6 ms·

Nuclear Is Back

14 points by jseliger 2y ago

ggm 2y ago
This will be used out of context to justify deployment of nuclear in Australia, despite the fact the US has an active industry, experience of build and is therefore in late stage technology curve for cost. Australia has one research swimming pool reactor, no power reactors, and nuclear power is banned in statute at state and federal level. To believe the cost of deployment here in time or money sense is low because "nuclear is back" in America is wishful thinking. But I fully expect to see the arguments rehearsed. At best this will push out cost of construction down to its lower side estimates. It won't alter the inevitable planning, approval, legislative and protest bound delays which continue to dog deployment of nuclear power, across a time of continued improvement in levelled cost of energy for wind, battery and solar as well as the build out of pumped hydro. By the time nuclear could be deployed here, the amount of baseload it could price into will be far smaller and the demand based case will be even smaller than at present.
smackeyacky 2y ago
More ridiculous, nakedly silly pushing of nuclear power by entrenched interests who are looking not for nuclear power but to extend the life of their deadly coal power assets. You and I are stuffed in this scenario. There are no good ways of kicking off nuclear power in countries that don’t need it for weapon production. The theoretical small power plants are nothing but boondoggle fantasies designed to drain the public purse with the aim of slowing the renewable juggernaut. We were all warned 25 years ago what the climate change denialist playbook looked like. First claim climate change isn’t real. Next claim it might be real but it isn’t bad. Next claim ok it might be a problem but we can sequester carbon. Next say ok that’s a fantasy but let’s use gas as a transition. Then admit gas won’t last so the only possible answer is nuclear. Problem is, most countries have already proved we don’t need nuclear power. At. All. Yet still the well funded lobbying of fossil fuel industries promote this fantasy. There seems to be little that can be done to fight the onslaught of bullshit that these evil (yep, evil) bastards use to corrupt discourse worldwide. Other than doing something that will send you to jail. It might be time to do just that.
- fyrn_ 2y ago
  Explain to me how France having some the cheapest and most stable power (also very low carbon) is "evil". > Other than doing something that will send you to jail. It might be time to do just that. Is this satire? Are you seriously advocating for breaking the law to push your anti-nuclear agenda? That's straight up crazy.
  - 7952 2y ago
    Not the parent poster. But the people who built the French nuclear fleet are not the same as the people pushing nuclear power in the media. Just because an energy source is technically positive does not mean that the people supporting it are actually having a useful or positive effect.
  - ZeroGravitas 2y ago
    France has no credible plan to replace and/or refurbish the reactors built decades ago by a socialist government cross-subsidizing its nuclear weapons program. Even their "target" for 2035 is 20% less nuclear than today. They just had to renationalize their nuclear builder due to it failing to build several reactors on time and on budget. They signed contracts that put the costs on them if they failed so the French taxpayer is picking up the bill for UK nuclear cost overruns, and even then the UK electricity buyer is probably overpaying compared with offshore wind. ”Paris seeks UK loan guarantee after Hinkley Point nuclear plant costs soar” https://www.ft.com/content/c1e3bd19-763b-4ea1-b188-d2872cc36bb8 https://www.ft.com/content/c1e3bd19-763b-4ea1-b188-d2872cc36... A French view on the matter: "There will be no new nuclear power plants in the West" "There are better options, today (written in 2022)" https://jeromeaparis.substack.com/p/there-will-be-no-new-nuclear-power https://jeromeaparis.substack.com/p/there-will-be-no-new-nuc... > To a large extent, French skepticism about renewables over the past 20 years was not unreasonable given that the country did not have carbon-spewing (and otherwise polluting) coal-fired plants to replace - it had and has a low-carbon and cost competitive power sector. > But the long term trends have been up for the cost of nuclear, and down for the cost of renewables, to such an extent that the situation has now almost fully reversed. > In the past 7 years, offshore wind has gone from >150 EUR/MWh to <50 EUR/MWh - under competitive tenders that see projects being completed within a couple of years of tariff allocation. Solar tenders are regularly won at lower prices, often below 25 EUR/MWh.
cinntaile 2y ago
The article was fine until: > Wind and solar power enjoy excellent PR, no doubt, but they’ve failed to show they can reliably decarbonize grids. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source both oil and coal are down as a percentage of total electricity generation. It's hard to find articles with accurate content when it comes to nuclear and renewable energy. Each side seems to have the need to make up lies about the other side.
- fyrn_ 2y ago
  I fail to see how these two things are in conflict. I don't know of any grid operators that are advocating for a baseload generation free grid, of course solar and wind are great too, much cheaper then well everything elss at this point, but storage onky goes so far, a reliable grid needs base gen
  - ZeroGravitas 2y ago
    Grid operators are moving to "renewables and firming" to replace "baseload and peaking". Since peaking and firming are basically the same thing, it just comes down to whether renewables are cleaner and cheaper than baseload, which they are. Nuclear fans talk all the time about baseload and pretend peaking doesn't exist so they can attack renewables.
  - 7952 2y ago
    Renewables does not need to provide a 100% solution in order to aid decarbonisation.
    - defrost 2y ago
      Decarbonisations need to demonstrate it has actual net value. Currently the largest actual decarbonisation project on the planet is an Oil&Gas boondoogle that stores a great deal less than it promised to and even what it promised was a great deal less carbon put back than the project released. So far, to date, it's been no more than greenwashing the expansion of gas extraction and hasn't yet been put to anything approaching the scale required in the timeframe demanded.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
mnjksd 2y ago
[flagged]

14 points by jseliger 2y ago

ggm 2y ago

This will be used out of context to justify deployment of nuclear in Australia, despite the fact the US has an active industry, experience of build and is therefore in late stage technology curve for cost. Australia has one research swimming pool reactor, no power reactors, and nuclear power is banned in statute at state and federal level. To believe the cost of deployment here in time or money sense is low because "nuclear is back" in America is wishful thinking. But I fully expect to see the arguments rehearsed. At best this will push out cost of construction down to its lower side estimates. It won't alter the inevitable planning, approval, legislative and protest bound delays which continue to dog deployment of nuclear power, across a time of continued improvement in levelled cost of energy for wind, battery and solar as well as the build out of pumped hydro. By the time nuclear could be deployed here, the amount of baseload it could price into will be far smaller and the demand based case will be even smaller than at present.

smackeyacky 2y ago

More ridiculous, nakedly silly pushing of nuclear power by entrenched interests who are looking not for nuclear power but to extend the life of their deadly coal power assets. You and I are stuffed in this scenario. There are no good ways of kicking off nuclear power in countries that don’t need it for weapon production. The theoretical small power plants are nothing but boondoggle fantasies designed to drain the public purse with the aim of slowing the renewable juggernaut. We were all warned 25 years ago what the climate change denialist playbook looked like. First claim climate change isn’t real. Next claim it might be real but it isn’t bad. Next claim ok it might be a problem but we can sequester carbon. Next say ok that’s a fantasy but let’s use gas as a transition. Then admit gas won’t last so the only possible answer is nuclear. Problem is, most countries have already proved we don’t need nuclear power. At. All. Yet still the well funded lobbying of fossil fuel industries promote this fantasy. There seems to be little that can be done to fight the onslaught of bullshit that these evil (yep, evil) bastards use to corrupt discourse worldwide. Other than doing something that will send you to jail. It might be time to do just that.

fyrn_ 2y ago
Explain to me how France having some the cheapest and most stable power (also very low carbon) is "evil". > Other than doing something that will send you to jail. It might be time to do just that. Is this satire? Are you seriously advocating for breaking the law to push your anti-nuclear agenda? That's straight up crazy.
- 7952 2y ago
  Not the parent poster. But the people who built the French nuclear fleet are not the same as the people pushing nuclear power in the media. Just because an energy source is technically positive does not mean that the people supporting it are actually having a useful or positive effect.
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago
  France has no credible plan to replace and/or refurbish the reactors built decades ago by a socialist government cross-subsidizing its nuclear weapons program. Even their "target" for 2035 is 20% less nuclear than today. They just had to renationalize their nuclear builder due to it failing to build several reactors on time and on budget. They signed contracts that put the costs on them if they failed so the French taxpayer is picking up the bill for UK nuclear cost overruns, and even then the UK electricity buyer is probably overpaying compared with offshore wind. ”Paris seeks UK loan guarantee after Hinkley Point nuclear plant costs soar” https://www.ft.com/content/c1e3bd19-763b-4ea1-b188-d2872cc36bb8 https://www.ft.com/content/c1e3bd19-763b-4ea1-b188-d2872cc36... A French view on the matter: "There will be no new nuclear power plants in the West" "There are better options, today (written in 2022)" https://jeromeaparis.substack.com/p/there-will-be-no-new-nuclear-power https://jeromeaparis.substack.com/p/there-will-be-no-new-nuc... > To a large extent, French skepticism about renewables over the past 20 years was not unreasonable given that the country did not have carbon-spewing (and otherwise polluting) coal-fired plants to replace - it had and has a low-carbon and cost competitive power sector. > But the long term trends have been up for the cost of nuclear, and down for the cost of renewables, to such an extent that the situation has now almost fully reversed. > In the past 7 years, offshore wind has gone from >150 EUR/MWh to <50 EUR/MWh - under competitive tenders that see projects being completed within a couple of years of tariff allocation. Solar tenders are regularly won at lower prices, often below 25 EUR/MWh.

cinntaile 2y ago

The article was fine until: > Wind and solar power enjoy excellent PR, no doubt, but they’ve failed to show they can reliably decarbonize grids. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source both oil and coal are down as a percentage of total electricity generation. It's hard to find articles with accurate content when it comes to nuclear and renewable energy. Each side seems to have the need to make up lies about the other side.

fyrn_ 2y ago
I fail to see how these two things are in conflict. I don't know of any grid operators that are advocating for a baseload generation free grid, of course solar and wind are great too, much cheaper then well everything elss at this point, but storage onky goes so far, a reliable grid needs base gen
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago
  Grid operators are moving to "renewables and firming" to replace "baseload and peaking". Since peaking and firming are basically the same thing, it just comes down to whether renewables are cleaner and cheaper than baseload, which they are. Nuclear fans talk all the time about baseload and pretend peaking doesn't exist so they can attack renewables.
- 7952 2y ago
  Renewables does not need to provide a 100% solution in order to aid decarbonisation.
  - defrost 2y ago
    Decarbonisations need to demonstrate it has actual net value. Currently the largest actual decarbonisation project on the planet is an Oil&Gas boondoogle that stores a great deal less than it promised to and even what it promised was a great deal less carbon put back than the project released. So far, to date, it's been no more than greenwashing the expansion of gas extraction and hasn't yet been put to anything approaching the scale required in the timeframe demanded.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

mnjksd 2y ago

[flagged]