4 ms·

Certainly a singular instance Germany in 2023 installed 1GW (correction: this figure was for solar, not wind) of wind power per month. Coincidentally that is ro

by atoav 3y ago

Certainly a singular instance Germany in 2023 installed 1GW (correction: this figure was for solar, not wind) of wind power per month. Coincidentally that is roughly the yield a single nuclear powerplant would give, only that the construction of these typically take a decade, not a month. And they cost more to build and operate. And before someone says: "But what about storage, they won't give you power when you need it!" — this is a problem that can be solved with engineering, unlike the peoblem of the 10.000 year storage of decaying nuclear waste, which becomes a problem of epochal societal scale. When was the last time you had one society last for that long? How would you even calculate the cost of that? Proponents of nuclear power never price this into the energy production (somehow this is something the state has to pay for some reason? But who knows whether a state exists in 5000 years?) and always handwave away the practical problems involved with storing this in densely populated areas for a time span so long it would put us back to the dawn of humankind. Reprocessing exists, sure, but that is only a fraction of the waste.

Geisterde 3y ago
So, france is able to store it all in a single warehouse despite being a majority nuclear grid, so volume isnt a concern. Environmentalist policy effectively shut down a plan for long term storage where its stored underground with signs designed to be understood by future civilizations. No, instead we will do this the hard way, where we have to build out 1000x++ the worlds battery capacity because there are no environmental concerns there, makes total sense.
- atoav 3y ago
  Sure, but there they can't get electricity in the summer when it gets to hot because they don't have enough water to cool the plants.
yorwba 3y ago
> Germany in 2023 installed 1GW of wind power per month I think you're confusing wind and solar. So far this year, 2.8 GW of wind power and 13.3 GW of solar have been installed. https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-strompreis-gaspreis-erneuerbare-energien-ausbau https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-strompreis-gas...
- atoav 3y ago
  True, I had it stored in the wrong mental shelve, thanks for the correction.
analognoise 3y ago
If society doesn’t exist in 5000 years, who cares who finds it? That’s like asking us now if we care there were human sacrifices 5000 years ago. Yeah, ok that’s awful but I don’t really care. Similarly if all society collapses, I do not give a shit if somebody digs hundreds of meters into a cave clearly labeled “do not go here” in pictograms that can be understood by the most rudimentary thinkers, and dies of radiation poisoning. We used to have GAMES where we watched people get ripped apart by lions, FOR SPORT. When did this BS “we must never potentially maybe damage some random human 5000 years into the future” stuff come from?
the_third_wave 3y ago
While nuclear power plants do indeed take more time and money to build they do have the significant advantage of reliably producing their target output come rain or shine. They also tend to last about three times as long as wind turbines (nuclear ~60 years lifetime, wind turbines ~20 years) - that is, they can last that long if no "green" politicos are around to switch them off due to ideological reasons. Nuclear power plants also take up far less space per produced TWh. The "10.000 year storage of nuclear waste" problem can be solved by using a fast neutron/breeder reactor with which spent fuel can be reworked into new reactor fuel. This has two big advantages in that it makes it possible to use up to 90% of the fissile material as fuel as opposed to less than 10% in conventional reactors) as well as the fact that fast reactors can "burn" the long-lived actinides which are responsible for the long-time storage requirements for conventional spent nuclear fuel. The remaining spent fuel is not only much smaller in volume (~10% of the original spent fuel mass) but also much shorter storage times of around 300 years instead of thousands of years.
- _ph_ 3y ago
  Well, the question is, how much does a nuclear powered grid cost vs. a renewable powered one. Price isn't irrelevant. Newest numbers for Hinkeley Point C don't look good. Also, while the weather isn't directly limiting the power output, the plands do require cooling which can be limited by the weather. France already had to limit nuclear production quite severely due to this. The life time of a wind generator isn't limited to 20 years - it is more practical reasons it isn't prolonged further. While with nuclear plants there is a lot of pressure to keep it working, even if the safety isn't quite up to modern standards. Interestingly, while breeding reactors can be built, none is operating in the west. France had two of them and stopped using them. It certainly is a delicate technology. Would be interesting to do a more detailled analysis why no one is operating any more. Perhaps it is just the typical stance of ignoring the problem of nuclear waste as long as possible. As it has been done so far.
  - the_third_wave 3y ago
    EPA: The typical life span of a windturbine is 20 years, with routine maintenance required every six months [1] Renewable Energy Foundation: a new study, The Performance of Wind Farms in the United Kingdom and Denmark [2] shows that the economic life of onshore wind turbines is between 10 and 15 years, not the 20 to 25 years projected by the wind industry itself and used for government projections Russia, China and India are operating breeder reactors, India and China are in the process of starting more. The French SuperPhenix commercial prototype was shut down on political grounds. The completed FBR in Kalkar (Germany) was never fueled, again on political grounds. From what I can see the reason for the limited deployment of FNR/FBR types is mostly based on political and ideological grounds. The fact that these reactor types can be used to create Plutonium which can be used to create nuclear weapons plays a large role as does the irrational fear of anything 'nuclear' in 'green' circles. The latter is becoming less relevant now that many 'green' politicos have seen the problems their anti-nuclear stance create in their own 'battle' against CO₂. The German 'greens' have not changed their ways yet which has led to the expansion of lignite use and with that lignite mining as well as a further deindustrialisation of Germany for lack of affordable electrical power. [1] https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPURL.cgi?Dockey=P100IL8K.TXT https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPURL.cgi?Dockey=P100IL8K.TXT [2] https://www.ref.org.uk/attachments/article/280/ref.hughes.19.12.12.pdf https://www.ref.org.uk/attachments/article/280/ref.hughes.19...
Ekaros 3y ago
Can you tell me what is the building cost of something extremely reasonable like 720 GWh of battery storage? That is full output just for single month. As I think shouldering these plants with that level of storage requirement is extremely reasonable.
karmakurtisaani 3y ago
Why are you making this into wind vs. nuclear again? Both are good and have their use cases.
- adrianN 3y ago
  They can't really coexist for financial reasons.
  - karmakurtisaani 3y ago
    Do I just have to take your word for it?
    - adrianN 3y ago
      Renewables have massive seasonal overproduction. Nuclear only makes financial sense when it runs continuously. It's difficult to reconcile these two.
      - karmakurtisaani 3y ago
        I don't see the problem. You run nuclear as baseload, and use the excess renewables to do energy intensive tasks, store what you can or sell them to the areas where there is no excess. This problem exists even when nuclear is not in the picture. Having nuclear will hedge you against the occasional underproduction you will experience with renewables, so to me it all sounds completely reasonable.
        adrianN 3y ago
        You force nuclear power plants to sell their energy at a loss for half the year at least. You can of course do that, but good luck finding investors.
        karmakurtisaani 3y ago
        Nuclear is already a challenging investment, as the plants are very expensive and only start producing after several years. I think it's reasonable to assume that the state would cover majority of the costs, and consider nuclear as an infrastructure investment, rather than get-rich-quick scheme.
fulafel 3y ago
Nuclear is even worse than that: The only nuclear plants in Europe that have been built in 10 years or less in recent times are Russian ones, the singular EPR took 18 years. It's not a timescale that is well suited for addressing the immediate climate catastrophe. (But we need to keep battling on the longer timescale as well of course, so nuclear is still good to build)
- TheChaplain 3y ago
  It is quite possible to build save nuclear plants in a short time. Swedish Barsebäck and Oskarshamn took 5 years each, finnish Olkiluoto 1 started already after 4 years. In the heavy bureaucratized Germany Unterweser took 6 years from first dig in the ground. All these are from the 1970's, and now roughly 50 years later, our evolved technology and knowledge of nuclear technology and safety, should make it even faster and safer. But funny enough it doesn't get faster. I have my suspicions why, but have not formulated my thoughts enough to blog about it.
  - adrianN 3y ago
    A lot has to happen before you can break ground building a nuclear power plant. Pure construction time is not a good measure.
- Geisterde 3y ago
  Is there an answer for the short term? Last I checked, there are days where the sun doesnt shine and the wind doesnt blow; its going to take a long time to build enough batteries.
  - theshrike79 3y ago
    With pure logic the short term solution is to build coal plants. They’re cheap, fast and easy to build. You can use coal as a stopgap while you ramp up nuclear and renewables. This is what China is doing for example
    - 3y ago
air7 3y ago
i always find it odd how risk averse the anti-nuclear camp is. I mean if climate change is as bad as they say, it's worth the risk! Without going into the argument itself. If we need radical changes fast, and nuclear can provide them(!!!) then the fact that there are some risks and that it might be a bit expensive shouldn't matter.
- _ph_ 3y ago
  If nuclear was the one option to fight climate change, then by all means we should do it. But the thing is: it isn't and it isn't even a good one. First of all: you say we need fast changes. That already rules out nuclear. Setting up a new reactor takes like 20 years. We don't have that time. And we wouldn't need one, each major industrial nation would need at least 100 of them, 10 billion each. There is just no way to achieve that. Not even mentioning the other downsides of nuclear. However renewable buildup is much faster. Germany has build up more than the equivalent of one nuclear plant of solar alone in one year and the buildup speed can be easily accelerated with a fraction of the effort of trying to expand the nuclear capacity.

by atoav 3y ago

Geisterde 3y ago

So, france is able to store it all in a single warehouse despite being a majority nuclear grid, so volume isnt a concern. Environmentalist policy effectively shut down a plan for long term storage where its stored underground with signs designed to be understood by future civilizations. No, instead we will do this the hard way, where we have to build out 1000x++ the worlds battery capacity because there are no environmental concerns there, makes total sense.

atoav 3y ago
Sure, but there they can't get electricity in the summer when it gets to hot because they don't have enough water to cool the plants.

yorwba 3y ago

> Germany in 2023 installed 1GW of wind power per month I think you're confusing wind and solar. So far this year, 2.8 GW of wind power and 13.3 GW of solar have been installed. https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-strompreis-gaspreis-erneuerbare-energien-ausbau https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-strompreis-gas...

atoav 3y ago
True, I had it stored in the wrong mental shelve, thanks for the correction.

analognoise 3y ago

If society doesn’t exist in 5000 years, who cares who finds it? That’s like asking us now if we care there were human sacrifices 5000 years ago. Yeah, ok that’s awful but I don’t really care. Similarly if all society collapses, I do not give a shit if somebody digs hundreds of meters into a cave clearly labeled “do not go here” in pictograms that can be understood by the most rudimentary thinkers, and dies of radiation poisoning. We used to have GAMES where we watched people get ripped apart by lions, FOR SPORT. When did this BS “we must never potentially maybe damage some random human 5000 years into the future” stuff come from?

the_third_wave 3y ago

While nuclear power plants do indeed take more time and money to build they do have the significant advantage of reliably producing their target output come rain or shine. They also tend to last about three times as long as wind turbines (nuclear ~60 years lifetime, wind turbines ~20 years) - that is, they can last that long if no "green" politicos are around to switch them off due to ideological reasons. Nuclear power plants also take up far less space per produced TWh. The "10.000 year storage of nuclear waste" problem can be solved by using a fast neutron/breeder reactor with which spent fuel can be reworked into new reactor fuel. This has two big advantages in that it makes it possible to use up to 90% of the fissile material as fuel as opposed to less than 10% in conventional reactors) as well as the fact that fast reactors can "burn" the long-lived actinides which are responsible for the long-time storage requirements for conventional spent nuclear fuel. The remaining spent fuel is not only much smaller in volume (~10% of the original spent fuel mass) but also much shorter storage times of around 300 years instead of thousands of years.

_ph_ 3y ago
Well, the question is, how much does a nuclear powered grid cost vs. a renewable powered one. Price isn't irrelevant. Newest numbers for Hinkeley Point C don't look good. Also, while the weather isn't directly limiting the power output, the plands do require cooling which can be limited by the weather. France already had to limit nuclear production quite severely due to this. The life time of a wind generator isn't limited to 20 years - it is more practical reasons it isn't prolonged further. While with nuclear plants there is a lot of pressure to keep it working, even if the safety isn't quite up to modern standards. Interestingly, while breeding reactors can be built, none is operating in the west. France had two of them and stopped using them. It certainly is a delicate technology. Would be interesting to do a more detailled analysis why no one is operating any more. Perhaps it is just the typical stance of ignoring the problem of nuclear waste as long as possible. As it has been done so far.
- the_third_wave 3y ago
  EPA: The typical life span of a windturbine is 20 years, with routine maintenance required every six months [1] Renewable Energy Foundation: a new study, The Performance of Wind Farms in the United Kingdom and Denmark [2] shows that the economic life of onshore wind turbines is between 10 and 15 years, not the 20 to 25 years projected by the wind industry itself and used for government projections Russia, China and India are operating breeder reactors, India and China are in the process of starting more. The French SuperPhenix commercial prototype was shut down on political grounds. The completed FBR in Kalkar (Germany) was never fueled, again on political grounds. From what I can see the reason for the limited deployment of FNR/FBR types is mostly based on political and ideological grounds. The fact that these reactor types can be used to create Plutonium which can be used to create nuclear weapons plays a large role as does the irrational fear of anything 'nuclear' in 'green' circles. The latter is becoming less relevant now that many 'green' politicos have seen the problems their anti-nuclear stance create in their own 'battle' against CO₂. The German 'greens' have not changed their ways yet which has led to the expansion of lignite use and with that lignite mining as well as a further deindustrialisation of Germany for lack of affordable electrical power. [1] https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPURL.cgi?Dockey=P100IL8K.TXT https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPURL.cgi?Dockey=P100IL8K.TXT [2] https://www.ref.org.uk/attachments/article/280/ref.hughes.19.12.12.pdf https://www.ref.org.uk/attachments/article/280/ref.hughes.19...

Ekaros 3y ago

Can you tell me what is the building cost of something extremely reasonable like 720 GWh of battery storage? That is full output just for single month. As I think shouldering these plants with that level of storage requirement is extremely reasonable.

karmakurtisaani 3y ago

Why are you making this into wind vs. nuclear again? Both are good and have their use cases.

adrianN 3y ago
They can't really coexist for financial reasons.
- karmakurtisaani 3y ago
  Do I just have to take your word for it?
  - adrianN 3y ago
    Renewables have massive seasonal overproduction. Nuclear only makes financial sense when it runs continuously. It's difficult to reconcile these two.
    - karmakurtisaani 3y ago
      I don't see the problem. You run nuclear as baseload, and use the excess renewables to do energy intensive tasks, store what you can or sell them to the areas where there is no excess. This problem exists even when nuclear is not in the picture. Having nuclear will hedge you against the occasional underproduction you will experience with renewables, so to me it all sounds completely reasonable.
      - adrianN 3y ago
        You force nuclear power plants to sell their energy at a loss for half the year at least. You can of course do that, but good luck finding investors.
        karmakurtisaani 3y ago
        Nuclear is already a challenging investment, as the plants are very expensive and only start producing after several years. I think it's reasonable to assume that the state would cover majority of the costs, and consider nuclear as an infrastructure investment, rather than get-rich-quick scheme.

fulafel 3y ago

Nuclear is even worse than that: The only nuclear plants in Europe that have been built in 10 years or less in recent times are Russian ones, the singular EPR took 18 years. It's not a timescale that is well suited for addressing the immediate climate catastrophe. (But we need to keep battling on the longer timescale as well of course, so nuclear is still good to build)

TheChaplain 3y ago
It is quite possible to build save nuclear plants in a short time. Swedish Barsebäck and Oskarshamn took 5 years each, finnish Olkiluoto 1 started already after 4 years. In the heavy bureaucratized Germany Unterweser took 6 years from first dig in the ground. All these are from the 1970's, and now roughly 50 years later, our evolved technology and knowledge of nuclear technology and safety, should make it even faster and safer. But funny enough it doesn't get faster. I have my suspicions why, but have not formulated my thoughts enough to blog about it.
- adrianN 3y ago
  A lot has to happen before you can break ground building a nuclear power plant. Pure construction time is not a good measure.
Geisterde 3y ago
Is there an answer for the short term? Last I checked, there are days where the sun doesnt shine and the wind doesnt blow; its going to take a long time to build enough batteries.
- theshrike79 3y ago
  With pure logic the short term solution is to build coal plants. They’re cheap, fast and easy to build. You can use coal as a stopgap while you ramp up nuclear and renewables. This is what China is doing for example
  - 3y ago

air7 3y ago

i always find it odd how risk averse the anti-nuclear camp is. I mean if climate change is as bad as they say, it's worth the risk! Without going into the argument itself. If we need radical changes fast, and nuclear can provide them(!!!) then the fact that there are some risks and that it might be a bit expensive shouldn't matter.

_ph_ 3y ago
If nuclear was the one option to fight climate change, then by all means we should do it. But the thing is: it isn't and it isn't even a good one. First of all: you say we need fast changes. That already rules out nuclear. Setting up a new reactor takes like 20 years. We don't have that time. And we wouldn't need one, each major industrial nation would need at least 100 of them, 10 billion each. There is just no way to achieve that. Not even mentioning the other downsides of nuclear. However renewable buildup is much faster. Germany has build up more than the equivalent of one nuclear plant of solar alone in one year and the buildup speed can be easily accelerated with a fraction of the effort of trying to expand the nuclear capacity.