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The enthusiasm is very easy to understand. Solar: needs unforeseen advances in energy storage tech, also hilariously inefficient Geothermal: regionally locked

The enthusiasm is very easy to understand. Solar: needs unforeseen advances in energy storage tech, also hilariously inefficient Geothermal: regionally locked Wind: unpredictable Hydro: all the good spots are already being used Coal/oil/gas: too dirty Nuclear faces none of these problems. It’s a big project at the moment, because SMRs aren’t developed (yet?), but the actual operation and output is unbelievably steady. Newer designs are mostly about mega-safety, and more people getting over Chernobyl can help drive funding to potentially reach fusion - the obvious holy grail. I literally cannot even imagine what you think is more viable?

mlyle 1y ago
Yah-- nuclear isn't going to win on its own, but no one technology is going to get us out of this greenhouse gas mess. We're going to need to electrify a lot of things to lower emissions. And electrifying things requires a big source of base load. Overbuilding renewables, adding storage, enlarging transmission/grids, and load shedding all help; but likely still fall short of the mark at a reasonable cost. Nuclear is expensive, but it fills key gaps in other solutions and helps reduce overall system risk.
epistasis 1y ago
> Solar: needs unforeseen advances in energy storage tech, also hilariously inefficient The storage tech exists and is in practice right now, no advancements needed. Also, it's not inefficient at all, what do you mean by that? > Geothermal This is far more promising than nuclear. Enhanced geothermal is opening up massive regions, and the tech is undergoing massive advancement by adopting the huge technology leap form fracking. It is completely dispatchable, and can even have some short term daily storage just by regulating inputs and outputs. > Wind Storage solves this today In the 2000s, I felt like you did. But since about 2015, it's hard for me to understand your views. Especially after seeing what happened at Summer in South Carolina and Vogtle in Georgia, it's clear that nuclear faces larger technological hurdles than solar, geothermal, or wind. Storage changes everything, it's economical, and it's being deployed in massive amounts on grids where economics rule the day (which isn't many of them, since most of our grids are controlled by regulated monopolies).
- hyperadvanced 1y ago
  Storage tech exists right now but it’s not super widespread or reliable (mostly in the “what do I get for my dollar” - you can store power all you want but making your investment back is a little harder). Degradation has proved to be worse than anticipated. Industrial application of Li batteries has been repeatedly hamstrung by supply chain, demand, tariff, etc. problems. New battery chemistry would really be the breakthrough here, anything cheaper and better than lithium
  - epistasis 1y ago
    It's extremely reliable, and it's also very economical. > Degradation has proved to be worse than anticipated. I follow the space closely and there have been zero complaints about this. And regardless the warranties would cover the early installs. It's going to be extremely hard for any other battery chemistry to catch up to lithium ion. Sodium has a chance, but the supply chain for lithium is massive, growing, and has lots of substitutions if bottlenecks arise. The logistics challenges of nuclear are an order of magnitude higher than for nuclear. With far more financial risk, timelines around a decade instead of a year. The technology for storage is robust, scaling massively, and pretty much unstoppable in the US unless there are explicit bans. Nuclear literally needs a technooogy advancement to catch up, and the closest is SMR production, which is coming close to a decade of being in vogue, with plans stalling out everywhere. Even the planned BWRXs in Canada at Darlington may now be at risk since the US is starting to be viewed as unreliable and too risky to depend upon.
- probablypower 1y ago
  > The storage tech exists and is in practice right now, no advancements needed. The existence of the tech isn't the issue, it is the logistics, cost and practicality of building it at grid scale. If you try to calculate how many batteries you'd need to store the equivalent energy of a hydro reservoir, or one hour of a nuclear plant, then try to estimate the land required, you'd quickly discover how intractable the issue is.
  - epistasis 1y ago

mlyle 1y ago

Yah-- nuclear isn't going to win on its own, but no one technology is going to get us out of this greenhouse gas mess. We're going to need to electrify a lot of things to lower emissions. And electrifying things requires a big source of base load. Overbuilding renewables, adding storage, enlarging transmission/grids, and load shedding all help; but likely still fall short of the mark at a reasonable cost. Nuclear is expensive, but it fills key gaps in other solutions and helps reduce overall system risk.

epistasis 1y ago

> Solar: needs unforeseen advances in energy storage tech, also hilariously inefficient The storage tech exists and is in practice right now, no advancements needed. Also, it's not inefficient at all, what do you mean by that? > Geothermal This is far more promising than nuclear. Enhanced geothermal is opening up massive regions, and the tech is undergoing massive advancement by adopting the huge technology leap form fracking. It is completely dispatchable, and can even have some short term daily storage just by regulating inputs and outputs. > Wind Storage solves this today In the 2000s, I felt like you did. But since about 2015, it's hard for me to understand your views. Especially after seeing what happened at Summer in South Carolina and Vogtle in Georgia, it's clear that nuclear faces larger technological hurdles than solar, geothermal, or wind. Storage changes everything, it's economical, and it's being deployed in massive amounts on grids where economics rule the day (which isn't many of them, since most of our grids are controlled by regulated monopolies).

hyperadvanced 1y ago
Storage tech exists right now but it’s not super widespread or reliable (mostly in the “what do I get for my dollar” - you can store power all you want but making your investment back is a little harder). Degradation has proved to be worse than anticipated. Industrial application of Li batteries has been repeatedly hamstrung by supply chain, demand, tariff, etc. problems. New battery chemistry would really be the breakthrough here, anything cheaper and better than lithium
- epistasis 1y ago
  It's extremely reliable, and it's also very economical. > Degradation has proved to be worse than anticipated. I follow the space closely and there have been zero complaints about this. And regardless the warranties would cover the early installs. It's going to be extremely hard for any other battery chemistry to catch up to lithium ion. Sodium has a chance, but the supply chain for lithium is massive, growing, and has lots of substitutions if bottlenecks arise. The logistics challenges of nuclear are an order of magnitude higher than for nuclear. With far more financial risk, timelines around a decade instead of a year. The technology for storage is robust, scaling massively, and pretty much unstoppable in the US unless there are explicit bans. Nuclear literally needs a technooogy advancement to catch up, and the closest is SMR production, which is coming close to a decade of being in vogue, with plans stalling out everywhere. Even the planned BWRXs in Canada at Darlington may now be at risk since the US is starting to be viewed as unreliable and too risky to depend upon.
probablypower 1y ago
> The storage tech exists and is in practice right now, no advancements needed. The existence of the tech isn't the issue, it is the logistics, cost and practicality of building it at grid scale. If you try to calculate how many batteries you'd need to store the equivalent energy of a hydro reservoir, or one hour of a nuclear plant, then try to estimate the land required, you'd quickly discover how intractable the issue is.
- epistasis 1y ago