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It means that new built nuclear power is even less suitable for modern grids given how extremely costly it is. Nuclear power and renewables compete for the sam

It means that new built nuclear power is even less suitable for modern grids given how extremely costly it is. Nuclear power and renewables compete for the same slice of the grid. The cheapest most inflexible where all other power generation has to adapt to their demands. They are fundamentally incompatible. This is a battle nuclear power loses and are forced into an increasingly marginalized position where it starts losing money hand over fist.

parineum 2y ago
> Nuclear power and renewables compete for the same slice of the grid. The cheapest most inflexible where all other power generation has to adapt to their demands. Nuclear and renewables are very comparable in their (in)flexibility, that's a piece of info that's not really acknowledged by the Nuclear crowd, imo. However, that's not the only issue with renewables, they are also inconsistent. Historically, the grid needed two things, a consistent power supply and a responsive power supply. Solar and wind are pretty bad options for both. The increase in usefulness of solar and wind aren't because they got better, it's because we added a third demand, carbon neutrality. We can also put price in there but I don't view price as an inflexible attribute as we can see with the cost of solar/wind plummeting as demand gave it the benefit of increased R&D and demand/production. Our grid now needs to be consistent, responsive _and_ carbon neutral. Ignoring initial production costs (which is a can of worms I don't want to get into at the moment), Nuclear is consistent and carbon neutral and solar/wind are inconsistent and carbon neutral. Batteries are responsive and, given enough capacity of an inconsistent supply, are capable of being a consistent supply as well. So if you want to satisfy the three requirements in a hypothetical scenario with modern technology, I think there's a fairly clear idea design which is a baseline capacity in geothermal and hydro where available supplemented by nuclear or, where those aren't available, nuclear alone, backed by batteries for flexibility with an ever increasing capacity of inflexible renewables and batteries. However, the grid we have today was built without the carbon neutral parameter so we went with the cheaper and "safer" (arguable by data but public perception matters here) options of fossil fuels over nuclear. Nuclear plants are now in the position of the adage of planting trees. The best time to build a nuclear plant was a 30 years ago, the second best time is now. Given that the cost of nuclear (the reason it wasn't built 30 years ago) isn't associated with it's use as much as it is with it's safety, to me, the best investment would be in implementing safer Nuclear (which does exist) both in R&D and in existing technologies. As a semi-side note, I find it incredibly frustrating how little investment in fusion research is talked about in this conversation. Nobody can give you a real answer on how far away it is so it's typically too risky for private investment which makes it a great candidate for government investment which is currently at a pitiful level despite a near universal recognition that it will be, at some point in the future, the obvious eventual outcome.

parineum 2y ago

> Nuclear power and renewables compete for the same slice of the grid. The cheapest most inflexible where all other power generation has to adapt to their demands. Nuclear and renewables are very comparable in their (in)flexibility, that's a piece of info that's not really acknowledged by the Nuclear crowd, imo. However, that's not the only issue with renewables, they are also inconsistent. Historically, the grid needed two things, a consistent power supply and a responsive power supply. Solar and wind are pretty bad options for both. The increase in usefulness of solar and wind aren't because they got better, it's because we added a third demand, carbon neutrality. We can also put price in there but I don't view price as an inflexible attribute as we can see with the cost of solar/wind plummeting as demand gave it the benefit of increased R&D and demand/production. Our grid now needs to be consistent, responsive _and_ carbon neutral. Ignoring initial production costs (which is a can of worms I don't want to get into at the moment), Nuclear is consistent and carbon neutral and solar/wind are inconsistent and carbon neutral. Batteries are responsive and, given enough capacity of an inconsistent supply, are capable of being a consistent supply as well. So if you want to satisfy the three requirements in a hypothetical scenario with modern technology, I think there's a fairly clear idea design which is a baseline capacity in geothermal and hydro where available supplemented by nuclear or, where those aren't available, nuclear alone, backed by batteries for flexibility with an ever increasing capacity of inflexible renewables and batteries. However, the grid we have today was built without the carbon neutral parameter so we went with the cheaper and "safer" (arguable by data but public perception matters here) options of fossil fuels over nuclear. Nuclear plants are now in the position of the adage of planting trees. The best time to build a nuclear plant was a 30 years ago, the second best time is now. Given that the cost of nuclear (the reason it wasn't built 30 years ago) isn't associated with it's use as much as it is with it's safety, to me, the best investment would be in implementing safer Nuclear (which does exist) both in R&D and in existing technologies. As a semi-side note, I find it incredibly frustrating how little investment in fusion research is talked about in this conversation. Nobody can give you a real answer on how far away it is so it's typically too risky for private investment which makes it a great candidate for government investment which is currently at a pitiful level despite a near universal recognition that it will be, at some point in the future, the obvious eventual outcome.