4 ms·

>We know how to build nuclear, we don't do it because its too expensive. Refusing to build nuclear for decades makes it more expensive. If we start actually bu

by graeme 9mo ago

>We know how to build nuclear, we don't do it because its too expensive. Refusing to build nuclear for decades makes it more expensive. If we start actually building reactors the cost will come down. >the current Storage + Renewable pricing is so crazy good, that whatever you do with nuclear will just not be able to compete. I would find this more persuasive if there were no new investment in carbon sources, but carbon sources have clearly remained competitive with batteries + solar, and global carbon emissions remain at an all time high. There's demand for baseload energy.

croes 9mo ago
Nuclear is expensive even after the reactor is build. And I wouldn’t call it progress to still rely on steam machines for energy
- ethmarks 9mo ago
  > Nuclear is expensive even after the reactor is build. Solar panels and wind turbines need maintenance too. And they have much shorter operational lives than nuclear power plants, meaning they'll need to be expensively replaced much more frequently. > And I wouldn’t call it progress to still rely on steam machines for energy Could you please explain your objection to steam-based power? Is it purely aesthetic, or is there some inherent downside to steam turbines that I'm not aware of? Also, concentrated solar power systems that concentrate sunlight and use it to boil steam[1] are significantly more efficient than direct photovoltaics. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power
  - hvb2 9mo ago
    > Could you please explain your objection to steam-based power? My guess would be that you're taking energy that you burn, you then boil water, water then goes through a number of turbines, then to a generator and then you might have electricity. Every step in that process is not 100% efficient. Direct PV is, sunlight, cell that generates current, current gets transformed into whatever the grid needs. So it's fewer steps.
- graeme 9mo ago
  What's wrong with steam? It's better than carbon. And solar + battery requires more carbon to produce than nuclear energy as there's a lot of mining and physical construction involved + you must overbuild to supply power or rely on non solar sources. All for building solar. Do not understand the constant need to denigrate nuclear in favour of carbon sources while doing so. (If carbon sources were at zero this would be a different conversation)
  - croes 9mo ago
    It’s an inefficient way of producing energy. Only 30-35% results in electricity
    - ethmarks 9mo ago
      What alternative do you propose that's more efficient?
    - graeme 9mo ago
      Could you please provide comparable figured of EROI for solar vs Nuclear? For a useful comparison you have to compare both sides, not give a stat in isolation and assert it is worse without comparing.
    - ai_critic 9mo ago
      If you believe that figure, that's still comparable to solar's best ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-cell_efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-cell_efficiency ). Optimal steam plants can get do better, exceeding 50% in some configurations ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined-cycle_power_plant#Efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined-cycle_power_plant#Eff... ). Steam is awesome.
      - _aavaa_ 9mo ago
        The difference that makes your statement misleading is that solar doesn’t pay for its fuel, the sun shines for free.
    - 9mo ago
dzhiurgis 9mo ago
> If we start actually building reactors the cost will come down. Why would I invest then if it can't even pay for itself?
dalyons 9mo ago
For the last two years more than 90% of new power generation capacity added globally was renewable. Est 95% in 2025. So no, new carbon sources are not competitive. https://www.wri.org/insights/state-clean-energy-charted https://www.wri.org/insights/state-clean-energy-charted
- graeme 9mo ago
  Highly misleading stat. That's referring to capacity expansion, not new construction. Prior energy assets go offline and are replaced each year. The report you cite is discounting all of that, looking only at expansion above the baseline, then taking total renewable construction and calcuating renewable total construction's share of expansion. Apples to oranges. If you look at the chart in your own link you'll see that carbon construction investment exceeds renewables still. Chart: "Annual energy investment by selected country and region, 2015 and 2025" I would love for what you say to be true but it just isn't, even by that agency's own stats.
  - cycomanic 9mo ago
    Not sure I understand your point. In the plot you mention what the OP said certainly holds true for China and Europe (less so for the US). Also the Charts plot investments not just new capacity investments, I'm not even sure how you distinguish between the two?
    - graeme 9mo ago
      The OP said new carbon sources are not competitive. ANY investment is by definition creating capacity that would not be there without the investment. If carbon were not competitive it would not get investment. If you sum up all of the carbon and compare to renewables in the chart there's more new carbon investment annually globally than renewables. (Comparing the dark lines vs the green line) Also this is ignoring "low emission fuels", which are still carbon sources, natural gas and the like. If you check the chart "Global electricity generation of zero-carbon sources vs. fossil fuels, 2000-2024" you can see that carbon sources were at an all time high in 2024. Growing slower is still growing. We ought to be shrinking these to zero. I'm very glad to see solar and wind growing but my point is nuclear is worth supporting as an non-carbon energy source that could replace some of this carbon load because of its baseload characteristics.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
legulere 9mo ago
Building nuclear power stations includes a lot of labor-intensive hard to automate tasks like construction. Baumol's cost disease means it's getting even more expensive: rising general productivity leads to higher wages and higher costs in fields that cannot increase productivity as much as the general economic growth. That's why it's also still cheaper in countries with access to low-cost labor. SMRs are a try to get out of it by building more but smaller reactors. The reality is however that nuclear has an issue with scaling down. Output goes down way faster than costs and most SMR designs have outputs far greater than what initially counted as an SMR. Investment in renewable energy already greatly outpaces investment in fossil energy. The economic decision to keep using a fossil system is a different one than having to choose a new one. There's still problems that have no economically competitive renewable solution yet, but a lot of what you are seeing is inertia. Base load electricity is simply an economic optimisation: demand is not flat, but the cheapest electricity source might only be able to create a relatively flat output. You'll need more flexible plants to cover everything above the base load. If you have cheap gas, base load does not make any sense economically.
_aavaa_ 9mo ago
> but carbon sources have clearly remained competitive with batteries + solar That's because carbon sources are almost never made to pay for their externalities (i.e. pollution during energy generation).
Fazebooking 9mo ago
Yes for sure it just doesn't happen because huge projects like this have to be aligned and coordinated on complete different scales. Thats why the french build a reactor in UK. Even the CDU/CSU political party in germany, who was in power for 16 years uninterupted wasn't doing it. So whatever we wish or think would happen doesn't matter if the only ones investing in nuclear are techcompanies and as somone else stated, they do this primiarily for existing nuclear capacity. But whats happening now is a renewable revolution. Batteries are very cheap now and get cheaper and easier to make and you need the manufactoring capacity for them anyway (cars, storage projects) that they will break up every other area like normal housing. Especially because now it reached africa as a continent and asia. Its exploding. And its very easy to just extend this potential. Many normal areas are still vacant. A LOT of countries probably will either neve be able to afford nuclear or will not be allowed to have it anyway.

by graeme 9mo ago

croes 9mo ago

Nuclear is expensive even after the reactor is build. And I wouldn’t call it progress to still rely on steam machines for energy

ethmarks 9mo ago
> Nuclear is expensive even after the reactor is build. Solar panels and wind turbines need maintenance too. And they have much shorter operational lives than nuclear power plants, meaning they'll need to be expensively replaced much more frequently. > And I wouldn’t call it progress to still rely on steam machines for energy Could you please explain your objection to steam-based power? Is it purely aesthetic, or is there some inherent downside to steam turbines that I'm not aware of? Also, concentrated solar power systems that concentrate sunlight and use it to boil steam[1] are significantly more efficient than direct photovoltaics. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power
- hvb2 9mo ago
  > Could you please explain your objection to steam-based power? My guess would be that you're taking energy that you burn, you then boil water, water then goes through a number of turbines, then to a generator and then you might have electricity. Every step in that process is not 100% efficient. Direct PV is, sunlight, cell that generates current, current gets transformed into whatever the grid needs. So it's fewer steps.
graeme 9mo ago
What's wrong with steam? It's better than carbon. And solar + battery requires more carbon to produce than nuclear energy as there's a lot of mining and physical construction involved + you must overbuild to supply power or rely on non solar sources. All for building solar. Do not understand the constant need to denigrate nuclear in favour of carbon sources while doing so. (If carbon sources were at zero this would be a different conversation)
- croes 9mo ago
  It’s an inefficient way of producing energy. Only 30-35% results in electricity
  - ethmarks 9mo ago
    What alternative do you propose that's more efficient?
  - graeme 9mo ago
    Could you please provide comparable figured of EROI for solar vs Nuclear? For a useful comparison you have to compare both sides, not give a stat in isolation and assert it is worse without comparing.
  - ai_critic 9mo ago
    If you believe that figure, that's still comparable to solar's best ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-cell_efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-cell_efficiency ). Optimal steam plants can get do better, exceeding 50% in some configurations ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined-cycle_power_plant#Efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined-cycle_power_plant#Eff... ). Steam is awesome.
    - _aavaa_ 9mo ago
      The difference that makes your statement misleading is that solar doesn’t pay for its fuel, the sun shines for free.
  - 9mo ago

dzhiurgis 9mo ago

> If we start actually building reactors the cost will come down. Why would I invest then if it can't even pay for itself?

dalyons 9mo ago

For the last two years more than 90% of new power generation capacity added globally was renewable. Est 95% in 2025. So no, new carbon sources are not competitive. https://www.wri.org/insights/state-clean-energy-charted https://www.wri.org/insights/state-clean-energy-charted

graeme 9mo ago
Highly misleading stat. That's referring to capacity expansion, not new construction. Prior energy assets go offline and are replaced each year. The report you cite is discounting all of that, looking only at expansion above the baseline, then taking total renewable construction and calcuating renewable total construction's share of expansion. Apples to oranges. If you look at the chart in your own link you'll see that carbon construction investment exceeds renewables still. Chart: "Annual energy investment by selected country and region, 2015 and 2025" I would love for what you say to be true but it just isn't, even by that agency's own stats.
- cycomanic 9mo ago
  Not sure I understand your point. In the plot you mention what the OP said certainly holds true for China and Europe (less so for the US). Also the Charts plot investments not just new capacity investments, I'm not even sure how you distinguish between the two?
  - graeme 9mo ago
    The OP said new carbon sources are not competitive. ANY investment is by definition creating capacity that would not be there without the investment. If carbon were not competitive it would not get investment. If you sum up all of the carbon and compare to renewables in the chart there's more new carbon investment annually globally than renewables. (Comparing the dark lines vs the green line) Also this is ignoring "low emission fuels", which are still carbon sources, natural gas and the like. If you check the chart "Global electricity generation of zero-carbon sources vs. fossil fuels, 2000-2024" you can see that carbon sources were at an all time high in 2024. Growing slower is still growing. We ought to be shrinking these to zero. I'm very glad to see solar and wind growing but my point is nuclear is worth supporting as an non-carbon energy source that could replace some of this carbon load because of its baseload characteristics.

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

legulere 9mo ago

Building nuclear power stations includes a lot of labor-intensive hard to automate tasks like construction. Baumol's cost disease means it's getting even more expensive: rising general productivity leads to higher wages and higher costs in fields that cannot increase productivity as much as the general economic growth. That's why it's also still cheaper in countries with access to low-cost labor. SMRs are a try to get out of it by building more but smaller reactors. The reality is however that nuclear has an issue with scaling down. Output goes down way faster than costs and most SMR designs have outputs far greater than what initially counted as an SMR. Investment in renewable energy already greatly outpaces investment in fossil energy. The economic decision to keep using a fossil system is a different one than having to choose a new one. There's still problems that have no economically competitive renewable solution yet, but a lot of what you are seeing is inertia. Base load electricity is simply an economic optimisation: demand is not flat, but the cheapest electricity source might only be able to create a relatively flat output. You'll need more flexible plants to cover everything above the base load. If you have cheap gas, base load does not make any sense economically.

_aavaa_ 9mo ago

> but carbon sources have clearly remained competitive with batteries + solar That's because carbon sources are almost never made to pay for their externalities (i.e. pollution during energy generation).

Fazebooking 9mo ago

Yes for sure it just doesn't happen because huge projects like this have to be aligned and coordinated on complete different scales. Thats why the french build a reactor in UK. Even the CDU/CSU political party in germany, who was in power for 16 years uninterupted wasn't doing it. So whatever we wish or think would happen doesn't matter if the only ones investing in nuclear are techcompanies and as somone else stated, they do this primiarily for existing nuclear capacity. But whats happening now is a renewable revolution. Batteries are very cheap now and get cheaper and easier to make and you need the manufactoring capacity for them anyway (cars, storage projects) that they will break up every other area like normal housing. Especially because now it reached africa as a continent and asia. Its exploding. And its very easy to just extend this potential. Many normal areas are still vacant. A LOT of countries probably will either neve be able to afford nuclear or will not be allowed to have it anyway.