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I think looking at power purely from the perspective of RoI in a highly gamified environment is misleading. For one, the immediate economic profit does not ref

I think looking at power purely from the perspective of RoI in a highly gamified environment is misleading. For one, the immediate economic profit does not reflect long term economic utility. There's factors such as availability, sovereignty, security etc. which are not reflected in hourly electricity prices. Similarly, we don't look at immediate RoI of other key infrastructure investments: roads, hospitals, military. You sort of can of course, but the calculation isn't as simple as immediate economic benefit. You may finance some expensive preventative treatments which aren't strictly necessary (thus "loss making") but which prevent more expensive treatments down the line. Finally, the environment is, effectively, gamified. Wholesale prices, retail prices, base load, storage... And it's all interacting with each other. A sceptical take would be that solar compete for a relatively fixed-sized pie of power generation (what they can displace from dispatchable power). But if battery storage doesn't become cheap enough, this will get saturated, and more solar will simply compete for the same finite demand, whereas a dispatchable or base load power plant, like nuclear, will continue to have marketable "goods". Maybe. Maybe not. But my point is, immediate RoI of solar tells you nothing about it. You may of course arrive at the same conclusion with a better metric (I'm not sure) but that's a separate question. I'm saying the metric is flawed instead.

fuzzfactor 1y ago
Roger. Can't access the article without some other browser, however keep in mind that business risk is in essence a completely different factor than potential return on investment, or what turns out to be actual return. Three fundamentally different things each composed of way different variables. Regardless, they go hand-in-hand when investment is involved, the attitude at one extreme is to avoid risk as much as possible, while the other extreme will tolerate or even seek out the riskiest of ventures when they feel they will have good fortune in pursuit of unpredictably better returns which sometimes can not be achieved any other way. One thing that influences relative cost that doesn't seem to be well-represented by those using equations, is what is the source of the energy to begin with? It's too obvious. In one respect, nuclear and solar are at the same end of the spectrum where the "fuel" is so long-lasting that it virtually drops out of the equations compared to so many other things. But virtually zero may not be close enough to true zero when you consider the cost of the fuel itself plus costs to get that fuel ready for harvesting the energy it has to offer. Once everything else is in place except for actually getting the fuel into a state of readiness from how it is found in nature, few other options compare to the zero cost that solar, wind and a few others will always have in their equations. This number for solar will never go up regardless of scale, and fuel is such a major consideration it is completely tied to production as strongly as anything can be. IIRC, zero is quite a number. In a simplified way there are a lot of businesses that don't actually make money until after the initial capital expenditure has been recovered, a point of zero debt is achieved, and until another capital expenditure occurs, performance results from profits in excess of ongoing expenses. Surely the most convincing financial structures would be dependent on the most dis-similar accounting tactics, since diverse fuel sources can be nothing like each other even though they will always be tied to production, so it must not become possible to do anything but compare apples to oranges :\
pydry 1y ago
>or base load power plant, like nuclear, will continue to have marketable "goods". Nuclear hasnt been marketable for a long time without massive indirect and direct subsidies. The reason it gets built in spite of its demand for lavish subsidies is because it shares a supply chain and skills base with the military industrial complex. Countries that have a nuclear military want to share some of the costs with the civilian sector although they typically arent up front about it, preferring to declare that it's because they're environmentalists. NPT signatories that dont have nuclear weapons but take a strong interest in building civilian nuclear power typically see some sort of potential existential risk on the horizon. Again, officially it's because theyre green hippies. In unrelated news, after decades of being by far the most coal addicted country in Europe: https://apnews.com/article/poland-us-nuclear-energy-power-plant-deal-6905023bc532240ec06baaa1c205e93c https://apnews.com/article/poland-us-nuclear-energy-power-pl...
- rich_sasha 1y ago
  My point is that immediate profitability (eg nuclear being expensive) is not the right metric. It matters and it's a part of the equation, but overall, it's a bit meaningless to say solar is more profitable to a capital investor than eg nuclear, therefore let's base a country's grid on solar power alone. Your link to Poland is one of my key counterexamples to a full renewables grid. Northern Europe absolutely sees long periods with little sunshine and wind, and that's also when its energy requirements are highest (winter heating). Much of it is flat, too, and seasonal battery storage exists nowhere right now. So... If not solar or wind or hydro, and want it to be low-CO2, then you're short on options. So exorcising nuclear seems a bad idea.
  - pydry 1y ago
    I indirectly an anticipated a comment like yours when I wrote https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44143833 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44143833 Intermittency is not "solved" with nuclear power. When French nuclear plants get shut down for months at a time for maintenance what happens? Lots and lots and lots of peaker gas. When you combine the extreme cost, the non negligible risks of it going boom and the fact its a horrible peaker (no substitute for gas), and its only slightly lower reliance on peakers it becomes apparent that it's a terrible deal. The reason why batteries and pumped storage and syngas arent popular is because they cant beat the economics of gas for peaking capacity. However, they can easily beat the economics of nuclear power+gas when combined with solar and wind. So yeah, exorcising nuclear seems like a pretty fantastic idea, for cost, environmental and pacifist reasons.

fuzzfactor 1y ago

Roger. Can't access the article without some other browser, however keep in mind that business risk is in essence a completely different factor than potential return on investment, or what turns out to be actual return. Three fundamentally different things each composed of way different variables. Regardless, they go hand-in-hand when investment is involved, the attitude at one extreme is to avoid risk as much as possible, while the other extreme will tolerate or even seek out the riskiest of ventures when they feel they will have good fortune in pursuit of unpredictably better returns which sometimes can not be achieved any other way. One thing that influences relative cost that doesn't seem to be well-represented by those using equations, is what is the source of the energy to begin with? It's too obvious. In one respect, nuclear and solar are at the same end of the spectrum where the "fuel" is so long-lasting that it virtually drops out of the equations compared to so many other things. But virtually zero may not be close enough to true zero when you consider the cost of the fuel itself plus costs to get that fuel ready for harvesting the energy it has to offer. Once everything else is in place except for actually getting the fuel into a state of readiness from how it is found in nature, few other options compare to the zero cost that solar, wind and a few others will always have in their equations. This number for solar will never go up regardless of scale, and fuel is such a major consideration it is completely tied to production as strongly as anything can be. IIRC, zero is quite a number. In a simplified way there are a lot of businesses that don't actually make money until after the initial capital expenditure has been recovered, a point of zero debt is achieved, and until another capital expenditure occurs, performance results from profits in excess of ongoing expenses. Surely the most convincing financial structures would be dependent on the most dis-similar accounting tactics, since diverse fuel sources can be nothing like each other even though they will always be tied to production, so it must not become possible to do anything but compare apples to oranges :\

pydry 1y ago

>or base load power plant, like nuclear, will continue to have marketable "goods". Nuclear hasnt been marketable for a long time without massive indirect and direct subsidies. The reason it gets built in spite of its demand for lavish subsidies is because it shares a supply chain and skills base with the military industrial complex. Countries that have a nuclear military want to share some of the costs with the civilian sector although they typically arent up front about it, preferring to declare that it's because they're environmentalists. NPT signatories that dont have nuclear weapons but take a strong interest in building civilian nuclear power typically see some sort of potential existential risk on the horizon. Again, officially it's because theyre green hippies. In unrelated news, after decades of being by far the most coal addicted country in Europe: https://apnews.com/article/poland-us-nuclear-energy-power-plant-deal-6905023bc532240ec06baaa1c205e93c https://apnews.com/article/poland-us-nuclear-energy-power-pl...

rich_sasha 1y ago
My point is that immediate profitability (eg nuclear being expensive) is not the right metric. It matters and it's a part of the equation, but overall, it's a bit meaningless to say solar is more profitable to a capital investor than eg nuclear, therefore let's base a country's grid on solar power alone. Your link to Poland is one of my key counterexamples to a full renewables grid. Northern Europe absolutely sees long periods with little sunshine and wind, and that's also when its energy requirements are highest (winter heating). Much of it is flat, too, and seasonal battery storage exists nowhere right now. So... If not solar or wind or hydro, and want it to be low-CO2, then you're short on options. So exorcising nuclear seems a bad idea.
- pydry 1y ago
  I indirectly an anticipated a comment like yours when I wrote https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44143833 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44143833 Intermittency is not "solved" with nuclear power. When French nuclear plants get shut down for months at a time for maintenance what happens? Lots and lots and lots of peaker gas. When you combine the extreme cost, the non negligible risks of it going boom and the fact its a horrible peaker (no substitute for gas), and its only slightly lower reliance on peakers it becomes apparent that it's a terrible deal. The reason why batteries and pumped storage and syngas arent popular is because they cant beat the economics of gas for peaking capacity. However, they can easily beat the economics of nuclear power+gas when combined with solar and wind. So yeah, exorcising nuclear seems like a pretty fantastic idea, for cost, environmental and pacifist reasons.