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[PdotMichael]

One day I will truly understand the hate for nuclear fission, and the hilarious idea that it is renewable against everything else

It's pretty simple. All energy sources are competing for investments. And right now there are 9billion wasted because the nuclear industry isn't even capable of building two 1117 MW reactors, even if it didn't get canceled the calculated price for that little installed energy capacity is ridiculous.

Meanwhile building solar and wind parks is simple, fast, with low project risks, the renewable energy sector also already provides more jobs than all other energy sources together in the USA!

 

[Belgorim]

It's pretty simple. All energy sources are competing for investments. And right now there are 9billion wasted because the nuclear industry isn't even capable of building two 1117 MW reactors, even if it didn't get canceled the calculated price for that little installed energy capacity is ridiculous.

Meanwhile building solar and wind parks is simple, fast, with low project risks, the renewable energy sector also already provides more jobs than all other energy sources together in the USA!

You only reason this way if you do not realy care about getting co2 emissions down to zero.

Just because you can get a bit more immediate gain from solar/wind is a horrible reason to abandon the fight against fossil fuel power that completely dominates the landscape today.

 

[PdotMichael]

You only reason this way if you do not realy care about getting co2 emissions down to zero.

Just because you can get a bit more immediate gain from solar/wind is a horrible reason to abandon the fight against fossil fuel power that completely dominates the landscape today.

Yes, somehow the large increase of renewable energy, which wouldn't be possible with nuclear energy, leads to a worse co2 output. Come again.

 

[Xe4]

Sure, and Google is your friend.

But I'm not your monkey which job is to provide you with studies of renowned universities like Stanford so you can dismiss them because of reasons.

No, that's not how it works. You make a claim, you should be expected back it up if someones asks. You don't just get to say "nuh uh!" and cross your arms and expect me to take your word for it. So, again, do you have a source, preferably a peer reviewed paper discussing the feasibility of creating an energy system that isn't based off of a baseload?

 

[Belgorim]

Yes, somehow the large increase of renewable energy, which wouldn't be possible with nuclear energy, leads to a worse co2 output. Come again.

This is just nonsense. What are you exactly claiming would not be possible with nuclear?

Edit: And I never claimed renewables could not lower co2 emmissions.

 

[PdotMichael]

No, that's not how it works. You make a claim, you should be expected back it up if someones asks. You don't just get to say "nuh uh!" and cross your arms and expect me to take your word for it. So, again, do you have a source, preferably a peer reviewed paper discussing the feasibility of creating an energy system that isn't based off of a baseload?

I didn't know know that quoting a peer-reviewed Stanford study which was also released in the renowed Energy & Enviromental Science journal is a "nuh uh!" equivalent.

This is just nonsense. What are you exactly claiming would not be possible with nuclear?

It's another pretty simple thing. How much investment resulted in installed energy capacities while also taking the building time into account. This thread is mostly just nuclear is great, industry will deliever new super great reactors "just believe it" while ignoring that renewable energy is streamrolling even in the USA despite the fact that it doesn't have the greatest politcal climate for renewable energy right now

 

[Micael]

It's pretty simple. All energy sources are competing for investments. And right now there are 9billion wasted because the nuclear industry isn't even capable of building two 1117 MW reactors, even if it didn't get canceled the calculated price for that little installed energy capacity is ridiculous.

Meanwhile building solar and wind parks is simple, fast, with low project risks, the renewable energy sector also already provides more jobs than all other energy sources together in the USA!

They are competing for investment yes, but they serve completely different needs as I have stated in my post, renewable isn't going to be the only solution, so you need other power sources, you need power sources which can deliver power 24/7 anywhere in the world, and literally the only power source available right now that can do that without throwing tons of carbon dioxide into the air, is nuclear fission, so it isn't 1 or the other, it 1 and the other (including all renewable sources as 1 ofc).

Also it isn't the nuclear industry that isn't capable, its those specific companies, more nuclear plants are being built around the world (and yes some/a lot are also going over budget), and ofc have been built in the past, one assumes those are also part of the nuclear industry, you can literally screw up any project, and go way over budget on anything, it is hardly a reason to dismiss an entire technology, especially when once again it is the only technology you have right now which can deliver "clean" power 24/7 at anything resembling cost effective, even if undoubtedly nuclear fission is now and will almost certainly forever be far more prone to those sort of problems than renewable.

Solar definitely creates far more jobs, especially right now, but once again it isn't 1 or the other.

BTW power capacity should be seen as a life long potential, it is a far more valuable/accurate value to use when talking about different power plants, especially in a world where renewable energies are so important yet where maximum power is so "irrelevant".

 

[Xe4]

I didn't know know that quoting a peer-reviewed Stanford study which was also released in the renowed Energy & Enviroment Science journal is a "nuh uh!" equivalent.

Well, first of all, you could have linked to the study, at which you had only just done when I posted my first reply and had not done when I quoted your post.

Again, and I didn't even know you had posted a Jacobson study when I made my post, but usually when people make far out predictions on the future of renewable energy, they cite him. He is far, far from the consensus on the issue. His study has been thoroughly goes against the economic consensus on the reality of the energy system in the US.

He is highly known for giving overly optimistic numbers in the way which we could reduce our carbon supply and to quote him is to ignore the larger consensus that says it is not feasible. He is a credible source, and your'e free to cite him, but you have to acknowledge the larger consensus that disagrees with him (as with any topic in science or economics):

See here:

these figures are considerably higher than the consensus determined by other researchers on that topic. For example, in 2012 Heath and Warner from Yale University and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory analyzed all the previous work on the total life-cycle greenhouse-gas emsssions of nuclear energy and did not arrive at the same nuclear power values or judgements that Jacobson has. Determining instead that nuclear is "comparable [to] renewable energy" systems, in terms of the total life cycle carbon footprint and that the most supported value for nuclear is 12 g/kWh. While Jacobson's results are at the higher end of the two extreme poles of peer-reviewed calculations that the IPCC deemed worthy of consideration (1-220 g/CO2eq/kWh), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) regard Warner and Heath's methodology as the most credible and thus also report that the nuclear power emission is 12 g/kWh, which is comparable to wind energy.

See here as well for just one critique of his paper:
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/28/E3988.full

 

[Frankfurter]

They are competing for investment yes, but they serve completely different needs as I have stated in my post, renewable isn't going to be the only solution, so you need other power sources, you need power sources which can deliver power 24/7 anywhere in the world, and literally the only power source available right now that can do that without throwing tons of carbon dioxide into the air, is nuclear fission, so it isn't 1 or the other, it 1 and the other (including all renewable sources as 1 ofc).

Also it isn't the nuclear industry that isn't capable, its those specific companies, more nuclear plants are being built around the world (and yes some/a lot are also going over budget), and ofc have been built in the past, one assumes those are also part of the nuclear industry, you can literally screw up any project, and go way over budget on anything, it is hardly a reason to dismiss an entire technology, especially when once again it is the only technology you have right now which can deliver "clean" power 24/7 at anything resembling cost effective, even if undoubtedly nuclear fission is now and will almost certainly forever be far more prone to those sort of problems than renewable.

Solar definitely creates far more jobs, especially right now, but once again it isn't 1 or the other.

BTW power capacity should be seen as a life long potential, it is a far more valuable/accurate value to use when talking about different power plants, especially in a world where renewable energies are so important yet where maximum power is so "irrelevant".

That's true right now. But right now isn't the issue. We are not that far into renewables yet. In 20 years or so this won't be an issue anymore. Battery storage capacity will increase dramatically. Solar and wind will be even cheaper by then. There is no reason to build nuclear power plants over solar and wind anymore, considering that both are cheaper already.

 

[StarCreator]

This is plain wrong. Sorry.

Oh, so we can power New York City on wind and solar alone? Then why are we still burning coal to do it, let alone having nuclear on the table?

Both coal and nuclear are vastly more costly to operate and no profit-minded energy company in the world would pass up mothballing them if they weren't actually needed.

 

[Maedre]

This is sad though. Nuclear power is the cleanest form of reliable power generation we have. There need to be more nuclear plants in operation, not less.

Bullshit

 

[Frankfurter]

Oh, so we can power New York City on wind and solar alone? Then why are we still burning coal to do it, let alone having nuclear on the table?

Both coal and nuclear are vastly more costly to operate and no profit-minded energy company in the world would pass up mothballing them if they weren't actually needed.

No profit-minded energy company would be building nuclear power plants if it weren't for massive subsidies. I'm gonna once again throw Hinkley Point C into this: 92.50 pounds per MWh guaranteed feed-in tariff + inflation. Compared to ~half that for the actual market price.

Renewables already attract more investments than fossil fuels (incl. large hydro and nuclear): http://fs-unep-centre.org/publications/global-trends-renewable-energy-investment-2017

 

[Koren]

Nuclear waste is the dirtiest form of waste there is. Nuclear plants cannot be turned off for any reason once they are live or else they will cause a meltdown - see Fukushima.

Fukushima failure to stop was 100% human error, they forgot to open the passive cooling system.

Not that I disagree with you on the problems of those kind of plants.

Nuclear power was a mistake and needs to be retired forever.

Nuclear fission... Fusion (mostly) doesn't have the drawbacks you quote...

 

[StarCreator]

No profit-minded energy company would be building nuclear power plants if it weren't for massive subsidies. I'm gonna once again throw Hinkley Point C into this: 92.50 pounds per MWh guaranteed feed-in tariff + inflation. Compared to ~half that for the actual market price.

Renewables already attract more investments than fossil fuels (incl. large hydro and nuclear): http://fs-unep-centre.org/publications/global-trends-renewable-energy-investment-2017

... but didn't you just say the battery technology to support it isn't ready yet?

 

[Frankfurter]

... but didn't you just say the battery technology to support it isn't ready yet?

I also said that we are not that far yet in terms of renewables...!? There is no need for large-scale battery or other storage systems to support renewables yet. I'm, again, gonna point out that the operator of North/Northeastern part of the German energy grid says that 80% of renewables wouldn't be much of an issue (they were at ~50% in 2015!).

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtscha...t-erneuerbare-sind-kein-problem/13688974.html

Choice quote: "Wir sind auf dem richtigen Weg, um in der Lage sein zu können, in Zukunft 70 bis 80 Prozent erneuerbare Energien ohne zusätzliche Flexibilitätsoptionen integrieren zu können. Was wir an Flexibilitätsangeboten haben, wird uns bis 2030 oder sogar 2040 ausreichen."

"We are on the right track to be able to integrate 70-80% of renewable energies without additional 'flexibility options'. What we have in terms of flexibility [right now], will suffice until 2030 or even 2040."

 

[Koren]

Aren't a part of flexibility in Germany exchange with neighbors that doesn't enter the %, though?

 

[Frankfurter]

Aren't a part of flexibility in Germany exchange with neighbors that doesn't enter the %, though?

Sure there are imports and exports. We need to get those Frenchmen through the summer when their nuclear power plants can't properly operate due to high temperatures

 

[Koren]

Sure there are imports and exports. We need to get those Frenchmen through the summer when their nuclear power plants can't properly operate due to high temperatures

Well, that's an argument for diversity

 

[Micael]

That's true right now. But right now isn't the issue. We are not that far into renewables yet. In 20 years or so this won't be an issue anymore. Battery storage capacity will increase dramatically. Solar and wind will be even cheaper by then. There is no reason to build nuclear power plants over solar and wind anymore, considering that both are cheaper already.

We could also go with the 20 years down the line and just assume we will have fusion and that will pretty much end the need for anything other than fusion (in non movable things), or we might come up with a great cost effective way to remove carbon from the atmosphere, but I believe if you are betting on the future now, it should be on things that are available right now, not avoid having the costs now because you might get something better in the future.

But for the sake of argument lets assume only renewable and batteries improve with time and scale, and that we will get better batteries and more efficient renewable, which we will, if you want to go with renewable only you need to calculate the worst case scenario, which are completely different values than what we are getting right now for energy generated by renewable sources.

If you want a renewable only future, you need to calculate storage of said energy for several days, which will depend on the region, but if one takes into account say new york has apparently 55% of its days as cloudy, those several days can be quite a bit, so you need to size your batteries to feed an entire region for several days, then ofc you want to overspec it because there might be more energy demand than usual, then you want to overspec over that too because assuming no new magical battery tech deep discharges will diminish the life of the battery significantly, and you want the investment to last longer, then you need to assume that say cloudy days will last for several days, you will get a sunny day and then you will get another streak of cloudy days, so all the sudden you need to increase power production to charge the batteries pretty quickly, like in 1 or 2 days depending on the region, so suddenly having enough power production to feed a city for that day just simply isn't enough, you need to have a power output of several times the daily power consumption of that city, these would be the real power requirements of a renewable only future, which are not at all being considered right now, because right now, you get clouds you turn up a non renewable power plant.

Now will the price in the price of solar panels and batteries decrease in the future? Sure, but for a renewable only future they don't just need to decrease, they need to decrease many many times, because the amount needed to be put into place will also increase many times, the prices we have for other non renewable sources is "final" and takes into account a world without renewable, the price we have for renewable however does not take into account a world without non renewables, and that is a huge price difference, in the many times more than what we get right now.

As I said before, you can get a lot of easy gains right now in a lot of countries by going heavy on renewable, but after a point the costs of converting to renewable start to increase by many times, at which point you lose any sort of financial viability short of some absolutely staggering price drops, and once again we need energy solutions which work everywhere in the world (or there abouts)

 

[DrROBschiz]

Bullshit

Not bullshit

I swear does anyone read threads anymore?

 

[Spoiled Milk]

This shit is too safe! Costs too much!

 

[Frankfurter]

We could also go with the 20 years down the line and just assume we will have fusion and that will pretty much end the need for anything other than fusion (in non movable things), or we might come up with a great cost effective way to remove carbon from the atmosphere, but I believe if you are betting on the future now, it should be on things that are available right now, not avoid having the costs now because you might get something better in the future.

I don't quite see your point? Fusion doesn't work yet, renewables and batteries do. (I'm pro nuclear fusion R&D btw.)

But for the sake of argument lets assume only renewable and batteries improve with time and scale, and that we will get better batteries and more efficient renewable, which we will, if you want to go with renewable only you need to calculate the worst case scenario, which are completely different values than what we are getting right now for energy generated by renewable sources.

If you want a renewable only future, you need to calculate storage of said energy for several days, which will depend on the region, but if one takes into account say new york has apparently 55% of its days as cloudy, those several days can be quite a bit, so you need to size your batteries to feed an entire region for several days, then ofc you want to overspec it because there might be more energy demand than usual, then you want to overspec over that too because assuming no new magical battery tech deep discharges will diminish the life of the battery significantly, and you want the investment to last longer, then you need to assume that say cloudy days will last for several days, you will get a sunny day and then you will get another streak of cloudy days, so all the sudden you need to increase power production to charge the batteries pretty quickly, like in 1 or 2 days depending on the region, so suddenly having enough power production to feed a city for that day just simply isn't enough, you need to have a power output of several times the daily power consumption of that city, these would be the real power requirements of a renewable only future, which are not at all being considered right now, because right now, you get clouds you turn up a non renewable power plant.

What you wrote there is the no. 1 point for having deeper grid integration (for Europe that is basically a European grid with much more export/import capacities between countries, for the US that would be between states). Yes, it might be cloudy and wind may be low in New York for a couple of days. But it's pretty much impossible for Chicago, New York, Washington and Boston regions all to have ~zero wind and ~zero sun for numerous days in a row.

Now will the price in the price of solar panels and batteries decrease in the future? Sure, but for a renewable only future they don't just need to decrease, they need to decrease many many times, because the amount needed to be put into place will also increase many times, the prices we have for other non renewable sources is "final" and takes into account a world without renewable, the price we have for renewable however does not take into account a world without non renewables, and that is a huge price difference, in the many times more than what we get right now.

As I said before, you can get a lot of easy gains right now in a lot of countries by going heavy on renewable, but after a point the costs of converting to renewable start to increase by many times, at which point you lose any sort of financial viability short of some absolutely staggering price drops, and once again we need energy solutions which work everywhere in the world (or there abouts)

I don't get your point here? First, wind and solar prices will most likely further decrease in the future. But why would they need to decrease many times? They are already cheaper than nuclear, they are way cheaper than "clean coal"...
I also can't follow this: "the price we have for renewable however does not take into account a world without non renewables, and that is a huge price difference, in the many times more than what we get right now."
I'm not quite sure what you mean with this? I guess for whatever reason you think that prices for renewables are gonna skyrocket at some point?

"and once again we need energy solutions which work everywhere in the world"

There is wind everywhere in the world. There is sun everywhere in the world... If Germany can make the sun work for it, ~95% of the planets population can do it (Germany is relatively "close" to the North pole, i.e. badly located compared to the vast majority of human population on this planet)..

 

[PdotMichael]

Fusion isn't relevant here. We need to reduce CO2 emissions now and not in 2050 and later when commercial fusion ractors are ready (if ever).

Oh, so we can power New York City on wind and solar alone? Then why are we still burning coal to do it, let alone having nuclear on the table?

Both coal and nuclear are vastly more costly to operate and no profit-minded energy company in the world would pass up mothballing them if they weren't actually needed.

What? Just in New York the amount of solar instalements quadrupled in less than 5 years, while New York City has recently increased the targets to 1,000 MW by 2030.
The growth rate of renewable energy is outpacing everything else, that's the reality in the USA. And we are talking about a country that now lacks a national energy agenda.

 

[DrROBschiz]

Nuclear and Renewable advocates are on the same fucking team

And right now we are rallying behind renewables, or at least I am, until a new nuclear shakeup occurs (its being worked on)

We need to be realistic. Natural gas is growing pretty fast itself so its clear that baseload power is still very influencial despite massive renewable investments

Unfortunately there is a lot of talk of "potential" here which is a hard train to ride. Seeing EU bend over because of energy security concerns over russian natural gas definitely gives me pause

Especially since Germany is on the renewable frontlines

I just want you bastards on board once next gen Nuclear gives us Independence alongside renewables

 

[Frankfurter]

Nuclear and Renewable advocates are on the same fucking team

And right now we are rallying behind renewables, or at least I am, until a new nuclear shakeup occurs (its being worked on)

We need to be realistic. Natural gas is growing pretty fast itself so its clear that baseload power is still very influencial despite massive renewable investments

Unfortunately there is a lot of talk of "potential" here which is a hard train to ride. Seeing EU bend over because of energy security concerns over russian natural gas definitely gives me pause

Especially since Germany is on the renewable frontlines

I just want you bastards on board once next gen Nuclear gives us Independence alongside renewables

I'm all for cheap and clean nuclear energy. But the thing is nuclear had 60 years or so of time to bring that to the market. So far it has failed. So count me in team "no more large-scale subsidies for nuclear, it had its chance, but it failed miserably". If energy companies are convinced they can do it, then they need to fund it by themselves imo.
Solar and wind had ~20 years of significant subsidies by now and they are already cheaper than nuclear.

 

[PdotMichael]

Solar and Wind have always the advantage that you don't need to invest billions to upgrade to a new reactor design but replacing solar panals and wind energy systems with more modern and efficient ones are small investments compared to other energy sources.

 

[Micael]

I don't quite see your point? Fusion doesn't work yet, renewable and batteries do. (I'm pro nuclear fusion R&D btw.)

Well nuclear fusion sort of already works, you just put more power in than out to make it work.
My point was that you are assuming future technology, and making investments based on future technology that doesn't exist yet, and for which I don't believe we are on track for, a renewable only future you would need batteries and renewables combined at a price point that makes them more viable than financially and ecologically than nuclear fission, which I don't think we aren't anywhere close to yet, so assuming we will be close to it in 20 years is a bit of a leap, even if it might happen.

What you wrote there is the no. 1 point for having deeper grid integration (for Europe that is basically a European grid with much more export/import capacities between countries, for the US that would be between states). Yes, it might be cloudy and wind may be low in New York for a couple of days. But it's pretty much impossible for Chicago, New York, Washington and Boston regions all to have ~zero wind and ~zero sun for numerous days in a row.

Deeper grid integration helps, although transferring energy across large vasts of space has losses, but either way you still need to store enough energy worth to power the zones you need to power for several days, either that or increase energy production also quite significantly in each area to make up for all that, which is also an issue, after all it is pretty complicated to account for all that, and size accordingly, so you need to oversize a lot, oversizing energy production and storage has costs.

I don't get your point here? First, wind and solar prices will most likely further decrease in the future. But why would they need to decrease many times? They are already cheaper than nuclear, they are way cheaper than "clean coal"...
I also can't follow this: "the price we have for renewable however does not take into account a world without non renewable, and that is a huge price difference, in the many times more than what we get right now."
I'm not quite sure what you mean with this? I guess for whatever reason you think that prices for renewable are gonna skyrocket at some point?

"and once again we need energy solutions which work everywhere in the world"

There is wind everywhere in the world. There is sun everywhere in the world... If Germany can make the sun work for it, ~95% of the planets population can do it (Germany is relatively "close" to the North pole, i.e. badly located compared to the vast majority of human population on this planet)..

You got my point completely wrong, my point is that right now you measure the price of say solar power, by how much energy they will produce over the cost of the panels, and the cost of their installation and maintenance, but that way of calculating things does not work if you are talking about a future with renewable only, a future only with renewable energy, requires energy storage, if you need to have energy storage, that adds to the cost of renewable energy, and right now energy storage costs many times more than energy production.

 

[Koren]

Well nuclear fusion sort of already works, you just put more power in than out to make it work.

Well, they managed positive output, but it's totally unreliable, and starting the thing is still awful (it needs its own nuclear fission reactor). There's a long way to go :/

I don't quite see your point? Fusion doesn't work yet, renewables and batteries do.

Batteries do?

Isn't the largest battery farm 129MWh, which is just shy of 1 second of USA electricity production?

You of course don't need to get close to the the global consumption, but it still seems challenging to me, I would believe that pumped-storage would still be the only really fully usable storage solution right now.

 

[Micael]

Giving a simple example, lets say you need to power something that consumes on average 1kw/h a day, in a normal fossil fuel source this is simple, you need a power source that provides say 1kw/h a day (lets keep losses out of it), if you went with solar you need to provide 1kw/h every day, but since you can't rely on solar 24 hours a day, you need batteries, so lets say you are never without sun (it isn't significantly cloudy) for more than 3 days, ok so you need 3 days of batteries, so you need 3kw/h a day worth of batteries (you need more due to battery aging but lets assume), but now you no longer need just 1kw/h per day of solar, because 1kw/h per day of solar is not enough to feed the station and charge the depleted batteries, so you need more, lets assume you want to charge them in 1 day or 2, so lets say you want 3kw/h (you would probably need more, but lets go this way).

Suddenly you need not only 3 times the power generation of a normal fossil fuel (or nuclear) power source, but you also need to add 3 days worth of batteries, this is a cost that is just simply not taken into account in most numbers we see for solar energy production, because it just simply isn't needed, since non renewable provide the stability in the equation, but as soon as non renewable stop providing the backing to the grid you need to start charging batteries, you need to start over spec solar panel installations by quite a bit, all this has costs that just simply aren't taken into account right now, because right now they don't exist, the only place they are being taken into account is if say you go and do a solar installation in your home with full grid independence, at which point you will see the cost of going solar only increase by many many times.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

It doesn't really matter at this point, really. The time to build nuclear plants was years ago, but idiot alarmists screamed and cried, so we're still on fossil fuels even as we approach the point of no return, assuming we haven't already passed it.

Hundreds of years from now people will look back at anti-nuclear histrionics as perhaps humanity's greatest mistake. If we're still around by then.

 

[PdotMichael]

A nuclear plant isn't running 365 days a year.
So you need backups anyway - which is also more and more handled by batteries instead of peak power plants for economical reasons.

The joke with renewable energy sources is that they are great at backing up each other. Many people who earn a lot of money and have a healthy academic background in that regard researched all the stuff already.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

A nuclear plant isn't running 365 days a year.
So you need backups anyway - which is also more and more handled by batteries instead of peak power plants for economical reasons.

Uh, yes they are. Nuclear plants run on 18-24 month schedules for refueling, and you don't have to take the whole plant down. Plants can go years without an outage.

And when they do go down, they're backed up by other power plants, not batteries. Unless you have some magical super-battery that can supply an entire city's power for 40 days straight lying in your basement.

 

[PdotMichael]

dp - for whatever reasons

 

[DrROBschiz]

It doesn't really matter at this point, really. The time to build nuclear plants was years ago, but idiot alarmists screamed and cried, so we're still on fossil fuels even as we approach the point of no return, assuming we haven't already passed it.

Hundreds of years from now people will look back at anti-nuclear histrionics as perhaps humanity's greatest mistake. If we're still around by then.

They had Multiple research facilities working on various methods of Nuclear power and decided on the one that allowed us to make bombs

Now 60 years later we have a handful of US startups, China, India, Canada and some EU nations working on alternative nuclear designs (some MSR, some others) so I will be very interested to see just how bad our old decisions were assuming these modern reactors turn out to be the silver bullet we hoped Fission would be

Hell even a marked improvement over ancient and inefficient LWR concept would be an huge improvement. I remain cautiously optimistic but its a shame that the push in the states is so minimal

I do hope renewables continue to grow here especially given how large and spread out out country is. Decentralize modular power is the way to go for states and some industrial sectors already generate their own power locally

 

[PdotMichael]

Uh, yes they are. Nuclear plants run on 18-24 month schedules. When they do go down they get backed up by other power plants, not batteries.

A typical nucler power plant has an annual efficiency of around 80-90%. Off-shore and On-shore windparks are normally reaching way higher annual efficiency stats.

I'm also sorry to hear that you still stuck in the 20th century.

 

[Frankfurter]

Well nuclear fusion sort of already works, you just put more power in than out to make it work.
My point was that you are assuming future technology, and making investments based on future technology that doesn't exist yet, and for which I don't believe we are on track for, a renewable only future you would need batteries and renewables combined at a price point that makes them more viable than financially and ecologically than nuclear fission, which I don't think we aren't anywhere close to yet, so assuming we will be close to it in 20 years is a bit of a leap, even if it might happen.

I really don't think it's a leap at all. Electric cars are the future, there is ~zero doubt about that. Every single electric car needs to have a battery in it. Assume (extremely conservative) that every electric car would have a 20KWh battery and you've got yourself a free (as in: it would exist anyway) storage solution that dwarfs everything we currently have.
Easy example for Germany (where I have an idea about the rough numbers): 20 million electric cars (less than half of what is currently on German roads) multiplied by 20KWh gives a storage capacity of 400,000,000 KWh -> 400,000 MWh -> 400 GWh. Assume that you'd only want to use at 10% of its max. capacity at any given time, that's 40 GWh, i.e. more than half of the average energy need of all of Germany that could be provided for up to 10 hours.
Way more realistic numbers would probably be like 30 million cars, with each having a 60KWh battery, i.e. 1.8 TWh of capacity.

Deeper grid integration helps, although transferring energy across large vasts of space has losses, but either way you still need to store enough energy worth to power the zones you need to power for several days, either that or increase energy production also quite significantly in each area to make up for all that, which is also an issue, after all it is pretty complicated to account for all that, and size accordingly, so you need to oversize a lot, oversizing energy production and storage has costs.

You surely will need to oversize. I don't know about a lot. As I said, bad conditions for wind and solar (and water and biomass etc.) can happen at a single place, but not so much over a large area. But either right now wind is already ~30-50% cheaper than nuclear, so I really don't see an issue in oversizing. I'm pretty sure we'll also see technologies like synthesized natural gas in the future - i.e. when there is too much renewable energy, a power plant synthesizes it into gas, when there isn't enough energy in the grid -> synthesized gas is used.

You got my point completely wrong, my point is that right now you measure the price of say solar power, by how much energy they will produce over the cost of the panels, and the cost of their installation and maintenance, but that way of calculating things does not work if you are talking about a future with renewable only, a future only with renewable energy, requires energy storage, if you need to have energy storage, that adds to the cost of renewable energy, and right now energy storage costs many times more than energy production.

I'm sorry that I got your point wrong. Key for your actual point imo is again: right now. Battery costs are coming down big time. We are headed for an electric car future.

Batteries do?

Isn't the largest battery farm 129MWh, which is just shy of 1 second of USA electricity production?

You of course don't need to get close to the the global consumption, but it still seems challenging to me, I would believe that pumped-storage would still be the only really fully usable storage solution right now.

See my point about car batteries above.

Giving a simple example, lets say you need to power something that consumes on average 1kw/h a day, in a normal fossil fuel source this is simple, you need a power source that provides say 1kw/h a day (lets keep losses out of it), if you went with solar you need to provide 1kw/h every day, but since you can't rely on solar 24 hours a day, you need batteries, so lets say you are never without sun (it isn't significantly cloudy) for more than 3 days, ok so you need 3 days of batteries, so you need 3kw/h a day worth of batteries (you need more due to battery aging but lets assume), but now you no longer need just 1kw/h per day of solar, because 1kw/h per day of solar is not enough to feed the station and charge the depleted batteries, so you need more, lets assume you want to charge them in 1 day or 2, so lets say you want 3kw/h (you would probably need more, but lets go this way).

Suddenly you need not only 3 times the power generation of a normal fossil fuel (or nuclear) power source, but you also need to add 3 days worth of batteries, this is a cost that is just simply not taken into account in most numbers we see for solar energy production, because it just simply isn't needed, since non renewable provide the stability in the equation, but as soon as non renewable stop providing the backing to the grid you need to start charging batteries, you need to start over spec solar panel installations by quite a bit, all this has costs that just simply aren't taken into account right now, because right now they don't exist, the only place they are being taken into account is if say you go and do a solar installation in your home with full grid independence, at which point you will see the cost of going solar only increase by many many times.

This is a stupid scenario. No one argues that the world should be powered by just solar.

 

[TheLaughingStock]

So, they'll just print new money, what's the problem?

You're right there isn't one.

This project was proposed a decade ago and its share of GDP is so tiny it doesn't even register as chump change. I mean they could've failed 100x times in a row...who cares? Moreover, the US has computers so there's no need for new money to be printed.

 

[kingkaiser]

Hundreds of years from now people will look back at anti-nuclear histrionics as perhaps humanity's greatest mistake. If we're still around by then.

They will look back at Chernobyl, Fukushima, places still uninhabitable due to radiation, huge amounts of radioactive waste that must be stored for tens of thousands of years but without a solution for a final disposal site
and they will thank the gods some wise people chose to opt out of this madness.

 

[The Albatross]

Of course.

When oil prices soared, everything went up in price because of that.

Now that they've gone down and stabilized, everything is just as expensive.

That's not true. My oil bill to fill up my tank used to be close to $750/fill in the winter. Then in early 2009ish it was $220/fill (right as the recession killed the oil price), now as gas/oil has stabilized around $2.30-2.80/gal, it's around $280-$350 give or take the seasonal adjustment.

Its comforting to think "they jacked the price and never dropped it when prices stabilized!" But it's factually not true. Some utility companies will offer contactualized prices over, say, 2 years, so that your energy bills are consistent by averaging out the seasonal variance and market conditions, but then it evens on both sides... You don't pay as much when the price goes up, but you don't save as much when the price collapses. A lot of people locked into $3.50/gal right when the double-dip hit and gas plummeted back to $2.10 or so, and they had to eat it that winter.

Other gas dependent products like milk or vegetables went up in price and then came back down.

Everything else is explained by moderate inflation in a growing economy. The economy crashed in 2008 and theres generally been 9 years of YoY growth since then (double dip 2011/2012 stagnant), and while inflation has been low, consumer prices still follow the the growing economy. So if you're paying 2.80 for a gallon of milk today and $2.80 for a gallon of milk in 2007 when gas was high, it's because the consumer price index has had roughly 8 years of consistent growth.

 

[KingV]

The nuclear industry suffers from the plain fact that they are too expensive and compete with other energy sources which leads to stuff like Westinghouse which just operates with wrong numbers and cost projections just to get the job... and hoping for "too big/late to fall" political help.

Meanwhile the 8 billion lost (not even operating with the crazy projected costs) in that program, invested in renewable energy would have resulted in several GWh's of installed renewable energy capacities in a way shorter timeframe.

edit:
It were even even 9billion... how stupid of me.



There is a obvious solution for the energy problem but we shouldn't do it because plain lies (renewable energy can't cover national/global energy needs) for something which proved that has an incredible rat tail of cons like economical and safety risks, and being useful for baseload anyway - but somehow the future will fix it because reasons.

And somehow opposing nuclear energy makes one an anti-vaxxer.

You clearly didn't read my post. This is basically just a random reply.

 

[SmartBase]

Just the latest disaster in the so called nuclear renaissance. Hinkley Point, Flamanville, that power plant in Finland... all 2-3 times over budget, years late, billions of taxpayer subsidies, but still can't compete with solar or wind.

Yeah nuclear definitely can't complete with solar in Finland. We have so much solar radiation to tap into all throughout the year, especially during long winter months when we need more electricity for heating (unlike the dummies down south who use Russian gas).

 

[Micael]

I really don't think it's a leap at all. Electric cars are the future, there is ~zero doubt about that. Every single electric car needs to have a battery in it. Assume (extremely conservative) that every electric car would have a 20KWh battery and you've got yourself a free (as in: it would exist anyway) storage solution that dwarfs everything we currently have.
Easy example for Germany (where I have an idea about the rough numbers): 20 million electric cars (less than half of what is currently on German roads) multiplied by 20KWh gives a storage capacity of 400,000,000 KWh -> 400,000 MWh -> 400 GWh. Assume that you'd only want to use at 10% of its max. capacity at any given time, that's 40 GWh, i.e. more than half of the average energy need of all of Germany that could be provided for up to 10 hours.
Way more realistic numbers would probably be like 30 million cars, with each having a 60KWh battery, i.e. 1.8 TWh of capacity.





You surely will need to oversize. I don't know about a lot. As I said, bad conditions for wind and solar (and water and biomass etc.) can happen at a single place, but not so much over a large area. But either right now wind is already ~30-50% cheaper than nuclear, so I really don't see an issue in oversizing. I'm pretty sure we'll also see technologies like synthesized natural gas in the future - i.e. when there is too much renewable energy, a power plant synthesizes it into gas, when there isn't enough energy in the grid -> synthesized gas is used.




I'm sorry that I got your point wrong. Key for your actual point imo is again: right now. Battery costs are coming down big time. We are headed for an electric car future.





See my point about car batteries above.




This is a stupid scenario. No one argues that the world should be powered by just solar.

The idea of the car batteries has a few issues.
Car ownership can change wildly from city to city, let alone from country to country, China has by comparison to Germany barely any cars per citizen, same as with India.
People that have a car generally want to use it, and since you don't have 1 car per person, you have an issue.
Taking energy from a car and feeding it back to the grid in any way resembling efficient would be an issue to say the least, and if we assume we are talking about using it just in house, then what about industrial facilities, I have a 275kw generator, that powers something to close to 12 hours in some days, now I would only need 55 vehicles to power it for that time for a single day, assuming 60kw/h batteries, and honestly this is a really tiny facility.
With automation of driving I wouldn't be surprised if the amount of cars per people at least in more developed countries will diminish in the future.
Using electric cars as batteries isn't the most reliable plan in the world, and honestly would make electrical stability of a grid a complete nightmare to maintain even if it could be realistically implemented.

As for the point of using synthesized gas, as I said there are quite a few ways of storing energy besides batteries, even reusing old tunnels can work, but once again we come back to currently not really having a world wide solution for the issue, and if we go for renewable only, we really should.

When I gave that example I wasn't saying anyone is arguing solar only, but you can't exactly give an example that is easy with several types of renewable sources, first because with the exception of the sun, certain renewable sources might not even be available, secondly because how do you even calculate for that, which is ofc part of the issue, if you want a reliable grid, you need to have reliable energy sources, and renewable isn't reliable without some form of backup, hence energy storage, which once again isn't a problem now in the way we do things, because we have a non renewable energies as backup, and battery backup is just way way more expensive, we are roughly 400$ per kw/h in batteries, with the price predicted to half by 2030, that is still going to be really expensive.

 

[Frankfurter]

Yeah nuclear definitely can't complete with solar in Finland. We have so much solar radiation to tap into all throughout the year, especially during long winter months when we need more electricity for heating (unlike the dummies down south who use Russian gas).

Wind and water power say "Hi!". Coindicentally there is more wind during the cold winter months in Finland. http://www.tuulivoimayhdistys.fi/en...nd-power-in-finland/is-it-windy-in-the-winter

Helsinki has slightly more sunshine hours than the average of Germany btw.


@Micael I feel like we are stuck at a point where we just disagree about advancements in terms of storage (et al.) technology and there is not much one or the other can do to convince the respective other one. You think it's gonna be a lot of trouble, I don't think so. We're headed for that 100% renewable future anyway, so let's see how it works out.

Just a last point: your figures in terms of battery prices are WAY* outdated: https://electrek.co/2017/01/30/electric-vehicle-battery-cost-dropped-80-6-years-227kwh-tesla-190kwh/

* In this case probably like 2 years, which speaks volumens about the cost regression we are seeing here.

 

[StarCreator]

This is a stupid scenario. No one argues that the world should be powered by just solar.

PdotMichael pretty much is. You saw his reply about powering New York City with nothing but solar panels, right?

 

[TheRedSnifit]

A typical nucler power plant has an annual efficiency of around 80-90%. Off-shore and On-shore windparks are normally reaching way higher annual efficiency stats.

I'm also sorry to hear that you still stuck in the 20th century.

Energy efficiency? As in the amount of energy expended to create a kilowatt hour? Obviously nuclear is going to be less efficient in this respect than noncombustible energy sources. This has nothing to do with whether or not nuclear plants shut down every year (they don't). Are you referring to something else?

When nuclear plants do go down, it's for weeks at a time, usually around 40 days. Please show me this battery that powers cities for such an extended period of time.

They will look back at Chernobyl, Fukushima, places still uninhabitable due to radiation, huge amounts of radioactive waste that must be stored for tens of thousands of years but without a solution for a final disposal site
and they will thank the gods some wise people chose to opt out of this madness.

Given that the areas surrounding Chernobyl and Fukushima are indeed inhabitable (I presume you aren't talking about pitching tents inside the plants themselves), that'll probably seem small potatoes compared to, amongst other things, the actually uninhabitable places that will be underwater or turned into deserts thanks to extended fossil fuel use, and the ensuing wars that will break out.

 

[Neith]

"launched" is the right word if they never produced power in the first place.

This is sad though. Nuclear power is the cleanest form of reliable power generation we have. There need to be more nuclear plants in operation, not less.

There need to be more standards in place for where we are putting the waste. More standards around the globe for third world countries using nuclear. No one want third world countries building more nuclear you are insane. The world is less stable, not more stable. Any catastrophic event could affect any number of nuclear reactors. This just seems a bit weird to say since we still have an ongoing crisis at Fukushima.

We are coming on to an age where the big business of nuclear will have to spend billions in upgrades. But will they? Or will they just let plants break down. Everyone knows newer reactors are more safe, the problem is no one is using them.

It's also weird to say Nuclear is so clean, when in reality the waste just sits around. It's not inherently clean. It's actually very dirty. They just released how much water into the Pacific that was still contaminated at Fukushima?

I'm not anti-nuclear, but the industry is corrupt as hell like most utilities. No one should have ever allowed Japan to build those reactors on the faults near an ocean. Who the fuck does shit like that?

It doesn't really matter at this point, really. The time to build nuclear plants was years ago, but idiot alarmists screamed and cried, so we're still on fossil fuels even as we approach the point of no return, assuming we haven't already passed it.

Hundreds of years from now people will look back at anti-nuclear histrionics as perhaps humanity's greatest mistake. If we're still around by then.

Okay, just no lol. Nuclear savior writers. This is almost tabloid level reaction to something you have no power to predict. Thanks for the warning.

Yeah, if we're still around by then. With Nuclear Weapons being one of the main culprits if we are not. SMH.

 

[Frankfurter]

PdotMichael pretty much is. You saw his reply about powering New York City with nothing but solar panels, right?

I didn't see that post actually. To clear up my post: no one in the scientific community, no one that is actually part of the decision making process.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

Okay, just no lol. Nuclear savior writers. This is almost tabloid level reaction to something you have no power to predict. Thanks for the warning.

Yeah, if we're still around by then. With Nuclear Weapons being one of the main culprits if we are not. SMH.

Strange how, whenever nuclear power comes up, it becomes the environmentalists who start downplaying the effects of global warming.

Attempting to equate nuclear power plants with nuclear bombs is laughable.

 

[Neith]

Strange how, whenever nuclear power comes up, it becomes the environmentalists who start downplaying the effects of global warming.

Attempting to equate nuclear power plants with nuclear bombs is laughable.

I'm not an environmentalist. I'm someone that thinks with logic. We have a current problem with old nuclear technology and irresponsible nations using nuclear technology.

Let's solve that before we just start building ourselves into our own demise. Maybe make sure the world is stable. The US doesn't build because at some point it becomes a national security issue to have so many reactors everywhere.

No one equated weapons with power generation. The fact is nuclear weapons will kill us faster than the environment will based on all probability at this point. You claimed in a hundred years this or that will happen. I said in a hundred years it will be nuclear weapons that have destroyed us if we aren't here. You can't predict any of this so stop being a drama queen about it.

Or a volcano might be it but that has nothing to do with fossil fuel use.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

I'm not an environmentalist. I'm someone that thinks with logic. We have a current problem with old nuclear technology and irresponsible nations using nuclear technology.

Let's solve that before we just start building ourselves into our own demise. Maybe make sure the world is stable. The US doesn't build because at some point it becomes a national security issue to have so many reactors everywhere.

Do you have a source for that explanation? Because the article that serves as the foundation of this very thread puts forward a very different one:

The reactors were proposed a decade ago when U.S. policymakers expected more than a dozen new nuclear power plants to provide carbon-free electricity. In the years since, however, a shale revolution unleashed a glut of cheaper natural gas, the Fukushima accident in Japan raised fresh safety concerns and the Drumpf administration is now unwinding steps aimed at countering climate change.

Economics caused by dirt-cheap fossil fuels, alarmism, and climate change denial are the actual reasons.

No one equated weapons with power generation. The fact is nuclear weapons will kill us faster than the environment will based on all probability at this point. You claimed in a hundred years this or that will happen. I said in a hundred years it will be nuclear weapons that have destroyed us if we aren't here. You can't predict any of this so stop being a drama queen about it.

Or a volcano might be it but that has nothing to do with fossil fuel use.

Nuclear weapons may well be the end of humanity, but it will almost certainly be because of increased tensions caused by global warming. Lots of ecosystems will crash hard, taking down their ability to support (such large numbers of) humans, leading to uncertainty, disarray, chaos, and more wars in many regions as people start battling over things like clean(ish) water, food, and livable land.