3 ms·

Safe and affordable nuclear reactors have been available for 40+ years. France has been operating an existence proof with “obsolete” reactor designs for a long

by hedora 3y ago

Safe and affordable nuclear reactors have been available for 40+ years. France has been operating an existence proof with “obsolete” reactor designs for a long time. The cost overruns are a political problem. Having said that, the cost of nuclear is lower-bounded by the cost of the turbines and generators. Those exceeded the cost of solar 5-10 years ago. (i.e., if I give you a perpetual motion machine that ~turns a crank~ (edit: generates heat; turning a crank would eliminate the turbine) at a wattage of your choosing, you still can’t use it to provide cheaper power than solar). However, off peak generation still isn’t cheaper than everything else. Once you plan for “a cloudy weather front parks over our region”, the cost of energy storage is still prohibitive-ish. In the long term, I think we’ll move to nuclear plants that can rapidly respond to demand (this is a solved problem), since that’s cheaper and cleaner than batteries, and much safer and cleaner than coal. Edit: Nuclear is probably cheaper than provisioning region-scale batteries for a week of supply during depressed generation and higher than average demand.

tuatoru 3y ago
It depends. Mainly on the cost of electrolysis plant, and partly on how close to free "excess" PV power becomes. Natural gas infrastructure can be maintained and used to store and distribute hydrogen to hydrogen peakers if required. Or electrolyzed hydrogen could be used to make methane, which simplifies re-use of existing infrastructure at the cost of some efficiency loss. That's not an insurmountable problem if sufficient surplus PV capacity is available. That's one of the competitors to rapid-response nuclear. The main current one is pumped hydro, but expanding that quickly takes more time and money than re-using existing NG plant would. And of course there are all the "revolutionary battery technology of the week" ideas. One of them might be super cheap, super reliable, and super scalable--it could happen.
vlovich123 3y ago
+ you have to recharge the batteries when the energy source reestablishes. This is particularly bad for solar because it means the batteries have to be discharged nightly to support nighttime generation & then daytime capacity is reduced to recharge for the next night. The bull story for solar as baseload power is really nonsensical.
- pydry 3y ago
  >This is particularly bad for solar because it means the batteries have to be discharged nightly Solar and wind production anticorrelate and electricity usage declines at night. If you have a grid with paired wind and solar you are unlikely to be discharging every night. The wind doesnt stop blowing at night. >solar as baseload This a strawman. Nobody says solar can be baseload. They say that you can combine solar + wind + different forms of storage (pumped, hydrogen, battery) with demand shaping to eliminate the need for baseload. Ironically the carbon lobby used to say "let the market decide" back when solar and wind were expensive. They stopped doing that a while back when the economics flipped in favor of green energy. The nuclear lobby and its associated propaganda tries to avoid mentioning costs at all and always did - unless theyre promoting nuclear vaporware. They're gunning for manufacturing consent for subsidies since its the only way theyll survive.
pydry 3y ago
>The cost overruns are a political problem. No, Politics actually helps keep the costs down. When it comes to the military purse strings get looser. LCOE doesnt even account for catastrophe insurance the taxpayer shoulders that. It's just very very expensive to run a nuclear plant safely. >Edit: Nuclear is probably cheaper than provisioning region-scale batteries for a week It absolutely isnt. pumped storage is way cheaper and electrolyzing hydrogen from green energy is cheaper than nuclear power. If you are taking a pro nukes stance (and many people do) you will want more nuclear power, but it only really has military cost sharing value, for providing green energy it is a colossal waste of money no matter what its lobbyists say to persuade you.

by hedora 3y ago

tuatoru 3y ago

It depends. Mainly on the cost of electrolysis plant, and partly on how close to free "excess" PV power becomes. Natural gas infrastructure can be maintained and used to store and distribute hydrogen to hydrogen peakers if required. Or electrolyzed hydrogen could be used to make methane, which simplifies re-use of existing infrastructure at the cost of some efficiency loss. That's not an insurmountable problem if sufficient surplus PV capacity is available. That's one of the competitors to rapid-response nuclear. The main current one is pumped hydro, but expanding that quickly takes more time and money than re-using existing NG plant would. And of course there are all the "revolutionary battery technology of the week" ideas. One of them might be super cheap, super reliable, and super scalable--it could happen.

vlovich123 3y ago

+ you have to recharge the batteries when the energy source reestablishes. This is particularly bad for solar because it means the batteries have to be discharged nightly to support nighttime generation & then daytime capacity is reduced to recharge for the next night. The bull story for solar as baseload power is really nonsensical.

pydry 3y ago
>This is particularly bad for solar because it means the batteries have to be discharged nightly Solar and wind production anticorrelate and electricity usage declines at night. If you have a grid with paired wind and solar you are unlikely to be discharging every night. The wind doesnt stop blowing at night. >solar as baseload This a strawman. Nobody says solar can be baseload. They say that you can combine solar + wind + different forms of storage (pumped, hydrogen, battery) with demand shaping to eliminate the need for baseload. Ironically the carbon lobby used to say "let the market decide" back when solar and wind were expensive. They stopped doing that a while back when the economics flipped in favor of green energy. The nuclear lobby and its associated propaganda tries to avoid mentioning costs at all and always did - unless theyre promoting nuclear vaporware. They're gunning for manufacturing consent for subsidies since its the only way theyll survive.

pydry 3y ago

>The cost overruns are a political problem. No, Politics actually helps keep the costs down. When it comes to the military purse strings get looser. LCOE doesnt even account for catastrophe insurance the taxpayer shoulders that. It's just very very expensive to run a nuclear plant safely. >Edit: Nuclear is probably cheaper than provisioning region-scale batteries for a week It absolutely isnt. pumped storage is way cheaper and electrolyzing hydrogen from green energy is cheaper than nuclear power. If you are taking a pro nukes stance (and many people do) you will want more nuclear power, but it only really has military cost sharing value, for providing green energy it is a colossal waste of money no matter what its lobbyists say to persuade you.