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IMHO this podcast is way too biased in favor of nuclear, and exemplifies the entire problem with the nuclear industry: too much magical thinking and not enough

IMHO this podcast is way too biased in favor of nuclear, and exemplifies the entire problem with the nuclear industry: too much magical thinking and not enough hard retrospective self-criticism. Are we going to be able to construct nuclear in the future? Probably? Maybe? But if folks like this are in charge of the efforts, then my answer is a firm "never." Take for example when Jigar Shah went on their podcast. Shah is a huuuge nuclear fan, and IMHO is way too optimistic too (for example the DoE's LPO Liftoff report on nuclear gave it a 30%-50% cost advantage out of nowhere in order to make it look the least bit plausible). But for all of Shah's blind spots on nuclear, at least he tried to give the Decouple podcast a small shower of reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwN1MCtBkVk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwN1MCtBkVk (BTW, Shah has said on recent podcasts that there will be more announcements of new AP1000s soon, and since he's giving out so much money to get them built, we should probably believe that. IMHO, I'd bet 10:1 that it will be wasted money that would be better spent on batteries and solar, but when it comes to subsidies and government spending, money is not actually fungible, so I support more shots on goal, even if they are very very long shots)

Manuel_D 3y ago
Nuclear power, despite its larger costs, is the only form of non-intermittent green energy production other than geographically limited options like dams and geothermal. Once wind and solar start saturating energy markets during peak hours of production, each new wind and solar plant has diminishing returns. While the plants themselves are expensive, producing wind and solar power at large scale and offsetting intermittency incurs costs in the form of increased transmission capacity and storage requirements. People really often don't comprehend just how titanic the storage requirements are just to provision half a day's worth of energy to offset daily solar fluctuations. The globe currently uses 60 TWh of electricity per day. That's 30,000 GWh for 12 hours of storage. Keep in mind, electricity is only about half our total energy use, heating and transportation also need to be electrified which will drive this number up. And lastly, diurnal storage isn't the only storage we'll need. We'll also need seasonal storage to offset weather fluctuations. When we stop asking "what's the most cost-efficient way to reduce CO2 emissions by a percent or two?" and start asking "how will we build a 100% carbon-free grid?" nuclear becomes a much more attractive option.
- fineIllregister 3y ago
  > While the plants themselves are expensive, producing wind and solar power at large scale and offsetting intermittency incurs costs in the form of increased transmission capacity and storage requirements. My understanding is that solar and wind are cheaper than nuclear even when accounting for storage. That's before you get to the externalized costs, such as waste disposal and decomissioning.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    > My understanding is that solar and wind are cheaper than nuclear even when accounting for storage. This understanding is either based on geographically limited storage options (hydroelectric storage), or is incorrect. The amount of batteries required to even out intermittent sources is many times more than the amount of batteries produced. The cost of a 1 GWh facility is very different from a 1 TWh facility. The latter is 2x the amount of batteries produced worldwide each year. But it's only 2 hours of the USA's electricity consumption. That's how big of a mismatch there exists between battery supply and the demands of grid storage. > That's before you get to the externalized costs, such as waste disposal and decomissioning. Waste disposal and decommissioning are already factored into nuclear power's cost. They have to pre-pay the cost of disposal and decommissioning.
    - epistasis 3y ago
      You need to update your talking points. Vogtle is $170-$180/MWh. https://www.powermag.com/blog/plant-vogtle-not-a-star-but-a-tragedy-for-the-people-of-georgia/ https://www.powermag.com/blog/plant-vogtle-not-a-star-but-a-... New solar is on average $40/MWh: https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/utility_scale_solar_2023_edition_slides.pdf https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/utility_scale_solar_... Back in 2022 when prices were higher, NREL put batteries at $482/kWh: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf That's $87/MWh for storage, backing out the battery lifetime and round trip efficiency from the same report. So depending on the time usage of electricity, the average solar+battery installation will have an averaging of $40/MWh and $127/Mwh electricity. That's using old prices. It's cheaper today, and will get cheaper in the future.
throw0101d 3y ago
> IMHO this podcast is way too biased in favor of nuclear, and exemplifies the entire problem with the nuclear industry: too much magical thinking and not enough hard retrospective self-criticism. Why do things have to be balanced or unbiased? The anti-nuclear folks have their platforms, why can't the pro-nuclear people have theirs? It is "biased" because it is run by a nuclear advocate? But given they had a three-part series on the problems and what went wrong with Vogtle, it's not like they're trying to hide everything under the rug. A little while ago they published a video on a debate with an anti-nuclear individual: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfL40rSFT00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfL40rSFT00 > Take for example when Jigar Shah went on their podcast. I have not gotten to that episode (yet?), but have heard Shah on podcasts like Odd Lots discussing his work more generally. > IMHO, I'd bet 10:1 that it will be wasted money that would be better spent on batteries and solar, but when it comes to subsidies and government spending, money is not actually fungible, so I support more shots on goal, even if they are very very long shots) As someone who lives in Ontario (same as Decouple host), my experience with renewables haven't exactly been thrilling (click on "Supply"): * https://www.ieso.ca/power-data https://www.ieso.ca/power-data Every time wind goes down (including down to zero), (natural/methane) gas generators tend to have to be powered up (putting junk into the atmosphre). I'd rather we just build more CANDUs for base load and let hydro take up more of the variable load.
- epistasis 3y ago
  Sure, have a pro-nuclear platform, but it would actually be productive it it attempted to improve the field instead of tilting at windmills of political goals. That's the difference between the success of renewables and the failures of nuclear. The renewable folks went out and built the stuff, made it scale, and fixed the problems. The nuclear folks are star-gazing, hoping and dreaming, without executing at all.
  - throw0101d 3y ago
    > Sure, have a pro-nuclear platform, but it would actually be productive it it attempted to improve the field instead of tilting at windmills of political goals. If there are factual issues with what they say, feel free to post a comment correcting them. Just because something is (allegedly) "biased" does not make it wrong. > That's the difference between the success of renewables and the failures of nuclear. There's also a difference between the failures (and inadequacies) of renewables and the success of nuclear: * https://www.ieso.ca/power-data https://www.ieso.ca/power-data § Supply When wind goes to zero at night (which it has done in Ontario), what are the options for keeping people warm in January and cool in July?

Manuel_D 3y ago

Nuclear power, despite its larger costs, is the only form of non-intermittent green energy production other than geographically limited options like dams and geothermal. Once wind and solar start saturating energy markets during peak hours of production, each new wind and solar plant has diminishing returns. While the plants themselves are expensive, producing wind and solar power at large scale and offsetting intermittency incurs costs in the form of increased transmission capacity and storage requirements. People really often don't comprehend just how titanic the storage requirements are just to provision half a day's worth of energy to offset daily solar fluctuations. The globe currently uses 60 TWh of electricity per day. That's 30,000 GWh for 12 hours of storage. Keep in mind, electricity is only about half our total energy use, heating and transportation also need to be electrified which will drive this number up. And lastly, diurnal storage isn't the only storage we'll need. We'll also need seasonal storage to offset weather fluctuations. When we stop asking "what's the most cost-efficient way to reduce CO2 emissions by a percent or two?" and start asking "how will we build a 100% carbon-free grid?" nuclear becomes a much more attractive option.

fineIllregister 3y ago
> While the plants themselves are expensive, producing wind and solar power at large scale and offsetting intermittency incurs costs in the form of increased transmission capacity and storage requirements. My understanding is that solar and wind are cheaper than nuclear even when accounting for storage. That's before you get to the externalized costs, such as waste disposal and decomissioning.
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  > My understanding is that solar and wind are cheaper than nuclear even when accounting for storage. This understanding is either based on geographically limited storage options (hydroelectric storage), or is incorrect. The amount of batteries required to even out intermittent sources is many times more than the amount of batteries produced. The cost of a 1 GWh facility is very different from a 1 TWh facility. The latter is 2x the amount of batteries produced worldwide each year. But it's only 2 hours of the USA's electricity consumption. That's how big of a mismatch there exists between battery supply and the demands of grid storage. > That's before you get to the externalized costs, such as waste disposal and decomissioning. Waste disposal and decommissioning are already factored into nuclear power's cost. They have to pre-pay the cost of disposal and decommissioning.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    You need to update your talking points. Vogtle is $170-$180/MWh. https://www.powermag.com/blog/plant-vogtle-not-a-star-but-a-tragedy-for-the-people-of-georgia/ https://www.powermag.com/blog/plant-vogtle-not-a-star-but-a-... New solar is on average $40/MWh: https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/utility_scale_solar_2023_edition_slides.pdf https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/utility_scale_solar_... Back in 2022 when prices were higher, NREL put batteries at $482/kWh: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf That's $87/MWh for storage, backing out the battery lifetime and round trip efficiency from the same report. So depending on the time usage of electricity, the average solar+battery installation will have an averaging of $40/MWh and $127/Mwh electricity. That's using old prices. It's cheaper today, and will get cheaper in the future.

throw0101d 3y ago

> IMHO this podcast is way too biased in favor of nuclear, and exemplifies the entire problem with the nuclear industry: too much magical thinking and not enough hard retrospective self-criticism. Why do things have to be balanced or unbiased? The anti-nuclear folks have their platforms, why can't the pro-nuclear people have theirs? It is "biased" because it is run by a nuclear advocate? But given they had a three-part series on the problems and what went wrong with Vogtle, it's not like they're trying to hide everything under the rug. A little while ago they published a video on a debate with an anti-nuclear individual: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfL40rSFT00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfL40rSFT00 > Take for example when Jigar Shah went on their podcast. I have not gotten to that episode (yet?), but have heard Shah on podcasts like Odd Lots discussing his work more generally. > IMHO, I'd bet 10:1 that it will be wasted money that would be better spent on batteries and solar, but when it comes to subsidies and government spending, money is not actually fungible, so I support more shots on goal, even if they are very very long shots) As someone who lives in Ontario (same as Decouple host), my experience with renewables haven't exactly been thrilling (click on "Supply"): * https://www.ieso.ca/power-data https://www.ieso.ca/power-data Every time wind goes down (including down to zero), (natural/methane) gas generators tend to have to be powered up (putting junk into the atmosphre). I'd rather we just build more CANDUs for base load and let hydro take up more of the variable load.

epistasis 3y ago
Sure, have a pro-nuclear platform, but it would actually be productive it it attempted to improve the field instead of tilting at windmills of political goals. That's the difference between the success of renewables and the failures of nuclear. The renewable folks went out and built the stuff, made it scale, and fixed the problems. The nuclear folks are star-gazing, hoping and dreaming, without executing at all.
- throw0101d 3y ago
  > Sure, have a pro-nuclear platform, but it would actually be productive it it attempted to improve the field instead of tilting at windmills of political goals. If there are factual issues with what they say, feel free to post a comment correcting them. Just because something is (allegedly) "biased" does not make it wrong. > That's the difference between the success of renewables and the failures of nuclear. There's also a difference between the failures (and inadequacies) of renewables and the success of nuclear: * https://www.ieso.ca/power-data https://www.ieso.ca/power-data § Supply When wind goes to zero at night (which it has done in Ontario), what are the options for keeping people warm in January and cool in July?