3 ms·

I would prefer to reduce emissions using technology that exists today, I know it works, and I have seen it operate at national grid scale, not speculative futur

I would prefer to reduce emissions using technology that exists today, I know it works, and I have seen it operate at national grid scale, not speculative future tech.

pfdietz 4mo ago
You do highlight something there: the case for nuclear requires one to assume that the competing technologies stop their rapid advance. If not, the 40 (or 60, or 80) year investment horizons needed to partially shore up the bad economics of nuclear become utterly absurd. (The criticism that renewables don't last as long as nuclear suddenly looks like praise when viewed in this light; renewables don't need those very long time horizons to pay out.) But making this bet, that renewables will suddenly come up short, that the experience curves will suddenly break their historic trends on the log-log plot, has never worked out well. Something like hydrogen seems guaranteed to be available if needed. Realize that green hydrogen is needed even in a nuclear-powered world, because of existing hydrogen demand that is currently satisfied by steam reforming of fossil fuels (mostly natural gas). So lots of hydrogen will be made; it doesn't require new technology to make some more. I'll add that if you are sticking to currently available commercial technologies, nuclear is a loser, since burner reactors are far too fuel-inefficient to last very long on existing estimated uranium resources. The current estimate of uranium resources at 3x current price would provide the world's current rate of primary energy demand for just 5 years, if burner reactors were used.
- troupo 4mo ago
  > the case for nuclear requires one to assume that the competing technologies stop their rapid advance. 1. No, it doesn't 2. Other tech has to actually show this rapid advance, and not be the permanent state of fiction 3. You assume that nuclear is incapable of advances > But making this bet, that renewables will suddenly come up short, that the experience curves will suddenly break their historic trends on the log-log plot, has never worked out well. Renewabl;es do come short in one very specific area: they are intermittent, and to account for that they have to be very extremely overbuilt and all available large scale storage is very short-term. > Something like hydrogen seems guaranteed to be available if needed. Realize that green hydrogen is needed Speaking of technologies that are permanent fiction. We don't even know how to reliably store it at required scales. All known methods are either extremely complex and volatile, or require large amounts of energy to release hydrogen back, or cannot store much hydrogen to begin with: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0254058424008356 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S025405842... > I'll add that if you are sticking to currently available commercial technologies, nuclear is a loser something something assuming no rapid advances or something
  - pfdietz 4mo ago
    > 1. No, it doesn't It does, for the reason I gave. You didn't give a reason why not. > 2. Other tech has to actually show this rapid advance, and not be the permanent state of fiction Incredibly, you seem unaware of just how rapidly the cost of solar and wind and batteries have dropped. If we project the demonstrated experience curve of PV forward another five doublings or so, PV energy will be delivered at under $0.01/kWh. This is basically impossible for nuclear to compete with. > 3. You assume that nuclear is incapable of advances Unlike renewables, nuclear hasn't demonstrated a good experience curve. If anything, it has shown a negative experience curve. But in any case, even if nuclear were capable of rapid advance, this would still argue against assuming 40 (or 60, or 80) year lifetimes for nuclear power plants when calculating their economics. The power plants would be obsolete and uncompetitive long before that time span ended. One cannot have it both ways: both assuming rapid advance, and assuming long economic life. > Renewabl;es do come short in one very specific area: they are intermittent, and to account for that they have to be very extremely overbuilt and all available large scale storage is very short-term. One can model to determine the effect of intermittency and renewables still come out on top. This is why renewables are being installed globally and nuclear largely isn't. Listen to the market when it's sending you such a strong signal. > Speaking of technologies that are permanent fiction. We don't even know how to reliably store it at required scales. Yes we do. We store it just like we store natural gas, in underground caverns. This is demonstrated technology, and would be very cheap (capex < $1 per kWh of storage capacity). There's a well-advanced project to do this in Utah, for example. The salt formation there could store enough hydrogen to power the entire US grid for something like a day. > something something assuming no rapid advances or something I'm pointing out your requirement that no advances be considered also rules out nuclear. I'm willing to consider nuclear advances, I just note that nuclear hasn't been very good at delivering them quickly or economically, unlike renewables and storage.
    - xp84 4mo ago
      > nuclear hasn't been very good at delivering them quickly or economically, unlike renewables and storage. Kind of circular reasoning / begging the question here, since in North America we essentially stopped building nuclear over 35 years ago.[1] We stopped because people were scared of nuclear, and thus a ton of regulatory roadblocks were increased, making it uneconomic. Note that the changes in regulations post-1986 were not new regulations to improve the safety of plants, rather, they were increased environmental review burdens, state-level moratoria and voter approval requirements -- populist measures designed to do exactly what they did do: kill nuclear.[2] So, we've chosen to not build any reactors anymore, which means comparatively little advancement is happening (since who would invest in that when no one is soliciting bids for a new plant), and then we're saying "See, nuclear isn't advancing, so we shouldn't invest in it." [1] https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/USNuclearPowerChartICE600px.png https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/USN... [2] The 1990s saw much lower growth of electricity demand, too, so few new plants were needed during that decade, and by the time more capacity was needed, cheap shale gas drove the rest of the nails in the nuclear coffin. Of course, anti-nuclear activists who are also anti-carbon-emissions activists shouldn't count that as a win.

I would prefer to reduce emissions using technology that exists today, I know it works, and I have seen it operate at national grid scale, not speculative future tech.

pfdietz 4mo ago

You do highlight something there: the case for nuclear requires one to assume that the competing technologies stop their rapid advance. If not, the 40 (or 60, or 80) year investment horizons needed to partially shore up the bad economics of nuclear become utterly absurd. (The criticism that renewables don't last as long as nuclear suddenly looks like praise when viewed in this light; renewables don't need those very long time horizons to pay out.) But making this bet, that renewables will suddenly come up short, that the experience curves will suddenly break their historic trends on the log-log plot, has never worked out well. Something like hydrogen seems guaranteed to be available if needed. Realize that green hydrogen is needed even in a nuclear-powered world, because of existing hydrogen demand that is currently satisfied by steam reforming of fossil fuels (mostly natural gas). So lots of hydrogen will be made; it doesn't require new technology to make some more. I'll add that if you are sticking to currently available commercial technologies, nuclear is a loser, since burner reactors are far too fuel-inefficient to last very long on existing estimated uranium resources. The current estimate of uranium resources at 3x current price would provide the world's current rate of primary energy demand for just 5 years, if burner reactors were used.

troupo 4mo ago
> the case for nuclear requires one to assume that the competing technologies stop their rapid advance. 1. No, it doesn't 2. Other tech has to actually show this rapid advance, and not be the permanent state of fiction 3. You assume that nuclear is incapable of advances > But making this bet, that renewables will suddenly come up short, that the experience curves will suddenly break their historic trends on the log-log plot, has never worked out well. Renewabl;es do come short in one very specific area: they are intermittent, and to account for that they have to be very extremely overbuilt and all available large scale storage is very short-term. > Something like hydrogen seems guaranteed to be available if needed. Realize that green hydrogen is needed Speaking of technologies that are permanent fiction. We don't even know how to reliably store it at required scales. All known methods are either extremely complex and volatile, or require large amounts of energy to release hydrogen back, or cannot store much hydrogen to begin with: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0254058424008356 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S025405842... > I'll add that if you are sticking to currently available commercial technologies, nuclear is a loser something something assuming no rapid advances or something
- pfdietz 4mo ago
  > 1. No, it doesn't It does, for the reason I gave. You didn't give a reason why not. > 2. Other tech has to actually show this rapid advance, and not be the permanent state of fiction Incredibly, you seem unaware of just how rapidly the cost of solar and wind and batteries have dropped. If we project the demonstrated experience curve of PV forward another five doublings or so, PV energy will be delivered at under $0.01/kWh. This is basically impossible for nuclear to compete with. > 3. You assume that nuclear is incapable of advances Unlike renewables, nuclear hasn't demonstrated a good experience curve. If anything, it has shown a negative experience curve. But in any case, even if nuclear were capable of rapid advance, this would still argue against assuming 40 (or 60, or 80) year lifetimes for nuclear power plants when calculating their economics. The power plants would be obsolete and uncompetitive long before that time span ended. One cannot have it both ways: both assuming rapid advance, and assuming long economic life. > Renewabl;es do come short in one very specific area: they are intermittent, and to account for that they have to be very extremely overbuilt and all available large scale storage is very short-term. One can model to determine the effect of intermittency and renewables still come out on top. This is why renewables are being installed globally and nuclear largely isn't. Listen to the market when it's sending you such a strong signal. > Speaking of technologies that are permanent fiction. We don't even know how to reliably store it at required scales. Yes we do. We store it just like we store natural gas, in underground caverns. This is demonstrated technology, and would be very cheap (capex < $1 per kWh of storage capacity). There's a well-advanced project to do this in Utah, for example. The salt formation there could store enough hydrogen to power the entire US grid for something like a day. > something something assuming no rapid advances or something I'm pointing out your requirement that no advances be considered also rules out nuclear. I'm willing to consider nuclear advances, I just note that nuclear hasn't been very good at delivering them quickly or economically, unlike renewables and storage.
  - xp84 4mo ago
    > nuclear hasn't been very good at delivering them quickly or economically, unlike renewables and storage. Kind of circular reasoning / begging the question here, since in North America we essentially stopped building nuclear over 35 years ago.[1] We stopped because people were scared of nuclear, and thus a ton of regulatory roadblocks were increased, making it uneconomic. Note that the changes in regulations post-1986 were not new regulations to improve the safety of plants, rather, they were increased environmental review burdens, state-level moratoria and voter approval requirements -- populist measures designed to do exactly what they did do: kill nuclear.[2] So, we've chosen to not build any reactors anymore, which means comparatively little advancement is happening (since who would invest in that when no one is soliciting bids for a new plant), and then we're saying "See, nuclear isn't advancing, so we shouldn't invest in it." [1] https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/USNuclearPowerChartICE600px.png https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/USN... [2] The 1990s saw much lower growth of electricity demand, too, so few new plants were needed during that decade, and by the time more capacity was needed, cheap shale gas drove the rest of the nails in the nuclear coffin. Of course, anti-nuclear activists who are also anti-carbon-emissions activists shouldn't count that as a win.