3 ms·

The answer is you don't scale nuclear up or down, it's a silly waste of time and effort to even think about it. The fuel costs are effectively a rounding error,

by phil21 8mo ago

The answer is you don't scale nuclear up or down, it's a silly waste of time and effort to even think about it. The fuel costs are effectively a rounding error, so running at 100% 24x7 is the only way to ever think about how nuclear should operate. If you are going to curtail, you curtail other sources including solar and wind. Nuclear fits quite well for the baseload you need. It's more expensive, but if you are going to need X capacity 24x7 and build nuclear, you simply build enough to provide just that plus perhaps a few extra for redundancy when another one goes offline. Then use gas peakers for the "oh shit" days difference between what nuclear is providing and solar was expected to but could not. I don't understand the fascination folks have about nuclear not being able to following the grid. They don't need to, since they only ever remotely make sense when operated 24x7 at 100%. If you always have 1TW of grid usage every night during your lowest usage period - build that much nuclear as your starting point and figure out the rest from there. Nuclear's share of the total mix should be a straight line on a graph outside of plant shutdowns for maintenance.

dalyons 8mo ago
That’s not the way the energy market works though. The cheapest sources (like daytime solar) will knock your expensive nuclear off the grid. Or force it to sell at significantly below operating cost, which is suicidal in the long term, since nukes need a guaranteed high price nearly 100% of the time to pencil out (pay back the capex). Your argument only works in entirely state controlled systems, not in free energy markets of independent suppliers. Which is why nukes don’t get built.
- troupo 8mo ago
  > Which is why nukes don’t get built. Nukes don't get built because: - billions (if not trillions) of subsidies were poured into wind and solar over decades to make them viable while nuclear energy was addled with additional taxes, reactor closures, and very few new reactor licenses - decades of fear-mongering led to loss of expertise in building new nuclear power plants (and instead South-East Asia has been picking up speed in building new reactors) [1] In 2015 nuclear was significantly cheaper than most other types of energy across most markets: https://world-nuclear.org/images/articles/REPORT_Economics_Report_2017.pdf https://world-nuclear.org/images/articles/REPORT_Economics_R... (Figure 12, in some markets including the then-emerging renewables). And yet renewables were enjoying unprecedented amounts of subsidies and money poured into them while nuclear... Oh we know what was happening to nuclear, just look at Germany. [1] Here's EU's own report: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2025:17:FIN&pk_campaign=todays_OJ&pk_source=EUR-Lex&pk_medium=X&pk_content=Report&pk_keyword=Energy&pk_cid=EURLEX_todaysOJ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2025... Renewables: 80-80 billion euro in subsidies a year. Fossil fuels: 60-140 billion euro in subsidies a year. Nuclear: good luck finding the thin orange line in the graph. (1% of subsidies) --- start quote --- As shown on Figure 4 , solar energy received by far the largest share of subsidies, both historically and in 2023 (EUR 21 bn), followed by biomass (EUR 9 bn) and wind power (EUR 7 bn). Hydropower received marginal financial support (~EUR 1 bn), while subsidies targeting multiple renewable technologies (such as tax reductions on green technology or public aid for investment projects) jumped to EUR 23 bn by 2023. Subsidies for nuclear energy dropped from EUR 7.9 bn in 2021 to 3.7 bn in 2022 and 4.1 bn in 2023. Of the 14 MS providing nuclear subsidies, France (EUR 2.9 bn) accounted for the biggest share, followed by Germany (EUR 0.8 bn) , Spain and Belgium (EUR 0.1 bn each). --- end quote ---
  - YCpedohaven 8mo ago
    Also corruption. I lived in an area that for some years was trying to build a new nuclear power plant. It was fraud from the top down and the manufacturer went bankrupt. I paid more for power in SC than I ever did when I lived in “summer all year” Florida. But I guess I got a token check in the mail some years later. Plant got completely abandoned and I got to help subsidize this failure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nukegate_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nukegate_scandal
    - troupo 8mo ago
      Oh yes. That too. It's one problem after another in quite a few countries: ignore/neglect, make processes, regulations and subsidies opaque, all of this leads to huge construction times and corruption, declare nuclear non-viable. China: "Nearly every Chinese nuclear project that has entered service since 2010 has achieved construction in 7 years or less." [1] Building over 40 reactors since 2005 [1] https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/chinas-impressive-rate-of-nuclear-construction https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/chinas-impressive-...
      - dalyons 8mo ago
        And still china’s share of energy provided by nuclear is declining y/y, and will continue to decline for the foreseeable future. Because their renewables buildout is >10x nuclear. Even china, a nuclear construction scale/cost/time success story, can’t make them compete with renewables.
        phil21 8mo ago
        Share of the total grid is meaningless comparing solar to nuclear. It’s the wrong metric to optimize for - the metric that actually matters and is the expensive one is reliability. What matters is “share of the grid when solar literally cannot provide the power at any price”. In a well designed and functional grid share of nuclear power should be close to 100% of the latter and the lowest percentage of the former you can get away with. It’s better to think of nuclear as energy storage with a really really long lasting battery that costs the same to run it 24/7 or 1 hour a month. Ideally it would be replacing close to all baseload/reliable power on the grid outside of hydro - with hydro being your peakers instead of natural gas for topologies amenable to it. The power share graph should look like nuclear at close to 100% at night less wind and battery storage that backs wind unreliability - and that graph remaining flat throughout the peak daytime hours with other energy sources kicking in such as solar, hydro, duck curve sized battery arrays, etc.

by phil21 8mo ago

dalyons 8mo ago

That’s not the way the energy market works though. The cheapest sources (like daytime solar) will knock your expensive nuclear off the grid. Or force it to sell at significantly below operating cost, which is suicidal in the long term, since nukes need a guaranteed high price nearly 100% of the time to pencil out (pay back the capex). Your argument only works in entirely state controlled systems, not in free energy markets of independent suppliers. Which is why nukes don’t get built.

troupo 8mo ago
> Which is why nukes don’t get built. Nukes don't get built because: - billions (if not trillions) of subsidies were poured into wind and solar over decades to make them viable while nuclear energy was addled with additional taxes, reactor closures, and very few new reactor licenses - decades of fear-mongering led to loss of expertise in building new nuclear power plants (and instead South-East Asia has been picking up speed in building new reactors) [1] In 2015 nuclear was significantly cheaper than most other types of energy across most markets: https://world-nuclear.org/images/articles/REPORT_Economics_Report_2017.pdf https://world-nuclear.org/images/articles/REPORT_Economics_R... (Figure 12, in some markets including the then-emerging renewables). And yet renewables were enjoying unprecedented amounts of subsidies and money poured into them while nuclear... Oh we know what was happening to nuclear, just look at Germany. [1] Here's EU's own report: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2025:17:FIN&pk_campaign=todays_OJ&pk_source=EUR-Lex&pk_medium=X&pk_content=Report&pk_keyword=Energy&pk_cid=EURLEX_todaysOJ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2025... Renewables: 80-80 billion euro in subsidies a year. Fossil fuels: 60-140 billion euro in subsidies a year. Nuclear: good luck finding the thin orange line in the graph. (1% of subsidies) --- start quote --- As shown on Figure 4 , solar energy received by far the largest share of subsidies, both historically and in 2023 (EUR 21 bn), followed by biomass (EUR 9 bn) and wind power (EUR 7 bn). Hydropower received marginal financial support (~EUR 1 bn), while subsidies targeting multiple renewable technologies (such as tax reductions on green technology or public aid for investment projects) jumped to EUR 23 bn by 2023. Subsidies for nuclear energy dropped from EUR 7.9 bn in 2021 to 3.7 bn in 2022 and 4.1 bn in 2023. Of the 14 MS providing nuclear subsidies, France (EUR 2.9 bn) accounted for the biggest share, followed by Germany (EUR 0.8 bn) , Spain and Belgium (EUR 0.1 bn each). --- end quote ---
- YCpedohaven 8mo ago
  Also corruption. I lived in an area that for some years was trying to build a new nuclear power plant. It was fraud from the top down and the manufacturer went bankrupt. I paid more for power in SC than I ever did when I lived in “summer all year” Florida. But I guess I got a token check in the mail some years later. Plant got completely abandoned and I got to help subsidize this failure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nukegate_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nukegate_scandal
  - troupo 8mo ago
    Oh yes. That too. It's one problem after another in quite a few countries: ignore/neglect, make processes, regulations and subsidies opaque, all of this leads to huge construction times and corruption, declare nuclear non-viable. China: "Nearly every Chinese nuclear project that has entered service since 2010 has achieved construction in 7 years or less." [1] Building over 40 reactors since 2005 [1] https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/chinas-impressive-rate-of-nuclear-construction https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/chinas-impressive-...
    - dalyons 8mo ago
      And still china’s share of energy provided by nuclear is declining y/y, and will continue to decline for the foreseeable future. Because their renewables buildout is >10x nuclear. Even china, a nuclear construction scale/cost/time success story, can’t make them compete with renewables.
      - phil21 8mo ago
        Share of the total grid is meaningless comparing solar to nuclear. It’s the wrong metric to optimize for - the metric that actually matters and is the expensive one is reliability. What matters is “share of the grid when solar literally cannot provide the power at any price”. In a well designed and functional grid share of nuclear power should be close to 100% of the latter and the lowest percentage of the former you can get away with. It’s better to think of nuclear as energy storage with a really really long lasting battery that costs the same to run it 24/7 or 1 hour a month. Ideally it would be replacing close to all baseload/reliable power on the grid outside of hydro - with hydro being your peakers instead of natural gas for topologies amenable to it. The power share graph should look like nuclear at close to 100% at night less wind and battery storage that backs wind unreliability - and that graph remaining flat throughout the peak daytime hours with other energy sources kicking in such as solar, hydro, duck curve sized battery arrays, etc.