[HN Gopher] Activists who embrace nuclear power
___________________________________________________________________
Activists who embrace nuclear power
Author : pseudolus
Score : 157 points
Date : 2021-02-21 15:10 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| wavefunction wrote:
| I think it behooves the US and any other country serious about
| both climate change and extra-planetary exploration and
| colonization to develop a robust terrestrial nuclear power
| program as well as encouraging a trained cadre of nuclear
| engineers who can manage nuclear power sources on other planets,
| satellites and space-craft.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > encouraging a trained cadre of nuclear engineers who can
| manage nuclear power sources
|
| Ignoring the context of the rest of your comment, it should be
| noted that the US Navy has a near-perfect record in nuclear
| safety. This is often attributed to them not working for a
| profit motive. If we're going to use nuclear power on other
| solar system bodies, and I expect that we will, then most
| likely that knowledge will come from US Navy expertise.
| AngryData wrote:
| They also have the benefit of being able to flood and sink
| reactors in the ocean to prevent meltdowns. Which is why im
| an advocate for off-shore nuclear power, either floating, or
| even better, completely underwater. Of course that increases
| costs, but it would make nuclear almost completely safe even
| in the worst case scenarios.
| wavefunction wrote:
| I am aware of the US Navy's nuclear engineering program but
| it's likely not capable of producing enough nuclear engineers
| for future needs, I expect.
| dongobongo wrote:
| I think that's their plan: https://usnc.com/space/
| phabora wrote:
| Is the US serious about extra-planetary colonization?
| dylan604 wrote:
| if (US == "Musk") ? true : false
| wavefunction wrote:
| As serious as any other country from what I can tell.
| nharada wrote:
| I'm sick of every single thread on nuclear turning into a flame
| war of wind/solar vs nuclear. It really detracts from the real
| issue of high carbon sources -- why is the conversation never
| about nuclear vs the natural gas plants that are being built at
| an astoundingly fast rate? Those two things are even more similar
| since they are both baseline power sources.
| dongobongo wrote:
| These guys explicitly want to couple their nuclear plant with
| wind/solar: https://usnc.com/mmr-energy-system/. And from top
| level, it looks a lot like a natural gas plant.
| runarberg wrote:
| I'm guessing that is because nuclear is often framed as a
| solution to the climate disaster.
|
| If the discussion was simply: _"see how cool of a technology
| nuclear power is; see how nuclear powers the latest mars
| rover"_ I would not guess there would be a lot of backlash.
| However in this thread you see a lot of: _"wind and solar has
| some problems too"_ , or _"nuclear waste is better then the
| warming of the planet"_.
|
| The problem with pitting nuclear as a solution to the climate
| disaster is that there are existing technologies that can solve
| the energy part of it, those technologies are primarily wind
| and solar. And there is ample reason to be skeptical about how
| well nuclear could solve it. So naturally when someone states
| that nuclear is good actually at solving the climate crisis, a
| natural response would be: _"well actually, it isn't. Wind and
| solar is"_.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Huh? Nuclear is an existing solution to climate change,
| though. More existing than wind and solar. It provides more
| electricity in the US than wind and solar combined. The
| problem of climate change would already have been worse
| without it. So it already is part of the solution.
|
| It doesn't have to be and isn't the entire solution. But no
| activist calling for the end of nuclear electricity is doing
| any favors to climate action.
| epistasis wrote:
| Nuclear was largely built 50 years ago. Our technological
| capacities have shifted vastly since then. Also, the
| nuclear industry is completely unwilling to reuse those
| same designs, and regulators don't want that either.
|
| So the nuclear from 1970 may still be operating, and
| operating somewhat cheaply, but that doesn't mean that
| nuclear as a technology still matches the technological
| productive capacity of our economy.
|
| The thermal conversion of steam to electricity used to be
| considered dirt cheap, as far as the overall cost of
| electricity: low capital costs that last a good amount of
| time. The primary expense was fuel.
|
| Zero-fuel electricity generation capital costs are starting
| to eclipse the thermal conversion capital costs. This has
| huge implications for what we should think of basing our
| future grid upon.
|
| Take natural gas for example. Turbine-driven generators
| followed by a steam cycle-combined cycle- have completet
| obsoleted thermal-only gas plants. It's why coal is so much
| more expensive than gas.
|
| The world is different, and nuclear only seems like a
| solution because we paid massive capital costs at a time
| when the competitive environment was entirely different. We
| no longer live in that world.
| cbmuser wrote:
| China alone is building 12 reactors alone and if the US
| isn't going to get their act together and stops with that
| renewables-for-all non-sense, China will be the
| dominating world power.
| runarberg wrote:
| This competitive mentality of who gets to be the
| _dominating world superpower_ is beneficial to no-one.
| runarberg wrote:
| I always took it as: As the nuclear plants from the 70s and
| 80s are getting decommissioned because of age, there is no
| plan to replace them with new nuclear. So they should be
| replace them with wind and solar, because wind and solar is
| a cheaper, quicker, and more reliable alternative then new
| nuclear (as this tread demonstrates).
|
| I don't see the debate as existing nuclear vs. new wind and
| solar, but as new nuclear vs. new wind and solar.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Germany is a counterexample. Much progress was lost with
| the decision to accelerate retirement of (rather than
| extend) nuclear power plants. The rule ought to be we
| retire all coal, then all (or virtually all) natural gas
| before considering retiring nuclear. Extend or even
| upgrade existing nuclear to ensure safety and
| productivity.
|
| (The US has _mostly_ been doing a pretty good job of
| this, upgrading and maintaining the existing fleet and
| even adding a reactor here or there, although we have had
| some unforced errors like how some nuclear power plants
| in California were shut down early.)
| cbmuser wrote:
| Wind and solar need backup power plants and therefore
| *CANNOT* replace nuclear power plants.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| It's framed as a solution to energy reliance on fossil fuel
| because it _is a solution._
| cbmuser wrote:
| Nuclear is the largest source of emission-free electricity in
| the US and it's the only one that can be built at scale.
| mcenedella wrote:
| According to the Department of Energy, nuclear energy creates
| minimal waste, has a small land footprint, and is cleaner for the
| air. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-reasons-why-nuclear-
| cle...
|
| Interestingly: " All of the used nuclear fuel produced by the
| U.S. nuclear energy industry over the last 60 years could fit on
| a football field at a depth of less than 10 yards!"
| afterburner wrote:
| Cleaner than than the air compared to what? Coal? No shit.
|
| How about the cost compared to solar and wind? Oh, don't want
| to talk about that? I wonder how much nuclear waste solar and
| wind creates.
| throwaway69123 wrote:
| Nuclear waste is nuclear fuel
| p_l wrote:
| Interestingly enough, CO2g per W of energy is considered much
| higher (4 times?) for PV than for nuclear, at least in common
| statistics used to evaluate power plant emissions (12
| gCO2eq/kWh for nuclear, 11g for wind, 24g for hydro and 45g
| for solar - source:IPCC2014).
|
| Most nuclear waste can be reprocessed and burned further down
| (that's the strategy that was used by France). A big issue
| with that is the effective voiding of non-proliferation
| treaty by, among other, USA - nothing scares them more than a
| country running plutonium economy, thus proposals of designs
| with remote kill switches operated by USA and other
| imperialistic moves like it.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > According to the Department of Energy
|
| Isn't that the department that corrupt US politicians staff
| with people who are partial to the interests of the industry
| they're supposed to regulate?
|
| Anyway, the link seems rather propagandistic. Let the Secretary
| of Energy bury a football field's worth of nuclear waste next
| to his town.
| jaakl wrote:
| If anything can reduce/limit now the climate catastrophe then it
| is total transformation to clean electric energy which is
| produced with minimal emissions: housing, transport, industry,
| everything must go electric. Producing does not need to be
| renewables, it can be even fossils, it just has to be without GHG
| emissions. Nothing else matters. These theoretical risks, long-
| term waste storage etc are at best secondary questions which are
| totally irrelevant in current situation where we have almost lost
| that battle. Considering that full electrification requires
| automatically 3-4 times hike of energy demand any clean enough
| tech has to be considered and where possible deployed right away.
| It is simple like that.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/PDebD
| ssijak wrote:
| Now that launching stuff into orbit is getting much cheaper, is
| there any reasonable calculation to just ship nuclear waste into
| orbit? Or even further away (crashing it into Sun would be ideal
| but too expensive I guess)
| chihuahua wrote:
| Some rocket launches fail, and it would be a problem if you're
| constantly launching radioactive waste into space and 1% of
| those launches end with a crash that scatters dangerous
| material on the ground.
| cozzyd wrote:
| There goes the carbon benefits...
| einpoklum wrote:
| NIMBY on steroids: Not on my back-yard planet :-)
|
| Luckily for you there aren't other sentients in the Sol system.
| systematical wrote:
| Go heavy nuclear and invest in fusion. The later will lead to
| clean abundant energy and eventually a reduction in resource
| scarcity. What is the economics of air? That's the economics we
| want.
| codecamper wrote:
| Luckily we already have a working fusion reactor. It's 92M
| miles away, but it's a big one. All that is required are some
| solar panels and wind turbines to harness its power.
| afterburner wrote:
| Fusion _research_? Sure. I hope you aren 't expecting practical
| commercial reactors anytime soon. I believe the current fusion
| scientists just entering the workforce are hoping for major
| strides _by the end of their CAREER when they finally retire_.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I don't see where that's implied. The scenario that makes
| sense is that by the time our heavy investments into nuclear
| pay off and then some, maybe in 80-100 years, we can
| transition to fusion.
| simplicio wrote:
| Yea, plus we've reached the point where even if you _do_
| believe the most optimistic timelines for fusion power
| development, its not going to come in time to make a
| meaningful contribution to fighting climate change.
| phabora wrote:
| I would rather risk a few local meltdowns than a global heatup.
| afterburner wrote:
| Just buy solar and wind, avoid both.
| reedjosh wrote:
| Solar & wind != nuclear.
|
| Solar and wind are not on demand and require storage that's
| not currently practical.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Nuclear isn't really on demand either, it takes days to
| change production capacity.
| cygx wrote:
| Nuclear also isn't 'on demand', but load-following at best.
| You'd have to add some peaker plants (or storage) into the
| mix if you wanted to go majority-nuclear as well...
| armada651 wrote:
| You're never going to have a powermix that's 100% renewables.
| There will always be a few power plants to pick up the slack
| if weather conditions are unfavorable for a long period of
| time. Should these plants use coal, gas or nuclear?
| cygx wrote:
| _You 're never going to have a powermix that's 100%
| renewables_
|
| There have been a whole bunch of studies that say you
| could, in principle. If things like power-to-gas or
| cryogenic storage panned out, going from 'in principle' to
| 'in practice' would no longer seem particularly far-fetched
| to me...
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| This is mistaken. I'd suggest looking through Lazard's
| levelized cost of energy and cost of storage slides. A pure
| renewables + battery approach is becoming economically
| viable.
|
| The main problem that remains is organizing the industry to
| do it when natural gas is dirt cheap due to fracking.
|
| Also, wind + solar is generally a pretty stable mix. We
| already know how to do continent scale power grids to shift
| power around local weather. What recently happened in Texas
| was a result of their conscious decision to go it alone
| with their own grid, and making insufficient winterization
| investment in the grid they built.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Geothermal.
| afterburner wrote:
| You can overbuild solar and wind to cover all needs, with
| grid and storage construction (batteries, water or other
| reservoirs).
|
| I'm not advocating shutting down working reactors until
| their planned end of life, so we already have a built-in
| phasing out schedule, measured in decades.
| krustyburger wrote:
| _When she first contemplated working at Diablo Canyon, she
| imagined the rat-infested Springfield Nuclear Power Plant on "The
| Simpsons," where green liquid oozes out of tanks. Eventually,
| like Hoff, she changed her thinking. "What we were doing actually
| aligned with my environmental values," she told me. "That was
| shocking to me."_
|
| You can tell from my username what an enormous fan of The
| Simpsons I am. One of the few things I wish the show hadn't done
| is inserted into its world such a thoroughly negative vision of
| nuclear energy. If you don't know much about the subject, The
| Simpsons leaves you thinking that using nuclear power at all is
| incredibly dangerous and foolish, and motivated by simple greed.
| It's especially effective in this because the show is so pitch-
| perfect in how it depicts so many other aspects of society and
| human nature. I see this one element of the show as an
| unfortunate relic of the prevailing counterculture that informed
| Matt Groening's otherwise generally brilliant worldview.
| cbmuser wrote:
| Department of Energy's take on the Simpsons:
|
| > https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/7-things-simpsons-got-
| wro...
| [deleted]
| fulafel wrote:
| TMI (plus other 80s US NPP incidents) and Chernobyl had
| happened in the previous 10 years when Simpsons started. Those
| plants had real problems and caused badly needed corrections to
| NPP safety culture and standards. It was a pretty reasonable
| take for its time.
| StreamBright wrote:
| Exactly. Judging nuclear safety based on Chernobyl is the
| same as judging fire safety based on a camp fire in a cave
| during in 15_000 BCE.
|
| I understand that is was bad and it could have been much
| worse, but we are not stopping flying with airplanes because
| the mishaps of Boeing 737 MAX 8.
| Daho0n wrote:
| Well, let's base it on fukushima then.
| Daho0n wrote:
| >leaves you thinking that using nuclear power at all is
| incredibly dangerous and foolish
|
| No one in his right mind can state with a straight face that
| nuclear power isn't incredibly dangerous. It might not be
| foolish with the right regulations and safety -that can always
| be debated- but no one can pretend nuclear power isn't
| incredibly dangerous if they know anything about it. The whole
| reason for all the regulation is exactly because it _is_ so
| incredibly dangerous.
| afterburner wrote:
| Bumbling idiots and greedy management causing a major disaster
| is what happens in real life. Not sure I'd blame The Simpsons
| for merely reflecting that.
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| The Springfield plant is cheap to operate compared to real
| reactors though. It would cost only $56 M to bring it up to
| the latest safety code.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield_(The_Simpsons)#Spr.
| ..
| throwaway69123 wrote:
| It is hard to take peoples arguments of cost seriously when
| governments around the world are printing fiat at alarming rates.
| Covid has proven that where there is a will the money can be
| found.
| gumby wrote:
| As it happens, macroeconomics and microeconomics are different,
| like chemistry amd physics are different.* The printing presses
| are not running in order for governments to buy more stuff.
|
| That printing could be good or bad, but any argument based on
| "run printing presses as a way of raising money" doesn't
| address any of the issues. Nobody has advocated _that_ in
| decades (the odd Zimbabwean despot aside).
|
| * I'm not claiming economics is anywhere near as scientific as
| chemistry or physics, heavy trappings of math notwithstanding.
| kart23 wrote:
| Fun fact: one aircraft carrier (CVN-78) has the same number of
| nuclear reactors as the entire state of California.
| codecamper wrote:
| So Bill Gates doesn't think we can do this with a majority solar,
| wind, and storage. He invented the backslash and has a lot of
| money, so he is getting a lot of attention.
|
| But has a good computer simulation been made? Just collect annual
| sunlight data from a million points across the US, along with
| wind, throw in 200M electric vehicles (can use satellite data and
| image recognition data to guess how often they are parked for
| V2G), and see how far we can get towards a 100% green grid.
|
| I haven't seen a computer simulation and yet here is Bill saying
| it's impossible. Is it? Or is this just another "computers will
| never need more than 640k" moment?
| epistasis wrote:
| Articles like this miss the main point and instead focus on
| culture war material. There are plenty of sites that would
| happily accept more nuclear being built, but all other forms of
| energy have undercut the cost of nuclear. It's no longer cost
| competitive, and places like China that adopt a "let's try
| everything and see what works best" approach have heavily pulled
| back on nuclear.
|
| The issues aren't safety, waste, and environments opposition.
| There are plenty of climate hawks that support nuclear too. It's
| all excessive costs.
|
| They briefly mention the cooling retrofits for Diablo Canyon in
| San Lui Obispo, but they don't mention that they bids from
| Bechtel to simply build a modern cooling system were all billions
| of dollars of expense. Just the cooling system is more expensive
| than alternatives.
|
| And this is a trend we will see in the future. For primary
| generation of electrons, steam based thermodynamic cycles are
| pretty much obsolete. The number I typically hear is that it's
| $1-2W to build, say, a cooling system for coal steam. A nuclear
| plants cooling is pretty much identical. Solar and wind are going
| to undercut that cost very soon.
|
| So the name of the game is now storage. Attaching four hours of
| storage to a solar generation farm, just enough to get through
| the duck curve, is now slightly cheaper than coal.
|
| The best estimate of what the cheapest possible future grid looks
| like is: solar/wind capacity at 4x of total demand (thermal
| generators are roughly at 2x on the current grid), with 3-4 days
| of storage. This translates to world with abundant energy, at
| certain times, that's generated at zero marginal cost. There are
| still lots of transmission costs however. The future of energy is
| all about spatial and temporal arbitrage of renewable electrons.
| flaque wrote:
| This assumes that larger investment in nuclear won't yield
| reduced costs, just as larger investments in solar did.
| afterburner wrote:
| It seems like the largest feature of modern nuclear power is
| that it got a lot more expensive as we realized how much
| safety we truly needed to build into it. Whereas, without
| much prompting, solar got a LOT cheaper.
|
| When nuclear develops that significantly, we will all pay
| attention. Until then, build cheaper sources.
|
| Also consider when building nuclear, you are locking into
| technology from 10 years ago (when the plant is finally
| done), for the next 50 years (when the plant is finally
| decommissioned). Solar and other sources have much faster
| iteration cycles and much lower commitment.
| hntrader wrote:
| Isn't the point of nuclear to provide power when it's not
| sunny as a cheaper alternative to storage in batteries? If
| so then what's the purpose of comparing the cost of solar
| and nuclear as if they're directly competing for the same
| use case?
| afterburner wrote:
| > Isn't the point of nuclear to provide power when it's
| not sunny as a cheaper alternative to storage in
| batteries? If so then what's the purpose of comparing the
| cost of solar and nuclear as if they're directly
| competing for the same use case?
|
| What the hell are you talking about.
| hntrader wrote:
| Solar doesn't provide off peak power without storage. So
| comparing nuclear directly to solar in the way you've
| done makes no sense.
| afterburner wrote:
| I believe solar and wind can provide for ALL power. Same
| as nuclear. That is the basis for my comparison.
| hntrader wrote:
| Still doesn't make sense. Even if what you say is true,
| then the valid comparison is to compare nuclear to wind
| rather than nuclear to solar.
| afterburner wrote:
| Again, what the hell are you talking about. These are bad
| faith arguments. Moving goalposts, redefining everything.
| What a joke.
| hntrader wrote:
| I'll put aside your rudeness (I assume you think this is
| a status contest, or maybe you've just misunderstood my
| intentions) and try to explain again.
|
| Solar being cheaper than nuclear makes it a foregone
| conclusion for daytime electricity supply.
|
| However the direct comparison you were making in the
| first paragraph of your original post between nuclear
| price and solar price is nonsensical because they're not
| in direct competition with each other. Nuclear satisfies
| a slightly different use case to solar.
|
| Nuclear instead is in direct competition with sources
| that are capable of providing base load power such as gas
| and solar+storage. The only meaningful price comparison
| is between nuclear and these other sources, since we need
| to decide if the stack is going to be solar+storage,
| solar+nuclear, etc.
|
| Comparing solar prices directly to nuclear prices without
| considering the whole stack is just a meaningless
| comparison.
| afterburner wrote:
| Let me get this straight. You think every time I mention
| solar, I mean solar _without_ storage? Lol have fun
| arguing with yourself.
| Daho0n wrote:
| Go back to reddit.
| cygx wrote:
| Nuclear reactors don't make sense as peaker plants, hence
| are not a battery replacement as such.
|
| You're correct that one should factor in the cost of
| storage if one wants to considers renewables as an
| alternative to nuclear for providing base load power.
| hntrader wrote:
| Thanks. Any ideas how storage impacts the total cost of
| using only solar+wind?
| pfdietz wrote:
| https://model.energy/
|
| Play with the assumptions and see for yourself.
| cygx wrote:
| Not off-hand, no. Also note that such figures will be
| estimates: We've yet to raise the share of renewables to
| levels where such costs really become significant...
| merb wrote:
| > 50 years
|
| most often it is way longer
| orwin wrote:
| It would, but not as much as solar did. But people don't
| include recycling cost in PV, as well as electrical grid
| maintenance, impossibility to work as a baseline, no
| pilotability.
|
| Solar is good if the population is mature enough to accept
| the cost of sending PV to a recycling plant. And as long as
| it doesnt go past 50% of the energy production (you NEED a
| baseline of 30 to 40% at the very least)
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Base load power is unnecessary.
|
| The only type of power that's required is dispatchable
| power. If you have enough dispatchable power to meet peak
| demands you don't need anything else. For example, the
| northern towns served by a diesel generator. Other types of
| power are optional, but should be thrown into the mix for
| cost, reliability or environmental reasons.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| My (perhaps erroneous) understanding nuclear is the only
| power source that can generate the power/heat that many
| very heavy industrial use cases need can't be supplanted
| with renewables, no matter how inexpensive/efficient they
| are.
|
| That's why countries like France have significantly lower
| coal usage whereas Germany has higher, even though both
| have similar levels of renewables.
| pfdietz wrote:
| That's obviously not true, since electricity can always
| be converted to heat.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| In many ways. Resistive, heat pumps, and electrolysis of
| hydrogen or production of ammonia to be burned.
| orwin wrote:
| It is though, unless we had a major breakthrough in the
| last decade i'm not aware of, you can't just "plug in" 1
| TW/h of solar pannels on a power grid when you need to.
| You can however start a generator, an eoliene, a turbine.
| PV don't offer that, although other kind of solar can.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Could you explain what units you were trying to use
| there? TW/h makes no sense.
| mrec wrote:
| What's "pilotability" in this context?
| orwin wrote:
| You can make electricity usage predictions, depending on
| the time of the day, and the time of the year. Reversible
| dams pump water at night (in France at least), or when
| our northern neighbors have a bit to much wind power and
| need help dispatching this power without disconnecting
| their wind plants. This is what i mean (i honestly
| thought the word existed in english, it doesnt, sorry :/)
| epistasis wrote:
| Recycling is just getting started, but so far the most
| expensive part of recycling is shipping the panels to the
| recycling plant. Which is to say, that end of life
| recycling will not be a significant cost in any way.
| afterburner wrote:
| > impossibility to work as a baseline
|
| Not true. Just overbuild it, and make sure your grid is
| large enough to transfer power between areas or just store
| it. Still cheaper than nuclear.
| orwin wrote:
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626
| 191...
| simplicio wrote:
| We already tried that, didn't we? Several national gov'ts,
| subsidized the building of hundreds of reactors, trained
| gillions of nuclear scientists and engineers, etc. And
| indeed, nuclear power still is a bigger fraction of US
| electrical generation then renewables.
|
| Obviously, a new effort might yield a break-through the old
| one didn't. But it seems likely all the "low-hanging" fruit
| in lowering reactor costs have already been picked.
| zaik wrote:
| Given that nuclear has existed for quite some time now and
| hundreds of very costly plants have already been built, how
| much more cost-effectiveness can we expect? It feels like the
| current state is exactly what "larger investments" in nuclear
| get you.
| simplicio wrote:
| Obviously what we need is some sort of "Manhattan Project"
| for nuclear energy! :)
| pfdietz wrote:
| That was a very good one. :)
| lukeschlather wrote:
| According to the IEA we are spending more on nuclear power
| research than any other category. (More than wind and solar
| combined.) More money won't magically give us better nuclear
| technology. If renewables keep getting better we're going to
| have to start some serious conversations about cutting
| nuclear funding in a few years, we're investing too much
| money with basically zero return on investment.
|
| https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-technology-rdd-
| budgets-20...
| [deleted]
| vkou wrote:
| How much of this R&D goes into nuclear power research, and
| how much of it is nuclear weapons research that is billed
| as power research?
|
| For example, the laser fusion research that hit 'break
| even' a few days ago was a byproduct of work on nuclear
| weapons.
| balfirevic wrote:
| > According to the IEA we are spending more on nuclear
| power research than any other category.
|
| Does that include fusion research?
| temp8964 wrote:
| solar generation farm takes way too much land. If it's in a
| desert, that would be fine. But many of them are on otherwise
| beautiful mountains, how can this be environmentally
| acceptable?
| slfnflctd wrote:
| > Attaching four hours of storage to a solar generation farm,
| just enough to get through the duck curve, is now slightly
| cheaper than coal
|
| This completely ignores scenarios of extended cloud cover, cold
| temperatures and low wind (somewhat like we just saw in Texas)
| where properly winterized baseline power would be the only way
| to keep everything up the whole way through.
|
| Barring future unknown tech, we will always need either nuclear
| or natural gas if we want five nines of uptime in our
| electrical power. There is just no practical way currently to
| build enough storage across the grid to maintain 100% uptime
| during a week or more of reduced renewable generation.
| theodric wrote:
| How about not having five nines, and just finding a way to
| live within that envelope?
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Yep. Cheaper than all of this is having a few blankets, a
| camp stove, and a week's worth of rice and beans on hand.
| YarickR2 wrote:
| Potable water, flushable toilet, heat insulated pipes.
| ip26 wrote:
| Will we actually need five nines out of renewables any time
| soon? We have the option of hanging on to old fossil fuel
| plants as emergency power for many decades to come. Peaker
| plants already perform a similar sort of role.
|
| Our CO2 goals won't be compromised by running emergency power
| off fossil fuel once every decade or two.
| epistasis wrote:
| If I were in Texas last week, I would have loved to have a
| home solar system with a battery that let me island from the
| grid. This is definitely practical and happening even at
| today's high prices.
|
| In a decade, ERCOT will look nothing like it does today. It
| will have massive amounts of solar and storage, and even more
| wind. This is replacing gas plants as they age out.
| jfubxyb wrote:
| A buddy of mine has solar panels. During the storm they got
| covered in ice and snow, and generated about 180 watt hours
| in a 24 hour period
| epistasis wrote:
| This is not a typical experience, from what I've heard.
| But for exceptional cases, in addition to fixed storage
| in our homes, we should be able to use our EV batteries
| for items of exceptional need, as they typically can
| handle 3-4 days worth of energy needs.
| smallnamespace wrote:
| If your grid covers a large region and you have sufficient
| transmission, then _somewhere_ , there is excess electricity
| from wind/solar that you can bring in.
|
| Remember, we're talking about a world where building
| renewables to 4x peak demand would be actually economical.
|
| This works on the same principle as an insurance market: it's
| likely that even at 4x capacity, your local solar farm has a
| few cloudy days. It's highly unlikely that your entire
| regional grid generation falls below demand. That probability
| falls (super?-)exponentially in the size of the region.
|
| Taking a step back: yes, renewable power is intermittent and
| you need electricity here, now. Either 1) transmit from
| elsewhere, 2) store locally, or 3) supplement with a stable
| source (nuclear / thermal). The choice simply comes down to
| cost (to provide a given level of reliability).
|
| The most efficient solution is likely to do all of the above,
| taking local conditions into account. Adjusting for local
| conditions is one thing that a (well-managed) market helps
| tackle.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| This is a dangerous and wrong assumption. Weather events
| can have high area. What do you do if a hurricane comes at
| the same time as high cloud cover?
| Daho0n wrote:
| What do you do if you have to shut down the nuclear power
| plant in bad weather for some reason? Build a new one as
| a backup? There's always a weak link if you want to find
| one, nuclear, wind or whatever.
| cbmuser wrote:
| > What do you do if you have to shut down the nuclear
| power plant in bad weather for some reason?
|
| You don't. If your plant is properly designed, you're
| absolutely immune to any extreme weather conditions.
|
| Heck, we have nuclear-powered vehicles sent beyond our
| galaxy and they're still working.
|
| Nuclear power is literally the only form of energy we
| have that can work under virtually all environmental
| conditions.
|
| Nuclear fission works even in vacuum.
| epistasis wrote:
| You plan for the worst case, same as we do now.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Sure, but solar plus wind does not allow the flexibility
| to plan for the worst case and come out ahead.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Wind across enough longitude is impossible to not exist
| at all given temperature differentials creating wind and
| the rotation of the earth. Wind compliments solar
| beautifully because things cool off at night from the
| lack of sun making it produce more power then. If the
| earth no longer rotates across the axis or the sun goes
| out the lack of power is irrelevant to in that worsr case
| scenario.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| This is not sufficient. Wind doesn't have to not increase
| at all, it just has to be down somewhat, or be too high.
| merb wrote:
| you know that after a hurricane it's way harder to
| restart a nuclear power plant than a wind turbine right?
| it's incredible hard to power a nuclear plant if your
| grid is destroyed. basically you can't start a nuclear
| power plant with no power at all.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Nuclear reactors never completely turn off. They have
| generators that can supply the necessary power to run
| baseline systems and to restart them at any time.
| cbmuser wrote:
| > It's no longer cost competitive, and places like China
| that adopt a "let's try everything and see what works best"
| approach have heavily pulled back on nuclear.
|
| When it's night in Germany, it's night in the rest of
| Europe.
|
| When there is no wind in Germany, there isn't usually much
| more wind across Europe.
|
| Please take some look at actual electricity generating data
| for Germany (see smard.de) and find out why your
| assumptions are not correct.
| pyrale wrote:
| A significant part of the cost issues come with how the market
| is structured. If consumers can buy power on a hourly basis,
| nuclear plants can not be more expensive than gas/coal (and
| even with some carbon tax, this is not going to be sky high
| prices), and can not make a profit during abundant renewable
| availability, because renewables drive prices close to zero.
|
| If you structured markets by selling kW rather than kWh,
| renewables would have to bear the cost of low wind/sun
| availability, either by building storage or by pairing with
| fossil power producers. This would price the stability of
| production, which is simply not priced today.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >There are plenty of sites that would happily accept more
| nuclear being built, but all other forms of energy have
| undercut the cost of nuclear.
|
| Honestly ... it isn't just about cost. Nuclear is expensive but
| it isn't prohibitively expensive. The big picture is we know
| that nuclear can power an economy, it does not emit global
| warming gasses, and also places a tiny footprint on the
| surrounding ecosystem.
|
| Solar and wind cannot power an economy. But let's pretend they
| can so as to not get bogged down on this point. Let's also
| pretend they are non-trivially cheaper than nuclear. Even under
| those assumptions nuclear still wins in my eyes.
|
| Global warming is only one environmental problem we have to
| solve and it may not be the most important one either. The
| other one is regular environmental collapse due to needing to
| support 7-10 billion people. In this context, solar and wind
| are atrocious and a total disaster because they have massive
| land-use requirements (land-use around mining for necessary
| materials, deployment and maintenance of the collectors, and
| finally land-fill once out of use). And they will always have
| those horrendous land-use requirements because solar and wind
| are diffuse energy sources. Worse, we're going to need to
| increase solar and wind collector production by several orders
| of magnitude (and come up with a battery technology that
| doesn't exist today) to fully support a fossil fuel transition.
| What cost do you think the environment will bear for that
| compared to nuclear infrastructure?
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| You are vastly overstating the mineral requirements.
|
| Wind power can share land with other uses.
|
| There is a staggering amount of land out there that's not
| suitable for even grazing but will support utility scale
| solar.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >You are vastly overstating the mineral requirements.
|
| No I didn't.
|
| A typical solar panel weighs around 40 pounds. All that
| material has to be mined from somewhere, then transported,
| then processed. Some of that material are rare earth
| minerals that have an outsized mining requirement (like for
| every 1 pound, you need to turn over 1000 pounds or 10000
| pounds of earth). All of that material will need to be
| landfilled at some point in the future as well, no matter
| how recyclable the solar and wind collectors are (and
| today, they aren't recyclable at all).
|
| >Wind power can share land with other uses.
|
| Sure. I didn't say it couldn't or it won't. I'm saying that
| you will need vast _new_ tracks of land regardless of that
| fact. Why? Because you need to scale wind and solar
| collector deployments by several orders of magnitude.
|
| >There is a staggering amount of land out there that's not
| suitable for even grazing but will support utility scale
| solar.
|
| I have no idea why you think only 'grazing' areas are the
| only ecosystems we need to protect.
|
| Every square meter of Earth is part of some ecosystem that
| is already under tremendous stress due to human activity -
| that includes areas like deserts, mountains, ocean floors.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| > No I didn't.
|
| Yes. You did. Solar panels do not use rare earth
| minerals. Go google it.
|
| Rare earth magnets are used in some wind turbines, but
| alternatives exist there. That does change the cost
| calculations a touch, but not enough to invalidate the
| viability of a renewables + storage solution.
|
| > I'm saying that you will need vast new tracks of land
| regardless of that fact.
|
| People have done the math. Land availability is not a
| bottleneck on this.
|
| > I have no idea why you think only 'grazing' areas are
| the only ecosystems we need to protect.
|
| Because I didn't.
| brightball wrote:
| The thing about land use that always got me was that solar
| can be implemented as a roofing system in parking lots. We
| have a lot of parking lots out there.
|
| IMO the model used for parking at Lego Land looks like the
| ideal approach for solar expansion to me.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >The thing about land use that always got me was that solar
| can be implemented as a roofing system in parking lots.
|
| That's not enough. Rooftop solar panels on a single family
| home roof cannot provide adequate power for even that
| family. And if they cannot do that, then how the hell are
| they going to provide power to even moderate-density
| housing (e.g. a small apartment building), much less high-
| density buildings and housing (like office buildings), or
| heavy industry and transportation (from electric cars, to
| buses, to trains).
|
| Solar and wind are diffuse energy sources. That will never
| change. So you will always have to have a large number of
| collectors. Our population will continue to go up for a few
| more decades. Our per capita energy use will also keep
| going up for a few more decades.
|
| So you're going to have to build huge solar and wind farms
| and place them somewhere. You're going to have to mine
| necessary minerals to build those farms from somewhere.
| You're going to have to landfill the collectors somewhere.
| elihu wrote:
| > In this context, solar and wind are atrocious and a total
| disaster because they have massive land-use requirements.
|
| No, they don't. There is a lot of empty land in the world
| that isn't useful for people to live in or to grow crops due
| to lack of rainfall, which also makes those sites more
| valuable for solar energy.
|
| We'd consider a utility-scale solar array that's a couple
| square miles to be absolutely huge, but plotted on a map of,
| say, the United States it would be a barely visible dot in a
| massive sea of land-that-isn't-devoted-to-solar-power. The
| Earth is very big, and when you get outside the areas where
| people congregate there's a lot of wide open spaces.
|
| This says that US electricity consumption was 3.9 trillion
| killowatt-hours in 2019:
|
| https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/use-of-
| elect...
|
| 39 quadrillion watt hours divided by (365 _24) gives us
| average power consumption in watts.
|
| Let's say a pretty good solar panel gets 100 watts per square
| meter, then reduce that to 30 to account for night-time. If
| we divide average power consumption by 30 watts per meter and
| divide by 1,000,000 to convert to square kilometers, we get:
|
| Prelude> (((3.9 _ 1000 * 1000 * 1000 * 1000 * 1000) / (365
| _24)) / 30) / (1000 _ 1000) 14840.182648401827
|
| So, about 15,000 square kilometers of solar panels would
| satisfy current US electrical needs. Let's double that to be
| conservative, that's 30,000 square kilometers. Sounds like a
| lot, right? That's a rectangle 100 km by 300 km. It's
| slightly more than 10% of the land area of Nevada. Definitely
| big, but attainable. Compared to the land we use for farming,
| it's barely anything (and it can be done in places that we
| don't farm). And in practice it would be spread out, not just
| in one place. And it also assumes we get 100% of our power
| from solar, which we wouldn't.
| runarberg wrote:
| It's disingenuous to factor in mining requirement for solar
| panels but not uranium.
|
| Sure the supply chain to support the infrastructure required
| for 10 billion people is a lot on the environment, and we
| certainly could do a lot better. But these include better
| recycling of existing minerals (this includes solar panels),
| better forest management, better land use for food
| production, more careful road design that doesn't fragment
| the wildlife, etc. And of course (most important of all) stop
| emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and stop
| warming the planet.
|
| How much land solar and wind farms use seems kind of
| minuscule next to all these efforts. And given how urgent the
| climate disaster is, complaining about land use from solar
| farms seems like a distraction.
|
| Given the timescale we have to react to and reverse the
| climate crisis the best technology that we have right now is
| wind and solar. We don't have the technology nor
| infrastructure anywhere in the world to replace the fossil
| fuel plants with new nuclear plants in anywhere close to the
| timescale needed. Our best bet today is wind and solar (and
| geothermal and hydro where applicable) even with existing
| battery technology, it is still a better bet then new
| nuclear. This thread will tell you why.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >It's disingenuous to factor in mining requirement for
| solar panels but not uranium.
|
| It would be if it wasn't for the fact that nuclear power is
| incredibly energy dense so mining requirements for Uranium
| or Thorium or whatever iteration of nuclear we have, are
| not even in the same universe as what we will need to scale
| solar and wind.
|
| > But these include better recycling of existing minerals
| (this includes solar panels)
|
| I don't know what to say to that. Solar panels are not
| recyclable. Neither are wind mills. Both are high-tech
| devices. They may never be recyclable. Also recycling,
| especially recycling of high-tech devices, is not free as
| it tends to be incredibly energy intensive. In most
| situations it's more efficient to just bury the darn thing.
|
| >better forest management, better land use for food
| production, more careful road design that doesn't fragment
| the wildlife, etc. A
|
| The problem is that by going with solar and wind you're
| compounding all these problems, and the general problem of
| ecosystem collapse.
|
| >Given the timescale we have to react to and reverse the
| climate crisis the best technology that we have right now
| is wind and solar.
|
| That's not true. It's where the mindshare inertia is
| (notice the deployment of wind and solar is pathetically
| low on a global scale), but if we truly internalized the
| danger of not just global warming but environmental
| collapse, we could pivot on a dime and we could expand our
| nuclear infrastructure probably in around two decades (we
| already lost 50 years by the way). It's like what happened
| with this pandemic. It takes a decade or more to roll out a
| new vaccine, unless a global pandemic shuts down the global
| economy and kills millions of people. Under those
| constrains, it turns out you can develop a vaccine in a
| year, and take another year to roll it out.
|
| The other aspect is that there are no technical or
| engineering barriers to nuclear deployment. It's solely
| regulations and cost (though not prohibitively impossible
| costs. I'm willing to concede that nuclear is more
| expensive than things like natural gas). Wind and solar, on
| the other hand, still have unsolved technical challenges.
| You can't will those into existence.
|
| But again, we haven't really internalized the dangerous of
| global warming and ecosystem collapse, so we're dicking
| around with wind and solar because it feels right.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Nuclear fuel is several orders of magnitude more energy
| dense than solar or wind, so the amount of fuel required is
| shockingly low, especially compared to how many resources
| all those panels and windmills require to build and
| transport.
|
| > How much land solar and wind farms use seems kind of
| minuscule next to all these efforts. And given how urgent
| the climate disaster is, complaining about land use from
| solar farms seems like a distraction.
|
| No, it's part of the equation for picking energy sources.
| Solar and wind both work better in some areas than others,
| and none of the equipment maintains itself. The 100 acre
| solar farm you build instead of a 1 acre Nuclear plant is
| going to have its' own environmental and maintenance
| challenges. It's not clear why it is a priority to limit
| roads through wildlife, but not apply the same principles
| to energy policy.
|
| > Given the timescale we have to react to and reverse the
| climate crisis the best technology that we have right now
| is wind and solar.
|
| What are you basing this on? Nuclear technology is being
| held back by regulation and economics, not by engineering
| or technology.
| screye wrote:
| Afaik, nuclear energy is more expensive only because it is
| regulated far beyond what any other form of energy for the same
| level of risk.
|
| Disposal of nuclear waste is a huge expense, but the main waste
| product generated by natural gas (CO2) gets away scot free
| despite literally being the cause of what might be our
| generation's biggest problem.
|
| The end-of-life expenses of nuclear plants are included in the
| cost sheets, but dams get away scot free.
|
| Material procurement is justifiably expensive, since security
| measures for handling nuke-fuel are far more stringent. But,
| that is more a virtue of global politics than the actual cost
| of nuclear energy.
|
| Another cold-start problem is that the USA does not have the
| same experience with frequently building nuclear plants, vs say
| a country like France has. Thus, any new contractor spends
| extra money to be the first to wade through bureaucratic /
| training related challenges that would otherwise have been
| resolved if building nuclear plants was more common place.
|
| Just saying, the numbers for energy source comparison aren't
| always as fair as they look.
|
| _______
|
| > Attaching four hours of storage to a solar generation farm,
| just enough to get through the duck curve, is now slightly
| cheaper than coal.
|
| Wow, I didn't know we were that close to dealing with the
| storage/temporal variability problem. If we can solve that
| problem with money to spare, then I can see the adoption of
| solar + wind going up through the roof.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| A grid that relies on transmission to that degree will require
| unifying some disparate grids won't it? Also it seems horribly
| vulnerable to attacks digital or physical.
| afterburner wrote:
| If you're worried about attacks, you should be even more
| worried about nuclear.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Protecting single facilities is very hard, protecting an
| entire grid seems impossible. Ild hope for a decentralized
| grid where every generator, user, and conveyer of
| electricity was assumed to potentially be a subverted
| actor. But that seems super hard.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| Not really. This is actually a primary design consideration
| taken very seriously at nuke plants. The same can NOT be
| said about the rest of the grid, and renewable generation
| facilities.
| afterburner wrote:
| > This is actually a primary design consideration taken
| very seriously at nuke plants.
|
| Yeah, because they're so dangerous.
|
| If you're worried about the grid, you were always
| worried. We use a grid now, and in the past. Massive
| near-continent wide failures happened before major
| renewable use.
| StreamBright wrote:
| >> It's no longer cost competitive
|
| If you compare apples to oranges it is not. Once you start to
| compare apples to apples it is very competitive. What do I mean
| by this?
|
| People like to compare nuclear to wind or solar. There is a
| fundamental difference. Wind or solar is not controlled by the
| energy demand while a nuclear power plat's energy production
| is. This is why you cannot compare them. If you talk about
| solar or renewables you should talk about:
|
| - the production part (solar panels or wind mills)
|
| - the energy storage part (some sort of batteries or pumped-
| storage hydroelectricity)
|
| - if you do not want to build either batteries of pumped-
| storage then you have to build in the same amount of quickly
| accessible power source (this is natural gas turbines mostly)
|
| There are few other challenges:
|
| - solar or windmills require massive amount of construction
| because the energy density is very low
|
| - the damage to nature with windmills especially is bad (there
| is preemptive maintenance during animal activity for many of
| the windmills)
|
| - weather can damage these facilities
|
| - the lifetime of windmills or solar panels are much shorter
| than nuclear power plant lifetimes
|
| Given all these and the general public's hatred towards nuclear
| energy largely fuelled by politicians many countries shut down
| research into nuclear with very few exceptions. Instead, these
| countries invested billions into renewables without much
| success yet. I think soon we are going to be at a tipping point
| when this whole circus ends and we are going to get back on
| track with nuclear which is much needed in the coming of space
| era.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| It's straightforward accounting to address the issue you
| mean. Go read Lazard's levelized cost of energy slides. The
| cost comparison isn't some sort of mystery everyone but you
| is getting wrong.
| StreamBright wrote:
| Thanks, it just confirming what I thought. Solar is in the
| same bracket as nuclear. The difference is pretty small.
| Adding the energy density to the mix makes it obvious which
| one is a better option.
| fsflover wrote:
| >but all other forms of energy have undercut the cost of
| nuclear. It's no longer cost competitive
|
| _If markets valued the low-CO2 nature of nuclear, they'd be
| doing better_
|
| https://whatisnuclear.com/economics.html
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| > China that adopt a "let's try everything and see what works
| best" approach have heavily pulled back on nuclear.
|
| They have brought 15 GW online the last 5 years, and they have
| another 15 GW under construction. How is that pulling back?
|
| https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...
| philipkglass wrote:
| It's still the country building the most new nuclear power,
| but it's also reducing ambitions from just a few years ago.
|
| From your own link:
|
| _The 13th Five-Year Plan formalized in March 2016 included
| the following nuclear projects and aims: ... Reach target of
| 58 GWe nuclear operational by end of 2020, plus 30 GWe under
| construction then._
|
| China actually has 47.5 GWe operational now. See table
| "Operable nuclear power reactors" in your link. They fell
| short of the 2020 target and with only 15 GWe under
| construction they're not catching up with their original
| goals either.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Falling 20% short of a five year plan that included 2020 is
| not strong evidence they're pulling back.
| philipkglass wrote:
| That 58 gigawatt goal for 2020 was already less ambitious
| than the goal of 70 GW by 2020 from 2012.
|
| "China may resume approving nuke plants in H1" (January
| 2012)
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/china-nuclear/china-may-
| resu...
|
| _The government will resume approving new plants after
| the announcement of the nuclear safety plan which
| recently won clearance from the Ministry of Environmental
| Protection (MEP), the China Securities Journal said._
|
| _The report also said in order to meet the government-
| set target of having non-fossil fuels to supply 15
| percent of China's primary energy use by 2020, the total
| installed nuclear capacity should not fall under 70
| gigawatts (GW) by then._
|
| That in turn was less ambitious than the 2020 nuclear
| goals China had before the Fukushima accident.
|
| "Nuclear power to rise 10-fold by 2020" (July 2009)
|
| https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-07/02/content_83
| 464...
|
| _China is planning for an installed nuclear power
| capacity of 86 gigawatts by 2020, up nearly 10-fold from
| the 9 GW capacity it had by the end of last year, two
| people familiar with the matter said._
| sudosysgen wrote:
| A large part of that is actually due to civilian opposition
| after Fukushima that led local governments to attempt to
| get others to build nuclear.
|
| The really long term Chinese goals are ~80% nuclear still.
| teclordphrack2 wrote:
| linear vs exponential when compared to other sources.
| js2 wrote:
| > steam based thermodynamic cycles
|
| Technical question: my understanding is that the frequency of
| an electrical grid is literally related to the RPM of turbines
| providing power, and that over/under frequency are related to
| supply and demand.
|
| https://www.brighthubengineering.com/power-plants/45640-grid...
|
| If we hypothetically had a grid that was 100% solar, presumably
| there'd no longer be any spinning turbines. At that point,
| would the grid frequency be completely synthetic? How would
| supply/demand impact the frequency in that case?
|
| Edit: partially answered here ("smart inverters):
|
| https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/solar-integration-inverter...
| ouchjars wrote:
| South Australia, which generated 60% of its electricity with
| renewables last year, is installing synchronous condensers to
| provide some kind of grid stabilisation. (The current
| conservative government is aiming for net 100% renewables by
| 2030 and 500% by 2050.)
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| Solar power (or any other type of terrestrial power source)
| does not generate or capture electrons, so I don't know what
| you're trying to say about steam cycles. Similarly I can't
| imagine what you mean by arbitrage of renewable electrons, a
| charged battery doesn't have any more electrons in it than an
| empty battery.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Do solar and wind cost estimates account for the sheer volume
| of land? How much land would be required to convert us fully to
| green energy (where "fully" means not only replacing existing
| electrical applications but also transforming other fossil-fuel
| operations such as transport and various heavy industry
| applications and residential/commercial heating and etc)? Also,
| don't we need more storage than 4 hours? What about those times
| when weather patterns mean little sun or wind for days or weeks
| on the scale of the whole country? I'm not trying to be a
| wind/solar pessimist; these seem like important questions and I
| don't hear them discussed often.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Winter is hard to store for, but in general there aren't
| times where both sun and wind are low production across wide
| areas.
|
| Of course solar isn't operating at night, but wind keeps
| blowing.
|
| One way to check this would be to find a wind farm that
| publishes their output over time. Looks like NREL has some
| good resources: https://www.nrel.gov/grid/wind-toolkit.html
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > in general there aren't times where both sun and wind are
| low production across wide areas.
|
| I'm sure those times aren't common, but we need to have
| some answer for when they do inevitably occur. The recent
| Texas freeze was a once-in-a-century event and I don't
| think many consider that acceptable (and I would think that
| the no-sun / no-wind scenarios are more frequent than once-
| in-a-century). I'm sure someone has researched the amount
| of storage necessary, but the numbers I've heard from
| articles and podcasts tend to be in the days-weeks range--
| much longer than 4 hours.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Yes, they include the value of land. In Texas, for example,
| land cost for PV might be a couple percent of the cost of a
| PV field.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Does that assume current land values? Presumably land
| values go up as the demand for PV-suitable land increases?
| pfdietz wrote:
| Why should land values go up? The fraction of land needed
| for PV vs. the available land is very small.
| dmix wrote:
| How much of the cost thing like the $1B cooling solution
| because Diablo Canyon was an "old" design from the 70s.
|
| I'd imagine future investment doesn't doesn't mean building
| more Diablo style reactors.
|
| A big problem that promoting nuclear usually comes with plenty
| of arguments in the form of the problems of old reactors (like
| the Tokyo disaster one being built in the 1950s).
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| To be fair this is California, which can't been been a mile
| of high speed rail for under $1B. It means absolutely nothing
| in terms of costs.
| cbmuser wrote:
| > It's no longer cost competitive, and places like China that
| adopt a "let's try everything and see what works best" approach
| have heavily pulled back on nuclear.
|
| Another renewables advocate who equals the LCOE (levelized cost
| of energy) with the system costs, completely ignoring that it's
| not the LCOE which drives up the costs for renewables, it's the
| necessary backup plants unless you have access to lots of hydro
| power per capita.
|
| Case in point.
|
| France: 50 million tons CO2 p.a. in the energy sector, 50 g/kWh
|
| Germany: 350 million tons CO2 p.a. in the energy sector, 400
| g/kWh
|
| Germany: 31 Euro-Cents/kWh
|
| France: 18 Euro-Cents/kWh
|
| Please stop spreading the "nuclear is expensive" narrative.
| [deleted]
| lrem wrote:
| > Attaching four hours of storage to a solar generation farm,
| just enough to get through the duck curve, is now slightly
| cheaper than coal.
|
| How much would attaching two weeks of storage, which is how
| long panels around here have been under 20cm of snow twice this
| winter, cost?
| biren34 wrote:
| I'm squarely of the opposite opinion.
|
| There are 2 main concerns I think "only renewables" solutions
| miss:
|
| 1. Impact on land usage. The sheer amount of land required to
| provide 3-4x global use is impractical and has major
| environmental consequences. It's not free to pave over large
| areas with solar panels or make huge swaths of air unsafe for
| birds.
|
| 2. Cost of storage is usually projected using current prices
| with some decline due to production efficiencies. However,
| producing grid-sized storage would put such pressure on the
| supply of critical metals that the subsequent price rise would
| put bitcoin's performance to shame.
|
| Whereas, we know we can scale nuclear to meet global demand, at
| least as a major base load supply as part of a mixed-generation
| strategy.
| afterburner wrote:
| You're worried about birds? Better raze all buildings and
| kill all the cats. Wind turbine bird deaths are negligible.
|
| https://www.evwind.es/2020/10/01/the-realities-of-bird-
| and-b...
|
| You know you can set up solar panels on roofs, and in the
| desert, right?
| ip26 wrote:
| Hah, that's a great point- for all the hand wringing about
| bird strikes, none of the concern trolls are saying a thing
| about outdoor housecats.
| ktaylora wrote:
| The direct impact of turbines on wildlife (e.g., from
| direct strikes) may be negligible. But the secondary
| effects of carving-up large blocks of intact grasslands in
| the Great Plains with infrastructure like service roads,
| wallpapering desert soils with panels, or placing high-
| capacity transmission lines, are not. This clearly
| contributes to habitat fragmentation and scientists have
| not thoroughly studied how recent infrastructure change is
| influencing habitat for wildlife.
|
| I'm not arguing that increasing green energy production
| like wind and solar should stop. Because climate change is
| arguably a larger existential threat to the planet. But we
| do need to do a better job planning where infrastructure
| lands so we can mitigate habitat fragmentation. Habitat
| fragmentation doesn't really factor into the planning
| calculus at all.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| I grew up on the Great Plains, sadly there aren't many
| "intact" grasslands[1] at this point. Wind turbines are
| integrated into grain agriculture commonly these days[2],
| which seems mostly harmless (given that the farm roads
| and electrical infrastructure are already in place).
|
| 1:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallgrass_prairie#Remnants
|
| 2: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/111
| 219-wi...
| ktaylora wrote:
| Yes. We've lost the tall grass prairie to corn. But there
| are still vast portions of short and mixed-grass prairie
| in the southern great plains on land that was never
| suitable for crop production. The Texas and Oklahoma
| panhandle region, for instance. The only thing you can
| grow there is cows. These places are critical migratory
| habitat for grassland bird populations moving from Canada
| to the tropics. And even some endemic shorebirds like
| long-billed curlew. These same landscapes are also where
| most of the new wind energy development is landing. And
| new development is happening very quickly. Too quickly to
| monitor what it means for wildlife populations that are
| used to flat, open plains with only cattle to contend
| with.
|
| If we arent careful, we'll lose the shortgrass prairie to
| energy development just like we lost the tallgrass
| prairie to corn.
| mannerheim wrote:
| How many eagles are killed by housecats?
| jessaustin wrote:
| Bald eagles, if that's what you mean, are a "least
| concern" species. That makes sense, because while in my
| neighborhood we never saw them several decades ago, now I
| see them multiple times a month. The other day I saw a
| family of four perched in a dead tree. Somehow they've
| overcome the dual menace of housecats and wind
| generation. Now that we've scaled back on DDT, the bald
| eagle is fine.
| mannerheim wrote:
| Bald eagles and golden eagles are still protected species
| - unless, of course, you're running a wind farm, in which
| case you're exempt from these sorts of regulations.[0]
|
| 0: https://apnews.com/article/b8dd6050c702467e8be4b1272a3
| adc87
| jessaustin wrote:
| At that link, we learn that the industry is prohibited
| from killing 4200 a year, which number would have a
| negligible effect on the population and of which number
| the industry has only ever killed a tiny fraction. Far
| more eagles die from automobile impact than from wind
| generation. Eagles are flying coyotes. So long as we
| aren't actively poisoning them, we can coexist just fine.
| mannerheim wrote:
| There are fewer than 10,000 breeding pairs of golden
| eagle in the U.S. But perhaps killing 20% of the
| population annually would have a negligible effect.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Vanishingly few - the housecats are the ones threatened -
| bald eagles eat them for one. Second two smaller ones
| seldom dawdle on the ground and are neither easy to
| ambush nor an easy fight even assuming a type small
| enough to be a threat.
|
| An eagle would need to be essentially already doomed in
| the wild or very young in a too obvious and accessible
| unguarded nest which could be threatened by say a
| squirrel nest raiding.
| mannerheim wrote:
| Precisely. Housecats kill more birds than wind turbines,
| but a pigeon is not an eagle, owl, hawk, or other large
| predatory birds. Might as well start talking about
| insects is we're lumping flying animals all together.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Deserts are not ecosystems devoid of all life. Here's a
| life long anti-nuclear activist talking about how his
| direct experience in this space evolved as he started
| looking into the data more:
|
| https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shellenberger_why_i_chang
| e...
| hannob wrote:
| You know that by now he's a climate denialist?
| (Technically he would probably deny that, but he's
| published a lot of "stop these climate alarmists"
| messaging lately.)
|
| (Update: Can't reply to the reply, but here's some actual
| scientists on Shellenbergers latest output
| https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/article-by-
| michael-sh... )
| Stupulous wrote:
| Characterizing people who take a nuanced stance as
| denying science, and then disregarding the things they
| say is a bad path to take. If he's said things that are
| untrue, call them out. If he's said true things that you
| think imply he believes untrue things, you should make an
| effort to change your model to one that incorporates all
| truth. This is directed more at your approach than it is
| in defense of Shellenburger, but I'll happily read
| rebuttals of his points in replies to this comment if you
| or others are so inclined.
| durandal1 wrote:
| I have not seen him in any way deny climate change, what
| he does is trying to reason trough the probabilities of
| outcomes and figure out where it makes sense to focus our
| efforts. We must understand the threats to efficiently
| counter them, and fear mongering around edge case
| outcomes does not help.
| afterburner wrote:
| You know deserts are BIG, right?
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Can you please contribute something other than snark?
| afterburner wrote:
| Prove to me that these pro nuclear activists actually
| truly care about the land use from solar and wind power.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Why do you think I'm saying it's an either or? Wind and
| solar are an important part of the energy mix. But if you
| truly care about minimizing the impact our energy use has
| on the world around us, you have to take a mix of all of
| it. Wind and solar alone will never rid us of fossil
| fuels on their own. Nuclear has lots of important
| properties that make it a much better overall true
| replacement for our fossil fuel dependence. The data
| clearly shows that wind and solar paradoxically increase
| fossil fuel usage. The reason is they lower the cost of
| energy, which attracts more industry, which requires more
| fossil fuels in the situations where/when it doesn't
| work. Batteries and stored hydro power help but don't
| fully solve the problem due to scale/cost. You don't have
| to buy the causation argument. We have pretty compelling
| and consistent A/B environments here to observe the
| correlation that when you add renewables + nuclear you
| reduce fossil fuel usage. You add renewables alone, they
| do not displace fossil fuels.
|
| "Deserts are big" isn't a compelling argument to me.
| Oceans are even bigger yet I'm still unhappy with how
| much pollution goes into them. The only thing deserts
| have for them is that it's easy for humans to ignore them
| and it's politically easier than "omg scary nucular"
| (ignoring the fact that coal plants, even so-called
| "clean coal" emit more radiation in one year than a
| nuclear plant does over its entire lifetime).
|
| Think of it this way. We still have no data that
| indicates wind and/or solar can displace coal/gas as
| energy sources. They primarily displace about 10-20% of
| our energy mix that usually is other sources anyway
| (geothermal, hydro, natural gas, etc).
| cygx wrote:
| _We still have no data that indicates wind and /or solar
| can displace coal/gas as energy sources._
|
| Germany, 2010: Coal+Oil+Gas 55%
| Nuclear 25% Wind+Solar+Hydro 13%
|
| Germany, 2020: Coal+Oil+Gas 36%
| Nuclear 12% Wind+Solar+Hydro 41%
|
| Source: https://energy-
| charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE...
| runsWphotons wrote:
| These numbers can be looked at two ways. Germany actually
| failed in its efforts to get off the coal so far, I
| think. Just from these numbers you could as easily be
| making his point as yours.
| cygx wrote:
| _Germany actually failed in its efforts to get off the
| coal so far_
|
| There was no way to 'fail' such efforts, because until
| last year, there was no actual roadmap for getting rid of
| coal.
|
| Instead, there were CO2 reduction goals. We were going to
| miss the mark for 2020 (40% reduction compared to 1990),
| but thanks to Covid, we've actually met the target...
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Carbon dioxide emissions from consumption of energy
| Germany: 847.6 million Mt (2017 est.) France: 341.2
| million Mt (2017 est.)
|
| Germany: 57% from non-co2 sources France: 69% (50% from
| nuclear, 19% wind/solar/hydro)
|
| https://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/germany.franc
| e/e...
| jscipione wrote:
| According to the EPA: "Generally, [coal] wastes are only
| slightly more radioactive than the average soil in the
| United States. The amount of natural radiation in wastes
| from coal-fired power plants is so small that no
| precautions need to be taken."
|
| https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactive-wastes-coal-
| fired-po...
| nitrogen wrote:
| That page doesn't actually give any numbers.
| philipkglass wrote:
| _coal plants, even so-called "clean coal" emit more
| radiation in one year than a nuclear plant does over its
| entire lifetime_
|
| That is incorrect. You may be thinking of this Scientific
| American article:
|
| "Coal Ash Is More Radioactive Than Nuclear Waste"
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-
| more-...
|
| Which is a garbled retelling of this 1978 report:
|
| "Radiological Impact of Airborne Effluents of Coal and
| Nuclear Plants"
|
| https://science.sciencemag.org/content/202/4372/1045.abst
| rac...
|
| The point of the 1978 report was that radioactive
| elements from coal are more likely to be concentrated in
| the food supply and retained in the body than radioactive
| elements released from power reactors. That leads to an
| _effective_ higher radiation dose to people under their
| modeling assumptions. But nuclear reactors release more
| becquerels (or curies, to use the older unit) of
| radioactive material to the environment.
|
| You can see this difference if you look at the original
| publication via sci-hub.
|
| https://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.202.4372.1045
|
| Table 2 shows an estimated airborne release of about 1.2
| curies per year of radionuclides from a 1000 MWe coal
| plant.
|
| Table 3 shows shows an estimated airborne release in
| excess of 5000 curies per year of radionuclides from a
| 1000 MWe nuclear reactor.
|
| But since the reactor radionuclides do not biologically
| concentrate in food or bones, they are dispersed
| throughout the environment and human exposure is small.
|
| In table 5 you can see that the whole body population
| dose commitments for the different sources, in man-
| rem/year, are 18-23 for coal (depending on stack height)
| and 13 for a nuclear reactor. So coal is worse but far
| from 50x worse. Looking exclusively at bone exposure,
| coal can be an order of magnitude worse since radium
| released from coal behaves chemically like calcium and
| concentrates in bones.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Desert solar is certainly going to be part of the story,
| but I can't imagine that we can feasibly power the whole
| country with desert solar alone, and I don't think
| residential solar will be a significant contributor because
| you lose the efficiencies of scale afforded by acres and
| acres of collocated, homogeneous, ground-level panels for
| construction, maintenance, and operation. Consider even the
| overhead of dealing with thousands of individual property
| owners rather than a single land owner (if that--the
| utility may own the land for a solar farm outright).
| afterburner wrote:
| All those individuals will respond to the incentive of
| cheaper energy bills by installing roof solar
| voluntarily. Provided their government doesn't pass pro-
| fossil fuel legislation that actively punishes that
| decision, as some have.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I'm not talking about persuading people to install solar,
| I'm talking about the sheer bureaucratic work (on the
| part of the utility) to manage contracts with thousands
| of property owners instead of just one. Similarly, the
| overhead of servicing thousands of roof-top installations
| (scheduling appointments, driving to sites, climbing onto
| the roof, etc) versus a single contiguous site at ground
| level. I don't think residential solar is a major feature
| of any serious green energy plan, and for good reason.
| FooHentai wrote:
| I don't follow. You could make the same argument about
| communal water heating versus having a heater in each
| home, yet of course such a position would be absurd.
|
| Millions of individual homes running their own solar,
| even with everybody hooked up for exporting, is quite
| feasible. It's happening today.
|
| Having it be an arrangement where a power provider owns
| and maintains the panels isn't necessary or desirable.
| Lease-to-own or outright purchase by homeowners works
| fine.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > You could make the same argument about communal water
| heating versus having a heater in each home, yet of
| course such a position would be absurd.
|
| If we could cheaply and efficiently transport hot water
| over miles and miles like we can with electricity then
| communal water heating would be much more common. Note
| that communal water heating is fairly normal (i.e., not
| "absurd") in large apartment, condominium, and commercial
| office buildings (one large boiler providing hot water
| for all tenants).
|
| > Millions of individual homes running their own solar,
| even with everybody hooked up for exporting, is quite
| feasible. It's happening today.
|
| The question isn't whether there's an issue hooking
| individual residential solar installations up to the grid
| --no one disputes that. The relevant question is how
| expensive is it to build and maintain tens of millions of
| individual rooftop solar installations versus several
| orders of magnitude fewer, larger installations.
| According to https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/what-is-a-
| solar-farm-do-i-..., it would cost at least ~$2.8M to
| generate 1MW via rooftop solar systems while it would
| cost only about ~$1M to generate the same amount of
| energy via solar farm.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > I don't think residential solar will be a significant
| contributor because you lose the efficiencies of scale
| afforded by acres and acres of collocated, homogeneous,
| ground-level panels for construction, maintenance, and
| operation.
|
| But what you lost in scale you gain in:
|
| - Lack of distribution costs. Roof-top solar (esp. when
| combined with storage) can be consumed at the point of
| generation.
|
| - Distribution of maintenance costs. Right now the
| biggest cost is installation. But it doesn't seem at all
| infeasible that this could be simplified to the point
| that it is something that people could easily install
| themselves.
|
| Places like Germany already have somewhat significant
| contributions from rooftop solar.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > Lack of distribution costs
|
| What are the "distribution costs"? Presumably any cost
| besides the cost of infrastructure to connect to the grid
| are negligible, and you have to pay the infrastructure
| cost anyway (or rather, if you pay to over provision on
| production and storage such that you can be truly off-
| grid, then you're going to be paying far more than the
| infrastructure costs).
|
| > Distribution of maintenance costs. Right now the
| biggest cost is installation. But it doesn't seem at all
| infeasible that this could be simplified to the point
| that it is something that people could easily install
| themselves.
|
| I doubt it. First of all, making plans based on some
| unknown innovation seems, uh, unwise to put it nicely.
| Secondly, it's very unlikely that such an innovation
| would reduce the cost of rooftop solar _but not farmed
| solar_. Thirdly, such an innovation seems very unlikely
| since we already have ubiquitous tasks that every home
| needs (electrical, plumbing, roofing, dry-wall) for which
| we still hire professionals--the ubiquity hasn 't
| manifested an innovation that lowers the technical
| barrier enough that we all do these things ourselves.
|
| Moreover, economies of scale work in the other direction.
| It's much cheaper to maintain a single 1MW solar farm
| than it is to maintain 50 20KW rooftop installations.
|
| However, we don't need to speculate about tradeoffs.
| According to https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/what-is-a-
| solar-farm-do-i-..., rooftop solar costs 2-3 times as
| much as farmed solar, so it seems the economies of scale
| dwarf any advantages rooftop solar might convey.
|
| > Places like Germany already have somewhat significant
| contributions from rooftop solar.
|
| If I'm understanding
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany
| correctly, solar only accounts for 8.2% of German
| electrical capacity and of that 14% comes from rooftop
| solar. So something like 1% of Germany's capacity comes
| from rooftop solar?
| epistasis wrote:
| Compare your best estimates of land usage to the amount of
| land the US uses to grow corn for ethanol.
|
| Or compare it to the amount of land used for parking. Or for
| roads. Or for roofs of buildings.
|
| I've never, not once, ever seen a comparison of this sort
| that sounded the least bit scary.
|
| 2. I'm a bit flabbergasted that you think we can scar nuclear
| production to what we need. We can't even scale nuclear
| production to hit replacement rate of our existing reactors.
| Nuclear does not scale, because it can not be built.
|
| And I'm similarly flabbergasted that you think _storage_
| would hit scaling problems, when we build new factories for
| storage all the time, use new chemistries all the time to
| reduce the use of limited input components.
|
| Storage production is growing at a massive pace, problems are
| getting solved all the time. Nuclear is shrinking all the
| time, gets more expensive all the time, and we can't even
| figure out basic concrete pours and welding. These industries
| are hugely contrasting, but I don't know how you can reach
| your conclusions when looking at the reality of storage and
| nuclear as they are in the real word.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Nuclear is actually intentionally crippled through
| legislation under over-hyped concerns over dirty bombs
| accidents (for the right and left politically inclined
| respectively).
|
| Nuclear can be done safe, efficient, cheap and at-scale.
| All it requires is to allow for the secondary market of
| spent fuel like was originally started when nuclear first
| starting to get rolled out. The security concerns can be
| handled in other ways than crippling nuclear from being
| self-sustaining I think.
| BillyTheKing wrote:
| I used to be of the same opinion, but I gotta say that
| Fukushima really did have an impact on me (on the long-
| run, it didn't have an immediate impact). But I have been
| wondering, if an incredibly advanced nation such as Japan
| faces very serious issues with their nuclear power-
| plants, is it really the right choice? Can we really
| guarantee that nothing goes seriously wrong, ever? Cause
| that's the standard those plants have to operate under,
| what if there's an earthquake in Indonesia right next to
| one of those nuclear power plants, is Indonesia in a
| better position to deal with such a disaster than Japan?
|
| Nuclear power plants have zero tolerance for serious
| accidents. And zero-tolerance is never a good margin to
| operate on.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| It's worth noting that, even taking second-order effects
| into account, the total number of deaths from nuclear
| accidents is actually quite low compared to other methods
| of generating electricity.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM
|
| Nuclear _seems_ more dangerous for the same reason planes
| seem more dangerous than cars--when something goes wrong,
| it 's a big news event.
| drran wrote:
| Data is cherry-picked. For example, if 60 000 people die
| because of Chornobyl radiation to 2005 (estimation from
| video) doesn't mean that they will stop dying after 2005.
| How many people will die after 2005? Video gives no
| answer.
|
| Also, the video indirectly suggests that we can replace
| flood protection with nuclear energy. :-/ Dams are built
| mainly to protect population from floods, so they SAVE
| millions of lives every year, while also generating
| electrical energy, which is used to upkeep dams.
|
| Banqiao incident is pictured like Chornobyl`, but, in
| reality, a bunch of people lives was SAVED by lower dam.
| The flood broke 62 dams. Just imagine what may happen
| when 10 nuclear reactors and/or nuclear waste sites will
| be flooded instead.
| subaquamille wrote:
| The main problem with nuclear is that when something goes
| wrong, it last for way longuer than any other form of
| catastrof.
| nicoburns wrote:
| One of the other comments was talking about the land-use
| impact of renewables. Nuclear exclusion zones are pretty
| bad from this perspective.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Fukushima happened after the biggest Earthquake in over
| 1000 years of recorded Japanese history hit at the right
| spot to produce an enormous flood wave at the reactor.
|
| I'd be careful to draw conclusion from such an outlier.
| subaquamille wrote:
| And radiations in Fukushima will last for the next 1000
| years. Do we have the same understanding of "zero error
| tolerance" ?
| pyrale wrote:
| At the pace we're going, we're tolerating to make the
| whole planet a burning hell for the comming millions of
| years. So I would say we have a pretty high tolerance to
| disaster, as long as it's happening to our children
| rather than us.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| It's been years so I can't recall the name or find a
| source, but I recall reading at the time that there was
| in fact an engineer working on Fukushima's design that
| loudly protested that the sea wall and related
| preparations were inadequate based on historical records.
| Basically that they planned for the 100 year event but
| should have planned for the 1000 year event. It also
| wouldn't have been a huge cost burden. Putting the
| gensets on piers would have prevented the worst of it.
| joshspankit wrote:
| Similarly, I'd be careful about discounting it simply
| _because_ it was an outlier
| epistasis wrote:
| Can you explain this a bit more? I don't see how these
| things could have helped any of the construction failures
| that have plagued all nuclear attempts.
|
| Operating costs are low for nuclear, it's the
| construction that is the problem.
| YarickR2 wrote:
| I wouldn't be so sure about cobstruction costs either.
| Reactors are being built elsewhere in the world all the
| time, and I doubt foreign finance guys are less smart or
| safety codes are less strict
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Pay money to Rosatom, they'll build nuclear plants for
| you. If US lost its nuclear competency, it does not mean
| that everyone else lost.
| YarickR2 wrote:
| Correct answer. Floating nuclear power plant recently
| went operational , supplying arctic city with electricity
| ; it was built in two years, top to bottom. I wonder if
| couple of those in the Gulf of Mexico could've secured
| oil refineries' energy supply, allowing grid operators to
| divert more conventionally generated power to residential
| areas, diminishing blackouts
| solstice wrote:
| ... Not to mention the decommissioning costs
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Nuclear loses to alternatives on a pure ROI basis. Even
| in places where political opposition or legislation is a
| total non issue (eg China) you see exactly the same bad
| math when it comes to the $.
|
| I feel like a broken record posting this in every thread
| about nuclear. There's too many people on this forum that
| have some sort of smug attitude about not being "scared"
| of nuclear power and don't bother to learn what's
| actually constraining things.
| 93po wrote:
| I feel like a broken record when people always focus on
| ROI and up front costs and completely ignore the millon+
| people that did every year from fossil fuel usage
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Thank you for making this point. I completely agree. I
| make the ROI argument here because it's the one people
| listen to, sadly. Living next to a coal or oil fired
| power plant is one of the worst decisions you could make
| health wise, particularly for children.
| vkou wrote:
| It's not that nuclear cannot be built. It's that America is
| incapable of building... Pretty much anything in the 21st
| century. If the interstate system were to disappear
| tomorrow, for example, we simply wouldn't be able to
| rebuild it.
|
| It's not because concrete is some arcane technology that
| isn't cost effective, or doesn't work. It's because we just
| aren't very good at building things anymore.
| jessaustin wrote:
| This isn't a great argument for building more nuclear
| plants. It might be an argument for hiring someone else
| to build them...
| throwawayboise wrote:
| New interstates are being built all the time. They are
| under construction today.
| andrewzah wrote:
| That and we can't displace black people anymore to build
| national highways thru residential areas. /s
|
| However I do agree. Our politicians prefer to wank over
| unimportant things instead of working on things that
| actually would benefit the people. And the government
| contracting system is horribly broken.
|
| There is no incentive to putting in the hard work to
| accomplish projects like before.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| On point 2, you're ignoring that nuclear has the same problem
| only even worse. There are _very_ few companies in the world
| that can make reactor vessels and related stuff. In
| particular a lot of projects are bottlenecked on one company
| in Japan.
|
| In any case, I think it's a weak point. We can scale up
| battery production. I'm not a fan of the Elon Hype Squad, but
| he's right about this point.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Land usage is not much of an actual problem. For one sunlight
| falls pretty much everywhere. You don't need to put a solar
| plant out away from cities like coal and oil plants. You can
| cover the acreage of a city with solar panels. Just putting
| panels up over parking lots in suburbs/exurbs contributes
| significantly to the area's power needs.
|
| Offshore wind is also extremely productive and eats up no
| arable/useful land. Farmland is also great siting for wind
| because there's enough uninhabited acreage to safely put up
| large turbines. A lot of wind power in Texas for instance
| comes from turbines on farms and ranches.
|
| That's in addition to more site limited renewables like
| hydro, tidal, and geothermal.
|
| There's lots and lots of untapped energy hitting the Earth
| every day. The Earth is also really big. To handle a few
| integer multiples of human power needs with renewables by
| tapping a tiny fraction of that is not outside the realm of
| possibility or even all that difficult. It's more a question
| of will than technical capability.
| nippoo wrote:
| About 0.5% of the US needs to be covered in solar panels to
| meet the US's current energy requirements (about the size of
| the Mojave desert).
|
| About the size of New Mexico needs to be covered to meet the
| whole world's energy consumption.
|
| In the grand scale of things, and considering how much sunny,
| arid desert land there is in the world (and without even
| thinking of floating solar farms) that's really not a lot...
| airhead969 wrote:
| I worked in nuclear. There's definitely no way now to insure a
| new plant and make money. Try as they may, even Duke couldn't
| break ground on any new US project because there hasn't been
| money in it for about 40 years. The economics kill it and there
| aren't going to be anymore PWR/BWRs, with the possible
| exceptions of BCH, 2 PWRs at Turkey Point, and 1 ESBWR at North
| Anna. Renewables will likely undercut them all to cancellation.
| undefined1 wrote:
| how much of that is due to regulations or other overhead or
| inefficiencies?
|
| e.g., "China Tariffs Blocked Bill Gates' Plan for Safe
| Nuclear Power"
|
| https://futurism.com/trump-china-tariffs-bill-gates-
| nuclear-...
|
| also, SpaceX managed to make reusable rockets, I just have to
| imagine we could make nuclear energy feasible if we
| approached it from first principles and took a hard look at
| the entire process.
| epistasis wrote:
| I always ask: what regulation would you change? Nobody in
| the nuclear industry has suggestions for what is
| unnecessary, as far as I can tell.
|
| And as Texas showed us last week, without regulations,
| profit motive alone is not enough to maintain proper
| equipment. The nuclear plant that tripped off _could_ have
| made months worth of profit in less than a day. Yet they
| did not do simple weatherization preparations that they
| knew they should have based on 2011 's events.
| glogla wrote:
| One common complaint is that every plant is a special
| snowflake that is validated, qualified and certified from
| scratch. Building more at once as a single project using
| a single plan could bring a lot of efficiency in the
| process.
|
| I think that was the promise of Small Modular Reactors -
| you certify reactor by itself, making the plant
| certification much easier and faster. I'm not sure that
| materialised, though.
| airhead969 wrote:
| SMRs like SSR heatpipes are interesting. The issues of
| decentralization of controlled nuclear sites are many.
| It's better to have many SMRs in one location for safety,
| security, and backbench of resources and talent for
| engineering and operations. Simply, it scales better.
| Giving every Tom, Jane, and Sally corporation or town an
| SMR is an absolutely terrible idea.
| glogla wrote:
| Oh sure, I understood the effort to make it easier to
| "plop down" bunch large plants at once, not hundreds of
| small ones - though those are kind of interesting in
| isolated locations.
|
| The other thing is old Soviet idea of using small nuclear
| reactors for heating - put small reactor to every town
| and run central heating to the housing estates, meaning
| you get to use close to 100 % of the heat output of the
| reactor, instead of the ~ 30 % the turbines give you in
| electricity.
|
| Of course, if things go wrong, you have very efficient
| radioactivity delivery mechanism to every home. And
| outside of very cold climates it might be actually less
| efficient than a modern heat pump, even accounting for
| the heat conversion.
| airhead969 wrote:
| The usual answer from the unreasonable, irrational, and
| selfish Rand Paul-types is "gubberment always too big, so
| regulations bad."
|
| I would modify Madison's quote: _If everyone were
| angelic, proactive, and wise, no government or
| regulations would be necessary. Since none of these can
| ever be true, government and regulations will always be
| essential._
|
| I'm in Austin and froze for 3 days because of piss-poor
| under-regulation due to lack of grid and backup power
| investment. ERCOT did they best they could while under-
| resourced and then thrown under the bus by the MSM and
| libertarian, anarcho-capitalist sympathizers like Abbott.
| undefined1 wrote:
| it's an open question.
|
| but obviously there's no such thing as perfect
| regulation. it's imperfect, just as with everything else.
| so you have to ask the question.
|
| regulations are often good and necessary, but they also
| often outlive their purpose and we end up with stagnation
| and regulatory capture from large corporations, where
| startups can't compete. or in the case of nuclear, even a
| Bill Gates' backed company has a hard time being able to
| build.
| airhead969 wrote:
| Gimme a break. Don't pull the Reagan/Bush/libertarian "all
| regs are bad" line. It's tired.
|
| The NRC knows their job, have excellent people, and are
| good at it. It's like questioning whether we need the NTSB
| or not.
| undefined1 wrote:
| you're setting up and attacking a strawman. didn't say
| all regs are bad. obviously you have to identify which
| regulations are good and which are not, or those no
| longer necessary, and find a balance so you don't quash
| innovation. like the example I gave with Bill Gates
| nuclear project.
| airhead969 wrote:
| Oh so now _some_ nuclear industry regulations are "bad."
| Then who knows better than NRC engineers and scientists,
| legitimately aiming to ensure the industry doesn't die
| from mass-casualty events, public harm, or unworkable
| costs?
|
| Maybe before throwing shade on something you know nothing
| about, it's often best to not prove that you're speaking
| from your tail end. ; )
|
| EDIT: You made a bunch of edits. No, _you in particular
| and no one else_ have to state which regs are bad if _you
| 're_ making this presumption. "Innovation" and the
| stability of risk management are often at cross-purposes;
| don't upset what works and is standardized for
| consumerist novelty in a _fucking nuclear reactor._
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Move fast, break things - if only we could innovate in
| nuclear energy... It's telling that all these experts who
| complain about regulations can't point to a single one
| being a problem.
| undefined1 wrote:
| in a time when institutions and experts are failing all
| around us, I appreciate your optimism. but it's too much
| like a blind faith and devotion to priests for my tastes.
|
| and maybe they are right about every regulation, that's a
| possibility! but clearly something has gone wrong when we
| could have had a clean grid powered via nuclear energy by
| now. so I think it would be wise to question everything
| in the chain.
| Daho0n wrote:
| >in a time when institutions and experts are failing all
| around us
|
| I'm sorry but that is not happening IMO. What is
| happening is non-experts decide what to do without
| listening to institutions and experts. We are seeing the
| result of what you seem to be advocating. We should
| listen more to the experts and institutions and look at
| other places that have less of these kinds of problems,
| like Scandinavia.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > institutions and experts are failing all around us
|
| Is that what we're seeing? Which institutions and experts
| do you think are failing us?
|
| Could it actually be the case that institutions and
| experts are 99% accurate in their output, but the
| information ecosystem around us is highlighting the 1% of
| inaccuracies and presenting them as fatal flaws (while
| ignoring the fact that the alternatives to these
| institutions and experts have less than 50% accuracy)?
|
| Certainly you could make the case that there are some
| people with an ideology and/or incentives to make sure
| that governments don't work for the benefit of the people
| they are supposed to serve, but if that's the threat
| model then all proposed plans need to be considered
| against that threat.
| BalinKing wrote:
| > Certainly you could make the case that there are some
| people with an ideology and/or incentives to make sure
| that governments don't work for the benefit of the people
| they are supposed to serve, but if that's the threat
| model then all proposed plans need to be considered
| against that threat.
|
| I agree, and I think all proposed plans should
| _absolutely_ be considered against that threat. I
| certainly hope that 's not a radical take on my part....
| jessaustin wrote:
| You say we could have that, but no other nation has it
| either. Presumably some nations are better at regulating
| than we are; what is their excuse?
| Zigurd wrote:
| "It's no longer cost competitive" is just the tip of the
| financial iceberg. Nukes are no longer price competitive, if
| they ever were, even with all the unpaid externalities: Waste
| containment and storage is a public sector megaproject. Nuclear
| plants are not insurable. Set-asides for decommissioning are
| gamed by selling plants nearing EOL.
| lisper wrote:
| > all other forms of energy have undercut the cost of nuclear
|
| Only because the cost of carbon emissions are externalized. If
| carbon were properly accounted for, nuclear would most likely
| be economically viable.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I've done a fair amount of research into molten salt reactors,
| and if we can solve the containment issue they should be very
| cost effective. The molten salts are extremely corrosive, which
| cuts their lifespan down to ~5 years. Newer designs should
| reach 10 years and there is extensive research into designing
| systems that will last 20+ years.
|
| They should be much cheaper to build and operate because they
| have several inherent safety features. They operate at one
| atmosphere, so you don't need expensive pressure containment
| systems. The fissile material is already melted, so meltdowns
| are basically impossible. Most designs have a drain line to a
| gravity fed safety containment vessel full of control rods. The
| drain line is actively cooled to solidify the salt, forming a
| plug that automatically melts during a power loss or over-
| temperature event.
| epistasis wrote:
| This is solving the wrong problem, and therefore will not
| advance nuclear. Cost is the impediment to nuclear, not any
| sort of safety concerns.
|
| That molten salt reactor will need to have a negative cost in
| order to compete with the cost of stored renewable energy.
|
| The future of nuclear energy must either abandon the thermal
| steam cycle for electricity generation, or generate massive
| value from the nuclear reaction part apart from generating
| steam.
| kilotaras wrote:
| > with the cost of stored renewable energy.
|
| Which is how much? We don't have a good way to store energy
| right now.
| ortusdux wrote:
| > Cost is the impediment to nuclear, not any sort of safety
| concerns.
|
| Safety systems and regulations greatly inflate costs. Any
| reasonable, safe measures that can be taken to reduce them
| will make nuclear more profitable.
|
| A good example of this is small modular reactors. Current
| nuclear plants need to be approved by regulators on a case
| by case basis. Nuscale, a SMR company, is the first to get
| their module design signed off by the nuclear regulatory
| commission. This means that they can build them at volume
| and skip most of the red tape.
|
| Analysts expect Nuscale's systems to be 1/4 to 1/3 cheaper
| than current nuclear plants. Imagine the price reduction of
| a SMR with half the complexity.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Cost is the impediment to nuclear, not any sort of safety
| concerns
|
| That's not entirely true, and safety features and
| regulations are a major part of nuclear's cost.
|
| > That molten salt reactor will need to have a negative
| cost in order to compete with the cost of stored renewable
| energy
|
| Does stored renewable energy come for free? From what i
| recall, there's still no actual solution to that problem on
| a big scale.
| Daho0n wrote:
| >safety features and regulations are a major part of
| nuclear's cost.
|
| Which regulations -that aren't there for safety- are
| driving up cost of nuclear power? I can't find any. Are
| you saying we should cut down on safety to make nuclear
| able to compete?
| vasama wrote:
| Making a molten salt reactor safe might be much cheaper
| than a light water reactor.
| calaphos wrote:
| Given the enourmous costs of decommissioning nuclear power
| plants already I fail to see how a reactor containment that
| lasts 10-20 years at best improves the situation.
| blabitty wrote:
| Forgive my nitpick but power generation doesn't generate
| electrons it pushes existing ones around, very slowly. Highly
| recommend http://amasci.com/miscon/whatis.html to anyone
| interested in discovering how inconsistently electrical
| concepts are defined and taught.
| epistasis wrote:
| That was an especially unfortunate typo in a post riddled
| with typos.
|
| I will stand by my use of electron arbitrage though.
| dalbasal wrote:
| It's hard to put your finger on the true "main point." Energy,
| especially nuclear energy has always been fraught, politically
| and technically.
|
| Your point is definitely poignant currently. Renewables are
| looking like a good bet atm.
|
| A fundamental point is that nuclear energy has a lot of
| potential, ultimately. The debate will always be about
| investing in nuclear _now_. Long term, it 's hard to imagine
| nuclear energy doesn't have a place.
|
| In fact, it's surprising that nuclear energy hasn't been a
| bigger gamechanger. That's my last point. Nuclear energy has
| been, historically, somewhere between "eh" and disappointing.
| Applicable where natural gas is inconvenient.
|
| The fact that most nuclear plants them are nuclear powered
| steam engines... something not right. Generally, nuclear is
| promising. Particularly, the options available to a region that
| needs power just aren't that attractive.
| macspoofing wrote:
| We're going to have to build up our Nuclear infrastructure
| eventually because outside of fossil fuels, geothermal and hydro
| (both of which need particular geography so they can never be the
| final answer) there is nothing else.
|
| Unfortunately the cultural push is for wind and solar, so it
| looks like we're going to have to give wind and solar the 'old
| college try' and lose precious decades before we realize we need
| nuclear.
|
| It would have been nice to invest in Nuclear in the 70s to the
| same level as France, for example, and thereby prevent trillions
| of tons of CO2 that were emitted between the 70s and today from
| being emitted, and the trillions more between now and whenever we
| wake up to the fact that wind and solar just can't scale. I
| suspect future generations will take a dim view of the anti-nuke
| environmental movement.
|
| Worse, though wind and solar collectors may reduce CO2 emissions
| they are incredibly environmentally destructive in other ways.
| Let's keep mind that global warming is only one aspect of
| environmental destruction. The other is regular habitat and
| ecosystem collapse due support of human civilization (cities,
| agriculture, transportation etc.). Solar and wind collectors have
| horrendous land-use requirements (land-use around mining for
| necessary materials, deployment of the collectors, and finally
| land-fill once out of use). So when it comes to ecosystem
| destruction, solar and wind make it worse on all counts.
|
| I have no fuckin clue what environmentalists think will happen to
| the environment when we increase Solar and Wind collectors by
| several orders of magnitude (which would be necessary to support
| 7-10 billion people move partially from fossil fuels). Pure
| Insanity.
|
| Oh well. It is what it is.
| boh wrote:
| There's very little doubt that investments in wind and solar
| are beneficial. It may not get to the point that it takes the
| place of everything else but it is definitely a good ancillary
| source. As in the solar panels on your house might not be
| enough to subvert traditional power sources, but it will take
| some of the stress off the grid. It may not be helpful to the
| current situation in Texas, but it definitely helps a place
| like Texas in the summer.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >As in the solar panels on your house might not be enough to
| subvert traditional power sources, but it will take some of
| the stress off the grid
|
| Sure, except that's not really a problem we are trying to
| solve.
|
| That solar and wind have niche application, sure, I agree.
| There will always be applications and settings where solar
| and wind make sense. The argument that is made is that solar
| and wind can replace fossil-fuel generated power. And
| sometimes the argument is made that solar and wind can
| replace fossil-fuel generated power AND nuclear power. That's
| crazy talk but like I said, as a society we already made the
| choice to give it a try. We'll lose decades on top the
| decades we already lost, but it is what it is.
| Daho0n wrote:
| Citation needed.
| macspoofing wrote:
| Citation for which part? That solar and wind have huge land-
| use requirements compared to nuclear (and even other
| generation sources)? That we need to increase production of
| solar and wind collectors by several orders of magnitude to
| fully replace fossil fuel generated power, and by extension
| need to increase mineral extraction (rare-earth or otherwise)
| to build them? That every single collector we build today
| will need to be land-filled at some point in the future and
| replaced by another one we have yet to build? That there is
| no battery technology today that can bridge the intermittency
| issues of solar and wind in order for that technology to
| actually power the economy without fossil fuel backup? That
| global warming is not the only environmental problem we are
| dealing with?
|
| Those are all statements of fact.
| Daho0n wrote:
| Those doesn't look like facts at all but your opinions but
| feel free to prove otherwise.
|
| Let's start with a simple one:
|
| >solar and wind have huge land-use requirements compared to
| nuclear
|
| Can you build nuclear in the oceans, safely, like offshore
| wind turbines? Or on hillsides and in desert hundreds of
| kilometres from the nearest town (and get people to work
| there without disrupting the local ecology with local
| housing etc.) using only land no one wants? Land is not
| something we have unlimited amounts of and in many places
| it is only better if it is somewhere else or smaller than
| what is there now.
|
| Can we build a nuclear plant that is safe? Not according to
| you or a talking head but to the people who have to live
| close to it. If you won't you clearly don't believe in it
| your self so, would you rather live close beside its
| perimeters with your children in an earthquake, tsunami or
| hurricane compared to windmills?
|
| >global warming is not the only environmental problem we
| are dealing with
|
| No, one of the big ones is that the rich countries who have
| polluted for decades wants everyone to now live up to their
| rules today which is not going to happen. So before
| anything else all of us that live in the richest parts of
| the world have to pay for everyone who doesn't to get
| environmentally friendly electricity. The problem is global
| and the people who are being lifted out of poverty today
| have as much right to use old coal technicology today as we
| had 50 years ago _unless_ we pay the difference in cost for
| them.
|
| Will you help pay for electricity in places that need it
| more than you to save the planet? Because that is the
| biggest problem we need to solve - not if Sweden use
| nuclear or Texas upgrade its grid. Those are close to
| irrelevant unlike the costs of environmentally safe power
| plants in India, Africa, China, etc.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >Can you build nuclear in the oceans, safely, like
| offshore wind turbines? Or on hillsides and in desert
| hundreds of kilometres from the nearest town (and get
| people to work there without disrupting the local ecology
| with local housing etc.) using only land no one wants?
| Land is not something we have unlimited amounts of and in
| many places it is only better if it is somewhere else or
| smaller than what is there now.
|
| I don't know how you can say that it is merely an opinion
| and not fact that, land-use requirements of solar and
| wind are high.
|
| Also, every square meter of Earth is part of some
| ecosystem that is already under tremendous stress due to
| human activity. That includes areas that are deemed
| 'undesirable' to human life, like deserts and oceans and
| hillsides. And by the way, those are not the only regions
| that are used for wind and solar farms. You only need to
| look at how wind and solar are being deployed today to
| see that all kinds of tracks of land are allocated for
| wind and solar farms, and we will have to scale that by
| several orders of magnitude in order to make a dent in
| getting rid of fossil fuels.
|
| >Not according to you or a talking head but to the people
| who have to live close to it.
|
| I lived within 10 km of a nuclear plant all my life, as
| did millions in my city.
|
| >No, one of the big ones is that the rich countries who
| have polluted for decades wants everyone to now live up
| to their rules today which is not going to happen. So
| before anything else all of us that live in the richest
| parts of the world have to pay for everyone who doesn't
| to get environmentally friendly electricity.
|
| I don't understand what that has to do with anything.
| slymon99 wrote:
| The more interesting climate advantage of nuclear power is it can
| be used directly in manufacturing, for example in creating steel
| (which represents 8% of GHG emissions). You can't make steel with
| electricity - the current strategy involves essentially setting a
| bunch of oil on fire on top of the requisite components (you can
| tell I'm not actually an industrial engineer, but steel
| generation is very not green).
|
| However, you could harness the heat from a nuclear plant directly
| (instead of using it to create steam and drive turbines) to
| create steel. This has been discussed for decades[1], but modern
| improvements in nuclear technology could make it a reality
|
| [1]: https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:8341064
| philipkglass wrote:
| From your link: "The most promising concept is a High-
| Temperature Gas-Cooled Nuclear Reactor heating helium to a
| temperature sufficient to steam reform hydrocarbons into
| reducing gases for the direct reduction of iron ores."
|
| That still consumes fossil hydrocarbons.
|
| Hydrogen can substitute for hydrocarbons in the production of
| direct reduced iron from iron ore.
|
| "Assessment of hydrogen direct reduction for fossil-free
| steelmaking"
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095965261...
|
| Hydrogen can of course be produced cleanly from nuclear power.
| But it's questionable if nuclear-derived hydrogen will be
| cheaper than other clean hydrogen sources.
| rpiguyshy wrote:
| i just dont buy it. hypothetically, there is a nuclear power
| plant design that is perfectly safe in that it will never melt
| down. but there is no nuclear power plant that produces no waste.
| as long as you are producing waste, you are depending on bumbling
| bureaucrats to properly dispose of that waste and manage the
| waste often for extremely long periods of time. its just not an
| ideal situation. the government cant even keep the water potable
| in certain places.
|
| meanwhile, solar is safe to set up, safe to operate, and there is
| no radioactive waste to manage. if flint michigan has a solar
| array, then the worst that can happen is that their lights go
| out. this is a small but critical advantage in my eyes.
|
| and then look at the bigger picture. there hasnt been a nuclear
| reactor that is perfectly safe to operate. its still
| hypothetical. solar is growing every year, the battery market is
| growing every year. panels and packs never truly retire, just
| decline in capacity. solar wins.
| throw0101a wrote:
| Princeton did a study, and found to get to net zero by 2050,
| the US could do it with only renewables (the "E+ RE+"
| scenario). To accomplish that:
|
| > _Cumulative total wind and solar farm area in E+ RE+ by 2050
| is ~1 million km^2, or roughly an area the size of AK, IA, KS,
| MO, NE, OK, and WV combined (with an additional 64,000 km^2 of
| offshore wind); directly impacted lands total 70,000 km^2, an
| area larger than WV._
|
| * PDF:
| https://environmenthalfcentury.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/t...
|
| * https://environmenthalfcentury.princeton.edu
|
| Most of it taken up by wind farms (94%)
|
| Transmission lines would have to expanded as well: in 2020,
| there is ~320,000 GW-km of capacity, and so by 2050 ~1,702,000
| GW-km (5.3x) would be needed. They estimated it would cost US$
| 3,710B (3.7T), though amortized over the next thirty years.
|
| E+RE+ assumes that renewables can be constructed/grow at a rate
| of 10%/year. They have a E+RE- scenario which growth is limited
| to what was achieved already, and that scenario needs some
| nuclear to get to net zero.
|
| Of course net zero may be "too much", and we can achieve good
| climate goals with modest releases of carbon/GHGs.
| pfdietz wrote:
| > Most of it taken up by wind farms (94%)
|
| Wind farms do not exclude the land involved from also being
| used for other purposes, like agriculture.
| fulafel wrote:
| This study starts with existing laissez-faire energy demand
| projections. Hopefully another large part of the emissions
| reduction will come from people adopting less wasteful
| living, transport, eating etc behaviours and preferences.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Hopefully another large part of the reduction will come
| from people adopting less wasteful living, transport,
| eating etc behaviours and preferences_
|
| Zero chance. This would require reductions in quality of
| life. Even minor fuel tax increases have spawned capital-
| freezing protests from the Arab world to Paris.
| throw0101a wrote:
| Buildings are responsible for 40% of the total amount of
| energy needed (US, EU). Mandating better air tightness
| (<1 ACH@50) and raising insulation levels would go a long
| way to reducing that.
|
| Residentially, you can built a 5000 square foot (500 sq.
| m) home that needs only 1500W (1.5 kW)--basically a hair
| dyer--to heat/cool:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vul4vMFdkA
|
| Using an HRV/ERV with an air filter per ASHRAE 62.1 and
| 62.2 gives you very good air quality.
| fulafel wrote:
| There's a lot of low hanging fruit, eg electricity
| consumption per household is ~3x in the US vs the EU. I
| feel it's quite likely that the coming voter and
| decisionmaker generations have increasingly developed
| consciences about these things.
|
| Regarding fuel tax protests, I think your anecdotes are
| actually pretty unrepresentative. In the EU the fuel tax
| increases have been going on for a long time. And there
| haven't been any Arab world spanning protests recently
| from my memory.
| rpiguyshy wrote:
| i dont want to be contrarian, but this is wrong. you get
| 150-100 w per square meter. what am i missing?
| throw0101a wrote:
| Talk to the PhDs at Princeton and their collaborators:
|
| * https://environmenthalfcentury.princeton.edu/experts
|
| I'm just copying and pasting the December 2020 report.
|
| Off the top of my head, renewables (in the US) only produce
| electricity about 30% of the time, so you have to 'over
| build':
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor
|
| They have energy storage experts, so I'm sure batteries and
| such are taken into account.
| rpiguyshy wrote:
| total power requirement of the united states / amount of
| average power including weather and TOD produced by a
| square meter of land + amount of land to store necessary
| batteries = a corner notched out of nevada. not multiple
| states. i dont think you need a phd to see this, and elon
| musk also agrees with this and i think he is
| knowledgeable enough about solar and batteries. plus,
| there are lots of efficiency gains still in the pipes
| that will reduce our power consumption. when all houses
| are properly insulated, heated with a heat pump, have
| efficient appliances, thermal loops and have solar on
| their roofs then all of this becomes even more feasible.
| and thats not even including wind, hydro or thermal.
| abernard1 wrote:
| I do not know if this is pro or anti-, but I thank you for
| your statistic.
|
| The land required for this is absolutely insane. Insane.
|
| I challenge anyone with a straight face to argue that
| utilizing 6 huge to medium size states out of the 50 is an
| efficient use of land or physical resources. We can't recycle
| ordinary trash correctly without throwing it to developing
| countries, who are rejecting it. We don't recycle wind
| turbines _at all_. But we 're supposed to be able to
| routinely recycle six whole states worth of panels and
| turbines?
|
| It's madness.
| rrdharan wrote:
| Isn't there still a lot of implied waste from the solar panels
| themselves though, as well as the storage batteries i.e. once
| they've reached their end of life?
|
| My understanding is that this cost and the manufacturing cost
| (rate earth metals etc.) are often overlooked when reasoning
| about the total footprint of both solar and electric vehicles..
| philipkglass wrote:
| _rare earth metals etc._
|
| The rare earth elements are the lanthanides plus scandium and
| yttrium [1]. None of these elements are needed to manufacture
| solar panels. The only rare metal used in quantity by solar
| panels is silver, which is used to make electrically
| conductive pastes for cell contacts [2].
|
| The question of what resources solar panels require is
| deliberately muddied by a couple of vested interests.
|
| 1) Junior mining companies and their promoters who want to
| create the impression that vast wealth awaits the next rare
| earth miner. (It doesn't. Consumption is too limited. The
| market value of zinc alone eclipses all rare earth element
| production combined.)
|
| 2) People who are playing up the environmental impacts of
| solar to make the fossil fuel status quo look better by
| comparison. "Sure, coal is a dirty mining business, but so is
| rare earth production!"
|
| These people either don't know or don't care that solar
| doesn't use rare earth elements.
|
| You also have credulous people who just repeat what they
| heard from members of groups 1 and 2.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element
|
| [2] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/08/28/slimming-down-on-
| silv...
| sjg007 wrote:
| Batteries should be refurbish-able and definitely recyclable.
| reedjosh wrote:
| And definitely energy intensive to recycle.
| afterburner wrote:
| Are you under the impression decommissioning a nuclear
| reactor is a simple and tidy task?
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| As long as flint's heat is still natural gas based then lights
| going out is the worst thing. I'm guessing an average winter in
| flint (if it's not then shift my statement to MN where it is)
| is much colder then the mess Texas just went through. Things
| just break when things are that colder, particularly
| electricity. Just try starting your car when it's -30F.
|
| Power generation for Billions of people seems like a complex
| problem that everyone seems very willing to boil down to
| solving with "Just focus on electricity and use wind, solar,
| and batteries." Sounds a lot like the "just use mongoDB" talk
| from 6-7 years ago.
| phonon wrote:
| >there is no nuclear power plant that produces no waste.
|
| "no" is difficult. "Very little" is feasible.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor#Nuclear_...
| orwin wrote:
| Disclaimer1: I'm "pro" nuclear (as a baseline to supplement
| hydro), and i think nuclear is the 3rd best option (behind
| hydro and reducing consumption) Disclaimer2: i have
| investissment in veolia
|
| Panels do decline, a lot, and especially older panels, but also
| most newer industrial solar PV are using heavy metals that can
| burn land (I mean, go to indonesia and look at farmland or even
| forest near communities were ONG installed a lot of PV before
| the tsunami, you'll understand what i mean, you can literally
| see where those PV were buried).
|
| Veolia Rousset plant was the first to recycle most of the
| materials (the shareholder paper said almost 95%, i believe
| them) and not simply landfill them. But this have increased
| cost, and right now, most PV panels end up in landfills,
| poisoning earth for decades (and now that we understand
| saturnism)
|
| I'm not saying PV is not a solution, it is, especially locally,
| but it have to be handled well. But you can't have solar+wind
| make up more than 50% of your electrical network, its not
| possible. And even 50% add a lot of costs.
| croes wrote:
| Why is it not possible?
| orwin wrote:
| Well, it is tbh, but not right now, and not in the US. It
| would probably be doable in Europe if we massively
| overbuilt?
|
| You want to have a stable baseline because you want to be
| able to provide electricity to some services in worst case
| situation. Those services often have backup generators, but
| in worst case scenarii, the generator is too
| cold/old/dirty, and you don't take risks. In France we had
| a scenario were our grid managing center is under attack
| and cannot indicate who dispatch power to who, and to
| respond to that you can't not have a base load. But also,
| having a base load that can fluctuate daily permit
| emergency maintenance on multiple electricity production
| site.
| reedjosh wrote:
| Solar requires energy storage. It is not on demand. Wind and
| solar must be backed by an on demand source as we don't have
| sufficiently cost effective storage methods.
|
| Options are then basically hydroelectric, natural gas,
| petroleum, coal, or nuclear. Nuclear is the cleanest if you
| can't put a dam somewhere.
| mbgerring wrote:
| Or batteries, which are getting cheaper and are now less
| expensive than natural gas peaker plants in many locations
| reedjosh wrote:
| Interesting. Can you please provide a source? I've never
| heard as such, but would be glad to find otherwise.
| rpiguyshy wrote:
| there are many huge packs. tesla has built some of the
| biggest ones.
| [deleted]
| Daniel_sk wrote:
| The issue with radioactive waste is more of a political and
| emotional problem than a real one. The amount of waste is
| rather small and it's not like it will irradiate you from a
| kilometre away :-). It can be stored in safe containers and
| buried in stable geological sites or even stored temporarily
| for many years in storage houses and maybe later re-used in
| types of reactors that will be able to recycle the spent fuel
| rods. Whole US produces 2000 tones of radioactive waste a year.
| In fact, the U.S. nuclear industry has produced roughly 64,000
| metric tons (one metric ton equals 1.1 U.S. tons) of
| radioactive used fuel rods in total or, in the words of NEI,
| enough "to cover a football field about seven yards deep."
| Which really isn't much compared to any other pollution.
| FooHentai wrote:
| So nuclear has been up and running in mainstream use for
| what, fifty years at this point? If that waste sticks around
| for just 10,000 years (optimistic), and assuming no increase
| in demand over today (which is laughable), your 'just one
| football field' waste site is actually two hundred times
| bigger.
|
| And that's raw waste, it doesn't include containment for each
| deposit you make.
|
| Not to mention the issues we're already having today with
| containment decay around existing waste sites.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| There's also more waste than just the spent fuel rods. One
| of the things I learned that really shifted my views is
| just how expensive decommissioning nuclear plants is.
| Meanwhile, recycling solar is basically the cost of
| shipping the material around.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Two hundred football fields is absolutely trifling even now
| and much less on the scale of 10 000 years.
|
| You're also ignoring the fact that reactors that recycle
| spent fuel have been made and can be drastically improved,
| so demand for storage of waste as well as how hard they are
| to contain can very realistically go down.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| The issue for me is not quantity but time. 1000-10,000 (or
| even much longer) years for decay is an incredible amount of
| time for the human race. Written language only appeared ~5500
| years ago.
|
| Let's say ancient Rome 2,000 years ago made and stored a
| substance that kills everyone exposed to it, would we expect
| that substance to still be intact and unblemished right now?
| StreamBright wrote:
| You are talking about worst case scenario.
|
| There are nuclear reactor types specifically built for
| getting rid of high half-time traditional nuclear waste.
|
| https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/11/destroying-nuclear-
| wa...
| Daniel_sk wrote:
| Well, there are vast amounts of highly toxic oil that we
| yet have to extract from below the surface - if something
| of that leaks by accident then it will poison and kill
| everything it will touch and it has been there since the
| dinosaurs died :-). Radioactive waste is solid waste and
| the amount is small - even if someone would dig it up, it
| would be only a local danger and it could maybe kill a
| reduced number of humans, but it will not be a global
| catastrophe. We are probably producing more highly toxic
| and poisonous waste that is not radioactive but it will
| also last hundreds if not thousands of years (e.g. toxic
| heavy metals) and kill many more people. Tens of thousands
| of people die every year from industrial pollution. How
| many people die from stored nuclear waste? Zero? (and even
| in worst case when a future civilisation digs up the
| nuclear waste - we are not speaking about hundreds of
| thousands like in case of industrial pollution).
| orwin wrote:
| Cadmium and lead will stay inside landfill for 1000 -10,000
| million years. It already kills people in China, due to the
| extraction process (probably in Africa too), and destroyed
| PV panels were a nightmare in the aftermath of the 2004
| tsunami, and it was often a small pv that just activated
| water pumps. If that happened now, it would be a disaster
| on top of a disaster. And one that would displace millions.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| It's kind of facile to argue about a hypothetical future a
| thousand years in the future when we're facing crises right
| now that depend on solving energy issues yesterday.
|
| Scenario 1: a hypothetical societal collapse happens and
| scientific knowledge and written language are somehow lost.
| A handful of people explore a dangerous area and are
| swiftly killed by radiation from tampering with a storage
| facility.
|
| Scenario 2: millions die from climate-related catastrophes
| and ecological collapse leads to famines that kill millions
| more.
|
| We know we're facing scenario two as a distinct
| possibility, or we'd be happily burning coal until we can't
| find any more. The first scenario relies on several
| assumptions, none of which are honestly likely at this
| stage of human society. And it unlikely to have an effect
| on nearly as many people.
|
| Fuel reprocessing is a thing, modern reactors deplete the
| fuel much more thoroughly, and there isn't even that much
| of it. All of the spent fuel France has used since the
| 1970s fits in a small fraction of their basketball-court
| sized storage facility.
| throwaway69123 wrote:
| Nuclear waste occurs naturally well before humans created
| it, I think we will manage
| throw0101a wrote:
| In general there is an inverse relation between the half-
| life and the intensity of radioactivity of an isotope.
| Isotopes with a long half-life decay very slowly, and so
| produce fewer radioactive decays per second; their
| intensity is less. Istopes with shorter half-lives are more
| intense.
|
| In nuclear waste, isotopes with very short half-lives, say
| a few days or even a few weeks, are not the major concern.
| They will decay to negligible amounts within a year or two.
| Isotopes with very long half-lives, more than 1000 years,
| are likely to be less intense.
|
| Long-term isotopes are more complicated. They don't dose as
| heavily, but there are a lot more issues than just that.
| Plutonium for example is comparatively long-lived, but some
| of its decay products can be quite nasty. At the extreme
| end are isotopes that are so long-lived that their hazard
| levels are close to zero. Uranium-238, the kind left after
| the fissile 235 is removed, pretty well falls into this
| category.
| AngryData wrote:
| I mean storing waste that is dangerous for that long is the
| result of politics, not any technological limitation.
| Recycling and reusing that waste would make most of it
| dangerous for like 50-100 years, and after that the only
| danger is living on top of the low radioactive waste for 20
| years or eating it, which would kill you even if it wasn't
| radioactive because it is a heavy metal.
| vimy wrote:
| Worst case scenario is that society collapses and nuclear
| knowledge disappears. Then at some point in the future some
| farmers will get radiation poisoning and others will avoid
| the area since it's "cursed". This hypothetical problem is
| hardly anything to worry about when nuclear is sorely
| needed to help us with an actual problem, climate change.
| Daho0n wrote:
| And yet we have places like the Marshall Islands where US
| nuclear waste is leaking at this very moment. If it is that
| easy to contain then why isn't happening?
|
| The problem with nuclear is that people are too greedy to use
| it safely or want to weaponize it so lots and lots of
| regulation is needed. Nuclear energy will be fixed the day
| human greed and aggression are gone.
| numpad0 wrote:
| "High level nuclear waste" is such a weird idea once you take a
| bit of in depth look at nuclear technology. It's just fuel.
| Just nuclear material. No need to "manage for extremely long
| periods of time". Only requiring more sophisticated Fast
| Neutron technology to be used, and if used, provide practically
| unlimited supply of electricity and nuclear material to a
| nation.
|
| The reason as to why "safe storage of nuclear waste" is a
| problem lies in the last part: unlimited supply of nuclear
| material. Completely destroys national security for everyone.
| Without that part the problem reduces to just engineering
| challenges of building and running some Sodium cooled Fast
| Neutron reactors.
| abernard1 wrote:
| > as long as you are producing waste, you are depending on
| bumbling bureaucrats to properly dispose of that waste and
| manage the waste often for extremely long periods of time.
|
| The entirety of nuclear waste ever produced by humanity can fit
| in a football field.
|
| This is without even considering fuel recycling. Acting like
| this is a problem has to be the most absurd (and I might add
| politicized) argument ever made against nuclear energy.
| rpiguyshy wrote:
| ok well lets settle it. how much waste would be produced if
| the whole country ran on nuclear? regardless of the volume of
| waste, how serious is a breach of containment? is the waste a
| target for terrorists? can it be weaponized?
| abernard1 wrote:
| > ok well lets settle it. how much waste would be produced
| if the whole country ran on nuclear?
|
| That waste goes into Yucca mountain, and it's behind /
| underneath 100s of meters of neutron heavy metals. If we
| were exclusively powered by nuclear power for a century
| without recycling, it'd be something like 100 football
| fields. Absolutely, completely, utterly inconsequential.
|
| 1 inch of neutron-heavy lead is enough to dispel the
| radioactivity from full blast of a thermonuclear weapon and
| be safe for a human. Saying that the Yucca mountain waste
| facility had potential for harm is the most unscientific,
| embarrassing thing that a certain unnamed political party
| has ever claimed on nuclear waste.
| rpiguyshy wrote:
| ok but i just have doubts. you say that buried nuclear
| waste is safe but i need more detail. what if it leaks
| into ground water? can it leak? what kind of containment
| is necessary? and does it need to be guarded? do people
| want the stuff for bombs or something? i just have a
| bunch of doubts and i think they are reasonable.
|
| and meanwhile solar is simple and there are no doubts
| about it. probably much easier to do cleanly. nuclear
| people want us to hold out for this miracle reactor that
| cant melt down, but they are too impatient for a panel
| that doesnt have heavy metals?
|
| and its not embarrassing, i just think solar edges out
| nuclear. im not dogmatically against nuclear.
| StreamBright wrote:
| >> meanwhile, solar is safe to set up, safe to operate, and
| there is no radioactive waste to manage
|
| Only some giant amount (only 300x compare to nuclear) of non-
| radioactive waste that ends up in poor countries. Do you care
| about that?
|
| https://www.solarpowerinternational.com/wp-content/uploads/2...
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die...
|
| https://www.technocracy.news/solar-energy-produces-300-times...
| orwin wrote:
| You can build recycling plant and force PV vendor to sent
| their panels to said plant once the panel hit the end of its
| life.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Then do that and see how costs increase, and do the
| comparison again.
| reedjosh wrote:
| > bumbling bureaucrats
|
| Sounds like a government problem, not a nuclear problem.
| rpiguyshy wrote:
| exactly. fission is great if its run by smart, motivated
| people. unfortunately, the government is not always populated
| by the kind of people who are up to the task. and they are
| not always structured in a way that allows them to work
| optimally. its a big, complicated system. to have total
| confidence in it is foolish. its like any other huge,
| complicated and convoluted machine... you should be skeptical
| of it, not blindly faithful in its ability to do things like
| manage nuclear waste. maybe someone comes back at me saying
| that the government already does things like manages the
| nuclear arsenal, wages war, etc. my response is that you
| should be worried, we should try to reduce all of that as
| much as possible.
| afterburner wrote:
| Hope you have a solution to never having bad government.
| gdubs wrote:
| I read Stewart Brand's 'Whole Earth Discipline' about five years
| ago, and came away pretty convinced by his pro-nuclear arguments.
| The price situation has definitely changed dramatically in the
| last few years, with solar dropping remarkably. So some of it may
| be worth revisiting.
|
| But that said, something else has happened in the last five years
| that has made me a bit ... cautious about being decisive on
| nuclear. And that is general global instability. E.g., things
| sure feel like they've come off the rails recently and things I
| used to take for granted: that competent people would generally
| be in charge, has been challenged.
|
| So to me, the biggest risk with nuclear isn't the technology
| itself. In isolation I see it as a great solution to one of the
| key challenges of climate change. To me, the biggest risk is
| political stability. It's a technology that requires _constant_
| competence.
|
| All that said - I aim to be open-minded. If the new breed of
| reactors can safely shutdown under neglect, if they can't be
| weaponized if society breaks down - awesome. I'd love to hear
| more about it.
| runsWphotons wrote:
| I suppose you could see it the other way. A nuclear plant in
| everyone's backyard might be incentive to put competent people
| in charge?
| andrewflnr wrote:
| I don't think people would be _more_ inventivized in a
| practical sense than they already are.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| That sounds ready made for a monkey's paw situation with
| intelligence agency intervention. Sort of like this joke of
| mine which probably isn't original despite thinking it up
| myself. "Sure everyone says they want world peace but when
| you take steps towards it suddently you're 'illegally
| proliferating nuclear weaponry and launch capability to rogue
| nations'!".
| theodric wrote:
| Respectfully, i think this is a naive position, given the
| Zeitgeist of the last few years
| runsWphotons wrote:
| Yes the question mark should be read with hesitancy. I
| suppose you are right. Too hopeful.
| throwawaygulf wrote:
| >And that is general global instability. E.g., things sure feel
| like they've come off the rails recently and things I used to
| take for granted: that competent people would generally be in
| charge, has been challenged.
|
| There's almost never been a safer time to be alive, and there
| have been incompetent leaders since time immemorial.
|
| Not even a lifetime ago incompetent leadership caused tens of
| millions of people to perish because they thought killing all
| the birds would save more of their crops, among other things.
|
| You've been living in a bubble and/or have been ignoring
| history, even recent history.
| gretch wrote:
| Well the parent comment is simply arguing against nuclear,
| and given that no civilization before 1940 had to think about
| nuclear, it's not a bad take...
|
| Despite being somewhat of a subjective political position,
| Its not crazy to think late era Obama administration was more
| competent than Trump administration.
|
| In the past, bad leader + nuclear = Chernobyl
|
| So you completely missed his point, (s)he's not saying "times
| are bad now", they are saying "I see now that times are not
| good enough"
| TedShiller wrote:
| I'm all for nuclear power too, as long as it's nowhere near me.
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