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I mean it is clean to operate. I think there’s an argument for it being a clean energy source. It’s not so clean to decommission. And it’s unclear we can build

I mean it is clean to operate. I think there’s an argument for it being a clean energy source. It’s not so clean to decommission. And it’s unclear we can build and operate nuclear power plants in a safe and cost effective way. They cost billions, take decades to build, create perverse incentives to operate longer and leaner than is safe and leave a clean-up nightmare. Perhaps we should prioritize incentives for rooftop solar + batteries. That is a distributed investment, pays dividends instantly, leaves no terrible cleanup, increases grid stability. Once we reach a point of diminishing returns there perhaps we could explore small nuclear power plants to generate remaining baseline loads.

Evil_Saint 2y ago
How do the batteries not require some kind of hazardous waste removal/cleanup process?
- anonymous_user9 2y ago
  Because they aren’t very hazardous. They’re slightly flammable due to their stored energy, and may contain toxic fire retardants like other electronics. But they’re completely benign compared with nuclear waste.
dlivingston 2y ago
Set aside the cleanup for a second: for pure power generation, nuclear is the ultimate clean energy source. Massive amounts of power, extremely cheap when amortized, liked by all political factions (except old-school '70s-era environmentalist liberals), a great source of jobs from blue to white collar, and no pollution or greenhouse gas emissions. Turning back to nuclear waste: it's a solved problem. At least, very good solutions already exist. For example, see WIPP in New Mexico [0]. As with all energy sources, there is no perfect, one-size-fits-all solution: use a diverse set of energy sources based on what makes sense for the specific locale you're targeting. Nuclear will make sense for some areas (perhaps dense metros), while solar would make sense in others. Geothermal and natural gas as well. We live in the future. Act like it! [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant
- testing22321 2y ago
  I generate most of the power my house needs right ON my house. I’m perfectly happy sleeping , eating and living there. The rain that runs off the generators waters my vegetable garden. Do you want to live a few meters from a nuke?
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    ^I hope this comment gets framed because it is the perfect embodiment of the "fuck you, I got mine" mentality.
    - cwillu 2y ago
      “This” style comments don't translate well on sites where the comments are not chronologically ordered.
  - lm28469 2y ago
    Yeah if you're into that it's pretty cool, I am too. I don't think nor trust the average joe with maintaining XX kW of batteries next door. > Do you want to live a few meters from a nuke? You probably don't know what a nuke is. Anyways, the worst nuclear reactor catastrophe killed ~30 people directly and ~5000 indirectly. Pollution kills ~250k people par year in Europe alone (coal related pollution is ~30k), cars kill about ~4k people in France, per year. Why do we accept car deaths as an acceptable cost of transportation but not (the extremely few) nuclear related deaths as an acceptable cost of energy production ? Why do we accept 30k deaths per year due to coal pollution but not 5k death, once, because of nuclear ? It sounds a lot like "dumb apes scared big boom" more than rational reasoning. That or the proverbial boiled frog
    - testing22321 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - natmaka 2y ago
      > the worst nuclear reactor catastrophe killed ~30 people directly and ~5000 indirectly. This is highly debatable. A glimpse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the_Catastrophe_for_People_and_the_Environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the... > Why do we accept car deaths Because those who refuse to be exposed to induced risks can prevent most of it, while those who refuse to be exposed to nuclear's induced risks (for them and their children, and their children, and their children... thanks to nuclear waste) are out of practical and realistic options.
swamp_donkey 2y ago
How does residential solar increase grid stability? The “Stability” of a power system would relate to the ability to withstand changes in load conditions. I don’t see how residential solar contributes positively to that.
- Full_Clark 2y ago
  I read it as solar + batteries, not solar alone.
Full_Clark 2y ago
Will be interesting to see how Australia goes. They have extensive rooftop solar already, and one of the major parties in the current election is proposing to build nuclear power plants rather than go farther with renewables. FWIW I think the nuclear plan as proposed would be a flop, but given that there are currently zero nuclear power plants there and Australia has a strong track record of opposing nuclear power, it's interesting to note that the idea has even been brought up without becoming instant electoral poison.
- grumpy-de-sre 2y ago
  The secret ingredient is millions of dollars from fossil fuel lobbyists, and the Murdoch media running a heavy propaganda/misinformation over the past year. Their only goal is to divert public funds away from solar/wind projects. If voters choose to go down this path it'll be an absolute tragedy for the country and a huge missed opportunity. I say this as an Australian realist living abroad who always was relatively pro-nuclear.
  - rcxdude 2y ago
    The more insidious will be if the government starts putting roadblocks in the way of solar expansion, like the UK government basically banning onshore wind turbine development (which is much cheaper than offshore wind). Absent government interference, solar already has good enough economics it's going to dominate without public funding (which may still waste a lot of time and effort on nuclear plants). (I also see a big trend of objections to grid-scale solar deployments, which is nuts to me: why on earth do you care about living next to a solar farm? It's about the most inoffensive local development that could possibly happen)
    - grumpy-de-sre 2y ago
      Various state governments are already blocking solar projects. I'm continually shilling Saul Griffith's work on here, I can't remember the particular piece but he calculated that by delaying the solar/wind transition, fossil fuel businesses would profit on the order of 100 trillion dollars. My conspiracy theory is that Chinese development and proliferation of fossil fuel disrupting technologies is the root source of all of the current global instability. Only a matter of time until the petrodollar becomes obsolete.
rasz 2y ago
You dont really have a waste problem when full year of "waste" from a 1 GW plant fits inside single tractor trailer with room to spare.
- nullsmack 2y ago
  Great, how my trailers per year is that given existing plants. How many will it be if they start building more plants. How many hundreds of thousands of years will that need to be safely stored and guarded before it is safe? How many trailers will need to be stored by then?

Evil_Saint 2y ago

How do the batteries not require some kind of hazardous waste removal/cleanup process?

anonymous_user9 2y ago
Because they aren’t very hazardous. They’re slightly flammable due to their stored energy, and may contain toxic fire retardants like other electronics. But they’re completely benign compared with nuclear waste.

dlivingston 2y ago

Set aside the cleanup for a second: for pure power generation, nuclear is the ultimate clean energy source. Massive amounts of power, extremely cheap when amortized, liked by all political factions (except old-school '70s-era environmentalist liberals), a great source of jobs from blue to white collar, and no pollution or greenhouse gas emissions. Turning back to nuclear waste: it's a solved problem. At least, very good solutions already exist. For example, see WIPP in New Mexico [0]. As with all energy sources, there is no perfect, one-size-fits-all solution: use a diverse set of energy sources based on what makes sense for the specific locale you're targeting. Nuclear will make sense for some areas (perhaps dense metros), while solar would make sense in others. Geothermal and natural gas as well. We live in the future. Act like it! [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant

testing22321 2y ago
I generate most of the power my house needs right ON my house. I’m perfectly happy sleeping , eating and living there. The rain that runs off the generators waters my vegetable garden. Do you want to live a few meters from a nuke?
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  ^I hope this comment gets framed because it is the perfect embodiment of the "fuck you, I got mine" mentality.
  - cwillu 2y ago
    “This” style comments don't translate well on sites where the comments are not chronologically ordered.
- lm28469 2y ago
  Yeah if you're into that it's pretty cool, I am too. I don't think nor trust the average joe with maintaining XX kW of batteries next door. > Do you want to live a few meters from a nuke? You probably don't know what a nuke is. Anyways, the worst nuclear reactor catastrophe killed ~30 people directly and ~5000 indirectly. Pollution kills ~250k people par year in Europe alone (coal related pollution is ~30k), cars kill about ~4k people in France, per year. Why do we accept car deaths as an acceptable cost of transportation but not (the extremely few) nuclear related deaths as an acceptable cost of energy production ? Why do we accept 30k deaths per year due to coal pollution but not 5k death, once, because of nuclear ? It sounds a lot like "dumb apes scared big boom" more than rational reasoning. That or the proverbial boiled frog
  - testing22321 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - natmaka 2y ago
    > the worst nuclear reactor catastrophe killed ~30 people directly and ~5000 indirectly. This is highly debatable. A glimpse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the_Catastrophe_for_People_and_the_Environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the... > Why do we accept car deaths Because those who refuse to be exposed to induced risks can prevent most of it, while those who refuse to be exposed to nuclear's induced risks (for them and their children, and their children, and their children... thanks to nuclear waste) are out of practical and realistic options.

swamp_donkey 2y ago

How does residential solar increase grid stability? The “Stability” of a power system would relate to the ability to withstand changes in load conditions. I don’t see how residential solar contributes positively to that.

Full_Clark 2y ago
I read it as solar + batteries, not solar alone.

Full_Clark 2y ago

Will be interesting to see how Australia goes. They have extensive rooftop solar already, and one of the major parties in the current election is proposing to build nuclear power plants rather than go farther with renewables. FWIW I think the nuclear plan as proposed would be a flop, but given that there are currently zero nuclear power plants there and Australia has a strong track record of opposing nuclear power, it's interesting to note that the idea has even been brought up without becoming instant electoral poison.

grumpy-de-sre 2y ago
The secret ingredient is millions of dollars from fossil fuel lobbyists, and the Murdoch media running a heavy propaganda/misinformation over the past year. Their only goal is to divert public funds away from solar/wind projects. If voters choose to go down this path it'll be an absolute tragedy for the country and a huge missed opportunity. I say this as an Australian realist living abroad who always was relatively pro-nuclear.
- rcxdude 2y ago
  The more insidious will be if the government starts putting roadblocks in the way of solar expansion, like the UK government basically banning onshore wind turbine development (which is much cheaper than offshore wind). Absent government interference, solar already has good enough economics it's going to dominate without public funding (which may still waste a lot of time and effort on nuclear plants). (I also see a big trend of objections to grid-scale solar deployments, which is nuts to me: why on earth do you care about living next to a solar farm? It's about the most inoffensive local development that could possibly happen)
  - grumpy-de-sre 2y ago
    Various state governments are already blocking solar projects. I'm continually shilling Saul Griffith's work on here, I can't remember the particular piece but he calculated that by delaying the solar/wind transition, fossil fuel businesses would profit on the order of 100 trillion dollars. My conspiracy theory is that Chinese development and proliferation of fossil fuel disrupting technologies is the root source of all of the current global instability. Only a matter of time until the petrodollar becomes obsolete.

rasz 2y ago

You dont really have a waste problem when full year of "waste" from a 1 GW plant fits inside single tractor trailer with room to spare.

nullsmack 2y ago
Great, how my trailers per year is that given existing plants. How many will it be if they start building more plants. How many hundreds of thousands of years will that need to be safely stored and guarded before it is safe? How many trailers will need to be stored by then?