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No. An energy mix is the answer. One of the parts that is mixed in, can be nuclear. Probably should be. But always a small part of the mix. Nuclear is slow: s

by berkes 2y ago

No. An energy mix is the answer. One of the parts that is mixed in, can be nuclear. Probably should be. But always a small part of the mix. Nuclear is slow: slow to power up, slow to adjust to demand or supply from others in the mix. And extremely slow to build. Nuclear plants that already run, often take days, some even weeks to adjust significant: so if on monday the wind stops blowing, on tuesday it gets cloudy, and on tuesday afternoon everyone needs to charge their EV or fire up the AC, it'll often take until next week friday before a nuclear plant can deliver this. Modern plants are faster, and theres many "hacks" where energy is blown out (wasted) for short peaks down, or where there's always 10% wasted for short peaks up. So nuclear needs innovation. But most of all, needs to be "just a piece of the puzzle" and never the only piece. Nuclear fission, and other of this "innovation" isn't there. That's the other slow part of nuclear. Even if its production ready today, that plant won't run for another decade, often 20+ years (except china, which tells you the reason why it's so rediculous slow: NIMBY, regulations, democracy) So, sorry, aside from all the other (fictive) problems with nuclear (waste, risk etc), nuclear has a serious problem of being just too damn slow to solve *todays* energy crisis on its own. Edit: Source, I've interned in power plants. A comparable coal plant, took one and a half month to power up from zero to producing electricity: which happened every 5 years for revision and three months to power down. It could adjust 10% in a few hours, but everything over 30% needed week(s) of planning ahead. I made those plannings.

jgtrosh 2y ago
> > Nuclear fission will play an important role in the future of grid energy. > No. > An energy mix is the answer. Maybe that “No.” was unnecessary.
- berkes 2y ago
  Maybe. Probably, if "future" means 50+ years, so two generations in future. But not if it means "future" in even overlapping the current nuclear plants that are EOL, 10, 20 even 30 years. Because to replace those nuclear EOL with other nuclear, we'd need to start building plants in 2014, 2015 (which we didn't). The next best time may be now, but "We", at least in Europe aren't doing that either, and AFAIK neither in the US. TBC: I'm not saying "it won't work, so stop chasing it" on contrary. But shoehorning "fission" into a discussion of a current energy crisis, what this article is about, isn't relevant. Such tech isn't for today, tomorrow. Not even for when your kids grow, up, but at most for your grandkids when they are working - horizons.
Ancapistani 2y ago
> One of the parts that is mixed in, can be nuclear. Probably should be. But always a small part of the mix. Nuclear is slow: slow to power up, slow to adjust to demand or supply from others in the mix. And extremely slow to build. All of those things, to me, mean that it should be a large part of the mix. Nuclear should be the backbone of our energy production, and should be sufficient to supply our baseline needs. That said, in places where hydro or geothermal are practical, those should be used in preference to nuclear. They're cheaper, more reliable, and just better in almost every way. Solar, wind, tidal, wave action, and so on should be what we build on top of that baseline. They should be cheaper to build and operate, but far less consistent. If you want to train a huge LLM, or smelt metals, or do anything that's energy-intensive but not very time-sensitive, you schedule those loads during times where energy production exceeds existing demand. ... and you know when that happens by pricing energy based on availability. Electricity should be cheapest when we have more than we need, and more expensive when the inconsistent sources listed above aren't producing. In other words, market forces are sufficient to make this happen. In fact, one of the cool things about solar and wind in particular is that they are so aggressively cyclical that it's possible that energy prices could actually go negative - not often, or regularly, but possible. That opens the door to all kinds of use cases that would otherwise never be profitable, and using those types of technologies often leads to efficiency gains that can eventually make them more efficient than the current alternatives.
- nradov 2y ago
  Scheduling loads based on energy spot price tends to wreck the economics of manufacturing. If you have to shut down when energy prices spike then you're still paying fixed expenses for PP&E plus at least some labor. It's tough to finance that.
  - berkes 2y ago
    Depends a bit on the "manufactoring". It's not "black"-"white". While it's certainly true for e.g. a brewery or a bike-factory-line, it's less so for aluminum, or chemicals. And even less so for systems like a freezer. A friend who makes juices and dried fruits on medium scale, plans his production ahead based on the spot pricing: steaming or deep-freezing can be postponed for days, apparently; I helped him with some dashboards and integrations of the pricing-APIs for this. What I'm trying to say is: yes, a lot of industry won't be able to profit much from these markets. But many can, if they are just willing to change their current ways a little. Not all: many.

by berkes 2y ago

jgtrosh 2y ago

> > Nuclear fission will play an important role in the future of grid energy. > No. > An energy mix is the answer. Maybe that “No.” was unnecessary.

berkes 2y ago
Maybe. Probably, if "future" means 50+ years, so two generations in future. But not if it means "future" in even overlapping the current nuclear plants that are EOL, 10, 20 even 30 years. Because to replace those nuclear EOL with other nuclear, we'd need to start building plants in 2014, 2015 (which we didn't). The next best time may be now, but "We", at least in Europe aren't doing that either, and AFAIK neither in the US. TBC: I'm not saying "it won't work, so stop chasing it" on contrary. But shoehorning "fission" into a discussion of a current energy crisis, what this article is about, isn't relevant. Such tech isn't for today, tomorrow. Not even for when your kids grow, up, but at most for your grandkids when they are working - horizons.

Ancapistani 2y ago

> One of the parts that is mixed in, can be nuclear. Probably should be. But always a small part of the mix. Nuclear is slow: slow to power up, slow to adjust to demand or supply from others in the mix. And extremely slow to build. All of those things, to me, mean that it should be a large part of the mix. Nuclear should be the backbone of our energy production, and should be sufficient to supply our baseline needs. That said, in places where hydro or geothermal are practical, those should be used in preference to nuclear. They're cheaper, more reliable, and just better in almost every way. Solar, wind, tidal, wave action, and so on should be what we build on top of that baseline. They should be cheaper to build and operate, but far less consistent. If you want to train a huge LLM, or smelt metals, or do anything that's energy-intensive but not very time-sensitive, you schedule those loads during times where energy production exceeds existing demand. ... and you know when that happens by pricing energy based on availability. Electricity should be cheapest when we have more than we need, and more expensive when the inconsistent sources listed above aren't producing. In other words, market forces are sufficient to make this happen. In fact, one of the cool things about solar and wind in particular is that they are so aggressively cyclical that it's possible that energy prices could actually go negative - not often, or regularly, but possible. That opens the door to all kinds of use cases that would otherwise never be profitable, and using those types of technologies often leads to efficiency gains that can eventually make them more efficient than the current alternatives.

nradov 2y ago
Scheduling loads based on energy spot price tends to wreck the economics of manufacturing. If you have to shut down when energy prices spike then you're still paying fixed expenses for PP&E plus at least some labor. It's tough to finance that.
- berkes 2y ago
  Depends a bit on the "manufactoring". It's not "black"-"white". While it's certainly true for e.g. a brewery or a bike-factory-line, it's less so for aluminum, or chemicals. And even less so for systems like a freezer. A friend who makes juices and dried fruits on medium scale, plans his production ahead based on the spot pricing: steaming or deep-freezing can be postponed for days, apparently; I helped him with some dashboards and integrations of the pricing-APIs for this. What I'm trying to say is: yes, a lot of industry won't be able to profit much from these markets. But many can, if they are just willing to change their current ways a little. Not all: many.