9 ms·

I would take that bet. Nuclear tech will also continue to improve.

stetrain 3y ago
Nuclear does not seem to be on the mass production curve that solar and batteries are. Even if you could design a reactor that itself can be mass produced at that scale, you still need to do the same with selecting and getting environmental and public safety approval for installation sites and production, transportation, and disposal of the fuel and waste. I'm not against nuclear from a technological perspective, but I just don't see it being economically competitive with effectively printable devices like solar and batteries given the current direction of the cost curves on each.
- the8472 3y ago
  https://www.statista.com/statistics/1129876/china-nuclear-power-generation-volume/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1129876/china-nuclear-po...
  - stetrain 3y ago
    How do costs compare? What's the site approval process like in China vs the US?
  - _aavaa_ 3y ago
    Compare this graph with more than nuclear, and notice how lagging nuclear is compared to any other renewable. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-energy-consumption https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-energy-consumption
- fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago
  Nuclear might not be able to compete in the U.S. and Europe, but that’s largely because of a ridiculous regulatory regime and has very little to do with the actual tech.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    People love to say it, but is there evidence? I've never seen it - which doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but that this claim needs it.
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      Nuclear was much cheaper in the 1970s and early 80s: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-Construction-Cost-of-US-Nuclear-Power-Reactors-by-Construction-Start-Date_fig8_292964046 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-Construction-C... This wasn't just due to regulatory influence, it was also due to economies of scale. But the two are related, more regulation results in fewer builds. Fewer builds reduces economies of scale and thus increases costs. Which results in even fewer nuclear builds, and so on.
      - angiosperm 3y ago
        In other words, nuke cost has only ever increased, however much was built.
        Manuel_D 3y ago
        On a per-MW basis nuclear power dropped in cost during the 1950s. See the small blue dots round the late 1950s and early 60s? Compare that with the cluster of red dots.
        wolverine876 3y ago
        Early, low-hanging fruit?
        Manuel_D 3y ago
        That, and larger plants. Things like concrete containment vessels have costs relative to the surface area of a hemisphere, while power output scales with the volume. But the big driver was economies of scale. Building multiple copies of the same or similar design means you can have longer production runs of steam generators, pressure vessels, turbines, etc.
- throwjnkjk 3y ago
  Slave labor is always cheap. https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/images/storyboards/solar/Solar.pdf https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/images/storyboar...
- XorNot 3y ago
  Batteries are nowhere near able to meet any energy storage demands of the grid. The simple question to ask yourself is why do battery installations always get quoted in units of power - GW - and not units of energy, GWH - which is what we actually use? (The answer is: because they're terrible for it. Batteries hold about 3x they're rated power value as energy - which means the 10 GW or whatever someone quotes is good for about 3 hours at that output. Great for grid stability, expensive and useless for long term storage).
  - cesarb 3y ago
    > The simple question to ask yourself is why do battery installations always get quoted in units of power - GW - and not units of energy, GWH - which is what we actually use? For the same reason gas power plants and hydroelectric power plants are quoted in MW units, and not on the size of their fuel tanks or reservoir volume (converted to MWh as appropriate): it's the most important number for balancing the grid. If you have 90 GW of power demand on the grid at a given moment, you need 90 GW of power generation on the grid at that same moment (simplifying a bit, since transmission constraints mean you also need some of that power generation to be at specific places).
    - XorNot 3y ago
      Thus answering the challenge: they're not storage. They're grid stabilization utilities. Because no one expects to run them for more then 30 minutes to an hour while they bring dispatchable generation online. Which means they're irrelevant to the idea of grid scale energy storage, because they don't meaningfully store anything.
      - ViewTrick1002 3y ago
        Last year you said they couldn't even meet enough demand for the grid. Now it is 30 minutes to an hour. Next year it will be hours. How does it feel when the Overton windows moves while nuclear is stuck in the past? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
- mpweiher 3y ago
  The insane thing is that it is so efficient that it doesn't need to be on that mass production curve to be competitive. It is competitive even in the somewhat insane way we build it now. However, we have a number of companies working on building reactors in factories. Rolls-Royce for example is talking to Ukraine to upgrade some of their old (not sure if already decommissioned) coal plants to nuclear with small, factory-built nuclear reactors.
ethbr1 3y ago
For that to happen in the US, (1) we need to focus on more numerous, smaller modular reactors, (2) the NRC needs certification timeliness requirements forced on it (and more funding if there's an actual lack of resources), and (3) specific project requirements need to be frozen before construction (no more up-requiring mid-construction). Modular reactors are the solution to not having enough capital or a long enough timeframe to launch and fund megaprojects at a pace that creates economies of scale anymore, which is exactly the US problem.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  > NRC needs certification timeliness requirements forced on it That's going to be tough: What happens if the day comes and they don't yet know? They can't just approve it, so just deny it?
  - zdragnar 3y ago
    The government should cover the losses of the investors. Various agencies are constantly missing FOIA deadlines, and often the only way to get them to actually do the jobs they are legally required to do is to sue them in court, asking for both the information and to have court costs covered.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      Even if you could pass that legislation, which seems very unlikely, that doesn't solve the problem. The employees of the regulators aren't personally liable, and in many respects don't individually control the schedule. The investors also cause delays - and would now have an incentive to do that - and in many cases the/an investor is the government. Also, good luck explaining to taxpayers the $10 billion payout.
      - zdragnar 3y ago
        Right, the employees would have to be liable to their bosses. Their bosses would have to be answering up the chain, to congress and the president. Presumably, for a regulatory agency to be held to a deadline, they would need to outline up front (or with reasonable notice) all of the things they would need to know and the inspections they would have to make. Those time tables would have to be defined early on. This is where the idea breaks down. How does a regulator devise a fixed schedule to regulate a novel technology? How do you hold government employees accountable without upsetting powerful interests like politicians and unions, or get staffing funded properly on demand? How do you even get the government to hold itself accountable on something like this when the DOD can't even *complete a clean audit*? We'll probably just keep winging it, badly.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
Nuclear has only ever gotten more cost inefficient. What makes you think that will change?
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  Nuclear was cheaper when more of it was built [1]. Economies of scale make things cheaper. A production run of 40 steam generators is a lot cheaper than 4 steam generators. Proponents of a primarily solar + wind grid are betting on a breakthrough in energy storage. If that breakthrough does not transpire, we'll either have to give up on stopping carbon emissions or use nuclear power. 1. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-Construction-Cost-of-US-Nuclear-Power-Reactors-by-Construction-Start-Date_fig8_292964046 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-Construction-C...
  - sounds 3y ago
    Converting atmospheric CO2 into fuels could contribute to this effort. But bacterial and plant-based fuel production may still be more economical and produce fewer overall emissions than even a solar array and a carbon capture plant.
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      Converting atmospheric CO2 into hydrocarbon fuels requires hydrogen as an input, so it'd probably be easier to just store the hydrogen directly. Right now, almost all hydrogen is produced through steam reformation [1] which emits CO2. Electrolysis is inefficient and corrosion of electrodes makes it expensive and hard to scale. Capturing atmospheric CO2 is similarly difficult. Carbon Dioxide is at very low concentrations in the atmosphere so it takes a really long time to sequester meaningful amounts of it. Similar issue with biomass: it produces energy very slowly and doesn't have the scale required. There's a reason why plans for a primarily renewable grid assume that compressed air, synthetic ammonia, giant flywheels, or something else will provide storage for orders of magnitude cheaper than batteries: because existing storage systems aren't capable of meeting the storage demands of intermittent generation. Will one of these systems deliver a storage breakthrough? Maybe. But it's not wise to bet the future of your electrical grid on a technological breakthrough that hasn't happened yet. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming
jeffbee 3y ago
I love the improvement implied by "continue to improve" in the face of all evidence that shows fission is a uniquely impractical source of energy that has done nothing but get more and more expensive.
grecy 3y ago
So the first nuke power reactor went live in 1951. In the 72 years since then, in what meaningful ways has "Nuclear tech" improved? It's not cheaper to build. It's not cheaper to operate. It's not cheaper to dispose of the waste. It's not cheaper to decommission. It's not faster to build. ?

Nuclear does not seem to be on the mass production curve that solar and batteries are. Even if you could design a reactor that itself can be mass produced at that scale, you still need to do the same with selecting and getting environmental and public safety approval for installation sites and production, transportation, and disposal of the fuel and waste. I'm not against nuclear from a technological perspective, but I just don't see it being economically competitive with effectively printable devices like solar and batteries given the current direction of the cost curves on each.

the8472 3y ago
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1129876/china-nuclear-power-generation-volume/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1129876/china-nuclear-po...
- stetrain 3y ago
  How do costs compare? What's the site approval process like in China vs the US?
- _aavaa_ 3y ago
  Compare this graph with more than nuclear, and notice how lagging nuclear is compared to any other renewable. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-energy-consumption https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-energy-consumption
fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago
Nuclear might not be able to compete in the U.S. and Europe, but that’s largely because of a ridiculous regulatory regime and has very little to do with the actual tech.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  People love to say it, but is there evidence? I've never seen it - which doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but that this claim needs it.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    Nuclear was much cheaper in the 1970s and early 80s: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-Construction-Cost-of-US-Nuclear-Power-Reactors-by-Construction-Start-Date_fig8_292964046 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-Construction-C... This wasn't just due to regulatory influence, it was also due to economies of scale. But the two are related, more regulation results in fewer builds. Fewer builds reduces economies of scale and thus increases costs. Which results in even fewer nuclear builds, and so on.
    - angiosperm 3y ago
      In other words, nuke cost has only ever increased, however much was built.
      - Manuel_D 3y ago
        On a per-MW basis nuclear power dropped in cost during the 1950s. See the small blue dots round the late 1950s and early 60s? Compare that with the cluster of red dots.
        wolverine876 3y ago
        Early, low-hanging fruit?
        Manuel_D 3y ago
        That, and larger plants. Things like concrete containment vessels have costs relative to the surface area of a hemisphere, while power output scales with the volume. But the big driver was economies of scale. Building multiple copies of the same or similar design means you can have longer production runs of steam generators, pressure vessels, turbines, etc.
throwjnkjk 3y ago
Slave labor is always cheap. https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/images/storyboards/solar/Solar.pdf https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/images/storyboar...
XorNot 3y ago
Batteries are nowhere near able to meet any energy storage demands of the grid. The simple question to ask yourself is why do battery installations always get quoted in units of power - GW - and not units of energy, GWH - which is what we actually use? (The answer is: because they're terrible for it. Batteries hold about 3x they're rated power value as energy - which means the 10 GW or whatever someone quotes is good for about 3 hours at that output. Great for grid stability, expensive and useless for long term storage).
- cesarb 3y ago
  > The simple question to ask yourself is why do battery installations always get quoted in units of power - GW - and not units of energy, GWH - which is what we actually use? For the same reason gas power plants and hydroelectric power plants are quoted in MW units, and not on the size of their fuel tanks or reservoir volume (converted to MWh as appropriate): it's the most important number for balancing the grid. If you have 90 GW of power demand on the grid at a given moment, you need 90 GW of power generation on the grid at that same moment (simplifying a bit, since transmission constraints mean you also need some of that power generation to be at specific places).
  - XorNot 3y ago
    Thus answering the challenge: they're not storage. They're grid stabilization utilities. Because no one expects to run them for more then 30 minutes to an hour while they bring dispatchable generation online. Which means they're irrelevant to the idea of grid scale energy storage, because they don't meaningfully store anything.
    - ViewTrick1002 3y ago
      Last year you said they couldn't even meet enough demand for the grid. Now it is 30 minutes to an hour. Next year it will be hours. How does it feel when the Overton windows moves while nuclear is stuck in the past? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
mpweiher 3y ago
The insane thing is that it is so efficient that it doesn't need to be on that mass production curve to be competitive. It is competitive even in the somewhat insane way we build it now. However, we have a number of companies working on building reactors in factories. Rolls-Royce for example is talking to Ukraine to upgrade some of their old (not sure if already decommissioned) coal plants to nuclear with small, factory-built nuclear reactors.

ethbr1 3y ago

For that to happen in the US, (1) we need to focus on more numerous, smaller modular reactors, (2) the NRC needs certification timeliness requirements forced on it (and more funding if there's an actual lack of resources), and (3) specific project requirements need to be frozen before construction (no more up-requiring mid-construction). Modular reactors are the solution to not having enough capital or a long enough timeframe to launch and fund megaprojects at a pace that creates economies of scale anymore, which is exactly the US problem.

wolverine876 3y ago
> NRC needs certification timeliness requirements forced on it That's going to be tough: What happens if the day comes and they don't yet know? They can't just approve it, so just deny it?
- zdragnar 3y ago
  The government should cover the losses of the investors. Various agencies are constantly missing FOIA deadlines, and often the only way to get them to actually do the jobs they are legally required to do is to sue them in court, asking for both the information and to have court costs covered.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    Even if you could pass that legislation, which seems very unlikely, that doesn't solve the problem. The employees of the regulators aren't personally liable, and in many respects don't individually control the schedule. The investors also cause delays - and would now have an incentive to do that - and in many cases the/an investor is the government. Also, good luck explaining to taxpayers the $10 billion payout.
    - zdragnar 3y ago
      Right, the employees would have to be liable to their bosses. Their bosses would have to be answering up the chain, to congress and the president. Presumably, for a regulatory agency to be held to a deadline, they would need to outline up front (or with reasonable notice) all of the things they would need to know and the inspections they would have to make. Those time tables would have to be defined early on. This is where the idea breaks down. How does a regulator devise a fixed schedule to regulate a novel technology? How do you hold government employees accountable without upsetting powerful interests like politicians and unions, or get staffing funded properly on demand? How do you even get the government to hold itself accountable on something like this when the DOD can't even *complete a clean audit*? We'll probably just keep winging it, badly.

HDThoreaun 3y ago

Nuclear has only ever gotten more cost inefficient. What makes you think that will change?

Manuel_D 3y ago
Nuclear was cheaper when more of it was built [1]. Economies of scale make things cheaper. A production run of 40 steam generators is a lot cheaper than 4 steam generators. Proponents of a primarily solar + wind grid are betting on a breakthrough in energy storage. If that breakthrough does not transpire, we'll either have to give up on stopping carbon emissions or use nuclear power. 1. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-Construction-Cost-of-US-Nuclear-Power-Reactors-by-Construction-Start-Date_fig8_292964046 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overnight-Construction-C...
- sounds 3y ago
  Converting atmospheric CO2 into fuels could contribute to this effort. But bacterial and plant-based fuel production may still be more economical and produce fewer overall emissions than even a solar array and a carbon capture plant.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    Converting atmospheric CO2 into hydrocarbon fuels requires hydrogen as an input, so it'd probably be easier to just store the hydrogen directly. Right now, almost all hydrogen is produced through steam reformation [1] which emits CO2. Electrolysis is inefficient and corrosion of electrodes makes it expensive and hard to scale. Capturing atmospheric CO2 is similarly difficult. Carbon Dioxide is at very low concentrations in the atmosphere so it takes a really long time to sequester meaningful amounts of it. Similar issue with biomass: it produces energy very slowly and doesn't have the scale required. There's a reason why plans for a primarily renewable grid assume that compressed air, synthetic ammonia, giant flywheels, or something else will provide storage for orders of magnitude cheaper than batteries: because existing storage systems aren't capable of meeting the storage demands of intermittent generation. Will one of these systems deliver a storage breakthrough? Maybe. But it's not wise to bet the future of your electrical grid on a technological breakthrough that hasn't happened yet. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming

jeffbee 3y ago

I love the improvement implied by "continue to improve" in the face of all evidence that shows fission is a uniquely impractical source of energy that has done nothing but get more and more expensive.

grecy 3y ago

So the first nuke power reactor went live in 1951. In the 72 years since then, in what meaningful ways has "Nuclear tech" improved? It's not cheaper to build. It's not cheaper to operate. It's not cheaper to dispose of the waste. It's not cheaper to decommission. It's not faster to build. ?