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Nuclear will save the day in combination with clean tech. Clean tech on its own is too slowly to be meaningfully impactful by the time we need it.

by boringg 7mo ago

toomuchtodo 7mo ago
It takes ~ten years to build a nuclear generator. In that time, 10TW of solar PV will be deployed at current deployment rates (1TW/year), a bit higher than total global electricity generation capacity currently (~9TW). Fusion is solved, at a distance, with solar, wind, and batteries. Half an hour of sunlight on Earth can power humanity for a year. Long duration storage remains to be solved for, but look how far we’ve come in 1-2 decades. (at this time, short duration storage will likely be LFP, sodium, and other stationary friendly chemistries, but this could change as the state of the art advances rapidly and the commodities market fluctuates)
- boringg 7mo ago
  Fusion isn't in our lifetimes. Its been 10 years away since the 50s - only to get more R&D grant funding for budget building. If it happened it would be a huge game changer for our economies but it is far away from deployment let along lab proven. It still requires more energy to start/maintain the reaction then it can produce - which is fundamental to success.
  - toomuchtodo 7mo ago
    Solar and wind are fusion generated energy from the sun. “Fusion at a distance.” Fossil fuels are ancient sunlight, ancient fusion.
    - boringg 7mo ago
      A step to far my friend. If we abstract away everything then nothing matters.
      - toomuchtodo 7mo ago
        If you would like to bet how much nuclear will be operating in ten years, place your bet. I’m willing to bet $10k to a charity of the winner’s choice nuclear generation remains about the same total capacity as today while renewables scale to terawatts. Let me know if I should have a Longbet spun up for accountability. https://longbets.org/ https://longbets.org/
triceratops 7mo ago
I think you have that backwards. Building nuclear is slow slow slow. I can have new solar on my rooftop this year.
- boringg 7mo ago
  While that is true that there is a lag time to deploy nuclear - that is a vestige of the last 40 years of regulating it out of existence. That has changed - technology has improved and regulatory is under scrutiny. The difference is that once nuclear starts to roll out, as it will in the next 3-5 years, we will be seeing large deployments of clean dedicated load ripple through our electrical system in a product assembly line. Solar and storage are great assets - and will continue to grow but they have other sets of constraints and deploy at small scale (relatively). The large scale deployments have long time horizons.
  - triceratops 7mo ago
    The regulatory regime also affects large scale deployments of solar.
    - boringg 7mo ago
      100%

Nuclear will save the day in combination with clean tech. Clean tech on its own is too slowly to be meaningfully impactful by the time we need it.

by boringg 7mo ago

Nuclear will save the day in combination with clean tech. Clean tech on its own is too slowly to be meaningfully impactful by the time we need it.

toomuchtodo 7mo ago

It takes ~ten years to build a nuclear generator. In that time, 10TW of solar PV will be deployed at current deployment rates (1TW/year), a bit higher than total global electricity generation capacity currently (~9TW). Fusion is solved, at a distance, with solar, wind, and batteries. Half an hour of sunlight on Earth can power humanity for a year. Long duration storage remains to be solved for, but look how far we’ve come in 1-2 decades. (at this time, short duration storage will likely be LFP, sodium, and other stationary friendly chemistries, but this could change as the state of the art advances rapidly and the commodities market fluctuates)

boringg 7mo ago
Fusion isn't in our lifetimes. Its been 10 years away since the 50s - only to get more R&D grant funding for budget building. If it happened it would be a huge game changer for our economies but it is far away from deployment let along lab proven. It still requires more energy to start/maintain the reaction then it can produce - which is fundamental to success.
- toomuchtodo 7mo ago
  Solar and wind are fusion generated energy from the sun. “Fusion at a distance.” Fossil fuels are ancient sunlight, ancient fusion.
  - boringg 7mo ago
    A step to far my friend. If we abstract away everything then nothing matters.
    - toomuchtodo 7mo ago
      If you would like to bet how much nuclear will be operating in ten years, place your bet. I’m willing to bet $10k to a charity of the winner’s choice nuclear generation remains about the same total capacity as today while renewables scale to terawatts. Let me know if I should have a Longbet spun up for accountability. https://longbets.org/ https://longbets.org/

triceratops 7mo ago

I think you have that backwards. Building nuclear is slow slow slow. I can have new solar on my rooftop this year.

boringg 7mo ago
While that is true that there is a lag time to deploy nuclear - that is a vestige of the last 40 years of regulating it out of existence. That has changed - technology has improved and regulatory is under scrutiny. The difference is that once nuclear starts to roll out, as it will in the next 3-5 years, we will be seeing large deployments of clean dedicated load ripple through our electrical system in a product assembly line. Solar and storage are great assets - and will continue to grow but they have other sets of constraints and deploy at small scale (relatively). The large scale deployments have long time horizons.
- triceratops 7mo ago
  The regulatory regime also affects large scale deployments of solar.
  - boringg 7mo ago
    100%