6 ms·

“There’s a very decent chance you can do that with wind and solar,” It is so pathetic that Standford professor spreads this kind of crap. No, wind and solar wi

“There’s a very decent chance you can do that with wind and solar,” It is so pathetic that Standford professor spreads this kind of crap. No, wind and solar will not save us, as on majority of our planet we have long period of time without wind and solar. Unpredictability of solar/wind energy forces to use something to balance the grid. Which, typically, has to be gas, as only gas power station has sufficiently fast start/stop cycle (about 1h in case of modern installation, lignite power plant has several hours cold start, coal power plant even more). And gas means CO2 emission, even though in some countries, which were buying gas from Russia through Nord Stream, it was considered to be "ecological", similarly like "biomass", that is burning wood and corn (and as we all know burning wood does not emit CO2, right?). In addition, this is economical idiocy. When there is too much wind/sun, you need to pay producers to stop producing, not to overload the grid. When there is no wind/sun you need to buy energy paying overpriced spot prices. That's why "renewable energy champion" - United Kingdom has the most expensive energy on the planet. We have one ecological, 100% CO2 emission free, source of energy - nuclear energy (check France if you don't believe it works). But how Standford professor might promote nuclear power plants when for long, long years all major universities and organizations, with Greenpeace on the head, were fighting nuclear energy, leading to the shitty situation we have now. 10 years ago anyone who wanted to work on nuclear energy research were treated like Holocaust denier, so there was almost no development of new tech in that area. And now exactly the same people, who were telling us how bad is nuclear energy, are telling us to use wind/solar. What can go wrong...

Reason077 2y ago
> "nuclear energy (check France if you don't believe it works)" France's latest nuclear reactor, Flamanville 3, was finally connected to the grid in December 2024 after 17 years (!!) of construction beset by problems, delays, and massive cost overruns. Nuclear can be part of the solution, but renewables are much cheaper and faster to build. So for every $/€ spent, you are achieving more CO2 reduction, much more quickly, by building renewables compared to building new nuclear.
- numpad0 2y ago
  US Navy has been building, commissioning, operating nuclear submarines successfully, literally every years for at least past two decades. The sub reactors are PWRs, only built with unadulterated high purity Uranium. The "problems, delays, overruns" is basically euphemism for political sabotaging. I can't feel so sympathetic to those in denial of that. It's just hot rocks boiling in a pressure cooker. 1940s technology. Not 1940s as in Portal timeline. Making assumptions that there must be complicated technical challenges that cannot be overcome or could delay construction as long as 17 years to mitigate is just stupid.
  - olddustytrail 2y ago
    When you can spend $2 billion to provide electricity for 150 people then it works fine. I'm not sure many cities would be happy with that though!
    - numpad0 2y ago
      Maybe, but it's definitely not delayed 9 or 17 or how many years. I don't know where your $2b number comes from but it's also not trillions. Nukes just work, for USN, which is about the most secure, rational, effectively bureaucratic organization in the history of humanity. The US has long sabotaged, sometimes figuratively and sometimes literally, nuclear development efforts of everyone but itself. Especially fuel recycling which scalably yield nuclear warhead materials. One could say call it a noble act, but the resultant "problems, delays, overruns" aren't indicative of true potential of the technology. See where kragen had to find negative examples from, those are "enemy" states of the US. How convenient is that.
      - olddustytrail 2y ago
        > I don't know where your $2b number comes from Just an estimate of the reactor cost based on the overall boat cost. If you have a better estimate feel free to share.
  - kragen 2y ago
red_trumpet 2y ago
> (check France if you don't believe it works) France's nuclear provider has incredibly high debts, which is only possibly because they are state backed. So no, nuclear energy does not work economically.
- simplysublime 2y ago
  Respectfully, who cares? Humanity needs electricity, and "cost" is an entirely made-up thing. "Sorry, it was too expensive to save civilization" is going to be the most obnoxious epitaph for Homo sapiens...
2thumbsup 2y ago
Solar and wind energy has a problem, which is storage. We have not yet developed a competitive solution to store energy on commercial scale that works everywhere. Nuclear energy is stable but generally quite costly per kWh compared to renewable energy. Nuclear energy and renewables in combination balances out disadvantages. Nuclear energy reduces the need for energy storage solutions in renewables by providing a base load, while renewables would enable cost-efficiency in even quite energy demanding uses (e.g. carbon capture, generating methane etc.).
- mperham 2y ago
  Is it 2015? You can buy 10x as much solar+battery as nuclear these days. Nuclear is simply too complex and dangerous to compete.
  - Chilko 2y ago
    Yeah when it comes to these discussions, I think most people are unaware just how much the cost of solar & BESS (at the large scale) has fallen in the past couple years.
    - applied_heat 2y ago
      The battery installed along solar farms is usually on the order of hours of energy delivery though. Like 5 hours. It’s fine, but not everyone will be able to ornaffors to buy electricity on when it is cloudy and still for a few days.
  - Paradigma11 2y ago
    Battery capacity for how long? You are talking about a statistical value not a deterministic one. So it is solar+battery which is sufficient for n% of typical years.
zekrioca 2y ago
You miss listing so many alternatives: 1. Building better/more transmission lines interconnecting carbon-intense grids with low-carbon ones. This is cheaper than ramping up nuclear, and will needed regardless of the technology. 2. Batteries are becoming more and more efficient. One can even mine with electric excavators. 3. Wind and solar not necessarily need to be connected to the grid initially. Look at ERCOT. This incentivizes demanding moving where electricity is generated, specially in small countries. Look at the UK. You still do not solve the issues with nuclear waste (10k year problem) and its high prices (LCOE). Also, you cannot build nuclear everywhere, specially in the emerging world. We need a mix of solutions, there is no silver bullet in this situation.
Chilko 2y ago
I love how your response conveniently ignores any mention of energy storage technologies, several types of which are having rapid technological advancement.
- tonyarkles 2y ago
  You’re right that there has been huge advancements but there’s still a pretty brutal economic cost with it. I generally use the Tesla Megapacks as an easy example because prices and specs are easy to find on Wikipedia (and my local utility is testing them, so it’s relevant to me). A Megapack 2XL can output ~2MW and has a capacity of ~4MWh for $1.39M. A GE BWRX-300 is rated for 300MW and an 18-24 month refueling cycle and allegedly costs ~$1B. You can build 150x Megapacks for $208M to match that 300MW output, but there is only enough energy stored to provide that output for two hours. If you want to provide 12 hours capacity (to run through the night), you need 900 units at a cost of $1.25B. That’s just for the storage though, you still need the source of electricity to charge the packs, overprovisioned to deal with the capacity factor issues that solar and wind have. Will the nuclear plant go over budget? Almost certainly. Will it then provide a long-term baseline source of power? Also yes. I’m pro-renewables and pro-storage, but there’s a mix needed here. Even with storage tech, there needs to be something else that can just sit there and run and produce reliable and controllable power output long-term.
  - applied_heat 2y ago
    Some Solar and wind farms I’ve seen have capacity factors about 30%, and run of river hydro commonly 30-40%
    - tonyarkles 2y ago
      Right, so that means that to produce 300MW reliably from the solar or wind farms you'd need about 900MW nameplate capacity. I'd be really curious about the solar side of it too and whether that 30% is overall or just during daylight. Either way, you end up having to overprovision the unreliable sources such that you have enough capacity to both charge your battery pack and provide power to the grid.

Reason077 2y ago

> "nuclear energy (check France if you don't believe it works)" France's latest nuclear reactor, Flamanville 3, was finally connected to the grid in December 2024 after 17 years (!!) of construction beset by problems, delays, and massive cost overruns. Nuclear can be part of the solution, but renewables are much cheaper and faster to build. So for every $/€ spent, you are achieving more CO2 reduction, much more quickly, by building renewables compared to building new nuclear.

numpad0 2y ago
US Navy has been building, commissioning, operating nuclear submarines successfully, literally every years for at least past two decades. The sub reactors are PWRs, only built with unadulterated high purity Uranium. The "problems, delays, overruns" is basically euphemism for political sabotaging. I can't feel so sympathetic to those in denial of that. It's just hot rocks boiling in a pressure cooker. 1940s technology. Not 1940s as in Portal timeline. Making assumptions that there must be complicated technical challenges that cannot be overcome or could delay construction as long as 17 years to mitigate is just stupid.
- olddustytrail 2y ago
  When you can spend $2 billion to provide electricity for 150 people then it works fine. I'm not sure many cities would be happy with that though!
  - numpad0 2y ago
    Maybe, but it's definitely not delayed 9 or 17 or how many years. I don't know where your $2b number comes from but it's also not trillions. Nukes just work, for USN, which is about the most secure, rational, effectively bureaucratic organization in the history of humanity. The US has long sabotaged, sometimes figuratively and sometimes literally, nuclear development efforts of everyone but itself. Especially fuel recycling which scalably yield nuclear warhead materials. One could say call it a noble act, but the resultant "problems, delays, overruns" aren't indicative of true potential of the technology. See where kragen had to find negative examples from, those are "enemy" states of the US. How convenient is that.
    - olddustytrail 2y ago
      > I don't know where your $2b number comes from Just an estimate of the reactor cost based on the overall boat cost. If you have a better estimate feel free to share.
- kragen 2y ago

red_trumpet 2y ago

> (check France if you don't believe it works) France's nuclear provider has incredibly high debts, which is only possibly because they are state backed. So no, nuclear energy does not work economically.

simplysublime 2y ago
Respectfully, who cares? Humanity needs electricity, and "cost" is an entirely made-up thing. "Sorry, it was too expensive to save civilization" is going to be the most obnoxious epitaph for Homo sapiens...

2thumbsup 2y ago

Solar and wind energy has a problem, which is storage. We have not yet developed a competitive solution to store energy on commercial scale that works everywhere. Nuclear energy is stable but generally quite costly per kWh compared to renewable energy. Nuclear energy and renewables in combination balances out disadvantages. Nuclear energy reduces the need for energy storage solutions in renewables by providing a base load, while renewables would enable cost-efficiency in even quite energy demanding uses (e.g. carbon capture, generating methane etc.).

mperham 2y ago
Is it 2015? You can buy 10x as much solar+battery as nuclear these days. Nuclear is simply too complex and dangerous to compete.
- Chilko 2y ago
  Yeah when it comes to these discussions, I think most people are unaware just how much the cost of solar & BESS (at the large scale) has fallen in the past couple years.
  - applied_heat 2y ago
    The battery installed along solar farms is usually on the order of hours of energy delivery though. Like 5 hours. It’s fine, but not everyone will be able to ornaffors to buy electricity on when it is cloudy and still for a few days.
- Paradigma11 2y ago
  Battery capacity for how long? You are talking about a statistical value not a deterministic one. So it is solar+battery which is sufficient for n% of typical years.

zekrioca 2y ago

You miss listing so many alternatives: 1. Building better/more transmission lines interconnecting carbon-intense grids with low-carbon ones. This is cheaper than ramping up nuclear, and will needed regardless of the technology. 2. Batteries are becoming more and more efficient. One can even mine with electric excavators. 3. Wind and solar not necessarily need to be connected to the grid initially. Look at ERCOT. This incentivizes demanding moving where electricity is generated, specially in small countries. Look at the UK. You still do not solve the issues with nuclear waste (10k year problem) and its high prices (LCOE). Also, you cannot build nuclear everywhere, specially in the emerging world. We need a mix of solutions, there is no silver bullet in this situation.

Chilko 2y ago

I love how your response conveniently ignores any mention of energy storage technologies, several types of which are having rapid technological advancement.

tonyarkles 2y ago
You’re right that there has been huge advancements but there’s still a pretty brutal economic cost with it. I generally use the Tesla Megapacks as an easy example because prices and specs are easy to find on Wikipedia (and my local utility is testing them, so it’s relevant to me). A Megapack 2XL can output ~2MW and has a capacity of ~4MWh for $1.39M. A GE BWRX-300 is rated for 300MW and an 18-24 month refueling cycle and allegedly costs ~$1B. You can build 150x Megapacks for $208M to match that 300MW output, but there is only enough energy stored to provide that output for two hours. If you want to provide 12 hours capacity (to run through the night), you need 900 units at a cost of $1.25B. That’s just for the storage though, you still need the source of electricity to charge the packs, overprovisioned to deal with the capacity factor issues that solar and wind have. Will the nuclear plant go over budget? Almost certainly. Will it then provide a long-term baseline source of power? Also yes. I’m pro-renewables and pro-storage, but there’s a mix needed here. Even with storage tech, there needs to be something else that can just sit there and run and produce reliable and controllable power output long-term.
- applied_heat 2y ago
  Some Solar and wind farms I’ve seen have capacity factors about 30%, and run of river hydro commonly 30-40%
  - tonyarkles 2y ago
    Right, so that means that to produce 300MW reliably from the solar or wind farms you'd need about 900MW nameplate capacity. I'd be really curious about the solar side of it too and whether that 30% is overall or just during daylight. Either way, you end up having to overprovision the unreliable sources such that you have enough capacity to both charge your battery pack and provide power to the grid.