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Unfortunately nuclear is now horribly expensive to build so we’re just not going to build that much of it. By contrast renewables (and batteries) are getting ch

Unfortunately nuclear is now horribly expensive to build so we’re just not going to build that much of it. By contrast renewables (and batteries) are getting cheaper and cheaper so we are building lots of them. In 2022 Denmark generated 62% (+12% from 2021) of its electricity from renewables (excluding biomass which seems suspect to me) while France generated 63% (-5% from 2021) from Nuclear. I think you can make a case that nuclear is competitive for 100% carbon free grids (though by the time it’s built batteries will have gotten far cheaper.) But it seems clear that renewables are by far the cheapest and quickest way to get to ~80% carbon free grids.

vlovich123 3y ago
Yes yes. Renewable proponents really love trotting out costs while ignoring the only reason costs have gone up is because we significantly ramped down our nuclear production efforts. Same would happen if we did that for solar. But that’s a choice we get to make. Also nuclear construction costs are particularly outsized in the US where regulations are intentionally constructed to strangle it. Japan, China, and Europe build it much more cheaply. Existing heavy water reactors could be built more cheaply than they are now. And MSR/thorium designs are a step function cheaper beyond that because they generate even less waste, don’t need expensive fail-safe mechanisms because it’s inheritently physically impossible to melt down, and don’t need water to cool down which is both a cost savings & avoids the issue of warming waters due to global warming impacting the ability for reactors to run at times. China has already started building MSR designs and it sucks that the DOE is dragging their feet in approving these designs & focusing instead on SMR designs. The regulatory capture of the US beuracracy by fossil fuel companies is a huge problem. > it seems clear that renewables are by far the cheapest and quickest way to get to 80% carbon free grids Got any existence proof for this claim? We’re building renewables as fast as we can and countries seem to generally tap out at ~20% ammortized across the year and are growing extremely slowly (~1% each year). By comparison France runs 90% carbon free and that’s because of their nuclear grid. Batteries will decrease over time but we still don’t yet know what grid-scale renewable base load looks like & I don’t think that 80% number is correct considering that baseload is 30-40% of maximum load (i.e. best case peak without batteries is 60-70%). But all the solar proponents also seem to ignore a major headwind for solar which is that while we build out more & more capacity, our energy demands grow faster than that. We’ve electrified 2% of consumer cars, 0% of trucks, 0% of ships, 0% of airplanes. Electrifying cars is going to add an insane amount of demands on the grid & solar can’t keep up (batteries either). And yes, there’s the argument of using batteries in EVs to do the grid balancing but we don’t actually have that tech & 0 regulations requiring it meaning that in 2035 which is the target when ostensibly we stop creating new ICE cars, we still won’t have that ability. Building out nuclear capacity is still by far the quickest & cheapest option to not only convert our existing energy to carbon free but also to keep up with ever growing demands. Remember - the more capacity you build, the cheaper it gets per MW. Also, nuclear is way more land efficient than solar which is a separate unrelated discussion but also relevant. Again, my argument is not to stop solar investments but to remove all the regulatory and bueracratic roadblocks that inhibit nuclear fission so that those companies can compete fairly. Denmark is an absolute best case because they are geographically advantaged for wind. Wind is much more resilient and cheaper than solar but is also more geography dependent. Fission can be installed anywhere.
- laurencerowe 3y ago
  > Yes yes. Renewable proponents really love trotting out costs while ignoring the only reason costs have gone up is because we significantly ramped down our nuclear production efforts. Same would happen if we did that for solar. But that’s a choice we get to make. The huge difference here is that each individual nuclear power station is a megaproject while solar panels are mass manufactured items produced in the hundreds of millions per year. > Also nuclear construction costs are particularly outsized in the US where regulations are intentionally constructed to strangle it. Japan, China, and Europe build it much more cheaply. Europe is not building new nuclear cheaply or quickly either. All three EPR projects in Europe are hugely over budget (at least $10B per reactor) and more than a decade behind schedule. China has been able to build new nuclear more quickly but the factors that make building new nuclear faster in China also make building new renewables faster: "Every year, the combination of wind and solar, and usually both individually, outstripped new nuclear generation, both in raw nameplate capacity and in additional TWh of annual generation." https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/06/renewables-in-china-trend-upward-while-nuclear-trends-flat/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/06/renewables-in-china-tre... > Denmark is an absolute best case because they are geographically advantaged for wind. Wind is much more resilient and cheaper than solar but is also more geography dependent. Fission can be installed anywhere. Onshore wind and utility scale solar seem to be pretty similar cost-wise now, which is cheaper will depend on the site. Northern Europe is really bad for solar given the northerly latitude, but southern Europe and the US are far more suited to it. Offshore wind is expensive for renewables though getting cheaper. It's now about the same cost as gas (before prices went up when Russia invaded Ukraine) in Europe and under half the cost of new nuclear. > Got any existence proof for this claim? We’re building renewables as fast as we can and countries seem to generally tap out at ~20% ammortized across the year and are growing extremely slowly (~1% each year). Between 2000 and 2020 renewables went from 2.8% to 43.1% of UK generation. It's being built at 2% a year. That's about 25% in the time it takes to build a new nuclear reactor. China is increasing the percentage of both solar and wind in its energy mix by about 1% each per year (much faster than nuclear.) In 10 years wind and nuclear have gone from neck and neck to wind being almost double, while solar has gone from nothing to neck and neck with nuclear. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source?time=2012..latest&country=~CHN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source?time... > By comparison France runs 90% carbon free and that’s because of their nuclear grid. I pretty much lost hope in nuclear when it turned out even the French can't build it cost effectively anymore. 20 years ago nuclear looked like the only realistic option. Since then nuclear build costs have spiralled while renewables have gotten cheaper and cheaper.

vlovich123 3y ago

Yes yes. Renewable proponents really love trotting out costs while ignoring the only reason costs have gone up is because we significantly ramped down our nuclear production efforts. Same would happen if we did that for solar. But that’s a choice we get to make. Also nuclear construction costs are particularly outsized in the US where regulations are intentionally constructed to strangle it. Japan, China, and Europe build it much more cheaply. Existing heavy water reactors could be built more cheaply than they are now. And MSR/thorium designs are a step function cheaper beyond that because they generate even less waste, don’t need expensive fail-safe mechanisms because it’s inheritently physically impossible to melt down, and don’t need water to cool down which is both a cost savings & avoids the issue of warming waters due to global warming impacting the ability for reactors to run at times. China has already started building MSR designs and it sucks that the DOE is dragging their feet in approving these designs & focusing instead on SMR designs. The regulatory capture of the US beuracracy by fossil fuel companies is a huge problem. > it seems clear that renewables are by far the cheapest and quickest way to get to 80% carbon free grids Got any existence proof for this claim? We’re building renewables as fast as we can and countries seem to generally tap out at ~20% ammortized across the year and are growing extremely slowly (~1% each year). By comparison France runs 90% carbon free and that’s because of their nuclear grid. Batteries will decrease over time but we still don’t yet know what grid-scale renewable base load looks like & I don’t think that 80% number is correct considering that baseload is 30-40% of maximum load (i.e. best case peak without batteries is 60-70%). But all the solar proponents also seem to ignore a major headwind for solar which is that while we build out more & more capacity, our energy demands grow faster than that. We’ve electrified 2% of consumer cars, 0% of trucks, 0% of ships, 0% of airplanes. Electrifying cars is going to add an insane amount of demands on the grid & solar can’t keep up (batteries either). And yes, there’s the argument of using batteries in EVs to do the grid balancing but we don’t actually have that tech & 0 regulations requiring it meaning that in 2035 which is the target when ostensibly we stop creating new ICE cars, we still won’t have that ability. Building out nuclear capacity is still by far the quickest & cheapest option to not only convert our existing energy to carbon free but also to keep up with ever growing demands. Remember - the more capacity you build, the cheaper it gets per MW. Also, nuclear is way more land efficient than solar which is a separate unrelated discussion but also relevant. Again, my argument is not to stop solar investments but to remove all the regulatory and bueracratic roadblocks that inhibit nuclear fission so that those companies can compete fairly. Denmark is an absolute best case because they are geographically advantaged for wind. Wind is much more resilient and cheaper than solar but is also more geography dependent. Fission can be installed anywhere.

laurencerowe 3y ago
> Yes yes. Renewable proponents really love trotting out costs while ignoring the only reason costs have gone up is because we significantly ramped down our nuclear production efforts. Same would happen if we did that for solar. But that’s a choice we get to make. The huge difference here is that each individual nuclear power station is a megaproject while solar panels are mass manufactured items produced in the hundreds of millions per year. > Also nuclear construction costs are particularly outsized in the US where regulations are intentionally constructed to strangle it. Japan, China, and Europe build it much more cheaply. Europe is not building new nuclear cheaply or quickly either. All three EPR projects in Europe are hugely over budget (at least $10B per reactor) and more than a decade behind schedule. China has been able to build new nuclear more quickly but the factors that make building new nuclear faster in China also make building new renewables faster: "Every year, the combination of wind and solar, and usually both individually, outstripped new nuclear generation, both in raw nameplate capacity and in additional TWh of annual generation." https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/06/renewables-in-china-trend-upward-while-nuclear-trends-flat/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/06/renewables-in-china-tre... > Denmark is an absolute best case because they are geographically advantaged for wind. Wind is much more resilient and cheaper than solar but is also more geography dependent. Fission can be installed anywhere. Onshore wind and utility scale solar seem to be pretty similar cost-wise now, which is cheaper will depend on the site. Northern Europe is really bad for solar given the northerly latitude, but southern Europe and the US are far more suited to it. Offshore wind is expensive for renewables though getting cheaper. It's now about the same cost as gas (before prices went up when Russia invaded Ukraine) in Europe and under half the cost of new nuclear. > Got any existence proof for this claim? We’re building renewables as fast as we can and countries seem to generally tap out at ~20% ammortized across the year and are growing extremely slowly (~1% each year). Between 2000 and 2020 renewables went from 2.8% to 43.1% of UK generation. It's being built at 2% a year. That's about 25% in the time it takes to build a new nuclear reactor. China is increasing the percentage of both solar and wind in its energy mix by about 1% each per year (much faster than nuclear.) In 10 years wind and nuclear have gone from neck and neck to wind being almost double, while solar has gone from nothing to neck and neck with nuclear. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source?time=2012..latest&country=~CHN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source?time... > By comparison France runs 90% carbon free and that’s because of their nuclear grid. I pretty much lost hope in nuclear when it turned out even the French can't build it cost effectively anymore. 20 years ago nuclear looked like the only realistic option. Since then nuclear build costs have spiralled while renewables have gotten cheaper and cheaper.