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When people want 10-100x our current power production, they will build 10-100x solar and wind, because they are massively cheaper. Nukes have only ever got more
by angiosperm 3y ago
When people want 10-100x our current power production, they will build 10-100x solar and wind, because they are massively cheaper. Nukes have only ever got more expensive.
Nukes might make sense on the moon.
- arrosenberg 3y agoIgnores context, diminishing returns, the lack of viable storage options at that scale (or even the current one). Gonna still put my money on the proven tech for 10-100x projects - its a social choice to make it expensive.
- angiosperm 3y agoRight now little is spent on storage because dollars are overwhelmingly better spent building out generating capacity, even in places where noontime generation exceeds demand. When there is a strict excess of renewable generation, it will be time to begin building out storage. We have myriad viable storage options. Costs for storage are still falling fast.
- arrosenberg 3y agoThat doesn't make sense, do you have data for that? Best I can find is that we (the US) has the ability to store somewhere around 1% of our generation capacity, rounding up. Here in California we spend absurd amounts maintaining gas plants that only run during high demand periods, despite only having 6.6GW worth of storage for a state using 300 TWh per year. We are only 13% to our 2045 goal, so if it was cost-effective to do, we would already be doing it. Without the storage, all of that day time generation is pointless, we need either gas or nuclear at night anyways, so the cost isn't really affected.