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Nuclear just isn't economically viable. Maybe fusion someday.
by V__ 1y ago
Nuclear just isn't economically viable. Maybe fusion someday.
- qwe----3 1y agoTell that to China
- bobthepanda 1y agoChina has been building them at a relatively lukewarm pace compared to its solar and wind expansion > China installed 1GW of nuclear last year, compared to 300GW of solar and wind, Mr Buckley said. https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-07-16/chinas-renewable-energy-boom-breaks-records/104086640 https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-07-16/chinas-renewa...
- forrestthewoods 1y ago> isn't economically viable That is not an intrinsic truth. We have chosen to make it economically unviable. Most things get cheaper to build with time. Nuclear is an outlier where it used to be affordable and now it isn’t. That’s insane.
- permo-w 1y agowhy is it different like that?
- zahlman 1y agoMainly because regulators got scared and started adding line items for bogus safety reasons (like expecting to see background radiation levels far below those seen at coal plants due to the fly ash).
- bronson 1y agoCoal plants are dead, partly due to the fly ash. I'm not sure you want to put nuclear in the same boat?
- zahlman 1y agoI'm not doing so. I'm pointing out that coal plants were allowed to produce more radiation than nuclear plants were allowed to out of fear of that radiation. Because the public is ill-informed about what "radiation" actually is.
- permo-w 1y agoI'm broadly supportive of nuclear fission, but I completely understand more nervousness of it than coal, particularly in the days before we cared much about climate change or industrial pollution. the worry about nuclear isn't low-level day to day pollution, it's disasters. coal disasters are essentially local incidents, and while they can have a big impact politically (f.e., Aberfan), they don't strike fear into people's hearts on a national or international level because the only people at risk to a disaster live very near a coal plant. when Chernobyl surged, half of Europe was affected. yes coal plants can have fallout too, but it's nowhere near as dangerous, even if the standard pollution is worse over time coal plants were allowed to produce more radiation than nuclear plants because nuclear plants are nuclear plants and radiation management is an intrinsic part of the process. although they undoubtedly should have been, no one was paying attention to coal plants' radiation output, because they were invented before radiation was even discovered, and it's just not the star of the show there, nor is it the first consideration people have when considering coal pollution
- bryanlarsen 1y agoNuclear has never been particularly affordable. It's always been more expensive than coal or gas, even in France in the 70s-80s and China in the 2010s. Here's how much it cost to build nuclear in France during its golden age: https://ifp.org/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs https://ifp.org/nuclear-power-plant-construction-costs. Adjust for inflation and draw your own conclusion. China's nuclear costs are more opaque, but are estimated at $3B per GW. Again, not competitive.
- zahlman 1y agoOntario produces a majority of its electric power from nuclear (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Canada) and manages to sell it at competitive rates (https://www.oeb.ca/consumer-information-and-protection/electricity-rates https://www.oeb.ca/consumer-information-and-protection/elect...) similar to those in Alberta (https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/your-utilities/rates/historic-rates/ https://ucahelps.alberta.ca/your-utilities/rates/historic-ra...) where electricity comes mainly from natural gas after a recent transition from mostly coal. A 2021 report cited at https://www.cns-snc.ca/learn-nuclear/basics-of-nuclear/how-much-does-nuclear-power-cost/ https://www.cns-snc.ca/learn-nuclear/basics-of-nuclear/how-m... finds that nuclear power in Ontario was more cost effective than everything else except hydroelectric power (granted, solar has become much cheaper in just the last few years). And this is in spite of multiple reactor shutdowns.
- bryanlarsen 1y agoYes, running a nuclear power plant is pretty cheap, if you ignore the cost of building and decommissioning it.