3 ms·

It's a lot simpler: nuclear ran out of time. It will take more time for any new nuclear plant approved today, to start operating, than for renewables solving el

It's a lot simpler: nuclear ran out of time. It will take more time for any new nuclear plant approved today, to start operating, than for renewables solving electricity forever. It takes 12-14 years to build a nuclear power plant from scratch, even in jurisdictions where regulations are not a problem at all (Belarus for example). EU plans to eliminate all fossil-based electricity by 2040. It basically means: too late for nuclear.

pfdietz 2y ago
And nuclear ran out of time because it had poor learning. A technology with little or no experience effect can be expected to eventually fall to technologies that do, even if it has an initial advantage.
- anovikov 2y ago
  Worse than that, it had a negative learning effect. Nuclear did have some learning but over the course of it positive effect (Wright's law) was more than counterbalanced with discovering many, many things that can go wrong, requiring very expensive design changes and even more expensive retrofits to existing reactors, and eventually required designers to become so paranoid about new designs they became prohibitively expensive to implement because of extended safety measures even in areas where they were probably unnecessary. Simply put: too many things can go wrong, price of mistake is too damn high, and any mistake is probably unfixable because even if a reactor is fine, retrofitting an existing reactor to accommodate safety-related change is frequently impossible because it's guts are forever radioactive even after a short runtime. It was a political mistake to ever move with the nuclear power to outside of it's initial role: production of plutonium for nukes. Ironically, plutonium-producing reactors are much much safer because they don't need to produce high-pressure steam so can remain at atmospheric pressure cooled by vast amounts of cooling water, and they never develop too much radioactivity within themselves because fuel is irradiated there for 20x-100x shorter durations than in energy-producing reactors (to ca. 1 MW thermal*day per kg) because doing more increases posioning with Pu.240, so even a potential accident on an industrial reactor is much less dangerous, and much less likely.
- firesteelrain 2y ago
  Nuclear has had issues with scaling, but new small modular reactors (SMRs) could help.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    SMRs are being touted because conventional large reactors are now painted into a corner. It's not that SMRs are good, it's that the larger ones are effectively dead in the west. SMRs still are in the running because their sales story has not yet been effectively debunked by experience.
    - anovikov 2y ago
      SMRs are well, a story. They don't exist and never will. Nuclear scales well with size, naturally meaning it scales poorly down. A small reactor is bound to be extremely uneconomic to run. They are just a distraction, not going to happen.
m4rtink 2y ago
That is quite possibly what will happen - for terrestrial applications. But anything past the orbit of Mars will require nuclear power - or very robust beamed power infrastructure.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  Space applications cannot, of course, provide any justification for imposing nuclear on terrestrial markets.
  - anovikov 2y ago
    Especially since design, and issues with, potential future space reactors have nothing to do with those of terrestrial ones, so there's next to no potential for technology transfer or sharing.
exe34 2y ago
the problem with this argument is that we've been hearing it for the last 40 years - we could have had multiple generations of nuclear by now if it wasn't for the nimbys.
- anovikov 2y ago
  What were the potential alternatives to nuclear electricity 20-30 years, let alone 40 years ago (not counting fossil fuels, of course)? Today, wind produces about as much and probably a bit more electricity as nuclear (~12% less last year and growing quickly), next year, solar will produce more. There are no nimbys in non-free countries, and nuclear has been pretty much stuck there, too.
  - exe34 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
    - anovikov 2y ago
      That's what i call "stuck". Solar went from essentially zero to a larger share of generation than nuclear in China, in 5 years. In the same time, nuclear has stopped growing there. China commissions a few nuclear reactors per year and ~400 GW per year of solar and wind. When comparing nuclear in China, we need to compare it with... well other things that happen in China. Which are on a completely different scale vs rest of the world combined. Nuclear power progress might seem impressive there compared to rest of the world, but not at all compared to other things that are being done in China itself.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  > if it wasn't for the nimbys But the nimbys weren't the problem, it was the financiers. Nuclear has been too expensive compared to alternatives. It's always about the money.
tourmalinetaco 2y ago
It’s only too late for nuclear if we continue to let oil barons decide to stunt the growth of genuine competition in the market. The reality of renewables is they are not and have never been consistent enough to provide full power, and we don’t have the battery technology to keep an energy grid’s worth of electricity on standby. If coal is too ecologically damaging then we need another on-demand power source to replace it since solar cannot supply us entirely and cannot respond to upticks in demand. I am genuinely convinced most of the people discussing energy have no practical understanding of the power grid. Coal is useful because it can be turned on/off relatively quickly as demand required. Nuclear can do similar, renewables cannot.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  I don't doubt renewables and batteries to be able to handle say day or two of power demand in most scenarios... Question really become about seasonal handling. Specially if we move heating from fossils to electricity even with heat pumps. Doing the seasonal bit at scale in whole Western world(not just select blessed locations). Seems very far. At least if anything closing reasonable costs per kwh spend during low production times is considered.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    Seasonal leveling would be done by combining solar/wind (which tend to have opposite seasonality) and by use of overprovisioning and production of e-fuels, like hydrogen. To see how this would work, go to https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ and find optimal solutions for synthesized constant output using solar, wind, batteries, and hydrogen storage. The cost optimizing solutions are found vs. real historical weather data.

pfdietz 2y ago

And nuclear ran out of time because it had poor learning. A technology with little or no experience effect can be expected to eventually fall to technologies that do, even if it has an initial advantage.

anovikov 2y ago
Worse than that, it had a negative learning effect. Nuclear did have some learning but over the course of it positive effect (Wright's law) was more than counterbalanced with discovering many, many things that can go wrong, requiring very expensive design changes and even more expensive retrofits to existing reactors, and eventually required designers to become so paranoid about new designs they became prohibitively expensive to implement because of extended safety measures even in areas where they were probably unnecessary. Simply put: too many things can go wrong, price of mistake is too damn high, and any mistake is probably unfixable because even if a reactor is fine, retrofitting an existing reactor to accommodate safety-related change is frequently impossible because it's guts are forever radioactive even after a short runtime. It was a political mistake to ever move with the nuclear power to outside of it's initial role: production of plutonium for nukes. Ironically, plutonium-producing reactors are much much safer because they don't need to produce high-pressure steam so can remain at atmospheric pressure cooled by vast amounts of cooling water, and they never develop too much radioactivity within themselves because fuel is irradiated there for 20x-100x shorter durations than in energy-producing reactors (to ca. 1 MW thermal*day per kg) because doing more increases posioning with Pu.240, so even a potential accident on an industrial reactor is much less dangerous, and much less likely.
firesteelrain 2y ago
Nuclear has had issues with scaling, but new small modular reactors (SMRs) could help.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  SMRs are being touted because conventional large reactors are now painted into a corner. It's not that SMRs are good, it's that the larger ones are effectively dead in the west. SMRs still are in the running because their sales story has not yet been effectively debunked by experience.
  - anovikov 2y ago
    SMRs are well, a story. They don't exist and never will. Nuclear scales well with size, naturally meaning it scales poorly down. A small reactor is bound to be extremely uneconomic to run. They are just a distraction, not going to happen.

m4rtink 2y ago

That is quite possibly what will happen - for terrestrial applications. But anything past the orbit of Mars will require nuclear power - or very robust beamed power infrastructure.

pfdietz 2y ago
Space applications cannot, of course, provide any justification for imposing nuclear on terrestrial markets.
- anovikov 2y ago
  Especially since design, and issues with, potential future space reactors have nothing to do with those of terrestrial ones, so there's next to no potential for technology transfer or sharing.

exe34 2y ago

the problem with this argument is that we've been hearing it for the last 40 years - we could have had multiple generations of nuclear by now if it wasn't for the nimbys.

anovikov 2y ago
What were the potential alternatives to nuclear electricity 20-30 years, let alone 40 years ago (not counting fossil fuels, of course)? Today, wind produces about as much and probably a bit more electricity as nuclear (~12% less last year and growing quickly), next year, solar will produce more. There are no nimbys in non-free countries, and nuclear has been pretty much stuck there, too.
- exe34 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
  - anovikov 2y ago
    That's what i call "stuck". Solar went from essentially zero to a larger share of generation than nuclear in China, in 5 years. In the same time, nuclear has stopped growing there. China commissions a few nuclear reactors per year and ~400 GW per year of solar and wind. When comparing nuclear in China, we need to compare it with... well other things that happen in China. Which are on a completely different scale vs rest of the world combined. Nuclear power progress might seem impressive there compared to rest of the world, but not at all compared to other things that are being done in China itself.
pfdietz 2y ago
> if it wasn't for the nimbys But the nimbys weren't the problem, it was the financiers. Nuclear has been too expensive compared to alternatives. It's always about the money.

tourmalinetaco 2y ago

It’s only too late for nuclear if we continue to let oil barons decide to stunt the growth of genuine competition in the market. The reality of renewables is they are not and have never been consistent enough to provide full power, and we don’t have the battery technology to keep an energy grid’s worth of electricity on standby. If coal is too ecologically damaging then we need another on-demand power source to replace it since solar cannot supply us entirely and cannot respond to upticks in demand. I am genuinely convinced most of the people discussing energy have no practical understanding of the power grid. Coal is useful because it can be turned on/off relatively quickly as demand required. Nuclear can do similar, renewables cannot.

Ekaros 2y ago
I don't doubt renewables and batteries to be able to handle say day or two of power demand in most scenarios... Question really become about seasonal handling. Specially if we move heating from fossils to electricity even with heat pumps. Doing the seasonal bit at scale in whole Western world(not just select blessed locations). Seems very far. At least if anything closing reasonable costs per kwh spend during low production times is considered.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  Seasonal leveling would be done by combining solar/wind (which tend to have opposite seasonality) and by use of overprovisioning and production of e-fuels, like hydrogen. To see how this would work, go to https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ and find optimal solutions for synthesized constant output using solar, wind, batteries, and hydrogen storage. The cost optimizing solutions are found vs. real historical weather data.