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U.S. Sets Targets to Triple Nuclear Energy Capacity by 2050
- jbverschoor 2y agoHopefully Kirk Sorensen / Flibe will finally get some more presence. ( https://flibe.com https://flibe.com )
- KennyBlanken 2y ago"Operational production reactors coming online in 2040." That's about a decade and a half too late. We need to be reducing our carbon footprint right now, and we have that ability: wind and solar. Low initial impact, fast to net carbon negative. Nukes take decades to dig themselves out of their carbon positive holes, if they ever do so at all (the nuclear industry does not account for most of the CO2 generated from supply and operations.)
- aubanel 2y agoNet carbone negative is bullshit (no such things as net emissions if you don't have a "removal" side, which is not happening rn) Then nuke is much better for low co2 energy mix, cf France vs Germany
- IshKebab 2y agoIs it even vaguely price competitive with solar & battery at this point?
- throwaway888abc 2y agoFor the H100/B200 AI clusters ?
- m101 2y agoThe price is a function of regulations. It is self imposed, so a concerted effort here could reduce prices. Also, economics are not equal to climate/carbon. If we want to reduce climate change only nuclear is the way to go - not solar/battery. I don't think solar+battery is cost competitive if you were to replicate nuclear completely, but I've not looked at the numbers. Need to consider a nuclear plant may have a 60 year life whereas panels would be 20 at best and batteries probably less.
- chgs 2y agoYou can’t mention price without including the externalities and the total cost of ownership. Regulations attempt to price those.
- m101 2y agoIf regulations priced carbon externalities then solar would be more expensive than nuclear, but they don't. Edit: I can't reply so adding this for context around my comments on carbon intensity: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoNo it wouldn't. Even decade old solar was competitive with nuclear on a carbon per watt basis: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy Pricing carbon would mostly drive fossil fuels from the grid (unsurprisingly). It might boost nuclear as a result but it would boost renewables far more.
- m101 2y agoUltimately it's about energy return on investment. Solar + battery requires plenty of materials and energy to put together. It also needs to work in the middle of winter for it to be a fair comparison. When you consider it in that way it favours nuclear. It also has a shorter lifespan than nuclear, so that should be included. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoEnergy return on investment is pure crankery. It's a meaningless number that has basically no impact on any decision. And, if you take that crankery seriously, then renewables vastly outperform fossils and are speeding past nuclear on this metric too. It's basically impossible for energy tech to come down in price by magnitudes and not have increasing EROI as energy inputs cost money. This is predicted to continue. And despite this metric being great for renewables, you don't hear anyone crowing about it, because it's meaningless.
- hughrlomas 2y agoIt is worth investing a little more on nuclear in the interest of energy security. It isn't always a race to the bottom. A diverse and robust energy grid is composed of various generation sources that differ in capacity factors, environmental impact, stability, availability, etc.
- ChrisRR 2y agoEnergy security is way more important than people make out. You'd think that politicians would focus on relying less on the countries that they have political tensions with
- devjab 2y agoIt depends on how you regulate the market. Part of the reason solar is still expensive on the market in Europe is because of regulations. To counter this to not kill growth you have various forms of economic incentives like tariffs for solar where the various government’s subsidies make up for the regulation. It’s to keep the fossil and nuclear energy market in Europe sustainable. Since we still heavily rely on these sources when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. The battery industry is expected to grow a maddening percentage in the coming decade. Germany moving their renewable goal from 60-80% by (I’m not sure about the year but I think it’s 2030), alone increased the expected economic growth for supplying battery storage by 800%. There is nowhere near enough storage to make nuclear and fossil fuels obsolete yet however. Especially not if we also increase the EV market share. Solar isn’t optimal in very hot regions, however, as the efficiency goes down 0.3-0.5% in efficiency for every degree Celsius above 0 degrees Celsius. So in some regions nuclear is going to be a good option. I’m not personally a fan of nuclear because its safety depends on governments being willing to regulate the safety, but there is no denying that it’s still a much, much, better alternative to fossil fuels as far as delivering power on demand. This is how it looks in Europe. I have no idea how it looks in the US.
- belorn 2y agoThe battery industry being built at the moment in Sweden is having some major issues right now when investment money and subsidizes are running dry. The biggest actor are close to bankruptcy and rushing to find new sources of money. There seems a general pattern that if you need to build it outside of china, be that batteries, nuclear power plants or solar panels, it becomes too expensive.
- actionfromafar 2y agoChina is not afraid of subsidies and central planning, for better and worse.
- devjab 2y agoThe market is consolidating in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the challenges with the global supply lines and the increased interest rates. A lot of the smaller projects backed by semiprofessional investors will be picked up by larger investment fonds. There is also still a couple of years until the European battery factories that are under construction will actually be operational. Unless the economy picks up I suspect we’ll see a lot of bankruptcies in the coming five years. Currently it’s not just the price of solar panel production that is an issue, it’s also that you make equal and safer money on other investments. Back when the interest rates were basically 0% the 3-7% returns on solar were very attractive but now that is just not the case. This is why you see Japan picking up as an attractive place for solar these years, because in Japan a 3-7% return is still very good.
- panick21_ 2y agoThis is a difficult question because if you build 1 plant, it clearly isn't. But there are large learning effect. Any nation that builds many plants, shares workforce and management rapidly drops cost. If you look at UAE building South Korean plants, they were finishing plants pretty rapidly and if they had simply continued, they could have turned 100% green in just a few more years at quite a low cost overall. It also depends on your energy market and financing. If you have a lot of solar, that simply destroys the market during certain periods, nuclear isn't gone be that profitable. But if you don't have a bunch of wind/solar and you actually value stable energy production. Then its much more reasonable. A nuclear plant can run for 80+ years. So it depends on interest rates you use.
- haccount 2y agoMake a cost calculation of how much solar and battery you need to keep your lights on during peak summer and then do the same calculation for how much solar and battery you need to keep the lights on in the middle of winter when a large scale 5 day blizzard. Pretend you are a metal foundry. Good luck.
- ben_w 2y agoBig fat wire to somewhere which isn't in a blizzard. Or just build the metal foundry in the non-blizzard-prone area in the first place, because the blizzard takes out power lines even if there was a nuclear reactor on the other end. I've done the maths, and I'd it wasn't for geopolitics, China makes enough Aluminium to make an HVDC grid so thick that it would have so little resistance that they could usefully connect every grid in the world for a cost of 250e9 USD for the Aluminium. Scaled down to just the USA, no international stuff, it's something you can easily do if someone convinces Trump or Musk to delete any internal obstruction.
- actionfromafar 2y agoYour last sentence sounds optimistic. Load-bearing "easily". Any convincing needs to demonstrate that also the "libs are owned".
- ben_w 2y agoIf they need to make it a culture war thing, they could just call it the Keystone pipeline of electricity, or the Trump Powerline, or similar. (As a non American, I may be misjudging this: I don't care too much about US culture wars, they don't connect to me any more than the US or Chinese sports teams whose names I don't know). You may be correct that I am over-optimistic, though for what it's worth my optimism is not universal to all of the aspects of Musk let alone Trump (mostly pessimistic about him), and not with regard to other greenhouse gas emissions besides electrical, heating, and transportation.
- haccount 2y ago"Thousands of miles of big wires are free" Why don't we just assume that power will be free and infinite and plug our grid into that assumption? We can even write it down on the socket and paint it green, based on how these arguments always read out that's the only thing needed to maintain electrified high tech society.
- zahlman 2y agoFrance leads the world in this department, with 70% of their electricity generation coming from nuclear, and serving as the world's largest net exporter of electricity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_France). The consensus among sources I can readily find is that home consumers pay around 25-30 euro cents per KWh for electricity, and electricity production wholesales at around 8 euro cents per KWh. I'd say it's competitive, yes.
- mgoetzke 2y agoThat does not include the deficit these reactors ran up, nor all the subsidies they got from tax payers in many forms
- zahlman 2y agoSee also Canadian data (https://www.cns-snc.ca/learn-nuclear/basics-of-nuclear/how-much-does-nuclear-power-cost/ https://www.cns-snc.ca/learn-nuclear/basics-of-nuclear/how-m...). We're blessed to have abundant access to hydroelectric energy which is even cheaper to produce here, but otherwise we should be outraged by the decommissioning of nuclear plants - and, indeed, there have been recent campaigns to revive old plants and step up production.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago> but otherwise we should be outraged by the decommissioning of nuclear plants No, we shouldn't. Pull up charts for energy generation by type for the US, Canada, and Europe. Notice that solar and wind (especially wind) has skyrocketed and far eclipsed the capacity loss of nuclear. In the US, 7 times as much wind power is going in as nuclear plants being taken offline. In the UK, 30% of power generation (and growing) is from wind. Now, who do you think knows better here? The power companies who have been shutting down nuclear and coal plants because they're more expensive than wind and solar? Or...uh...you? If your answer is "me", then clearly you should get a job in energy production, or become an investor, and make a bazillion dollars knowing more than everyone else in the industry, in nearly every country. US, EU, UK...all seeing massive capacity growth in wind, far eclipsing nuclear decommissioning. Several countries have hit days in the last few years where they didn't need to have any fossil fuel plants online. > indeed, there have been recent campaigns to revive old plants and step up production. That is because the nuclear industry is lobbying desperately to stay alive. If you need to lobby the government to force power companies to use you while also handing you a big fat check written by taxpayers, that is proof you're not market competitive.
- smt88 2y ago[flagged]
- m101 2y agoTrump is in favour of nuclear. You can easily find this on Google. The reason to be in favour of oil/gas is because it is a near term solution. Nuclear is a few years out at least.
- aetch 2y ago[flagged]
- woile 2y agowhat do you mean by near term solution? aren't solar and wind the cheapest form of electricity? It doesn't make sense to focus on gas anymore, unless they are trying to extract as much money as possible before it's over.
- m101 2y agoGas is a good peaker plant. Solar/wind/batteries are more carbon intensive relative to nuclear. Near term because nuclear can take a long time to build out. Cheapness does not equal low carbon.
- sixstringtheory 2y agoNot everything runs on electricity today. You can’t just snap your fingers and replace millions of cars, stoves, boilers, etc
- deprecative 2y agoWith all due respect, we really ought to wait on things like this until at least February. While nuclear is likely to continue we must be aware that it's not fossil fuel and not guaranteed.
- stubish 2y agoI think the Office of Nuclear Energy is trying to get in front of Musk shutting all these projects down and moving the green funding to solar and battery.
- zahlman 2y agoMusk has an established track record of pro-nuclear sentiment (see my other comment for example). I see no reason to expect him to do any such thing.
- ChrisRR 2y agoMusk also has a track record of being a gigantic tool to serve his own interests. So I'll only believe it when I see it
- zahlman 2y agoI have given evidence; thus far you offer only personal sentiment. Feel free to explain how increased nuclear energy capacity would even hinder Musk's interests in the first place.
- verdverm 2y agoTrump is all about the oil, drill baby drill Going against this may lose him is "first buddy" position and influence on the US government
- stubish 2y agoThe vast amounts of waste in building nuclear power is part of why it is so expensive, with projects traditionally ballooning to triple budget estimates. Exactly the stuff he is required to cut hard by mid-2026. With the numbers in plain sight, arguments of corruption will be rejected, despite the fact he stands to gain billions due to owning the biggest slice of proven, lower cost, less wasteful alternative.
- mjevans 2y ago
- adrianN 2y agoSo nuclear will stay roughly were it is as a fraction of total electricity production?
- jillesvangurp 2y agoIt will probably go down over time. These targets are nice but it takes a long time for those plans to become reality. Plenty of time for changing the plans or cancelling them completely. Regardless of those plans and whether they are cancelled or not, renewables are going full steam ahead in most of the world and will likely add essentially all of the planned nuclear capacity in a matter of years. And then some. At this point renewables are, by far, the most cost effective way to generate power. Wind, solar, and battery storage are growing at a ridiculous rate. That's actually causing headaches for plans made years ago for e.g. gas plants and indeed nuclear plants. Some gas plants that opened fairly recently are actually facing early closures because they are no longer price competitive.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoIn Australia they've started planning for the closure of gas grid connections to people's homes. Since they were built with the idea of supplying gas for a few decades and will be obsolete before that planned date, they're started to raise the rates they charge to ensure it gets paid off in time. This then accelerates the pace of people moving off gas.
- anshumankmr 2y agoBased. I hope my country does this too.
- nilvi26 2y ago[dead]
- voidUpdate 2y agoHow much of this is those SMEs that people are making specifically to power AI?
- AlchemistCamp 2y agoIt shouldn't take an entire generation to do this. China's building even more within the next five years: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-20/china-approves-record-11-new-nuclear-power-reactors https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-20/china-app...
- surfpel 2y agoAlso relevant: China Added More Solar Panels in 2023 Than US Did In Its Entire History https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-26/china-added-more-solar-panels-in-2023-than-us-did-in-its-entire-history https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-26/china-add...
- AlchemistCamp 2y agoYes. China has also opened more coal power plants than the rest of the world combined over the past couple of years. It should be clear from these three examples that some regulatory environments are more conducive to rapidly building infrastructure than others.
- rob74 2y agoWell, the incoming administration seems to be committed to simplifying the regulatory environment in the US too. What's still unclear is if it will also introduce a one-party system to better emulate the success of China?
- verdverm 2y agoHow is success defined?
- bamboozled 2y agoI don't think it invalidates anything, they will shut those off if there isn't any use for them anymore.
- surfpel 2y ago
- mgoetzke 2y agoI wonder how they plan to keep costs under control. Spending $19 billion USD on 2,4GW capacity as with Georgia does not sound like a keeper.
- briandear 2y agoBetter than $5 billion on 11 EV chargers. https://www.governing.com/infrastructure/5b-for-ev-infrastructure-yields-just-11-charging-stations https://www.governing.com/infrastructure/5b-for-ev-infrastru...
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoAs your article clearly states the money mostly hasn't been spent and the delay in giving out the money is why most stuff hasn't happened yet. If you can declare that a failure before most projects have a spade in the ground then this newly announced nuclear plan has already failed.
- cjpearson 2y agoAlong with cost, the biggest issue is still local opposition, right? Is there any plan to solve that?
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoI don't have any faith in these kinds of plans. The US doesn't seem capable of actually finishing nuclear projects. I assume this is just a grift for someone to siphon away a whole lot of money.
- chickenbig 2y ago> The US doesn't seem capable of actually finishing nuclear projects. Vogtle 3 and 4 were completed in the last couple of years, plus Watts Bar Unit 2 8 years ago. Also let's not forget the work to maintain and upgrade units so they can run beyond the 40 year initial license.
- HDThoreaun 2y agoVogtle 3 and 4 were such colossal economic failures that they likely killed all investment in nuclear for the next decade.
- huijzer 2y agoMeanwhile battery energy storage deployments increase about 100% per year in both China and the US. That means battery deployments will have tripled in... 2026. Just to show the difference in growth rate, if batteries would keep increasing 100% annually, installations will have increased 1*2^25 = 300 million times by 2050. So multiple orders of magnitude different is what I'm trying to point out. The growth rate that the US government sets here is 4% (1.04^25 = 3). It's meaningless I think. It doesn't move the needle.