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> Nuclear is so out of the running economically that even with the (rapidly falling) cost of dealing with intermittency, renewables come out ahead. Only if you

> Nuclear is so out of the running economically that even with the (rapidly falling) cost of dealing with intermittency, renewables come out ahead. Only if you do the funny math of LCOE. Because in the real world, in terms of system wide costs, this is laughable opposite to reality. More intermitent renewables -> Higher electricity bills, more grid instability. And no, storage costs are not even close to be economically viable. The biggest battery systems are able at most to cover the demand of a metropolitan area for a few hours by themselves. What you do in the winter on moderate to higher latitudes with fewer hours of daylight and the sun down in the horizon with very few wind?

pfdietz 2y ago
No, the funny math is typically from the nuclear advocates. A usual bit of dishonesty you see from them is computing the cost of firming intermittent sources by assuming batteries are the only storage used. This massively inflates the cost, since batteries are unsuited for certain storage use cases (rare correlated outages, seasonal storage) for which there are other, cheaper options. They can massively inflate the cost by doing this kind of strawman engineering. Nuclear bros lap up the numbers produced by this sort of fraud and repeat them unquestioned. Careful analysis using all the options for dealing with intermittency (storage is not even close to #1) reveals that renewables are very affordable. But anyway: if nuclear really is so much better, it doesn't need subsidy. So let's let them compete head on. I don't think nuclear can survive if that happens though, since no unsubsidized nuclear power plant has ever been built, anywhere, selling into a competitive market. The whining about nuclear opposition eventually boils down to complaint that nuclear isn't being given the massive public subsidy it would need to get anyone to actually choose to build it.
- elzbardico 2y ago
  Again. The real world. Tell me how how much bills have been lowered in California, Germany and the UK.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    Tell me about how China installed two orders of magnitude more renewables than nuclear last year.

pfdietz 2y ago

No, the funny math is typically from the nuclear advocates. A usual bit of dishonesty you see from them is computing the cost of firming intermittent sources by assuming batteries are the only storage used. This massively inflates the cost, since batteries are unsuited for certain storage use cases (rare correlated outages, seasonal storage) for which there are other, cheaper options. They can massively inflate the cost by doing this kind of strawman engineering. Nuclear bros lap up the numbers produced by this sort of fraud and repeat them unquestioned. Careful analysis using all the options for dealing with intermittency (storage is not even close to #1) reveals that renewables are very affordable. But anyway: if nuclear really is so much better, it doesn't need subsidy. So let's let them compete head on. I don't think nuclear can survive if that happens though, since no unsubsidized nuclear power plant has ever been built, anywhere, selling into a competitive market. The whining about nuclear opposition eventually boils down to complaint that nuclear isn't being given the massive public subsidy it would need to get anyone to actually choose to build it.

elzbardico 2y ago
Again. The real world. Tell me how how much bills have been lowered in California, Germany and the UK.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  Tell me about how China installed two orders of magnitude more renewables than nuclear last year.