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Prices is typically meant to indicate where the market clears (if there is a market, if there are subsidies etc. it gets messy), but that is different from the

Prices is typically meant to indicate where the market clears (if there is a market, if there are subsidies etc. it gets messy), but that is different from the cost of production (for example, from supply and demand). If you believe regulations will be substantially reduced, fair enough, but is there legislation to that effect in the pipelines? You continue to claim nuclear is cheaper, but that is certainly not how it plays out in places like France (or on average) - Californian prices are not the right measure there, nor hypothetical costs of nuclear. You can allege that there will huge cost improvements on nuclear, but my point is that on other energy generation the costs are already down (without tinkering with discount factors because a lot went into operation with funding) and that technologies that are stagnant in costs tend to fail on that front. Changes to the technology as such (e.g., building different reactor types) could change that, but we don't know. And, of course, solar could generate huge amounts of energy by, for example, plastering some large desert with it. That said, no-one is seeing solar as the only solution: wind, tidal, hydro, eventually fusion to name few. Some fission will be in the mix, too, because it is around or being build.

vlovich123 3y ago
Because solar advocates have made nuclear so toxic that many politicians completely avoid it because their base and people like you claim that it’s unsafe, or it’s too expensive, and we should invest in solar instead. But solar doesn’t need government investment anymore - it had enough subsidies to get the market started & it’s self-sufficient (or it’s not & it’s been 20 years of wasted subsidies). That doesn’t change the calculus that nuclear has not seem a similar investment and we need bold government intervention to do something similar. But nuclear reactors can’t be subsidized in the sneaky way that solar panels were (using rooftop solar to seed demand for lots of panels until they got cheap enough for industrial applications). And people seem to really be against the government spending large sums of money on R&D. Of the DOE’s 148B budget: ~25B on nuclear weapons (likely maintaining our military arsenal) ~5B on nuclear energy ~27B on renewables And nuclear requires waaaaaay more for R&D because it’s a more difficult energy source than solar which is scientifically more straightforward & more of an engineering problem that industry is well suited to solving. No you can’t just plaster solar cells in the middle of some desert because while HVDC has gotten cheaper, it’s still quite expensive and even harder than nuclear tech in some ways to cost reduce. You want to minimize the distance between where you produce energy and where you consume it.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  It doesn't matter whether policies etc. were right or fair in the past, the price points now matter. Same for what policies are feasible now. If you need the power to remove carbon dioxide from the air, you do that where the power is. (And there is also chemical storage if you had to transport energy long distance - but a moot point).
  - vlovich123 3y ago
    Interesting how solar proponents have moving goalposts for nuclear. In the 90s when solar was too expensive, it was all about safety. Now when pricing for solar is more competitive it’s “oh but surely nuclear can’t be cheaper anymore” or “but solar costs are dropping way faster - that means solar will be more successful”. Aside: care to present any evidence that solar is actually cheaper than nuclear today or even projected out to 2030? The problem is that solar capacity just grows too slowly. We’re growing solar manufacturing capacity as quickly as possible and still fossil fuels remains stubbornly the dominant fuel type for grid energy production in America and barely shifts regardless of how many renewables we add. So from the perspective of “we tried something maybe it’s not working” I’d rather look at the impact scaling up an energy source has on fossil fuels and all evidence suggest that solar has trouble taking over (fossil fuel use and solar energy generated seems uncorrelated whereas it is inversely correlated with nuclear which is what you want).
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      I linked to the costs data earlier (have a look at figure 1, for example. It includes cost projections, too). Why are you so focused on solar, other things like wind are cheap, too? I couldn't care less about what particular energy source is used, I am just making a cost argument. No goal posts are being shifted by me. If you now want to discuss industrial capacity, then, sure, let's discuss how we can somehow build a few hundred nuclear power plants quickly but not expand wind, solar, geothermal or other things quickly. If there already are cheap technologies, pushing for another one that isn't but might be is a tough proposition.
    - 3y ago

vlovich123 3y ago

Because solar advocates have made nuclear so toxic that many politicians completely avoid it because their base and people like you claim that it’s unsafe, or it’s too expensive, and we should invest in solar instead. But solar doesn’t need government investment anymore - it had enough subsidies to get the market started & it’s self-sufficient (or it’s not & it’s been 20 years of wasted subsidies). That doesn’t change the calculus that nuclear has not seem a similar investment and we need bold government intervention to do something similar. But nuclear reactors can’t be subsidized in the sneaky way that solar panels were (using rooftop solar to seed demand for lots of panels until they got cheap enough for industrial applications). And people seem to really be against the government spending large sums of money on R&D. Of the DOE’s 148B budget: ~25B on nuclear weapons (likely maintaining our military arsenal) ~5B on nuclear energy ~27B on renewables And nuclear requires waaaaaay more for R&D because it’s a more difficult energy source than solar which is scientifically more straightforward & more of an engineering problem that industry is well suited to solving. No you can’t just plaster solar cells in the middle of some desert because while HVDC has gotten cheaper, it’s still quite expensive and even harder than nuclear tech in some ways to cost reduce. You want to minimize the distance between where you produce energy and where you consume it.

RandomLensman 3y ago
It doesn't matter whether policies etc. were right or fair in the past, the price points now matter. Same for what policies are feasible now. If you need the power to remove carbon dioxide from the air, you do that where the power is. (And there is also chemical storage if you had to transport energy long distance - but a moot point).
- vlovich123 3y ago
  Interesting how solar proponents have moving goalposts for nuclear. In the 90s when solar was too expensive, it was all about safety. Now when pricing for solar is more competitive it’s “oh but surely nuclear can’t be cheaper anymore” or “but solar costs are dropping way faster - that means solar will be more successful”. Aside: care to present any evidence that solar is actually cheaper than nuclear today or even projected out to 2030? The problem is that solar capacity just grows too slowly. We’re growing solar manufacturing capacity as quickly as possible and still fossil fuels remains stubbornly the dominant fuel type for grid energy production in America and barely shifts regardless of how many renewables we add. So from the perspective of “we tried something maybe it’s not working” I’d rather look at the impact scaling up an energy source has on fossil fuels and all evidence suggest that solar has trouble taking over (fossil fuel use and solar energy generated seems uncorrelated whereas it is inversely correlated with nuclear which is what you want).
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    I linked to the costs data earlier (have a look at figure 1, for example. It includes cost projections, too). Why are you so focused on solar, other things like wind are cheap, too? I couldn't care less about what particular energy source is used, I am just making a cost argument. No goal posts are being shifted by me. If you now want to discuss industrial capacity, then, sure, let's discuss how we can somehow build a few hundred nuclear power plants quickly but not expand wind, solar, geothermal or other things quickly. If there already are cheap technologies, pushing for another one that isn't but might be is a tough proposition.
  - 3y ago