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Great news! Nuclear is a critical component for the non-carbon energy infrastructure we're building. Yes, it's expensive, but the only way to make it cheaper is
by coldpie 1y ago
Great news! Nuclear is a critical component for the non-carbon energy infrastructure we're building. Yes, it's expensive, but the only way to make it cheaper is to invest in rebuilding the expertise we stupidly threw away over the past 5 decades. Paying for past mistakes always sucks, but it's better than not doing it and digging the hole even deeper.
- croes 1y agoIt was never cheap even with the expertise and such a kind of centralized energy generation is a bad idea.
- thinkingtoilet 1y agoIs it critical these days? I am by no means against nuclear energy, and if we had been building reactors these last 50 years the world would be a better place. With things like solar, wind, geo-thermal, etc... is it still smart to invest this much money into nuclear power? Wouldn't it be better to invest in solar at this point?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- coldpie 1y agoI have yet to see a convincing analysis that renewables+storage can cost-effectively power all the homes in Minnesota, where I live, through our 4+ month-long winters. The days get very short, the Earth tilts away from the sun, cloud-cover and snowfall is frequent, and going 24+ hours without power for heat can be fatal, not just inconvenient. I'd welcome someone to try to run the numbers on this. I tried myself, but I just don't have the expertise. Don't forget to account for almost all of our current heating coming from natural gas burned on-premise. Then, expand your analysis to include all buildings in all northern climes. Is there even enough materials on the planet to build all those batteries? Do batteries even work at -40 degrees? And that's just one set of challenges, every area has similar but different problems for renewables to tackle. The answer is both: put huge money into renewables and into nuclear. Nuclear is a proven tech. It works. We understand it. We stupidly threw away all of our skill to build it, and put up huge regulatory roadblocks. But those are solvable human problems, if we care to do it. Storage for renewables is still a huge question mark, which we should also dump a ton of money into, but we need a solution today. Nuclear is here.
- pedrocr 1y agoWhy would you model Minnesota specifically when that state is part of a larger region that can tradeoff power over time? Canada's hydro is much more "here" than the hypothetical new nuclear plants Minnesota would have to build. Splitting up the world in areas and then claiming you need to solve a different problem in each is throwing away probably the most cost effective way to get cheaper energy, more grid interconnection and more price mechanisms to shape supply and demand.
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y agoMinnesota has 8 hydro plants already... in addition to 2 nuclear plants and a host of coal, gas, solar, wind, etc. They generate 57 Twh right now. That's about 10% of the current production of the entire nation of Canada just for one US state. I think you are greatly underestimating the scale of the United States compared to Canada.
- pedrocr 1y agoCanada isn't small, it produces almost 10x the electrical energy that Minnesota does. But I wasn't even giving it as an example of total capacity just of a neighbor that has a bunch of hydro that can be useful in some moments. And it works both ways too. When Minnesota has excess wind Canada can benefit. The same exercise needs to be modelled with all demand and capacity within viable transmission range. And with the advancements in HVDC that range keeps increasing.
- mcosta 1y agoCanada is big but it is mostly empty. Canada population is 40M.
- coldpie 1y agoI admit this is a poor and hand-wavey response, but I'll try anyway. If we agree that solar+storage is off the table, then the question is what should we build instead? And I would guess that the people who make these decisions do consider hydro and importing power, but still decide that nuclear is the right answer. Given they're the experts and have all the info, and I don't, I'd defer to them in deciding what the best option is given all the inputs. As an example of downsides for Canadian hydro power, I would be thinking about our current geopolitical nonsense, and also transmission losses. Perhaps nuclear is the winner when you account for those? But like I said, I don't know.
- horsawlarway 1y agoI think solar plus storage will likely be the better play. I think nuclear is a thing we should have done fifty years ago in spades. I'm not sure it's a thing we should do today when the economics behind solar are just so, so much stronger. I'd really love to see this investment go to storage projects instead. Battery tech finally seems to be moving, and I'd like to see the US be able to make plays on the LFP/Sodium battery fronts far more than I want overpriced power from nuclear.
- zbrozek 1y agoI suspect solar + batteries will be dominant (but should not be the exclusive source) in places which get relatively good sun even in the winter. California and Hawaii, for example, will do pretty well with a mix that is heavy on those technologies. But if you're in North Dakota or Alaska and want to electrify your grid, you might not have a good time in December and January. There's arguments to be made about having more transmission so you can move electricity from one place to another, but that's also expensive and difficult to build and comes with downsides like vulnerability to natural disasters and attack along a much longer path. Or, as in California, the transmission is its own latent source of disaster that can immolate the state.
- mcosta 1y agoSolar plus storage did not work in Spain.
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoOne of the notable elements of the Spanish grid was how little battery it had. Their hydro and solar thermal and nuclear spinning plants made them feel they didn't need it as much and they'd dragged their feet on integrating it. Most likely outcome of the recent issues, lots more batteries.
- SoftTalker 1y agoThe unsolved problem with solar and wind is storage. You still need electricity at night or when the wind isn't blowing.
- zbrozek 1y agoI'm not an expert, but I suspect there will be a few driving use cases. Electrifying places far from the equator means heat pumps and/or district heating and providing for their power demand in the dark. In some places wind can do that, but not everywhere. There are also loads that want very large, high-availability power and/or process heat. Reactors would pair well with things like metal refining or electrolysis to get the hydrogen for ammonia production. At the end of the day, there's never one source of energy which is a silver bullet for everything and the best approach is probably a diverse mix of supply.
- zdragnar 1y agoElectrifying heat far away from the equator is challenging. My area is largely heated by natural gas furnaces. During a cycle called a polar vortex, the utility company sent out a call to people to lower their thermostats because they were struggling to keep the lines pressurized with how much demand there was. The wind chill would drop below -40 most nights, sometimes significantly lower. Wind power won't help much because they need to shut down at the worst times- either too windy or icy. As much as I love heat pumps, having thousands upon thousands of homes switching to resistive heating because the pumps can't keep up in the evening is going to get ugly. District heating won't save you; the metro doesn't actually burn enough stuff to heat the cities and a significant part of the population is in semi or very rural areas that wouldn't benefit anyway. Edit: that same metro just put together a fund to renovate a few blocks of an underserved area. It's in the millions of dollars. I can't imagine the cost of converting the entire area to district heating; it would surely eclipse the entire government budget. This is the sort of thing that will only happen if you have the kind of fiat power of an imaginary wand.
- Symbiote 1y agoCopenhagen and much of its suburbs installed district heating, mostly after the oil crises in the 1970s. I found this article very interesting, although it didn't tell me how many kilometres of district heating pipe were laid each decade: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/24/9281 https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/24/9281
- belorn 1y agoIt is always good to look at current grids and prices to see how things are. In Sweden, the sunny days around may-juli have made those months almost free. Solar and the reduced need for heating, in combination of very limited use of AC, means that you don't need much beyond solar, wind and some base load from nuclear/hydro power. I contrast, 75% of the yearly energy bill comes from the 3 winter months, where solar has around 10% (and often less) of the generative capacity. This mean that the energy bill is very variable, and bad weather during those few critical months will results in unreasonable bills (as in bankruptcies and voters that ask the government for bailout). Under market forces, the electric company have no quarrel in sending people a bill that is 12 times the average month for a single month. There is also very luke warm interest in reducing the cost for the consumer by building out storage. The economics has so far not been that great outside of using government subsidizes, and as northvolt demonstrated, not that interested in using loans when the subsidizes run out. That said, the Finish project of storing hot water for district heating looks like one of the more interesting storage solution. They are also investing into nuclear, so it seems like time will show how the economics will pan out. Heat exchangers are very effective at generating heat for district heating, so the heat storage has some steep competition.
- jacobr1 1y agoSide consideration - my local utility has a program (targeted at lower income households - but there is no restriction on who can enroll) that average out the annual costs. For the first year they look at your total annual cost and divide by 12 for a flat monthly. Every year after that, they also true it up with cred/debit on the difference. For example if they overcharged by $120, they will take the average and then subtract $10 for the new, adjusted monthly bill that resets annually. I still look at the bills since I'm interested in their benchmarking data on how much power I'm using relative to the community - but I don't really need to care about seasonal fluctuation.
- hshdhdhj4444 1y agoIf one were cynical one would wonder why the push for directing resources towards nuclear energy right when solar and wind are not just significantly cheaper than nuclear but also cheaper than fossil fuels. If one were not being cynical it makes sense to some degree in order to simply diversify our non fossil fuel energy sources. An all of the above approach to decarbonizing makes sense, and nuclear will be a useful part of that.
- Rebelgecko 1y agoFor whatever reason, utilities don't have a ton of storage. Presumably it's not profitable with their business models. So in California where I live you'll run into issues when the sun isn't shining (or it's 4pm and sunny but solar panels are less effective because the sun is more oblique) and it's not windy. Right now they make up the gap by spinning up a bunch of natty gas generators in the afternoon. If nuclear helps take some of the load off, seems like a step in the right direction. Especially since I imagine the weather in NY is less consistent than CA
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoBattery rollout in California has changed this situation over the last few years https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-batteries-apr-2024/ https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-batteries-apr-2024/ > In the figure above, what was previously a defined peak in natural gas generation each evening has eroded into a plateau in 2024. That is because batteries are assisting with the predictable, but large, swings in solar output each day. These rapid ramps have been largely managed by natural gas units to date, but now batteries are taking on much of that responsibility. https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-solar-storage-spring-2025/ https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-solar-storage-spring-2025/
- TheOtherHobbes 1y agoWhich is of course the answer. How much battery storage + renewables can you build for the cost of a nuclear plant? Especially given that prices are dropping. That's not even looking at solutions like pumped water, thermal storage, and others which have barely started ramping up to scale. These are all being built and used in Northern Europe. There's no magic here - just solid engineering and financing.
- ZeroGravitas 1y ago> How much battery storage + renewables can you build for the cost of a nuclear plant? Which is the topic of this recent study (though they limit themselves to solar and battery): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44336988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44336988
- Saline9515 1y agoSolar and wind are wrongly designated as renewable. They aren't and need to be replaced every 25 years. Wind turbines aren't easily recyclable, the current solution is to...just discard them in massive landfills. Hydro is the only "real" renewable energy. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/30/climate/wind-turbine-recycling-climate.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/30/climate/wind-turbine-recy...
- bryanlarsen 1y agoNuclear is a very poor complement for solar & wind. To complement solar & wind, you need dispatchable power to supply power while the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. Most nuclear plants can't do that, they need to run 24/7. Some can, but they're horrendously inefficient and expensive to run that way.
- coldpie 1y ago> you need dispatchable power to supply power while the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing Fair. What do you suggest instead?
- bryanlarsen 1y agoFor New York State, right next door to the Hydro electricity abundant Quebec, and with access to trade winds in the Atlantic Ocean? Solar, Wind & Batteries for 97% of power, send the excess to Quebec so they can idle their Hydro while the sun is shining, and then use Quebec Hydro for the last 3%. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-every-hour-of-every-day-is-here-and-it-changes-everything/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-e...
- zdragnar 1y agoWhat benefit does Quebec get from idling their hydro power?
- bryanlarsen 1y agoThey idle it while the sun is shining and power is almost worthless, and sell it while it isn't and prices are high.
- zdragnar 1y agoIdling a hydro plant doesn't save them money, though. They're designed for efficient operation, and idling will actually induce more strain on the equipment. There's just no motivation for them to take the excess energy by throttling their own.
- UltraSane 1y agoIf you think climate change caused by CO2 emissions is a real problem and you oppose nuclear energy you are like a fire fighter who opposed using water to put out fires.
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoOr a firefighter who has decided to wait 10 years for better water to arrive because he believed a lot of lies he read on the internet about what has been the two cheapest sources of water for a decade now.