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What you didn’t mention is the effect that renewables have on the cost of nuclear power. When you get plentiful and nearly free solar energy at certain times

What you didn’t mention is the effect that renewables have on the cost of nuclear power. When you get plentiful and nearly free solar energy at certain times of the year, the utilization of your nuclear power plant will drop. Because nuclear power has high up front costs, its economics are increasingly eroded as more renewables and batteries are added to the grid. You’re totally correct that renewables and batteries aren’t yet able to bridge the gap in times of bad weather, but what they are excellent at is spoiling the economics of any other type of cheap electricity generation that comes with high capital costs.

kaliqt 2y ago
That's not how this works though, energy abundance means industrial abundance, more energy availability (for cheap) would simply mean that demand will scale to meet the output. The only time it won't scale to meet output is if the price stays high, but if the nuclear energy is already on the grid and has elastic pricing, the rest will take care of itself.
- akamaka 2y ago
  But the price of energy can be negative, so a new nuclear plant might never pay off its cost, even if it provides the public benefit of cheap electricity.
  - quickthrowman 2y ago
    Did you read the post you’re responding to? > That's not how this works though, energy abundance means industrial abundance, more energy availability (for cheap) would simply mean that demand will scale to meet the output. If the price of electricity is negative, people will build stuff like aluminum smelters and desalination plants to use the excess energy, and electricity will cost money again. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox > In economics, the Jevons paradox (/ˈdʒɛvənz/; sometimes Jevons effect) occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the falling cost of use induces increases in demand enough that resource use is increased, rather than reduced.
    - akamaka 2y ago
      > people will build stuff like aluminum smelters and desalination plants to use the excess energy, and electricity will cost money again. But will electricity cost enough to justify the huge upfront cost of nuclear plants? If we have the wealth to build capital-intensive projects that are marginally cost effective, it might be easier to build smelters and desalination plants that only run at 40% capacity, when the sun is out.
  - mpweiher 2y ago
    I'll take "What is market failure?" for 400, Alex.
  - chickenbig 2y ago
    > But the price of energy can be negative Is this a sign of over-investment? Is it case that the metric we're using does not show the actual price? https://www.squeaky.energy/blog/the-unintended-consequences-of-negative-power-prices-in-the-uk https://www.squeaky.energy/blog/the-unintended-consequences-... shows a way to get "free" electricity on a regular basis, while it still costs consumers a very non-zero amount. In the case of solar, revenue could be achieved through out-of-market payments (CfD, power purchase agreements, renewable energy certificates). Or is it the sign that the nightmare battery dominated grid is starting to happen? https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/the-unstoppable-battery-cavalcade/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/the-unstoppabl... Battery operators can choose between strategies designed to maximize revenue, profit, competitive advantage, or competitor losses, over any given timescale and with almost perfect deniability. (or is it something else?)
phil21 2y ago
Easily solved via sane energy policy. Of course politics will likely make this impossible in the US. In a rational environment you run your nuclear at 100% 24x7. The cost of the fuel is not material running at 10% vs. 100%. Letting parasitic intermittent power sources screw this up is simply financial engineering by largely bad actors. At least currently. Then you use intermittent power sources to provide your peak loads during the day, and any excess you ideally start putting into storage - whatever that may be. If you have effectively free marginal power during certain peak times, I'm positive industry will find a way to turn that into money. I still have hope sanity returns to the energy discussion, but it likely won't happen in the US during my lifetime. The cost of solar and wind is entirely politics - the storage cost is literally never considered when reading articles on the subject. The hidden costs are likely 10x or so what the marginal cost per kwh everyone loves to spew. Lots of folks getting massively rich off this disinformation so there is huge inertia behind ignoring it - even from very smart people that should absolutely know better after a few hours of reading on the subject. Just look at many of the posts here at HN. The environmental costs of methane (natural gas) are simply not being considered. The methane leaks into the environment are underestimated by at least 10x if not much, much, more. Pivoting from nuclear and to natural gas has been an utter environmental disaster.
UI_at_80x24 2y ago
And thank-you for making the point that utilities should be socialized and not a profit center. EVERYBODY deserves clean water, electricity, housing and food.
- nickpp 2y ago
  Without profit there is no reason anybody will provide those. Countries that tried socializing food - starved. Capitalism is the only one that brought plenty - because there is an incentive to do so.
  - baq 2y ago
    Profit is… not fake, but fiat. Energy and clean water are real. With collapsing demographics the current economic system will fall over anyway, either due to inflation or defaults, so maybe it’s a good time to start thinking about how to separate utilities from money.
    - qwytw 2y ago
      > how to separate utilities from money Forced labour? Central planning? Requisition? How exactly would that work? Somebody still needs to build and operate those power plants. Also commercial and industrial users consume >60% of all electricity in the US, should they also be subsidized? Or subsidize residential users?
      - baq 2y ago
        If I had answers, I wouldn't be saying that it's a good time to think about that. But you shouldn't assume that things will just continue on as they were in the past hundred years. Boomers are retiring now, when the busters start going into retirement it's going to be a huge mess. Inflation is how democracies die.
  - nancybelowzero 2y ago
    It certainly brought plenty to some people, didn't it? Other people still get nothing.
mpweiher 2y ago
There is nothing inherent or natural about that scenario, it is all due to the failure to properly design electricity markets. See also: the 2001 California electricity crisis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000–2001_California_electricity_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000–2001_California_electrici... See also: Enron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000–2001_California_electricity_crisis#Involvement_of_Enron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000–2001_California_electrici... If we have designed our markets to price cheap, reliable electricity out of the market and instead prefer expensive unreliable electricity, we've really f*ed up.
exprez135 2y ago
The problem you describe seems to be one targeted by the TerraPower project in Wyoming. It plans to operate at 100% capacity at all times (345 MWe), but makes itself more akin to other renewables by incorporating energy storage into its design. It is supposed to be able to increase capacity to 150% (500 MWe), allowing it to respond to energy scarcity. But it can also respond to energy abundance by storing excess production in molten salt storage tanks.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> When you get plentiful and nearly free solar energy at certain times of the year, the utilization of your nuclear power plant will drop In the short run, sure. In the long run, cheap power builds its own demand. A country that commits to a certain amount of nuclear baseload, even if run at a loss in the short term, is injecting a very real industrial subsidy into its system. (The way to ensure you don’t get a dog is to subsidise long-term loans for private borrowers. They still need to make a profit someday. But you reduce the time value of money for them.) The investment doesn’t make sense for a non-nuclear power. But if you’re already producing nuclear waste at scale for your military, it’s a little silly to pretend you’re safer without a civilian reactor in the middle of a desert while all manner of subs and ships patrol your coast.
- oezi 2y ago
  You are right which means that the cheap excess solar energy during summer and during the day will drive a boom in those industries which can leverage such intermittent availability of very cheap energy.
cykros 2y ago
It's worth remembering that the anti-nuclear crowd was always backed by big oil, and even in the age where solar and wind are being pushed, big oil benefits as the unmet demand for base load power, in the absence of nuclear, means that they get the business as there is no alternative. They pulled the green crowd along for the ride hook, line, and sinker.

kaliqt 2y ago

That's not how this works though, energy abundance means industrial abundance, more energy availability (for cheap) would simply mean that demand will scale to meet the output. The only time it won't scale to meet output is if the price stays high, but if the nuclear energy is already on the grid and has elastic pricing, the rest will take care of itself.

akamaka 2y ago
But the price of energy can be negative, so a new nuclear plant might never pay off its cost, even if it provides the public benefit of cheap electricity.
- quickthrowman 2y ago
  Did you read the post you’re responding to? > That's not how this works though, energy abundance means industrial abundance, more energy availability (for cheap) would simply mean that demand will scale to meet the output. If the price of electricity is negative, people will build stuff like aluminum smelters and desalination plants to use the excess energy, and electricity will cost money again. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox > In economics, the Jevons paradox (/ˈdʒɛvənz/; sometimes Jevons effect) occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the falling cost of use induces increases in demand enough that resource use is increased, rather than reduced.
  - akamaka 2y ago
    > people will build stuff like aluminum smelters and desalination plants to use the excess energy, and electricity will cost money again. But will electricity cost enough to justify the huge upfront cost of nuclear plants? If we have the wealth to build capital-intensive projects that are marginally cost effective, it might be easier to build smelters and desalination plants that only run at 40% capacity, when the sun is out.
- mpweiher 2y ago
  I'll take "What is market failure?" for 400, Alex.
- chickenbig 2y ago
  > But the price of energy can be negative Is this a sign of over-investment? Is it case that the metric we're using does not show the actual price? https://www.squeaky.energy/blog/the-unintended-consequences-of-negative-power-prices-in-the-uk https://www.squeaky.energy/blog/the-unintended-consequences-... shows a way to get "free" electricity on a regular basis, while it still costs consumers a very non-zero amount. In the case of solar, revenue could be achieved through out-of-market payments (CfD, power purchase agreements, renewable energy certificates). Or is it the sign that the nightmare battery dominated grid is starting to happen? https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/the-unstoppable-battery-cavalcade/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/05/20/the-unstoppabl... Battery operators can choose between strategies designed to maximize revenue, profit, competitive advantage, or competitor losses, over any given timescale and with almost perfect deniability. (or is it something else?)

phil21 2y ago

Easily solved via sane energy policy. Of course politics will likely make this impossible in the US. In a rational environment you run your nuclear at 100% 24x7. The cost of the fuel is not material running at 10% vs. 100%. Letting parasitic intermittent power sources screw this up is simply financial engineering by largely bad actors. At least currently. Then you use intermittent power sources to provide your peak loads during the day, and any excess you ideally start putting into storage - whatever that may be. If you have effectively free marginal power during certain peak times, I'm positive industry will find a way to turn that into money. I still have hope sanity returns to the energy discussion, but it likely won't happen in the US during my lifetime. The cost of solar and wind is entirely politics - the storage cost is literally never considered when reading articles on the subject. The hidden costs are likely 10x or so what the marginal cost per kwh everyone loves to spew. Lots of folks getting massively rich off this disinformation so there is huge inertia behind ignoring it - even from very smart people that should absolutely know better after a few hours of reading on the subject. Just look at many of the posts here at HN. The environmental costs of methane (natural gas) are simply not being considered. The methane leaks into the environment are underestimated by at least 10x if not much, much, more. Pivoting from nuclear and to natural gas has been an utter environmental disaster.

UI_at_80x24 2y ago

And thank-you for making the point that utilities should be socialized and not a profit center. EVERYBODY deserves clean water, electricity, housing and food.

nickpp 2y ago
Without profit there is no reason anybody will provide those. Countries that tried socializing food - starved. Capitalism is the only one that brought plenty - because there is an incentive to do so.
- baq 2y ago
  Profit is… not fake, but fiat. Energy and clean water are real. With collapsing demographics the current economic system will fall over anyway, either due to inflation or defaults, so maybe it’s a good time to start thinking about how to separate utilities from money.
  - qwytw 2y ago
    > how to separate utilities from money Forced labour? Central planning? Requisition? How exactly would that work? Somebody still needs to build and operate those power plants. Also commercial and industrial users consume >60% of all electricity in the US, should they also be subsidized? Or subsidize residential users?
    - baq 2y ago
      If I had answers, I wouldn't be saying that it's a good time to think about that. But you shouldn't assume that things will just continue on as they were in the past hundred years. Boomers are retiring now, when the busters start going into retirement it's going to be a huge mess. Inflation is how democracies die.
- nancybelowzero 2y ago
  It certainly brought plenty to some people, didn't it? Other people still get nothing.

mpweiher 2y ago

There is nothing inherent or natural about that scenario, it is all due to the failure to properly design electricity markets. See also: the 2001 California electricity crisis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000–2001_California_electricity_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000–2001_California_electrici... See also: Enron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000–2001_California_electricity_crisis#Involvement_of_Enron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000–2001_California_electrici... If we have designed our markets to price cheap, reliable electricity out of the market and instead prefer expensive unreliable electricity, we've really f*ed up.

exprez135 2y ago

The problem you describe seems to be one targeted by the TerraPower project in Wyoming. It plans to operate at 100% capacity at all times (345 MWe), but makes itself more akin to other renewables by incorporating energy storage into its design. It is supposed to be able to increase capacity to 150% (500 MWe), allowing it to respond to energy scarcity. But it can also respond to energy abundance by storing excess production in molten salt storage tanks.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> When you get plentiful and nearly free solar energy at certain times of the year, the utilization of your nuclear power plant will drop In the short run, sure. In the long run, cheap power builds its own demand. A country that commits to a certain amount of nuclear baseload, even if run at a loss in the short term, is injecting a very real industrial subsidy into its system. (The way to ensure you don’t get a dog is to subsidise long-term loans for private borrowers. They still need to make a profit someday. But you reduce the time value of money for them.) The investment doesn’t make sense for a non-nuclear power. But if you’re already producing nuclear waste at scale for your military, it’s a little silly to pretend you’re safer without a civilian reactor in the middle of a desert while all manner of subs and ships patrol your coast.

oezi 2y ago
You are right which means that the cheap excess solar energy during summer and during the day will drive a boom in those industries which can leverage such intermittent availability of very cheap energy.

cykros 2y ago

It's worth remembering that the anti-nuclear crowd was always backed by big oil, and even in the age where solar and wind are being pushed, big oil benefits as the unmet demand for base load power, in the absence of nuclear, means that they get the business as there is no alternative. They pulled the green crowd along for the ride hook, line, and sinker.