4 ms·

>It looks to me it's the other way round. I never heard a pro-nuclear guy (I'm one) saying don't build solar or wind. It's the anti-nuclear guys (presumaby you'

>It looks to me it's the other way round. I never heard a pro-nuclear guy (I'm one) saying don't build solar or wind. It's the anti-nuclear guys (presumaby you're one) that say "DO NOT BUILD NUCLEAR". Or am I missing something? That's true, I'm basically saying do not build nuclear. But I feel like I have investigated it with an open mind, looked at the facts and reached the logical conclusion that spending money on nuclear infrastructure is a mistake. Basically I am convinced that we can add more stable energy with less downsides in shorter time to the grid using other means than building nuclear plants. And the money we need to do that comes from the same purse that finances nuclear.

credit_guy 3y ago
I agree with you. But here we were not talking about building new nuclear. We were talking about discontinuing existing nuclear. In my state, New York, they decommissioned two perfectly good gigawatt reactors in 2020 and 2021. The idea was to replace them with renewables. Guess what? They build 3 natural gas power plants and replaced 2 GW worth of zero carbon electricity with 1.8 GW worth of emissions. > As a result of the permanent shutdown of the plant, three new natural-gas fired power plants: Bayonne Energy Center, CPV Valley Energy Center, and Cricket Valley Energy Center were built, with a total capacity of 1.8 GW, replacing 90% of the 2.0 GW of carbon-free electricity previously generated by the plant. As a consequence, New York is expected to struggle to meet its climate goals. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Point_Energy_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Point_Energy_Center
- Kon5ole 3y ago
  >But here we were not talking about building new nuclear. We were talking about discontinuing existing nuclear. That's a fair point. The main argument in support of nuclear I can agree with is that once you've had nuclear operations in the country, you have to pay for it whether you continue or not, so you might as well continue. Some profit is better than no profit. But even that argument depends on whether existing nuclear plants are in fact profitable, so it is still important to find all the hidden costs. Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting anyone ever replaces nuclear with fossil fuels. That said, Indian Point is interesting: Entergy (the operator) cited sustained low market prices for electricity as the reason for the closure of the plant. But the average price of electricity in NYC has been 50% higher since about 2010 than it was for the 3 decades before 2010. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APUS12A72610 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APUS12A72610 Why is an old nuclear plant unprofitable after 40 years despite electricity prices being higher than ever? One explanation could be that it was in fact never profitable, but the true costs haven't been accounted for until now. "We assumed the problem would go away but it hasn't and now it's kind of expensive". This explanation also fits for France, who recently increased their state-dictated prices for nuclear from 44 euros per MWh to 70. Nuclear power estimates seems to get more expensive over time - which makes no sense unless the true costs were actually unknown/ignored when the initial estimates were made. That's the theory that makes the most sense to me at the moment anyway, even though it might be a bit speculative. If New York starts synthesizing hydrogen, they can use the new gas plants with up to 50% hydrogen in the mix with little or no alteration. At least that's something...
  - credit_guy 3y ago
    > If New York starts synthesizing hydrogen, I perceive some double standards here. For green hydrogen to be economic, you need a 10x reduction in production cost. Would you treat the following hypotheticals as equivalent? 1. If green hydrogen were 10x cheaper to make then ... 2. If nuclear reactors were 10x cheaper to build then ...
    - Kon5ole 3y ago
      I think we have passed the threshold for production cost. According to this overview [1] solar was at 1 cent per kwh a few years ago and panels are even cheaper now. Hydrogen can be created at 80% efficiency, so it seems like we should be able to generate hydrogen for somewhere around 2 cents per kWh once the investment in electrolysers are paid off. Converting the hydrogen back to electricity triples that but even 6 cents is cheaper than nuclear. Also, you wouldn't need to actually build solar specifically for this purpose. You could have the electrolysers run whenever the market conditions provide cheap electricity for any reason. Windy nights, warm winters, cold summers, economic downtimes, whatever - generate cheap gas to use later. And again, this infrastructure will never get more expensive in the future. There are no leaking storage sites that have to be sanitized (Asse II), no cracks in reactors that cost billions to fix (France) no Sellafields, Fukushimas or Chernobyls will ever happen related to hydrogen. If I interpret your question correctly you're basically saying "If nuclear was as cheap as green hydrogen, would I consider nuclear then"? The answer to that is no, I wouldn't, because I think that the orders of magnitude larger risks for unknown costs with nuclear also have to be considered. Even if nuclear was half as expensive as green hydrogen to operate it would be better to go for hydrogen, and since it seems likely that nuclear is instead the MORE expensive one, the choice should be very easy. At the very least I think the moment is ripe for a budget the size of a typical nuclear power plant to be spent on making a few large scale hydrogen facilities. Try it out at scale. It will take a few years but far less time than building a new reactor. [1] https://commercialsolarguy.com/lowest-solar-power-prices-in-the-world/ https://commercialsolarguy.com/lowest-solar-power-prices-in-...
      - credit_guy 3y ago

credit_guy 3y ago

I agree with you. But here we were not talking about building new nuclear. We were talking about discontinuing existing nuclear. In my state, New York, they decommissioned two perfectly good gigawatt reactors in 2020 and 2021. The idea was to replace them with renewables. Guess what? They build 3 natural gas power plants and replaced 2 GW worth of zero carbon electricity with 1.8 GW worth of emissions. > As a result of the permanent shutdown of the plant, three new natural-gas fired power plants: Bayonne Energy Center, CPV Valley Energy Center, and Cricket Valley Energy Center were built, with a total capacity of 1.8 GW, replacing 90% of the 2.0 GW of carbon-free electricity previously generated by the plant. As a consequence, New York is expected to struggle to meet its climate goals. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Point_Energy_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Point_Energy_Center

Kon5ole 3y ago
>But here we were not talking about building new nuclear. We were talking about discontinuing existing nuclear. That's a fair point. The main argument in support of nuclear I can agree with is that once you've had nuclear operations in the country, you have to pay for it whether you continue or not, so you might as well continue. Some profit is better than no profit. But even that argument depends on whether existing nuclear plants are in fact profitable, so it is still important to find all the hidden costs. Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting anyone ever replaces nuclear with fossil fuels. That said, Indian Point is interesting: Entergy (the operator) cited sustained low market prices for electricity as the reason for the closure of the plant. But the average price of electricity in NYC has been 50% higher since about 2010 than it was for the 3 decades before 2010. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APUS12A72610 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APUS12A72610 Why is an old nuclear plant unprofitable after 40 years despite electricity prices being higher than ever? One explanation could be that it was in fact never profitable, but the true costs haven't been accounted for until now. "We assumed the problem would go away but it hasn't and now it's kind of expensive". This explanation also fits for France, who recently increased their state-dictated prices for nuclear from 44 euros per MWh to 70. Nuclear power estimates seems to get more expensive over time - which makes no sense unless the true costs were actually unknown/ignored when the initial estimates were made. That's the theory that makes the most sense to me at the moment anyway, even though it might be a bit speculative. If New York starts synthesizing hydrogen, they can use the new gas plants with up to 50% hydrogen in the mix with little or no alteration. At least that's something...
- credit_guy 3y ago
  > If New York starts synthesizing hydrogen, I perceive some double standards here. For green hydrogen to be economic, you need a 10x reduction in production cost. Would you treat the following hypotheticals as equivalent? 1. If green hydrogen were 10x cheaper to make then ... 2. If nuclear reactors were 10x cheaper to build then ...
  - Kon5ole 3y ago
    I think we have passed the threshold for production cost. According to this overview [1] solar was at 1 cent per kwh a few years ago and panels are even cheaper now. Hydrogen can be created at 80% efficiency, so it seems like we should be able to generate hydrogen for somewhere around 2 cents per kWh once the investment in electrolysers are paid off. Converting the hydrogen back to electricity triples that but even 6 cents is cheaper than nuclear. Also, you wouldn't need to actually build solar specifically for this purpose. You could have the electrolysers run whenever the market conditions provide cheap electricity for any reason. Windy nights, warm winters, cold summers, economic downtimes, whatever - generate cheap gas to use later. And again, this infrastructure will never get more expensive in the future. There are no leaking storage sites that have to be sanitized (Asse II), no cracks in reactors that cost billions to fix (France) no Sellafields, Fukushimas or Chernobyls will ever happen related to hydrogen. If I interpret your question correctly you're basically saying "If nuclear was as cheap as green hydrogen, would I consider nuclear then"? The answer to that is no, I wouldn't, because I think that the orders of magnitude larger risks for unknown costs with nuclear also have to be considered. Even if nuclear was half as expensive as green hydrogen to operate it would be better to go for hydrogen, and since it seems likely that nuclear is instead the MORE expensive one, the choice should be very easy. At the very least I think the moment is ripe for a budget the size of a typical nuclear power plant to be spent on making a few large scale hydrogen facilities. Try it out at scale. It will take a few years but far less time than building a new reactor. [1] https://commercialsolarguy.com/lowest-solar-power-prices-in-the-world/ https://commercialsolarguy.com/lowest-solar-power-prices-in-...
    - credit_guy 3y ago