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Why bother building expensive centralised power generation using nuclear fission when you can just put down some more cheap solar panels that don’t have even ne

by irdc 3y ago

Why bother building expensive centralised power generation using nuclear fission when you can just put down some more cheap solar panels that don’t have even nearly the same regulatory burden? I’m asking this not to get into the usual discussion on baseload and the sun not always shining, but to point out the simple economics of renewables: they might not be ideal, but that won’t matter as they’ll be cheap.

MagnumOpus 3y ago
Baseload and nighttime cannot be ignored if you try to argue economics. You have to compensate with batteries or overbuild or a continent spanning grid - and suddenly “cheap” is not quite the word. And of course solar is “cheap” in SoCal or Morocco. North of latitude 50, in France or the UK or Canada or northern China it is more expensive than mass-produced nuclear power plants even without accounting for batteries and nighttime.
- ViewTrick1002 3y ago
  Which is why those countries focus on wind energy. The northern regions, outside the Arctic are the windiest places on earth, and wind is anticorrelated with the sun being stronger in the winter. https://globalwindatlas.info/en https://globalwindatlas.info/en
fho 3y ago
There are economies of scale at play here. One large powerplant will be more efficient and easier to maintain than tens of thousand small ones. Distributed solar is also a regulation nightmare. If there is a fault in a powerplant you have experienced staff on site to deal with the issue. If there is a bug in the firmware of a cheap inverter that is installed thousand of times the owners probably won't even notice until the grid maintainer rings. (I am pro-nuclear, but definitely not against solar. Still looking at a cheap balcony system once I find some time.)
RagnarD 3y ago
Solar or wind makes sense on a small individualized basis for offgrid users. It’s a terrible idea for grid scale power vs. nuclear.

by irdc 3y ago

MagnumOpus 3y ago

Baseload and nighttime cannot be ignored if you try to argue economics. You have to compensate with batteries or overbuild or a continent spanning grid - and suddenly “cheap” is not quite the word. And of course solar is “cheap” in SoCal or Morocco. North of latitude 50, in France or the UK or Canada or northern China it is more expensive than mass-produced nuclear power plants even without accounting for batteries and nighttime.

ViewTrick1002 3y ago
Which is why those countries focus on wind energy. The northern regions, outside the Arctic are the windiest places on earth, and wind is anticorrelated with the sun being stronger in the winter. https://globalwindatlas.info/en https://globalwindatlas.info/en

fho 3y ago

There are economies of scale at play here. One large powerplant will be more efficient and easier to maintain than tens of thousand small ones. Distributed solar is also a regulation nightmare. If there is a fault in a powerplant you have experienced staff on site to deal with the issue. If there is a bug in the firmware of a cheap inverter that is installed thousand of times the owners probably won't even notice until the grid maintainer rings. (I am pro-nuclear, but definitely not against solar. Still looking at a cheap balcony system once I find some time.)

RagnarD 3y ago

Solar or wind makes sense on a small individualized basis for offgrid users. It’s a terrible idea for grid scale power vs. nuclear.