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Between now and 2030 there will be a lot of energy generation coming online. Hundreds of GW basically. The vast majority of that is going to be renewables. Nucl

Between now and 2030 there will be a lot of energy generation coming online. Hundreds of GW basically. The vast majority of that is going to be renewables. Nuclear is not going to contribute much at all. It might actually shrink proportionally as several reactors are scheduled to be decommissioned and there just isn't a whole lot being approved for construction. This project is only adding some 340 MW. Not nothing of course but probably expensive and just not a lot in comparison. And of course that 2030 target date will likely slip. And in good tradition the article doesn't actually talk about budgets or money. Because obviously, this being a nuclear plant, it will blow through whatever budget was defined. By about 2x at least. > Today couldn’t have happened without the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, which is supporting the project with the largest single contribution the federal government has ever committed to a private project. Which in short, is why Bill Gates is still involved at all: tax payer money is covering the budget and most of the risk. Which is substantial. And he gets to look all visionary if/when this thing comes online at great cost at some point in the 2030s.

mjhay 2y ago
I'm glad more renewables are coming online, but that's not the 24/7 base capacity that is really needed to fully replace fossil fuels. Solar and wind are cheap now, but they only generate power when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. Thus, energy storage on a huge scale is needed if they are to replace fossil fuels. Power grid unreliability is politically untenable. People will march headfirst into the destruction of industrial civilization, ignoring the warnings of climate scientists, before they will accept an electrical grid that is offline for 5% of the time. For as difficult as nuclear is, storage is much harder yet. Nuclear is proven tech. It works at scale. The main obstacles political, but they are much more easily overcome than objections people would have with an unreliable grid.
- ViewTrick1002 2y ago
  Baseload power producers ceased to be relevant decades ago. The nuclear industry has coopted the term because they know they can’t compete on cost. With storage now coming online in large enough quantities to meaningfully affect the grid the window of opportunity for nuclear energy has passed. It had a chance if the reactors started in the 2000s had delivered on time and on budget. They did not deliver. https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-batteries-apr-2024/ https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-batteries-apr-2024/
  - mjhay 2y ago
    Baseload power is still very much relevant. People will not tolerate power outages when it's cloudy. Yes, storage has advanced, but it's nowhere near the capacity that's needed. If it were, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. It's far from the capacity of existing nuclear power supplies, right now - much less what is needed.
    - ViewTrick1002 2y ago
      Given your answer it does not seem like you opened the linked article. Storage in California is supplying the equivalent to 4-6 nuclear reactors during the evening peaks. They are supplying nuclear scale level energy. We are having this discussion because a nuclear energy startup sees their window of opportunity vanish. Baseload on the demand side still exists. Baseload powerplants not so much. Look at the rate California is installing storage. Given the current rate, in 20 years time when what we install today reaches EOL, California will have 10 hours of storage during the summer peak. When simulating the Australian grid with 5 hours of storage at mean power levels that leads to 99% reliability. [1] A nuclear plant to solve the last 1% is a non-starter. Of course we also do not only rely on storage, there is also: - Large grid to decouple weather patterns - Demand response People already get on hourly contracts and schedule car charging for when it is cheap. The next step is automating it and making it more streamlined. Some companies already support chargers which integrate with the pricing, they can even give you money back through demand response. [1]: https://twitter.com/DavidOsmond8 https://twitter.com/DavidOsmond8
  - Herz 2y ago
    It's worth noting that California is one of the wealthiest regions in the world, yet it faces extremely high electricity bills to achieve its goals. On the other hand, nuclear power is criticized while France, which relies heavily on nuclear energy, enjoys some of the lowest electricity rates in Europe. Claiming that nuclear power is an irrelevant option in 2024 for decarbonizing by 2050 is simply false. The timeline for nuclear construction is well-documented and realistic. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-construction-time https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi... How can you apply California's model to poorer countries when even California hasn't fully decarbonized? France, on the other hand, achieved significant decarbonization decades ago. It's ironic that people like you see the fight against climate change as an opportunity to attack nuclear power. Be honest about your intentions.

mjhay 2y ago

I'm glad more renewables are coming online, but that's not the 24/7 base capacity that is really needed to fully replace fossil fuels. Solar and wind are cheap now, but they only generate power when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. Thus, energy storage on a huge scale is needed if they are to replace fossil fuels. Power grid unreliability is politically untenable. People will march headfirst into the destruction of industrial civilization, ignoring the warnings of climate scientists, before they will accept an electrical grid that is offline for 5% of the time. For as difficult as nuclear is, storage is much harder yet. Nuclear is proven tech. It works at scale. The main obstacles political, but they are much more easily overcome than objections people would have with an unreliable grid.

ViewTrick1002 2y ago
Baseload power producers ceased to be relevant decades ago. The nuclear industry has coopted the term because they know they can’t compete on cost. With storage now coming online in large enough quantities to meaningfully affect the grid the window of opportunity for nuclear energy has passed. It had a chance if the reactors started in the 2000s had delivered on time and on budget. They did not deliver. https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-batteries-apr-2024/ https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-batteries-apr-2024/
- mjhay 2y ago
  Baseload power is still very much relevant. People will not tolerate power outages when it's cloudy. Yes, storage has advanced, but it's nowhere near the capacity that's needed. If it were, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. It's far from the capacity of existing nuclear power supplies, right now - much less what is needed.
  - ViewTrick1002 2y ago
    Given your answer it does not seem like you opened the linked article. Storage in California is supplying the equivalent to 4-6 nuclear reactors during the evening peaks. They are supplying nuclear scale level energy. We are having this discussion because a nuclear energy startup sees their window of opportunity vanish. Baseload on the demand side still exists. Baseload powerplants not so much. Look at the rate California is installing storage. Given the current rate, in 20 years time when what we install today reaches EOL, California will have 10 hours of storage during the summer peak. When simulating the Australian grid with 5 hours of storage at mean power levels that leads to 99% reliability. [1] A nuclear plant to solve the last 1% is a non-starter. Of course we also do not only rely on storage, there is also: - Large grid to decouple weather patterns - Demand response People already get on hourly contracts and schedule car charging for when it is cheap. The next step is automating it and making it more streamlined. Some companies already support chargers which integrate with the pricing, they can even give you money back through demand response. [1]: https://twitter.com/DavidOsmond8 https://twitter.com/DavidOsmond8
- Herz 2y ago
  It's worth noting that California is one of the wealthiest regions in the world, yet it faces extremely high electricity bills to achieve its goals. On the other hand, nuclear power is criticized while France, which relies heavily on nuclear energy, enjoys some of the lowest electricity rates in Europe. Claiming that nuclear power is an irrelevant option in 2024 for decarbonizing by 2050 is simply false. The timeline for nuclear construction is well-documented and realistic. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-construction-time https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi... How can you apply California's model to poorer countries when even California hasn't fully decarbonized? France, on the other hand, achieved significant decarbonization decades ago. It's ironic that people like you see the fight against climate change as an opportunity to attack nuclear power. Be honest about your intentions.