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The primary argument against nuclear here seems to be that, given that people argue against it (such as the author), it's slow to build because of all the peopl

The primary argument against nuclear here seems to be that, given that people argue against it (such as the author), it's slow to build because of all the people arguing against it. That seems pretty... tautological, and the same kind of thinking that resulted in Germany replacing its nuclear power plants with coal (and attempting to use Russian natural gas, too, until...). If the arguments against nuclear are so good, why doesn't the author make any? If you care about reducing fossil fuel usage, IMO you should be all-in on: nuclear, solar, wind, etc. And nuclear solves a lot of difficult problems: solar doesn't work at night — California has enormous amounts of solar during the day and the majority of daytime electricity is solar-based, but at night nearly 40% of our energy comes from natural gas [1] — and storage is extremely expensive. Wind, hydro, and geothermal don't work everywhere: you can only run them near somewhere with natural features that make them possible. But a nuclear power plant? There aren't really practical limitations on where you can build them, or when they can operate. Any electricity market that has nuclear — CA, Texas [2], New York [3], PJM [4], etc — has an extremely steady base load taken up by nuclear, and everything else is super variable, and the variable gaps from other renewables that aren't plugged by nuclear are plugged by fossil fuels. Nuclear is good. 1: https://www.gridstatus.io/graph/fuel-mix?iso=caiso&date=2024-08-15 https://www.gridstatus.io/graph/fuel-mix?iso=caiso&date=2024... 2: https://www.gridstatus.io/graph/fuel-mix?iso=ercot&date=2024-08-15 https://www.gridstatus.io/graph/fuel-mix?iso=ercot&date=2024... 3: https://www.gridstatus.io/graph/fuel-mix?iso=nyiso&date=2024-08-15 https://www.gridstatus.io/graph/fuel-mix?iso=nyiso&date=2024... 4: https://www.gridstatus.io/graph/fuel-mix?iso=pjm&date=2024-08-15 https://www.gridstatus.io/graph/fuel-mix?iso=pjm&date=2024-0...

ViewTrick1002 2y ago
Please do the calculation on cost for consumers for a nuclear power plant which can’t produce a single kWh for the grid any time the sun is up.
- reissbaker 2y ago
  ...Do you think nuclear power plants stop working during the day? Look at the (many) graph reports I linked: in every major American market, nuclear produces consistent power throughout the day and night. That's why they're useful!
  - ViewTrick1002 2y ago
    And consistent power is not what the market wants. It wants dispatchable power. But it is clear that you know where such a calculation will end up in terms of costs for consumers which is why you don’t want to do it. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/energy-prices-negative-france-solar-panel-wind-renewable-nuclear-green-2024-6 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/energy-... For every passing year the periods of time where nuclear power plants are forced off the grid because they are too expensive will become longer. That is for existing paid off nuclear plants, new builds are simply ludicrously expensive today.
- RandomThoughts3 2y ago
  Please enlighten us about where countries which have gone all-in on solar get their base power when the sun is not shining enough and there is no wind. I don’t understand why people who have an axe to grind pretend to be more stupid than they are in these debates. The question is not average price per kWh and never was. The question remains the same: where should we get base power when intermittent sources are off? The solutions are gas, coal, nuclear or some form of large scale storage. Germany seems to be ok with polluting a lot with coal to appease the proportion of die hard antinuclear activists in its population. From my point of view, nuclear is not the worst of all the options - it’s actually unclear to me if it’s not even cleaner than building all the batteries required for large scale storage - but you might disagree.
  - ViewTrick1002 2y ago
    Everything is impossible until someone has done it? Meaning the French nuclear buildout also was impossible given your reasoning. When this question is modeled no large problems pop out and renewables remain the vastly cheaper option. https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2023-24Final_20240522.pdf https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2023-24Fi...
    - RandomThoughts3 2y ago
      You are moving the goal post a lot. I never pretended anything was impossible. I said that the argument regarding rational calculation based on average costs of a kWh crumbles when you look at it from a proper angle. The correct question is: is nuclear interesting when compared to building large scale storage facilities? The answer to that is far from being cut and dry with arguments in favour and against both. The report you quote is not a definitive answer at all. It starts with a huge disclaimer that the cost of nuclear is to be taken specifically in the case of Australia and uses very adverse parameters based on South Korea.
      - ViewTrick1002 2y ago
        You started with: > Please enlighten us about where countries which have gone all-in on solar get their base power when the sun is not shining enough and there is no wind. I.e. demanding real world done and dusted examples or it is impossible. Then trying to find technicalities as to why the report is wrong or does not fit your made up example.
pfdietz 2y ago
I just noticed this gem: > the same kind of thinking that resulted in Germany replacing its nuclear power plants with coal Germany did not replace its nuclear power plants with coal.

ViewTrick1002 2y ago

Please do the calculation on cost for consumers for a nuclear power plant which can’t produce a single kWh for the grid any time the sun is up.

reissbaker 2y ago
...Do you think nuclear power plants stop working during the day? Look at the (many) graph reports I linked: in every major American market, nuclear produces consistent power throughout the day and night. That's why they're useful!
- ViewTrick1002 2y ago
  And consistent power is not what the market wants. It wants dispatchable power. But it is clear that you know where such a calculation will end up in terms of costs for consumers which is why you don’t want to do it. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/energy-prices-negative-france-solar-panel-wind-renewable-nuclear-green-2024-6 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/energy-... For every passing year the periods of time where nuclear power plants are forced off the grid because they are too expensive will become longer. That is for existing paid off nuclear plants, new builds are simply ludicrously expensive today.
RandomThoughts3 2y ago
Please enlighten us about where countries which have gone all-in on solar get their base power when the sun is not shining enough and there is no wind. I don’t understand why people who have an axe to grind pretend to be more stupid than they are in these debates. The question is not average price per kWh and never was. The question remains the same: where should we get base power when intermittent sources are off? The solutions are gas, coal, nuclear or some form of large scale storage. Germany seems to be ok with polluting a lot with coal to appease the proportion of die hard antinuclear activists in its population. From my point of view, nuclear is not the worst of all the options - it’s actually unclear to me if it’s not even cleaner than building all the batteries required for large scale storage - but you might disagree.
- ViewTrick1002 2y ago
  Everything is impossible until someone has done it? Meaning the French nuclear buildout also was impossible given your reasoning. When this question is modeled no large problems pop out and renewables remain the vastly cheaper option. https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2023-24Final_20240522.pdf https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2023-24Fi...
  - RandomThoughts3 2y ago
    You are moving the goal post a lot. I never pretended anything was impossible. I said that the argument regarding rational calculation based on average costs of a kWh crumbles when you look at it from a proper angle. The correct question is: is nuclear interesting when compared to building large scale storage facilities? The answer to that is far from being cut and dry with arguments in favour and against both. The report you quote is not a definitive answer at all. It starts with a huge disclaimer that the cost of nuclear is to be taken specifically in the case of Australia and uses very adverse parameters based on South Korea.
    - ViewTrick1002 2y ago
      You started with: > Please enlighten us about where countries which have gone all-in on solar get their base power when the sun is not shining enough and there is no wind. I.e. demanding real world done and dusted examples or it is impossible. Then trying to find technicalities as to why the report is wrong or does not fit your made up example.

pfdietz 2y ago

I just noticed this gem: > the same kind of thinking that resulted in Germany replacing its nuclear power plants with coal Germany did not replace its nuclear power plants with coal.