Notice that I posted a 7 paragraph comment gushing about the great progress being made with renewable energy in Germany, and then attached a short footnote acknowledging "yeah I think a mistake was made with nuclear power but oh well", yet all the responses I've gotten are arguing about nuclear power. Nowhere in my post did I say Germany should be be abandoning renewables or that they should be heavily focusing on nuclear power. I just said that I think it's a shame that they threw out perfectly good reactors long before they reached the end of their lifetime out of irrational fears.

Nuclear isn't profitable. Renewables have plummeted in cost making nuclear cost prohibitive, and let's face it, if they're ever built it'll probably be too little too late.

eigenspace 3y ago

First of all, nuclear is very expensive, but most of that cost is in the original construction, of the reactor. In the wake of Fukushima, Germany decomissioned many already built, mature reactors that could have continued to safely and cheaply operate for decades. Shutting down pre-existing reactors and justifying it with "well, building new reactors is expensive" is at best stupid. Second of all, renewables are incredibly cheap when they're a minority of the grid. The problem is that if there's a shortfall of electricity, things get real expensive real fast. To make realistic grid-scale comparisons between renewables and nuclear power, you need to compare the cost of renewables-plus-storage against the cost of nuclear, and at that point things get a lot more nuanced and hard to compare. For instance, solar PV is the cheapest electricity you can get, but in places with a lot of preexisting solar installation it's also some of the lowest value electricity. During the middle of a sunny summer day in Germany, electricity spot prices can go negative because so much solar is being produced, but then that same night, prices shoot up because suddenly all those PVs stop producing any electricity at all. It's a bit of a race to the bottom if you don't have storage to offset those swings. ____________________________ All that said, I'm of course a big fan of renewables and I'm glad Germany is investing in them, and I think there's a bright future ahead with them. But using the low cost of solar modules and wind turbines as an argument against keeping nuclear power stations online is silly -- especially when there's still coal plants operating in Germany.

hollowturtle 3y ago

I agree nuclear initial investment is high but it’s cheaper to maintain in the long run than renewables. The making of solar panels, wind turbines and hydroelectric power stations release more carbon in the athmosphere than nuclear sites. Making of this stuff, especially batteries for stocking, produce more poisonous material than any nuclear site will, and must be stocked underground with high risks. Exaust fission materials produced by humanity so far is so little that stocking isn’t a problem and in some kind of reactors can even be recycled! Renewables don’t guarantee power continuity, nuclear fission does. I can go on the whole day, renewables alone can’t power the ever increasing world need. A mix of nuclear reactors, even small, and renewables could

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Nuclear isn't profitable. Renewables have plummeted in cost We haven’t bothered with economies of scale with nuclear for decades.

ViewTrick1002 3y ago
Economics of scale never worked out for nuclear. How many more hundreds of billions in of subsidies do you want to add to the fire to try "one more time"? Because this time it surely is different! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Economics of scale never worked out for nuclear Source? Because they sure as hell pan out in the American military and Chinese civil fleets. > How many more hundreds of billions in of subsidies do you want to add Zero. Instead, make permitting—particularly for new, safer plant types—faster. Not less rigorous. Faster.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    Nuclear economies of scale, in the very best cases, have been very low. See for example: > The costs of the French nuclear scale-up: A case of negative learning by doing > Drawing on largely unknown public records, the paper reveals for the first time both absolute as well as yearly and specific reactor costs and their evolution over time. Its most significant finding is that even this most successful nuclear scale-up was characterized by a substantial escalation of real-term construction costs. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421510003526 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014... There's a more exhaustive paper (by Lovering, maybe?) where it finds a few cases of economies of scale, e.g. South Korea, but the savings are really tiny compared to a tech with a real learning curve, like battery storage. If you have any numbers showing that US military reactors have economies of scale, I would love to see it. Not that we could use HEU in civilian reactors, but the construction lessons might be useful. I have never found a fan of US military reactors that could cite the cost numbers, and I have not been successful finding them either. As for China, I don't know anybody that trusts their cost numbers. I prefer to look at where they are actually spending their money, and their planned nuclear build is absolutely a tiny tiny fraction of what their solar and wind numbers. And the plans for wind and solar are increasing year after year, whereas nuclear plans are staying steady.

gedy 3y ago

> Nuclear isn't profitable. Neither are things like public transportation and healthcare either?

firebot 3y ago
That's an interesting non-sequitur. Rather a whataboutism. I hope you get the healthcare and transit you need.
eigenspace 3y ago
Funny how back when renewables were expensive, these people said that the cost doesn't matter, but now that public investment has made them cheap, suddenly they're against any energy source that isn't profitable on it's own, even if it has useful properties for decarbonization. This sort of cynical, tribal behaviour among people who claim to just want to stop climate change is pretty disappointing.
- epistasis 3y ago
  Back when renewables weren't cheap, I was cheering on nuclear, back in the 2000s. I was cheering on renewables to get cheaper, but I didn't think we should deploy a ton of renewables if nuclear could achieve the same carbon neutrality cheaper. Now, in the year 2023, when batteries plus solar are cheaper than new nuclear, IMHO the only same thing to do is to deploy massive amounts of solar wind and batteries, and cheer on nuclear trying to get cheaper. Demanding that we deploy a ton of expensive nuclear when we can't even reliably complete construction in the US is a fool's game. We don't have time to waste on nuclear, today. Which is to say, there is definitely some tribalism, but nuclear advocates are the most tribal people I encounter in energy discussions. There doesn't even seem to be much understanding of current and past projects among nuclear's advocates.
  - eigenspace 3y ago
    Notice that I posted a 7 paragraph comment gushing about the great progress being made with renewable energy in Germany, and then attached a short footnote acknowledging "yeah I think a mistake was made with nuclear power but oh well", yet all the responses I've gotten are arguing about nuclear power. Nowhere in my post did I say Germany should be be abandoning renewables or that they should be heavily focusing on nuclear power. I just said that I think it's a shame that they threw out perfectly good reactors long before they reached the end of their lifetime out of irrational fears.