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This is why we need nuclear. Humanity will always find a new expensive toy to play with, AI being the latest, and expecting large corporate entities to scale do

This is why we need nuclear. Humanity will always find a new expensive toy to play with, AI being the latest, and expecting large corporate entities to scale down their operations for the sake of future sales is like trying to bargain with a bear.

jurmous 2y ago
This is why we need to accelerate renewables and energy storage.
- tetris11 2y ago
  If we ever make large enough batteries to satisfy our on-demand energy whims, then I'm 100% with you. I just have doubt that we will get there soon with battery tech, and nuclear seems like a rational dropin solution until then.
  - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
    We need all of the above. Including reducing overall energy use. We cannot afford to leave any option on the table.
    - troupo 2y ago
      There are no rich countries that are also energy poor. You cannot reduce energy use without reducing quality of life.
      - NeoTar 2y ago
        The United States, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom have all reduced their per-capita energy usage since the peak (earliest peak usage was UK in 1973, latest was Canada in 2007), and I think we can argue that quality-of-life (by at least some metrics) has increased since then. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab=chart&country=USA~CAN~FRA~GBR~DEU~JPN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab...
        lazide 2y ago
        And where do they stand worldwide? Still higher than all the third world countries eh?
        NeoTar 2y ago
        Not really. Let's use the UNCTAD definition of developing countries - there are a number of countries which exceed Canada's per-capita energy usage (the highest of those I mention above) - Qatar, UAE, Trinidad and Tobago and Kuwait. But those are all small countries, the highest per-capita energy usage by a larger nation is Turkmenistan (exceeding all of the European countries mentioned in the parent - UK, France, Germany - and Japan). But that's not really the point. Doubtless there is a correlation between energy usage and standard of living. But it's not a 1:1, and there are some huge benefits to be gained - e.g. the US (77,028 kWh / person / year) has triple the usage per capital of the UK (28,501 kWh / person / year). Even in Europe, France and Germany could reduce their usage by a quarter to bring it to the UK level.
        lazide 2y ago
        Where are you getting your data? For instance, I’m showing about 2.6 MWh/ye per capita for Turkmenistan [https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC?locations=TM https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC?locat...], below the world median of 3.1MWh/yr. Also, those high usage small countries (including Trinidad and Turkmenistan) are huge oil producing countries where energy is subsidized to an absurd degree to ‘buy’ population compliance. That energy is coming straight from burning hydrocarbons. They still are way below the big developed countries, near as I can tell. Sorting by ‘most recent value’, the list is pretty much either ‘huge petrokingdom’, or ‘highly developed nation’ until Estonia/Slovenia/Netherlands at 6.something MWh/yr. The data does seem to be old though! I am impressed by Spain’s low usage, but they culturally also minimize things like HVAC - since they were ‘civilized’ long before AC was a thing. They still are about 2x the median.
        NeoTar 2y ago
      - ZeroGravitas 2y ago
        This slightly mad take seems very popular with people who at the very same time seem to hate cheap solar and wind energy and love expensive (and/or nonexistent) nuclear and fossil fuels. It's a really weird subculture that's grown out of climate denial. Energy efficiency is a thing. The lowest hanging fruit is EVs and heat pumps that provide 4x more travel or heat than using fossil fuels directly. They're so much more efficient that you could burn the fossils in power plants to generate electricity and still come out ahead. That would be silly though since wind and solar are the cheapest available electricity. And of course you can power these with nuclear, which would be relevant if they weren't just pretending to like nuclear and really just stalling progress for fossil fuel interests.
        troupo 2y ago
        > ho at the very same time seem to hate cheap solar and wind energy and love expensive (and/or nonexistent) nuclear and fossil fuels. Now this is a mad take > Energy efficiency is a thing. Yes, it is. There's a limit to how efficient you can go though > The lowest hanging fruit is EVs and heat pumps What do you think will happen to the power grid when everyone switches to EVs? > That would be silly though since wind and solar are the cheapest available electricity. They are also intermittent sources of electricity. > if they weren't just pretending to like nuclear and really just stalling progress for fossil fuel interests. Another mad take. All in all you never addressed my post
        ZeroGravitas 2y ago
        > What do you think will happen to the power grid when everyone switches to EVs? Well the people who run grids keep suggesting that it'll help them make better use of their grid assets and so reduce the average cost of a kWh of electricity to consumers. It is after all a giant fleet of smart batteries. But you, the person who thinks more energy use is better for society, are apparently making an exception for electricity use, which if it goes up will cause some unspecified calamity? That doesn't seem very consistent? Well, I suppose it's consistently pro-fossil fuels.
        2y ago
  - jahnu 2y ago
    It already takes longer to build new nuclear starting now than build enough renewable + batteries + transmission starting now. So good news! We don't have to "get there soon", we are there already! We have everything we need except the political will to take resources away from fossil fuels and invest them towards a clean energy future. Nuclear will continue to be built and it should but it is not the thing we need to focus heavily on.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      Japan's mean time to build nuclear is under 5 years, I believe.
      - jahnu 2y ago
        And how long from proposal to breaking ground? And how many can we build at the same time? Can we find enough sites or extend existing ones enough? What problems will we have with water shortages for cooling? And so on. We are, thankfully, going to continue to build nuclear all over the world, perhaps most importantly in places like China where they may convert thermal coal plants to nuclear, but it's going to be a relatively small part of the energy mix overall and is not going to solve the doubt that the poster had and my original response was aimed at. Renewables + batteries + transmission, and I should add efficiency improvements, can do it now, at scale, and faster than we can imagine. https://archive.is/s9dQh https://archive.is/s9dQh
  - g15jv2dp 2y ago
    We have the battery tech, it's called a hydroelectric dam.
    - tick_tock_tick 2y ago
      Isn't the point of using renewables so we don't destroy the environment?
      - g15jv2dp 2y ago
        Have you made a comparative analysis of how much a dam vs lithium mines destroy the environment?
- vlovich123 2y ago
  > However, the company warned in Tuesday’s report that the “termination” of some clean energy projects during 2023 had pushed down the amount of renewables it had access to.
- himinlomax 2y ago
  The orders of magnitude needed for storage are not competitive with nuclear in any reasonable scenario. Nuclear exists and is proven technology. Battery storage at the capacity and price scale required are not. That remains true even if you want absolutely to believe we can't build nuclear reactors faster than in 10 years, and we almost certainly can by starting mass producing them again.
KeplerBoy 2y ago
We already have fusion and it's super safe and cheap. We just need to install more panels to harvest the incoming radiation.
- troupo 2y ago
  Solar and wind are by their very inherent nature intermittent sources of power
  - lomase 2y ago
    You can not stop a nuclear reactor to fit the grid needs.
    - troupo 2y ago
      You cannot power up solar panels at night, or wind turbines when there's no wind. As for nuclear, you don't need to stop them. Instead they provide a base load so you don't need to ridiculously overprovision other power sources. And they are flexible enough to go 50%-100% quickly: https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12/technical_and_economic_aspects_of_load_following_with_nuclear_power_plants.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12...
      - lomase 2y ago
        "You cannot power up solar panels at night, or wind turbines when there's no wind." Amazing insight.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Not inherent nature, just economics and politics. Wind always blows somewhere, the sun always shines somewhere. Making a global power grid is something which I don't expect anyone will do in the next 15 years, but if anyone does I'd be least surprised if it's China on a belt-and-road type project. Batteries are necessary for electric vehicles, and I do expect >50% of land motor vehicles in use worldwide to be electric within 15 years of today; that scale is sufficient to invalidate concerns about intermittent renewable generation in most (but not all) places even without a global grid.
superb_dev 2y ago
Guys we HAVE to support the businesses! Even if they’re destroying everything! Think of the money
makeitdouble 2y ago
This proposition still fits inside a "line goes up" vision, and it can't go up forever. More nuclear doesn't come without additional risk nor cost, nor waste. I don't claim to have a solution, but it feels like jumping into a volcano to escape from the bear. There sure must be some way to deal with the bear instead.
locallost 2y ago
For Google's use case the sun is always shining somewhere. It might not be practical or realistic yet, but if they really wanted to they could.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  You can't transport electricity that far, though.
  - blitzar 2y ago
    But you can transport search queries.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      It's true. If you build all your infrastructure n times over you could have solar panels powering (some of?) each infrastructure full infrastructure location. But would that work out better?
- troupo 2y ago
  This assumes that all datacenters are created equal and it doesn't matter if you run stuff in the US or in Asia, or...
g15jv2dp 2y ago
Nuclear isn't infinite and uranium mines are often in politically unstable countries. Niger's military junta just forbad Orano from exploiting a mine, for example. What is the French government supposed to do now? Declare war for uranium? Import more uranium from Russia? As a reminder, here is where the US's uranium came from in 2022: Canada (27%), Kazakhstan (25%), Russia (12%), Uzbekistan (11%), Australia (9%), six other countries (16%) (Germany, Malawi, Namibia, Niger, South Africa, and the United States). https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uranium-comes-from.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uraniu...
- pydry 2y ago
  The main problem with it isnt with the fuel. It's not even the small chance of a $1 trillion-to-cleanup Fukushima style cleanup event. It's just horrendously expensive and takes forever to build. Nonetheless it'll keep getting built where solar/wind/storage would be cheaper and quicker because they've got very slick PR and because the military industrial complex demands a ready supply of nuclear skills and a supply chain.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    > horrendously expensive How did France manage to power their country with it, then?
    - pydry 2y ago
      Lavish subsidies. Even then they had to nationalize EDF because it was going bankrupt after posting historically unprecedented losses. The problem is that stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASTRID_(reactor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASTRID_(reactor) and this: https://reneweconomy.com.au/french-nuclear-giant-scraps-smr-plans-due-to-soaring-costs-will-start-over/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/french-nuclear-giant-scraps-smr-... keeps happening. The last paragraph explains how, in spite of these losses, how to keep the power cheap: >The federal Coalition has argued that nuclear might be expensive to build, but will deliver cheaper power to consumers. It has not explained how, but it has said that its reactors would be government owned, suggesting that – like France and Ontario – the costs would be borne by taxpayers and the supply of power to customers would be heavily subsidised.
endymi0n 2y ago
These are the only two graphs you need to understand that your assumption is based on >10y old data: https://www.powerengineeringint.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/BNEF.jpg https://www.powerengineeringint.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/3-Learning-curves-for-electricity-prices.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/3-Learni... By the decade is gone that any new nuclear project has been commissioned and built, the rest of the world is running on solar + battery storage at a tenth of the price.
- chimprich 2y ago
  Your first graph shows diminishing returns for both battery storage and solar. It's also not clear whether that's the marginal cost or includes the capital cost to build the structures and all the infrastructure. To compare nuclear against solar you have to compare it against the sum of the cost of solar plus battery storage. Investing in solar/wind/nuclear energy sources, storage, and research for improving all of the above seems like the best strategic option for at least the next decade.
timeon 2y ago
Yes we need nuclear but these statements often feels like attempt to sweeping the problem under the rug. Because nuclear takes time to build. And this is not just about nuclear. Exxon report from early 80s stated that to cover energy demand nuclear or renewables would need 50 years to catch up. I guess demand is even bigger now.

jurmous 2y ago

This is why we need to accelerate renewables and energy storage.

tetris11 2y ago
If we ever make large enough batteries to satisfy our on-demand energy whims, then I'm 100% with you. I just have doubt that we will get there soon with battery tech, and nuclear seems like a rational dropin solution until then.
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago
  We need all of the above. Including reducing overall energy use. We cannot afford to leave any option on the table.
  - troupo 2y ago
    There are no rich countries that are also energy poor. You cannot reduce energy use without reducing quality of life.
    - NeoTar 2y ago
      The United States, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom have all reduced their per-capita energy usage since the peak (earliest peak usage was UK in 1973, latest was Canada in 2007), and I think we can argue that quality-of-life (by at least some metrics) has increased since then. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab=chart&country=USA~CAN~FRA~GBR~DEU~JPN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab...
      - lazide 2y ago
        And where do they stand worldwide? Still higher than all the third world countries eh?
        NeoTar 2y ago
        Not really. Let's use the UNCTAD definition of developing countries - there are a number of countries which exceed Canada's per-capita energy usage (the highest of those I mention above) - Qatar, UAE, Trinidad and Tobago and Kuwait. But those are all small countries, the highest per-capita energy usage by a larger nation is Turkmenistan (exceeding all of the European countries mentioned in the parent - UK, France, Germany - and Japan). But that's not really the point. Doubtless there is a correlation between energy usage and standard of living. But it's not a 1:1, and there are some huge benefits to be gained - e.g. the US (77,028 kWh / person / year) has triple the usage per capital of the UK (28,501 kWh / person / year). Even in Europe, France and Germany could reduce their usage by a quarter to bring it to the UK level.
        lazide 2y ago
        Where are you getting your data? For instance, I’m showing about 2.6 MWh/ye per capita for Turkmenistan [https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC?locations=TM https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC?locat...], below the world median of 3.1MWh/yr. Also, those high usage small countries (including Trinidad and Turkmenistan) are huge oil producing countries where energy is subsidized to an absurd degree to ‘buy’ population compliance. That energy is coming straight from burning hydrocarbons. They still are way below the big developed countries, near as I can tell. Sorting by ‘most recent value’, the list is pretty much either ‘huge petrokingdom’, or ‘highly developed nation’ until Estonia/Slovenia/Netherlands at 6.something MWh/yr. The data does seem to be old though! I am impressed by Spain’s low usage, but they culturally also minimize things like HVAC - since they were ‘civilized’ long before AC was a thing. They still are about 2x the median.
        NeoTar 2y ago
    - ZeroGravitas 2y ago
      This slightly mad take seems very popular with people who at the very same time seem to hate cheap solar and wind energy and love expensive (and/or nonexistent) nuclear and fossil fuels. It's a really weird subculture that's grown out of climate denial. Energy efficiency is a thing. The lowest hanging fruit is EVs and heat pumps that provide 4x more travel or heat than using fossil fuels directly. They're so much more efficient that you could burn the fossils in power plants to generate electricity and still come out ahead. That would be silly though since wind and solar are the cheapest available electricity. And of course you can power these with nuclear, which would be relevant if they weren't just pretending to like nuclear and really just stalling progress for fossil fuel interests.
      - troupo 2y ago
        > ho at the very same time seem to hate cheap solar and wind energy and love expensive (and/or nonexistent) nuclear and fossil fuels. Now this is a mad take > Energy efficiency is a thing. Yes, it is. There's a limit to how efficient you can go though > The lowest hanging fruit is EVs and heat pumps What do you think will happen to the power grid when everyone switches to EVs? > That would be silly though since wind and solar are the cheapest available electricity. They are also intermittent sources of electricity. > if they weren't just pretending to like nuclear and really just stalling progress for fossil fuel interests. Another mad take. All in all you never addressed my post
        ZeroGravitas 2y ago
        > What do you think will happen to the power grid when everyone switches to EVs? Well the people who run grids keep suggesting that it'll help them make better use of their grid assets and so reduce the average cost of a kWh of electricity to consumers. It is after all a giant fleet of smart batteries. But you, the person who thinks more energy use is better for society, are apparently making an exception for electricity use, which if it goes up will cause some unspecified calamity? That doesn't seem very consistent? Well, I suppose it's consistently pro-fossil fuels.
        2y ago
- jahnu 2y ago
  It already takes longer to build new nuclear starting now than build enough renewable + batteries + transmission starting now. So good news! We don't have to "get there soon", we are there already! We have everything we need except the political will to take resources away from fossil fuels and invest them towards a clean energy future. Nuclear will continue to be built and it should but it is not the thing we need to focus heavily on.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    Japan's mean time to build nuclear is under 5 years, I believe.
    - jahnu 2y ago
      And how long from proposal to breaking ground? And how many can we build at the same time? Can we find enough sites or extend existing ones enough? What problems will we have with water shortages for cooling? And so on. We are, thankfully, going to continue to build nuclear all over the world, perhaps most importantly in places like China where they may convert thermal coal plants to nuclear, but it's going to be a relatively small part of the energy mix overall and is not going to solve the doubt that the poster had and my original response was aimed at. Renewables + batteries + transmission, and I should add efficiency improvements, can do it now, at scale, and faster than we can imagine. https://archive.is/s9dQh https://archive.is/s9dQh
- g15jv2dp 2y ago
  We have the battery tech, it's called a hydroelectric dam.
  - tick_tock_tick 2y ago
    Isn't the point of using renewables so we don't destroy the environment?
    - g15jv2dp 2y ago
      Have you made a comparative analysis of how much a dam vs lithium mines destroy the environment?
vlovich123 2y ago
> However, the company warned in Tuesday’s report that the “termination” of some clean energy projects during 2023 had pushed down the amount of renewables it had access to.
himinlomax 2y ago
The orders of magnitude needed for storage are not competitive with nuclear in any reasonable scenario. Nuclear exists and is proven technology. Battery storage at the capacity and price scale required are not. That remains true even if you want absolutely to believe we can't build nuclear reactors faster than in 10 years, and we almost certainly can by starting mass producing them again.

KeplerBoy 2y ago

We already have fusion and it's super safe and cheap. We just need to install more panels to harvest the incoming radiation.

troupo 2y ago
Solar and wind are by their very inherent nature intermittent sources of power
- lomase 2y ago
  You can not stop a nuclear reactor to fit the grid needs.
  - troupo 2y ago
    You cannot power up solar panels at night, or wind turbines when there's no wind. As for nuclear, you don't need to stop them. Instead they provide a base load so you don't need to ridiculously overprovision other power sources. And they are flexible enough to go 50%-100% quickly: https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12/technical_and_economic_aspects_of_load_following_with_nuclear_power_plants.pdf https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12...
    - lomase 2y ago
      "You cannot power up solar panels at night, or wind turbines when there's no wind." Amazing insight.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Not inherent nature, just economics and politics. Wind always blows somewhere, the sun always shines somewhere. Making a global power grid is something which I don't expect anyone will do in the next 15 years, but if anyone does I'd be least surprised if it's China on a belt-and-road type project. Batteries are necessary for electric vehicles, and I do expect >50% of land motor vehicles in use worldwide to be electric within 15 years of today; that scale is sufficient to invalidate concerns about intermittent renewable generation in most (but not all) places even without a global grid.

superb_dev 2y ago

Guys we HAVE to support the businesses! Even if they’re destroying everything! Think of the money

makeitdouble 2y ago

This proposition still fits inside a "line goes up" vision, and it can't go up forever. More nuclear doesn't come without additional risk nor cost, nor waste. I don't claim to have a solution, but it feels like jumping into a volcano to escape from the bear. There sure must be some way to deal with the bear instead.

locallost 2y ago

For Google's use case the sun is always shining somewhere. It might not be practical or realistic yet, but if they really wanted to they could.

robertlagrant 2y ago
You can't transport electricity that far, though.
- blitzar 2y ago
  But you can transport search queries.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    It's true. If you build all your infrastructure n times over you could have solar panels powering (some of?) each infrastructure full infrastructure location. But would that work out better?
troupo 2y ago
This assumes that all datacenters are created equal and it doesn't matter if you run stuff in the US or in Asia, or...

g15jv2dp 2y ago

Nuclear isn't infinite and uranium mines are often in politically unstable countries. Niger's military junta just forbad Orano from exploiting a mine, for example. What is the French government supposed to do now? Declare war for uranium? Import more uranium from Russia? As a reminder, here is where the US's uranium came from in 2022: Canada (27%), Kazakhstan (25%), Russia (12%), Uzbekistan (11%), Australia (9%), six other countries (16%) (Germany, Malawi, Namibia, Niger, South Africa, and the United States). https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uranium-comes-from.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uraniu...

pydry 2y ago
The main problem with it isnt with the fuel. It's not even the small chance of a $1 trillion-to-cleanup Fukushima style cleanup event. It's just horrendously expensive and takes forever to build. Nonetheless it'll keep getting built where solar/wind/storage would be cheaper and quicker because they've got very slick PR and because the military industrial complex demands a ready supply of nuclear skills and a supply chain.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  > horrendously expensive How did France manage to power their country with it, then?
  - pydry 2y ago
    Lavish subsidies. Even then they had to nationalize EDF because it was going bankrupt after posting historically unprecedented losses. The problem is that stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASTRID_(reactor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASTRID_(reactor) and this: https://reneweconomy.com.au/french-nuclear-giant-scraps-smr-plans-due-to-soaring-costs-will-start-over/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/french-nuclear-giant-scraps-smr-... keeps happening. The last paragraph explains how, in spite of these losses, how to keep the power cheap: >The federal Coalition has argued that nuclear might be expensive to build, but will deliver cheaper power to consumers. It has not explained how, but it has said that its reactors would be government owned, suggesting that – like France and Ontario – the costs would be borne by taxpayers and the supply of power to customers would be heavily subsidised.

endymi0n 2y ago

These are the only two graphs you need to understand that your assumption is based on >10y old data: https://www.powerengineeringint.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/BNEF.jpg https://www.powerengineeringint.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/3-Learning-curves-for-electricity-prices.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/3-Learni... By the decade is gone that any new nuclear project has been commissioned and built, the rest of the world is running on solar + battery storage at a tenth of the price.

chimprich 2y ago
Your first graph shows diminishing returns for both battery storage and solar. It's also not clear whether that's the marginal cost or includes the capital cost to build the structures and all the infrastructure. To compare nuclear against solar you have to compare it against the sum of the cost of solar plus battery storage. Investing in solar/wind/nuclear energy sources, storage, and research for improving all of the above seems like the best strategic option for at least the next decade.

timeon 2y ago

Yes we need nuclear but these statements often feels like attempt to sweeping the problem under the rug. Because nuclear takes time to build. And this is not just about nuclear. Exxon report from early 80s stated that to cover energy demand nuclear or renewables would need 50 years to catch up. I guess demand is even bigger now.