7 ms·

So you support nuclear power?

thelastgallon 2mo ago
I support solar. Democratize energy, everyone should have the right to produce and store energy. 1) Plug-in solar and batteries are plug-n-play. This is the first step to teach everyone energy literacy and numeracy. 2) Vertical panels immediately add 3 - 4 hours. Vertical panels have zero real estate cost and no need to build costly and slow transmission infrastructure. Every building in a city can produce energy. 3) EVs to store excess energy during the day and supply power back to the grid later. 1.8 billion vehicles connect 4 billion buildings. Buildings can produce clean energy and EVs can store energy. The lowest hanging fruit is to make sure all new buildings are built to produce, and all new vehicles are EVs. New buildings can be built with vertical panels and rooftop. The easiest thing to do is change building code, thats it. Then, we can deal with the built environment.
- leonidasrup 2mo ago
  What source of energy will provide energy at night or bad weather? I would like to note that batteries at end of life are chemical waste and have to be disposed properly. "End of life electric vehicle batteries in China to 2060 and related resource management implications" https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-03555-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-03555-3 "The EOL batteries contain a wide range of toxic and hazardous materials that can leach into the soil and water, threatening human health and the environment. For example, lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF₆), a component in power batteries, hydrolyzes on contact with water to produce highly toxic hydrofluoric acid (HF). Additionally, cobalt, nickel, and organic solvents in the batteries can contaminate water and soil, leading to long-term ecological damage" https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30072026/china-ev-battery-recycling-safety-risks/ https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30072026/china-ev-battery...
  - thelastgallon 2mo ago
    There are startups like Redwood Materials. I'm sure China will figure it out. They are willing to put in the right policies, incentives and research dollars. Redwood recycles end-of-life batteries to recover lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper — creating one of the largest domestic sources of these critical materials: https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/ https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/
    - Manuel_D 2mo ago
      The question of how to supply daily and seasonal storage requirements demanded by intermittent sources remains unanswered, even if we assume battery recycling is performed. The US alone uses 12,000 Gwh of electricity daily and about 30,000 GWh of energy daily (transportation, burning gas for smelters, heating, etc). Even just a day's worth of energy is decades worth of global lithium ion battery output. For just one country. People rarely appreciate the scale demanded to make grid storage feasible.
      - queenkjuul 2mo ago
        Solar plus batteries is the cheapest way to build a power plant in 2026. Nowhere gets so little sun that this can't be made to work.
        Manuel_D 2mo ago
        Again, this glosses over the scale of grid storage. If the US decides to provision a day's worth of electricity storage then, that amounts to 12 years worth of global battery production.
  - officeplant 2mo ago
    >I would like to note that batteries at end of life are chemical waste and have to be disposed properly. As far as countries like the US is concerned we need to mirror our policies with lead acid batteries. Recycling chains need to be setup and monetary penalties for not recycling a battery when buying a new battery. Ideally I think this should be for lithium batteries from BEV & Home Storage, all the way down to disposable vapes.
    - leonidasrup 2mo ago
      "As the United States tightened regulations on lead processing to protect Americans over the past three decades, finding domestic lead became a challenge. So the auto industry looked overseas to supplement its supply. In doing so, car and battery manufacturers pushed the health consequences of lead recycling onto countries where enforcement is lax, testing is rare and workers are desperate for jobs." https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/18/world/africa/lead-poisoning-car-battery.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/18/world/africa/...
    - idontwantthis 2mo ago
      This already happens. There are many companies recycling batteries. The batteries of tomorrow are the batteries of today. They are permanent infrastructure.
- queenkjuul 2mo ago
  Expecting everyone to have a car cannot remotely be considered a serious solution Centralized production and storage will always be more efficient
thelastgallon 2mo ago
Solar can be deployed in months, produce immediately. Solar is dirt cheap and continues to get cheaper. 21 - 25% efficiency is normal now and most likely we'll have tandem (silicon + peroskvite) with 45% efficiency. With each doubling of production, solar costs continue to go down. In a decade or two, maybe we'll be able to print solar like paper or textile, or spray paint on any surface. Or grow solar from microorganisms (fastest and cheapest). A nuclear deployment takes 3 - 5 decades, costs continue to skyrocket, actually needs nuclear scientists to design and run. Which one do you think is a better choice? If you were an investor, would you put your money on a nuclear plant and wait 3 - 5 decades for returns?
- leonidasrup 2mo ago
  It currently takes so long to deploy nuclear in the West, because the West mostly dismantled the nuclear supply chains, starting in 1990s. At that time coal and gas power plants were seen as better than nuclear power plants and no expansion of nuclear energy was expected. For example Germany was still building new coal power plants in 2005-2007. https://energytransition.org/2016/10/germanys-last-new-coal-plant/ https://energytransition.org/2016/10/germanys-last-new-coal-... https://us.boell.org/en/2014/06/06/german-coal-conundrum https://us.boell.org/en/2014/06/06/german-coal-conundrum Currently, in 2026, Germany is retiring coal power plants and replacing them with gas power plants. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-government-approves-new-gas-power-plant-auctions-back-wind-and-solar https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-government-appro...
  - toomuchtodo 2mo ago
    China builds more renewables per month than the nuclear target they’ve very slowly expanded over a half decade and aren’t scheduled to reach until at least 2030. 70% of China’s electric generating capacity will be renewables by 2027. You could replace current global nuclear generating capacity at parity with capacity factor with batteries and solar in under two years. Lazard Levelized Cost of Energy+ 2026 - https://www.lazard.com/media/kcfconhf/lazards-lcoeplus_vf.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/kcfconhf/lazards-lcoeplus_vf.pd... [pdf] > Renewables Remain Lowest Cost New-Build Generation; All Generation Faces Increasing Cost Pressure: Despite rising and inflationary cost pressures across all generation technologies, renewables remain the most cost-competitive form of new-build generation on an unsubsidized basis and will account for the majority of near-term capacity additions in the U.S. Continuous upward revisions to demand projections have driven a sharp increase in announced new-build gas generation despite a 15-year high LCOE, which is expected to continue to rise, and historically long development and equipment delivery timelines. China Keeps Beating Renewable Targets And Missing Nuclear Ones - https://cleantechnica.com/2026/07/25/china-renewable-targets-nuclear-delivery/ https://cleantechnica.com/2026/07/25/china-renewable-targets... - July 25th, 2026 > China set a 2020 wind target of 210 GW and finished the year with about 282 GW. Its solar target was 110 GW, while delivery reached roughly 253 GW. The later commitment to reach at least 1,200 GW of combined wind and solar by 2030 was crossed in 2024, six years early. By the end of 2025, China had about 640 GW of wind and 1,202 GW of solar, for a combined 1,842 GW. Nuclear moved in the other direction: about 50 GW against a 58 GW target in 2020, and about 62 GW against a 70 GW target in 2025. The current goal of 110 GW by 2030 may still be achieved, but the previous record gives no reason to convert it directly into a forecast. > This is not evidence that Beijing has quietly abandoned nuclear power. China has the world’s largest reactor construction programme, continues approving new units and is building an increasingly domestic supply chain around designs such as Hualong One. The divergence lies between approval and operation. Another difference is that when renewables blow past targets China set much bigger targets, but when nuclear misses targets, the targets don’t change. That difference is harder to explain than the results.
matthewdgreen 2mo ago
This particular brand of confrontational nuclear “advocacy” does not help nuclear. Please consider stopping it.
- bee_rider 2mo ago
  It isn’t really advocacy (there’s no argument for nuclear here, just a sort of distracting non-sequitur).
- AnimalMuppet 2mo ago
  Stronger: This particular brand of rhetoric ("So you support X?" and little more, in response to a post that was not at all about X) is just a "gotcha" game rather than serious conversation, and doesn't belong on this site. I see it far too often, and not just on nuclear. (Also, it makes the one doing it look like a jerk, at least to me.)
  - ornornor 2mo ago
    So you support censorship? Just kidding, I’ve seen it more and more as well, and feel the same as you about it.
    - cucumber3732842 2mo ago
      I won't speak for him but I support consequences. Behaving like that ought to get you shunned and persistence ought to get you marginalized the same way that overt racism or whatever would. You get what you incentivize. And right now there's no incentive not to vomit dishonesty upon the public discourse so we've got a lot of idiots doing that.
      - AnimalMuppet 2mo ago
        Well, with me, it's getting to the point that it gets an almost automatic downvote.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]

I support solar. Democratize energy, everyone should have the right to produce and store energy. 1) Plug-in solar and batteries are plug-n-play. This is the first step to teach everyone energy literacy and numeracy. 2) Vertical panels immediately add 3 - 4 hours. Vertical panels have zero real estate cost and no need to build costly and slow transmission infrastructure. Every building in a city can produce energy. 3) EVs to store excess energy during the day and supply power back to the grid later. 1.8 billion vehicles connect 4 billion buildings. Buildings can produce clean energy and EVs can store energy. The lowest hanging fruit is to make sure all new buildings are built to produce, and all new vehicles are EVs. New buildings can be built with vertical panels and rooftop. The easiest thing to do is change building code, thats it. Then, we can deal with the built environment.

leonidasrup 2mo ago
What source of energy will provide energy at night or bad weather? I would like to note that batteries at end of life are chemical waste and have to be disposed properly. "End of life electric vehicle batteries in China to 2060 and related resource management implications" https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-03555-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-03555-3 "The EOL batteries contain a wide range of toxic and hazardous materials that can leach into the soil and water, threatening human health and the environment. For example, lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF₆), a component in power batteries, hydrolyzes on contact with water to produce highly toxic hydrofluoric acid (HF). Additionally, cobalt, nickel, and organic solvents in the batteries can contaminate water and soil, leading to long-term ecological damage" https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30072026/china-ev-battery-recycling-safety-risks/ https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30072026/china-ev-battery...
- thelastgallon 2mo ago
  There are startups like Redwood Materials. I'm sure China will figure it out. They are willing to put in the right policies, incentives and research dollars. Redwood recycles end-of-life batteries to recover lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper — creating one of the largest domestic sources of these critical materials: https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/ https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/
  - Manuel_D 2mo ago
    The question of how to supply daily and seasonal storage requirements demanded by intermittent sources remains unanswered, even if we assume battery recycling is performed. The US alone uses 12,000 Gwh of electricity daily and about 30,000 GWh of energy daily (transportation, burning gas for smelters, heating, etc). Even just a day's worth of energy is decades worth of global lithium ion battery output. For just one country. People rarely appreciate the scale demanded to make grid storage feasible.
    - queenkjuul 2mo ago
      Solar plus batteries is the cheapest way to build a power plant in 2026. Nowhere gets so little sun that this can't be made to work.
      - Manuel_D 2mo ago
        Again, this glosses over the scale of grid storage. If the US decides to provision a day's worth of electricity storage then, that amounts to 12 years worth of global battery production.
- officeplant 2mo ago
  >I would like to note that batteries at end of life are chemical waste and have to be disposed properly. As far as countries like the US is concerned we need to mirror our policies with lead acid batteries. Recycling chains need to be setup and monetary penalties for not recycling a battery when buying a new battery. Ideally I think this should be for lithium batteries from BEV & Home Storage, all the way down to disposable vapes.
  - leonidasrup 2mo ago
    "As the United States tightened regulations on lead processing to protect Americans over the past three decades, finding domestic lead became a challenge. So the auto industry looked overseas to supplement its supply. In doing so, car and battery manufacturers pushed the health consequences of lead recycling onto countries where enforcement is lax, testing is rare and workers are desperate for jobs." https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/18/world/africa/lead-poisoning-car-battery.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/18/world/africa/...
  - idontwantthis 2mo ago
    This already happens. There are many companies recycling batteries. The batteries of tomorrow are the batteries of today. They are permanent infrastructure.
queenkjuul 2mo ago
Expecting everyone to have a car cannot remotely be considered a serious solution Centralized production and storage will always be more efficient

thelastgallon 2mo ago

Solar can be deployed in months, produce immediately. Solar is dirt cheap and continues to get cheaper. 21 - 25% efficiency is normal now and most likely we'll have tandem (silicon + peroskvite) with 45% efficiency. With each doubling of production, solar costs continue to go down. In a decade or two, maybe we'll be able to print solar like paper or textile, or spray paint on any surface. Or grow solar from microorganisms (fastest and cheapest). A nuclear deployment takes 3 - 5 decades, costs continue to skyrocket, actually needs nuclear scientists to design and run. Which one do you think is a better choice? If you were an investor, would you put your money on a nuclear plant and wait 3 - 5 decades for returns?

leonidasrup 2mo ago
It currently takes so long to deploy nuclear in the West, because the West mostly dismantled the nuclear supply chains, starting in 1990s. At that time coal and gas power plants were seen as better than nuclear power plants and no expansion of nuclear energy was expected. For example Germany was still building new coal power plants in 2005-2007. https://energytransition.org/2016/10/germanys-last-new-coal-plant/ https://energytransition.org/2016/10/germanys-last-new-coal-... https://us.boell.org/en/2014/06/06/german-coal-conundrum https://us.boell.org/en/2014/06/06/german-coal-conundrum Currently, in 2026, Germany is retiring coal power plants and replacing them with gas power plants. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-government-approves-new-gas-power-plant-auctions-back-wind-and-solar https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-government-appro...
- toomuchtodo 2mo ago
  China builds more renewables per month than the nuclear target they’ve very slowly expanded over a half decade and aren’t scheduled to reach until at least 2030. 70% of China’s electric generating capacity will be renewables by 2027. You could replace current global nuclear generating capacity at parity with capacity factor with batteries and solar in under two years. Lazard Levelized Cost of Energy+ 2026 - https://www.lazard.com/media/kcfconhf/lazards-lcoeplus_vf.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/kcfconhf/lazards-lcoeplus_vf.pd... [pdf] > Renewables Remain Lowest Cost New-Build Generation; All Generation Faces Increasing Cost Pressure: Despite rising and inflationary cost pressures across all generation technologies, renewables remain the most cost-competitive form of new-build generation on an unsubsidized basis and will account for the majority of near-term capacity additions in the U.S. Continuous upward revisions to demand projections have driven a sharp increase in announced new-build gas generation despite a 15-year high LCOE, which is expected to continue to rise, and historically long development and equipment delivery timelines. China Keeps Beating Renewable Targets And Missing Nuclear Ones - https://cleantechnica.com/2026/07/25/china-renewable-targets-nuclear-delivery/ https://cleantechnica.com/2026/07/25/china-renewable-targets... - July 25th, 2026 > China set a 2020 wind target of 210 GW and finished the year with about 282 GW. Its solar target was 110 GW, while delivery reached roughly 253 GW. The later commitment to reach at least 1,200 GW of combined wind and solar by 2030 was crossed in 2024, six years early. By the end of 2025, China had about 640 GW of wind and 1,202 GW of solar, for a combined 1,842 GW. Nuclear moved in the other direction: about 50 GW against a 58 GW target in 2020, and about 62 GW against a 70 GW target in 2025. The current goal of 110 GW by 2030 may still be achieved, but the previous record gives no reason to convert it directly into a forecast. > This is not evidence that Beijing has quietly abandoned nuclear power. China has the world’s largest reactor construction programme, continues approving new units and is building an increasingly domestic supply chain around designs such as Hualong One. The divergence lies between approval and operation. Another difference is that when renewables blow past targets China set much bigger targets, but when nuclear misses targets, the targets don’t change. That difference is harder to explain than the results.

matthewdgreen 2mo ago

This particular brand of confrontational nuclear “advocacy” does not help nuclear. Please consider stopping it.

bee_rider 2mo ago
It isn’t really advocacy (there’s no argument for nuclear here, just a sort of distracting non-sequitur).
AnimalMuppet 2mo ago
Stronger: This particular brand of rhetoric ("So you support X?" and little more, in response to a post that was not at all about X) is just a "gotcha" game rather than serious conversation, and doesn't belong on this site. I see it far too often, and not just on nuclear. (Also, it makes the one doing it look like a jerk, at least to me.)
- ornornor 2mo ago
  So you support censorship? Just kidding, I’ve seen it more and more as well, and feel the same as you about it.
  - cucumber3732842 2mo ago
    I won't speak for him but I support consequences. Behaving like that ought to get you shunned and persistence ought to get you marginalized the same way that overt racism or whatever would. You get what you incentivize. And right now there's no incentive not to vomit dishonesty upon the public discourse so we've got a lot of idiots doing that.
    - AnimalMuppet 2mo ago
      Well, with me, it's getting to the point that it gets an almost automatic downvote.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]